Real professional there, Em

Sometimes we pretty young things here in Kathmandu like to go out to "da clubs" (as the kids, I believe, say) on weekends to dance around and blow off some steam. Lots of fun, and an opportunity to meet some really interesting people (...). So last weekend we called some friends who are involved in the party scene here in Kathmandu and headed out for a night of shakin' our booties.

This week, a colleague comes past my office and says to me "you're famous". I am, reasonably, confused. He clarifies "you're in the paper, in the society pages, with all the pretty girls". ! Yeah, here's the page, from the Himalayan Times "About Town" section:

That's us on the bottom, Henga, me, Joanna and
Lily. The caption reads "ready for some rock 'n' rollin"!

I then slunk off to quietly die of embarassment. We're also all over partynepal.com

Teej!

Update:

We also went to Pashupatinath temple on Sunday, where we saw hundreds of women lined up to pray for the Teej festival. It was a sea of red and gold, and music and dancing. So gorgeous!

A small section of the line of ladies,
praying for their husbands

This weekend was a woman's festival called Teej. I was simply told to wear red to work on Friday, so I wore a red nepali-style corta. Turns out that this festival is not so much about celebrating women, as it is for women to honour and pray for their husband's long life! It involves fasting and everything. Some of the people at work joked that years would be added on to my future husband's life because I participated.

Friday was the day before fasting though, so it involved lots of food, singing and dancing. This was the boardroom at my office:



They pulled me up to dance, at which point I kind of swayed and clapped awkwardly and then sat down again. It was still lots of fun though.

Amusements, and not-so-amusements

Hello my loved ones! Miss me yet? Y'all better. Anyways, I've been here in KTM for a couple of weeks now, and you may be wondering how I'm doing. The answer is: pretty good. Perhaps not as crazy awesome as I was the last time I was here, but that is to be expected, as this time it is all about work.

How is that work going, you ask? Also pretty good. Turns out I'm working pretty much directly under the country director, eek! This means I'm on my own, since he's so busy all the time. I'm trying to be proactive and seek out work with different departments, but it's slow going for now. Hopefully I'll settle into my role better soon.

In other news, the other volunteers here at the house are quite nice. A few of us went out this past weekend to a Nepali amusement park! Really it was more like a carnival, with a ferris wheel and one of those viking ship things. Also the ghetto-est games ever! We played one where you rolled ping pong balls into holes for points. I won (I shit you not) some mothballs as my prize. Adriana did a bit better. She won 2 clothes pins. There was also a "haunted house". This consisted mainly of following a small child through darkend tents while he waved his flashlight around and went "woooo-oooh-aaah!".

Boot Ghar! (Nepali for haunted house)

The Journey

S'up everyone? I've arrived safely in Kathmandu, after 3 long and arduous flights through various parts of the globe. Some comments:

Frankfurt:

You could see some of Germany's many windmills from the plane, which was pretty. Way to be environmentally conscious, Germans! Also, employees ride around the terminal in bicycles, and haagen daas serves stuff like coffee and pastries there. There was a suck factor though with them not wanting to tell me my gate until 10 minutes before boarding time, and some really ostentatious rich Germans who I think were laughing at a group of women in burkas.

Qatar:

Same as last time, but I did manage to sample some exotic local food:

It's the Emily special!

Of the three airports, I'd say Pearson was actually the nicest, which is sorta depressing in a way.

Anyways, more about actual Nepal laters!

Hello again!

So, if you're reading this, you're probably aware that I will soon be returning to lovely Kathmandu. As such, I will be returning to blogging as well. I've decided not to blog specifically about my internship, as I'm a bit worried about confidentiality rules, but please do not take this to mean that I'm not working hard. I suspect, in fact, that I will be working so hard as to make this blog less frequent and less interesting than last time, but que garne?

Anyways, for my return to blogging I thought I'd post some lists: top 5 things I miss about Nepal, and for my proud Canadians, top 5 things I missed about Canada when I was in Nepal.

Top 5 things I miss about Nepal (besides people):
1. The liveliness -- everyone seems to live life much more in the open than in Canada, hanging out on streetcorners and lounging on steps everywhere. Most people who are outside in Canada seem to be on their way somewhere.
2. The amazing food, and tea.
3. Feeling a little bit like a rock star walking down the street, with everyone wanting to smile and wave at the foreigner, and little kids calling out "ha-lo!" and giggling.
4. Motorbiking.
5. Pure novelty -- all the landmarks, music, holidays, etc. are new and exciting, and how often do we experience things for the first time past the age of 21 or so?

