Relocation Smashion

So since I had to leave Nepal I stopped writing since I really had nothing to write about. I know I didn't even tell anyone I was heading home, it all happened pretty suddenly...

but since I am home, and since everyone keeps saying they loved reading this and wish they could read more, I decided to start blogging again.

I feel like I Sherpa'd Your Mom should be sacred and only about Nepal so I'll write again here when I get to return.

Until then, I'll be at

harmonisms.blogspot.com

Enjoy kiddos.

SUCH busy-ness

Oh my goodness I have been so so so busy. I have been going to school like everyday because they managed to get internet (very interesting process how they did it) and they had me make email addresses for every teacher... I tried to show them that they could do it themselves with the click of about 2 buttons, but alas, they would rather sit over my shoulder for 8 hours watching me click the buttons instead. Also, it's the end of the year (and thus the end of the school year here) so I've been helping the level 10 students study up on grammar for their exit exam. I'm sure you all can imagine what it was like for ME to teach people correct grammar. I have never felt such joy as when I got to correct the teacher on possessive pronouns versus possessive adjectives (FYI it's mine vs. my). Hellloooo nirvana. I also got to teach the kids a little bit o'Heads-Up-7-up and of course, the Macarena. The most fulfilling moment had to be (pre-games and dancing) when the bell rung and the Math teacher came in and the kids protested the end of the English lesson because they said it was way more fun and more interesting than the rest of their school day. I ended up teaching them straight through lunch. 4 straight hours of English grammar. By the end of it they were so good at identifying passive sentences from active sentences that Jenn Winger (my JOUR1002 "Critical Writing/Grammar" professor) would have never believed it. Damn, I am GOOOOD.
Since it's the end of the school year, the kids are going on a 40-day break so they don't go back until February. Sadly, that means my time at the school is done so they kids did a whole good-bye thing for me. It was adooorable.
Aside from that I don't have too much to say.... Anup had nose surgery and was in the hospital for three days week before last, so this past week he was staying with us since he was too drugged up to be living by his lonesone. That pretty much made my day because I just got to sit around with him and fight over the remote (we pretty much just argue over which is more boring, cricket or golf). He usually wins and I can now say that I have, in fact, spent 3 full days watching England play India in cricket. If you though baseball games were painful, imagine 3 days' worth of innings. UGHHHH!!!!
SOoo that is my update. I'm not dead, just busy. Oh, and if you ahve heard the rumors, disregard them. I'm not married. I may have a crush, but it's only by default (lack of male contact for too many months...) hehehe....

Communism is alive and well in America!!

Last Saturday I was supposed to go to Dhading to help tutor the levl-10 kids on English grammar for their final exit exam (in Nepal high school is only 2 years and the 2 after that are optional and called "college"). Well Min tells me not to bring my books or anything because we are taking a detour. Binod begs his dad to tag along, so the three of us were off to go somewhere that was supposed to be a "surprise" for me.
We get to this park and he tells me that it is a picnic with some of his work friends. It really wasn't that fun, but it was funny to watch all the men dance around and the food was pretty good. Most the time Binod and I just sat there laughing at people.
But we get to the point of the picnic where everyone is suppose to gather round and introduce themselves into a microphone. I can't understand a word of it but I gather that people are saying their name and where they work. The main guy insists that I introduce myself so I take the mic and say "Hi, I'm Alicia and I'm from the US. I am here teaching Engilsh at the Bhubaneswori School in Dhading." and I hand off the microphone. The main guy takes it back and translates. Then he says a whole bunch more in Nepalese. Then he translates what he said, "This is proof that the movement is not just here in Nepal but world wide. Communism is alive and well in America! Hail to Noam Chomsky." I immediately look at Binod and say, "What is this picnic?" He just shrugged and said he didn't know. I ask him to read the big banner to me and he says, "It just says 'Welcome' and something about 'CPN-UML.'" Hence the comment about communism. CPN is the Communist Party of Nepal. UML is the faction of the government that is non-Maoist (good) but still highly uncooperative and unproductive. As for the Noam Chomsky comment, I was thrown a little off guard by it. I'm no expert, but as I recall, Chomsky is a socialistic anarchist. Turns out, the guy running the rally got his masters in Linguistics. Soooo yeah.. hail to Noam Chomsky.
Glad I'm here to give the CPN proof that Americans believe in communism. Also glad McCarthy wasn't in attendance... he might've blacklisted me after that...

