Wednesday, October 31, 2012

October 31


I just experienced the most insane trip of my life. 

Hands down.
By far.
Craziest trip ever.

I will spend the next day kissing the ground and processing what I just went through. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of the cutest little Nepali boy you have ever seen. 




P.S. It's not Halloween here. Not even a little. 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Here we go...

After more than two weeks of partying like it was 1995, the internet came back on. In the meantime, I managed to learn how to read Nepali (yep. Hit me with your longest, weirdest, squiggliest Nepali word. Ten bucks says I can sound it out.) and look at every vacant apartment in Kathmandu (clearly that is a lie, but it feels about right).  

Much has been accomplished, but there will not be much happening on the blog within the next week or so because I am heading out for a village in the morning.

Cynthia and I are going to visit our friend, DC, and his family. DC has been texting us every day since JULY, begging us to come visit him (actually, he wants us to come teach at his elementary school, but we firmly declined). So we will squish ourselves onto a bus tomorrow morning and (Lord willing) arrive in Ghorka seven hours later.

What are we going to do out in the village? How long will we stay? Where will we stay?

Um...

Well, um, I'll let you know when we get back.

Ok, ok, actually... I do know a few things.

I know that DC will pick us up at the bus park. I know that we will stay somewhere close to him (rumors of a bamboo cottage have been circulating). I know that tomorrow is the first day of the biggest festival of the entire year and travel is going to be a nightmare. I know that DC had some "traditional Nepali outfits" made for us and that they probably have a zillion hot pink tassels all over them and are going to be seven Asian sizes too small. I know that I am probably going to get the runs from drinking bad water on accident. I know that there are going to be long.... awkward.... long.... awkward.... long....  silences where we have nothing to talk about because he has used up all of his English words and we have exhausted all of our Nepali words. Aaand I know that for some reason God wants us to go on this journey.

So we are going.

And I promise to show you pictures of our outfits.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

"Welcome to Nepal!"

"Welcome to Nepal!" is a phrase we have quickly adopted around here.

For instance, when we are in the middle of cooking dinner and the power goes out we cheerfully exclaim, "Welcome to Nepal!" and continue to cook using the gas stovetop.

When the internet is down for four days in a row we simply remark, "Welcome to Nepal!"

And when the pigeons that live in our kitchen wall start making a noisy riot by punching each other with their wings we just sigh and say, "Welcome to Nepal."

When my blog lacks photos and stories because of the internet outage, I simply say to you, "I live in Nepal. Excuse my online absence."


Truth be told, I have been too enamored with the challenge of language learning to write much on here even if we did have internet. Now I am in a cafe using internet so that I can download a few things that I need. Hopefully I will have an update out next week!

Until then, "Welcome to Nepal!"