Top 5 things I miss about Canada when in Nepal (besides people and kitties):
1. Diet coke! Oh, sweet nectar of the gods, why are you not available there?!
2. Consistent electricity, hot water, and heat.
3. There is something to be said for familiarity and routine, and being able to do things such as grocery shopping easily.
4. Also, the flip side of the above rock star comment -- anonymity is also nice sometimes.
5. TV -- sad, but true, sometimes there is downtime that needs to be filled. Ditto, high-speed internet.

Merry Ol' England

So I left Nepal with many tears at the end of March. I had the bestest time ever there, as you all may have been able to tell by the blog. But all was not lost my friends: I still had a week in London with my BFF! April and I did the whirlwind tour, and managed to do London fairly cheaply. We stayed in a single room together (bow chicka wow wow) and managed to cook in our little kitchenette for many of our meals. We also chose not to pay for tours to most landmarks, choosing instead to walk around the outside and take photos for free instead. We also walked for hours upon hours each day and became quite adept at the Tube, if I do say so myself.

Sunday
For our first real day in London (the traveling pretty much wore us out the day before) I really wanted to go check out Picadilly Circus. Which turned out to be kind of lame. Pretty much one building with electric billboards and a statue. But we also went to Trafalger square, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, and poked around the National Gallery. We also managed to have ice cream with a flake (did I mention we had a whole list of foods to eat in England?) and lunch at Prêt à Manger. These are little sandwich-type restaurants that you can find every 15 feet in London. They are worse than Tim Horton's in Canada! Which, by the way, we also saw one of in London. Also that night we walked around Soho and Chinatown. Soho was also not quite as exciting as I was hoping, but it was a Sunday night, after all.

Buckingham Palace. You cannot actually get close enough
to tease the guards. Lame.

Monday
Monday was crazy. We walked for a very long time. We started out with the Tower of London, which was pretty cool. Then I wanted to walk across London Bridge, which turned out to be so boring! Tower Bridge was much cooler. I had a meat pie (also on the food list. Is it wrong that Sweeney Todd made me want one?) at a pub, and then we went to see Shakespeare's Globe and walk on the bank of the Thames a little bit. We actually payed to get into the Clink Prison Museum, which was both cheap and hilarious. We toured the awesome Tate Modern for a while, then walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral by way of the Millenium Bridge. We looked for cold Diet Cokes for a good half hour, and finally way over payed for them at a Yo! Sushi. Unfortunately we were unable to go inside St. Paul's, as the last service of the day was over by that point, so big boo. So we got some groceries at Mark's and Spencer's Simply Food, and went home for dinner, before doing some walking in Notting Hill and around Portobello Road that night.

Me on the bank of the Thames, where I collected some
lovely sea glass

Me, on the steps of St. Paul's, enjoying a Diet Coke.
Even though we didn't get to go in, that was still
pretty cool.

Tuesday
We started off by going to Big Ben/Parliament, which was pretty impressive. We also went to Westminster Abbey, which was of course beautiful. Once again, we didn't pay to go in, but we did go to the shop. I think the fact that they sell Westminster Abbey shot glasses is hilarious, btw. Then we got lost a bit but finally found 10 Downing St. It's essentially a guarded fence, and in the distance you can see a blue door with a tiny 10 on it. Then, we actually paid to do something! The London Eye, which was totally worth it. The views were amazing! Afterwards we went "shopping" on Oxford St. I use quotations because we didn't really intend to buy anything. Still, going in TopShop and other stores just to browse around was cool.

We got a bit lost looking for the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Soho, which Kelsa told us we had to try. While looking at our map, a man yelled at us for sitting on the steps of his business. But he was really unreasonably angry, and continued ranting at us as we were halfway down the block! We were exhausted after all this, and our feet were killing us. Also, I was freeeeeezing! I forgot that I'd be out until after dark when I decided I didn't really need a coat that day. But we soldiered on and went on a guided "London Walk" about Jack the Ripper. Which was really interesting and totally creepy. Seriously, the guide was like, "and they found her mangled body 5 feet from where you are standing!".

