Easter.

Happy Easter

The King lives!

Most of the people I have talked to do not know that today is Easter or what it means.  Oh, how I wish I could speak more Nepali so that I could tell them why I celebrate this holiday. 

 

holi.

Tonight as I was walking down the main road, I passed our 13 year old neighbor, Milan. He is about 10% boy and 90% terrible! On Tuesday, Nepal celebrated Holi, which means that the whole country had a giant water balloon fight/ color war. Milan threw the water balloons so hard that he was making us girls almost cry! It seriously hurt so bad!

So tonight as we were walking opposite directions on the road, I turned around and yelled, "Boy! If I had a water balloon right now..." and threw a make-believe water bomb at him. I was walking, shouting, and throwing simultaneously, as gracefully as a dove. Then, as I wisked myself around to start walking facing forward, I found myself doubled over on top of a motorcycle. Are ya' flippin' kidding me? The pain in my right shin made me acutely aware of the fact that I totally just walked into a parked motorcycle.

Then we all laughed hard.

But not as hard as we laughed on Tuesday.

Here's a glimpse:

 

Four of the five families that share our courtyard came out to play. It was such a good time of bonding... cause throwing hot pink powder at someone has a way of making you feel like family.

I invited Rasmi to come over, so she stopped by to share a few squirts.

We even had an appearance from the Incredible Hulk and Steve Urkle!

Great fun, great fun. Two days later, I still have pink hair... it was so worth it. 

 

Six pointless posts that I did not publish.

I have written exactly six blog entries in the past two days. I have posted none of them. They were all pointless. As the noble King Solomon once said. "Vanity, vanity! All is vanity!"

1. First, I wrote one about the cat that broke into our house and ate Cynthia's bread. But it was a dumb story. The cat ate the bread and came back a few days later and ate the butter. The end. 

2. Then I started writing about the guy that tried to follow me home on my bike, and how I had to call my friend to come to my rescue. But I didn't want to freak you guys out, so I didn't write about that. 

3. Last night I started to write one about how I saved a baby bird from a horrible death in a construction site. Oh my heavens, it was so cute! It's little baby foot was squished under a rock! But then I rescued it and put it in a box outside of my classroom. However, it hopped away into oblivion during the middle of my Nepali lesson, so I didn't really have a story anymore. 

4 - 5. I also wrote two new "cooking with Deepa" stories, but they weren't really blog worthy. So what? I broke another plate and a mug today and may or may not have set one more oven mitt on fire (barely!)... but who's counting? 

6. When I ran out of stories, I tried to write about my emotions. Big mistake. I have more emotions than a teenage girl who just got kicked off the cheerleading squad for wearing the wrong color socks. And those 45, 983 emotions? I can't identify any of them. That's why I haven't posted any my thoughts; because I sound like a cuckoo rambling about how hard it is to live in a third world country away from the community that I love, yet it is a delight to live among some of the most interesting, affectionate, hilarious people that I have ever met. But it all sounded like rambling, so I didn't post it.

I know that God is totally present with me in every moment- cat burglaries, baby birds, and broken tea mugs- working this whole thing out according to His great big plan (aka: not my great big plan), and that this is not all pointless. But sometimes, it just feels pointless. And that is the exact moment when I choose to ignore those 45, 983 emotions and remember the truth. I choose to ignore my feelings, keep begging God for mercy, and remember that he has brought me through pointless things before... and the truth is that they never end up being pointless.

distractions.

Sometimes I get distracted when I am riding my bike. 

I think you can understand my situation.

After I asked the guy if I could take a picture of his dead goat he was like, "yah! do you want to take a picture of the head too?"

Cooking with Deepa.

This is the story of how I learned to use a pressure cooker. 

My roommates forced me to reenact it so that they could mock me and take photos. 

I love them anyways. 

We got a pressure cooker.

I was afraid it was going to blow up.

Therefore, I put my motorcycle helmet on and started cooking.

Everything was fine and dandy until the thing started spouting out molten hot lentil steam and I screamed and ran into the closet.

Curious about the eruption, Cynthia came in to the kitchen to see if I was dead yet. The sneaky little booger came into the room without me seeing her and asked, "Are you ok?"

Who does that? Who walks calmly into an active volcano kitchen and calmly says, "Are you ok?" Sheesh.

I didn't see her and she scared me so badly that I screamed at the top of my lungs and jumped three feet back into the closet.

Ayecarumba. Then we both laughed. And then the thing let out steam a few more times... and oh my goodness, those lentils were yummy!

shivaratri

Today is a big holiday. There are tons of little holidays in Nepal, but today was a big deal. It is called "Shivaratri," which means "Shiva at night."

Today's celebrations are among the most noticeable of the Hindu holidays. For example, all of the children of Kathmandu spend their Shivaratri holiday outside holding ropes across small side streets. They demand money in exchange for safe passage. At the end of the day, the children divide their spoils and go purchase treats.

The child-pirates that roam the streets are somewhat irrelevant; the main celebration takes place at Pashupatinath, Nepal's most holy temple and cremation site. 

The cremation pyres. 

 This morning, my roommate, Meaghan, and I went to the temple with her language teacher in order to learn, learn, learn. We don't often attend Hindu events, so this was a great chance for us to gain some cultural understanding and also to practice our language.  

The temple at Pashupatinath. 

In order to avoid the million people- literally- they are expecting a million people to worship at Pashupatinath today, we left our house at 7am to go check out the festival. Most of the people worship at night (remember, it is called Shiva at night), so we went early to avoid some of the craziness.

A zoomed out view. 

Even though we expected small crowds, the lines were literally miles long. People were fighting... and running.... just to get a  good spot in line (think black Friday in America). Devotees waited in line for hours just so that they could do a puja  inside the temple. 

Oh how I pray that these people will find the freedom that I have found. 

Holy men selling blessings.

(Don't forget that you can click on the photos to get a better glimpse.)

just kidding around

 

And so it begins...

When I grow up, I think that I will become a Foreign Researcher. It has such a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

All kidding aside, I  have started the process of doing research through Tribhuvan University. I am pretty excited.

I will post more later, I just wanted to let you guys know that I am still alive, and doing well.