I'm not dead...

So I'm not dead. I'm quite alive. I've just been really busy making up for lost time now that I am out and about again.
So what have I been doing??
Well Saturday I went into town with Anup, Min's nephew. And we tooled around all over the city. We went to Patan Durbar first, which is a famous square in the center of town with a bunch of really old temples, huge tourist spot. But as we were walking in an army dude stopped me and insisted that I had to pay Rs200 to go into the square. Since I'd been there before and I didn't feel like wasting $2.50, we moved on to Thamel, the big tourist area in town. Thamel is the only place in the city where you can find shots of espresso and Rs500 beers. It's really clean and really expensive, but I like it because no one stares at me there. haha. At one point, we were sitting in a cafe snacking on momo and I was checking out a group of super duper hot German trekker-men walking past. Anup and his friend whose name I cannot even try to spell were arguing about something and I was paying no attention at all. Then Anup taps me on the shoulder and asks if it's true was he's read, the American girls have their first "physical relationship" around 12 or 13. I just walked away hysterical and went to check out the bootlegged DVDs across the street. Glad we have a reputation, girls.
After Thamel, we snuck into Patan Durbar the back way and sat on the steps of the center temple and watched tourists go past. All tourists in Nepal wear NorthFace coats and carry huge cameras. And as beggar children follow them for blocks and blocks asking for money, they just stare in horror. More than one passerby stopped to take a picture of the little blond girl sitting among the Nepali teenagers. As I watched them I pretended that they and I were having the same thoughts, "how did she get there?"
Sunday I went to Dhading to teach-even though I only had half an hour between finding out I was going there and actually hopping on the bus. But I managed to create a game involving cut outs of Britney Spears and Branjelina on the ride there. The kids loved it, naturally. Because they love me. Ok, maybe I'm just trying to convince myself.... but I am going back tomorrow and Friday to tutor the 10th graders and their exit exams. I'm actually happy to help students that might actually gain something from my lessons. Besides dancing skills. Though my 3rd graders are now experts Macarena-ers and I'm damn proud of it.
Hmm... what else.... Oh! Yesterday was a Newar holiday, and since our house backs up to a Newari village I got to watch the festival. It was basically just a bunch of kids dancing around to marching band music. But entertaining. Oh, and I saw some dudes smoking bidi from what appeared to me to be a bong. And I felt a twinge of remorse for Tina and Helen. Laura, tell the girls I miss them. haha.
My dad sent me graham crackers and marshmallows and hersheys bars so I've been making smores with the kids over the stove and I think the parents are not happy about me corrupting the kids diets, hehe. And now I am craving some charred mallow. So I'm gonna go...
Adios!

On a lighter note...

...I taught myself to play chess. And I am awful. But hey, it's not like I don't have time to practice. haha.
Also, I learned to make naan. And I'm awful at it, so I'll leave it to the natives.
I also want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Not that I celebrated :(
But there will be plenty of time for turkey and gravy over the next hundred years I plan on living.
Peace, Love, and Dal Bhat.

A Rare serious moment...