April, looking teeny in front of the very impressive
Westminster Abbey

A view of the city from the London Eye

Wednesday
We did things a little differently on Wednesday. We got up early and took a train to Brighton to visit our old friend Carol! It was quite nice there, and I was excited to see the water (y'all are aware I'm a fan of water, right?). We walked around the pier and ate fish 'n' chips on the beach of the English Channel. Then we took a super cheap train to Lewes, this little adorable medieval town nearby. Lewes was fun because we got to walk around this old castle (though the towers' spiral staircases were a bit scary) and also we finally found Party Rings! These were cookies (on the list) which we had been looking for for days, and they were awesome! Way better than Jaffa Cakes or Penguins.

April, Carol and I playing dressup with the clothes provided for
that purpose at Lewes Castle. I am a princess, Carol is a knight,
and April is some bizarre cross of a princess and a page...

Thursday
We spent the morning at the British Museum, which was amazing, and way too big to see in the time we had. They had the Terracotta Wariors from China, but the exhibit was sold out, to April's great dismay. But we did get to handle actual artifacts, although the lady who told us about them was a bit snooty. Sorry if I didn't know that only Islam used 8-pointed stars with lustreware surfaces, lady! Then we left the Museum to have lunch (Prêt à Manger again) and take another London Walk, this time on the Blitz, which I was very excited about. However, we went to the wrong Tube station, so we missed it. But that did give us more time to spend at Harrods! It was waaaay too much fun to poke around there and pretend we were rich. I went into the shoe boudoir (!) and held some very expensive heels (some awesome pink sequined Christian Louboutin heels that cost 650£) but did not try any on, despite wanting to. I am, as we all know, very clumsy and would probably have broken the heel of some Jimmy Choos! We also did some shopping in the amazing food halls. The variety of cheeses alone was worth the trip. Then, for our last hurrah, we chilled out and walked around Kensington Gardens for a while.

Me, in the British Museum, admiring the God Shiva. He's
manifested as the Lord of the Dance, and is crushing the
dwarf of ignorance under foot. Take that, ignorance!

So now I'm home, and despite there still being snow on the ground in Ottawa, am happy to see everyone! Colleen has insisted that I inform everyone that I'm alive and well after all my adventures, so, um, hi guys, I'm fine. This will probably be my last post for awhile, as my travels have come to an end for now. But hopefully not for too long! I've developed a bit of a taste for this travel thing, and I'll keep this up when I next manage to jet away. Until then, thanks for reading!

Buddha fest, Amazing Race, and Holi War

Buddha Fest
Yet another festival took place recently. No, it's not actually called Buddha fest, but I forget the actual name. We all (including the 3 new volunteers: Amy, Lauren and Paige) went with Rajiv to Patan to watch this festival, wherein people craft and decorate giant buddha puppets and then wear them around Durbar square. It's a competition between neighbourhoods to see who has the best Buddha. It was pretty crazy, but very beautiful.

There's a dude under there, struggling to keep upright under

all the weight.

Amazing Race: Kathmandu

This is an activity that normally closes orientation week for the new volunteers. Essentially it's a scavenger hunt around Kathmandu where you practice your Nepali and test your knowledge of the city and culture. However, the arrival of the 3 aforementioned volunteers meant that there were enough volunteers to do it for the first time since we got here. And it was hard! Even for me, a seasoned veteran. Fun though, except for the part where I was force-fed daal bhaat and almost choked.

That's me, wearing a doko basket as part of the race. You

wouldn't believe how blatantly people laughed at the silly foreigner.

Holi

I've been looking forward to Holi (the colour festival) since I first started researching Nepal for this placement. Essentially it's a festival, where people douse each other in coloured water and powder. What no one told me was that for a whole week leading up to Holi, little boys throw water balloons at girls and women. And sure, it's funny at first. And then you're on your way to your volunteer placement first thing in the morning and a balloon smacks you in the side of the face rather hard. Or hits you in the boob as you're headed out to dinner. I swear I developed mini Gulf War syndrome, scanning the balconies wherever I went and ducking when birds flew overhead!

But the festival day itself was super fun. We were in a rooftop water balloon war with at least 5 other buildings, and got slammed by people on the street with coloured paste. It was the craziest thing I've seen since I've been here, and that's saying something.

Me, battling the neighbours

Then, Neer (of course) had the hookup for this great outdoor Holi party in town, where we danced and people sprayed water and colour over everyone and it was sweet glorious chaos!

Holi par-tay!


And by the end of the day, we all looked like this.
That's me with Ronnie and Amy, btw.