Happy New Year!

As I stated in my last post, today in the Nepali new year. So, welcome to year 2065. And its not april 13 here, its like january 1, but I don't know the name of their month. anyways, its much different than new years at home-no fireworks, no champagne, no funny glasses or noise makers, no black-eyed peas...you get the picture. its just like every other day here, a holiday. every day is a holiday. its kind of nice.

today we went to a nearby village by bicycle to visit one of Til's friends. nothing too exciting. they just kind of stare at us and offer us something to eat and drink, and then resume talking in nepali about the election (I really wonder what they talk about when it isn't election time). we also visited some nature preserve, which I still don't really understand the purpose of. it is a vulture preserve, so they buy near dead cows from villages and wait for them to die so they can feed them to the vultures and then sell their skin to india to make leather products. seriously though, who would be upset if there were no more vultures? not I.

so we "took a rest" on the way back to Til's house-it turned in to a two hour rest just laughing and talking, and then we found a mancala game that someone had dug in the dirt. I kicked malte's butt! but while we were talking Til and Malte told me that my english is sometimes hard to understand, which is so frustrating. I had the same experience at ARI. Initially everybody wanted to talk to me because I was a native speaker, but very quickly people became intimidated because I used "big words" and spoke too quickly. That is so hard for me to imagine because I think my vocabulary is very poor and I speak really slowly, but I mumble so that doesn't help. It is really frustrating though because I hadn't really felt that language had been a barrier, but apparently it is.

Most people in nepal are illiterate, most can't even write their own name. I think its some awful means of control. Anyways, many people in this village can speak english, at least the basic things that you learn in school. it is so funny when we are going down the street or just sitting on the porch and people literally yell at us, "HELLO! HOW ARE YOU? FROM WHERE ARE YOU COMING?" from where are you coming? I still have a hard time not saying town, or til's house, or bathing. it just sounds funny to me. but many of the people will talk to us because "making foreign friends is my hobby." they all ask the same thing though: what is your name, how old are you, where are you from, what kind of food do you eat, what is the temperature. yesterday I had a staring contest with some boys and finally invited them to come talk to us-our conversation with them was better than any conversation I've had with an adult. they were asking about president bush and if he treated people well and what kind of problems existed in the US. they were cute.

so, I was asked how it is possible to grow such lush fruits and vegetables in such awful conditions. i was amazed myself, but I don't think there are any tricks, just nature. everything seems to grow naturally here-corn, beans, marijuana. yep, you can see it everywhere around here, and smell it too. the only trick that I've learned is that if you step on onion stems it "makes them very excited and they grow very big." they depend a lot on relatively new irrigation systems, though. without that I think it would be very difficult to grow rice here. but besides that they just water their crops often and pray for rain.

yesterday it stormed really badly here, it was a very funny sight. the storm came very quickly, but everybody was running for shelter. the wind was strong and the lighting very close, but the actual rain lasted for maybe five minutes. the whole town shut down though. I was very appreciative because it is miserably dry here, so it provided for brief alleviation and frizzy hair.

we also took a trip to a temple area about an hour away by bus. I am so fascinated by the bus system here. it is truly reflective of the culture of this country. I would describe it as organized chaos, but to the Nepali it isn't chaotic at all. but there are no bus stops or schedules, just buses going a certain direction on the highway. so you just stand on the road and wait for one to come and jump in-the busses are beyond crowded and it isn't unusual to have to ride on the roof. back to the temple area-it had both buddhist and hindu temples which is a great depiction of the diversity in nepal. diversity isn't a bad thing or something that isolates the people here, it is more like a topic of conversation. but my favorite part were the monkeys! so many and so cute! they would dig through the trash from the temples, but these little punks kept throwing rocks at them. so sad. another sad thing about the temple experience was all the dead pigeons. first I thought it was those stupid boys or people offered them as a sacrifice, but they are just dumb, I think anyways, or malnourished. we were just standing there and a pigeon fell from the roof, it was unfortunate.

uplifting, huh?