The English newspaper here drives me crazy. The stories are so poorly written, the pictures never relate, and the grammar is just plain wrong. It runs the strangest stories--yesterday I read about a Polish heavy mental band that disbanded in 2005 after the guitarist was killed in a car accident. They don't have a new album coming out, they aren't come to tour in Nepal, they have been dead for 3 years, yet on November 28, 2008, The Kathmandu Post ran a story about them. They run full page stories on new restaurants in town, but place protests that shut down the city in small boxes on the 3rd page. Regardless, I read the paper every morning.
Today however, was not such a good day to read the paper. The headlines this morning were, for once, all relevant:
"Terrorist Attacks Rock Mumbai: 125 Killed, 300 Injured"
"Gunmen target Americans, Britons"
"Emergency at Thai Airports: Rumors of Coup Swirl"
It's like the world around Nepal is crumbling. Meanwhile, I'm back under house arrest (as I have been the last two weeks, hence no posts) after the city is shut down AGAIN due to another protest. The bodies of 2 teenagers were found in the Thankot jungle and the people are protesting the police force's complete lack of competence in tracing the teens after they were reported missing on Nov. 16th. They are protesting in Kalimati, Teku, New Road, basically everywhere. So one more weekend where I am not going anywhere.
This strike began yesterday. Usually, we go pick up Binod from his school bus stop in Kilanki, about a 30 minute walk from the house, at 3pm. Yesterday, I decided not to go since I was finishing up a proposal I've been working on. Jasmin, who didn't have school since she found out that morning her bus was on strike, went to pick him up alone. She left at 2:30 and didn't come back until 6:30. After waiting at the bus stop for half an hour, she heard someone say that protesting had begun. So she had to walk across the whole city of Kathmandu to Lalitpur, where Binod's school is, to pick him up and then the two of them-a 7 yr old boy and a 17yr old girl-had to walk 2 hours home through the city at night during protests.

I don't care if there are divisions between the "hardline" Maoists and the "Establishment Factions." I don't care if they can't agree on the "People's Republic" or the "democratic republic" wording. I don't care if they are arguing about electing a woman or a minority party leader to the Constituent Assembly. All I know, is that when the government is spending too much time figuring out how to become a government, the city and the people in the city are losing valuable time. In the 2 months since I have been here, the kids have missed more days of school due to strikes than I have fingers to count on. I can't imagine how much income is lost to the shops that have to close down for days on end, or the food that expires while the trucks shipping it sit on blocked highways for hours and hours. I have walked the dead highways during strikes and I have seen the baffled white faces of tourists scrambling to make their way to the airport or understand what is going on--I know that is nothing compared to teenagers opening fire in hotel lobbies, but it sure doesn't look good.
The problems with power supply and water coverage, lack of teachers in community schools, even rural poverty, are all symptoms of a developing country that I think Nepal can one day overcome. But when I see a government that neglects its people to the point that daily life is consistently interrupted in the nation's capital, I have to sit and think, "If things are this bad here, how are they ever going to get better out there, in the rural, extremely impoverished areas?"

So many firsts...

So I have quite a bit to talk about, all involving first times...

First, I had my first encounter with Nepal's medical facilties. Specifically, a bench behind a curtain in a Pharmaceutical shop. I had to go because I had my first encounter with hives which have broken out all over my body and are itching the absolute shit out of me. The pharmacists tell you what meds you need, so there is no need for doctors I guess, and I was given a blue pill to take every night at bed time and some calamine-zinc lotion that looks like pepto bismol that I have to rub all over my body all the time. So apparently I encountered something that I am allergic to, which would be my first official allergy. Problem is, though this is my first encounter with hives it will probably not be my last because we have no idea what caused them. Seeing as how I have encountered quite a lot of new things lately, I could really be allergic to any of them. So there is no way to know and/or avoid what caused the hives. And they suck.
My second first would be my first political protest. I walked to the internet cafe I am sitting in because the road is shut down because there is a strike and there are trucks strewn perpendicular on the highway blocking the road. Apparently, from what I gathered, 2 people were killed and now there is a protest in Kalanki Chowk (the square where the buses and trucks are blocking the road)and the political party they were a part of is the cause for the commotion. Not that it is that much of a commotion, just lots of stalled trucks and lots of people hanging out in the middle of the road. The shops are all closed too. I had to walk WAY out of the way to find a place that was open.
I also had my first encounter with the orpanage foreigners. Well, not really encounter... I saw a tall blonde man playing with the children this morning while I was on the roof. Yes, I said tall blonde man. YOUNG man. Cha Ching.
I also made a friend who is my age. Though not blonde, he is tall and young. And he is Min's nephew, Anup. And he wants to take me out Saturday. And he spent a lengthy while asking me about being single and making sure I don't have a boyfriend back home. So while I agreed to sight seeing on Saturday, I am starting to get the feeling it is in a date context. Not that they date here, they just meet and get married...

So for now that is all I have in terms of firsts... But this won't be the last post, so maybe there are more firsts to come (bc I totally haven't had anough already, hah).