On one of my many flights to Kathmandu I was seated next to this saudi arabian man who was tellng me about these crazy inventions like seven story airplanes, the ability to transmit smell through the internet, 3D video conferencing where you can really see the person sitting next to you, etc. If people can invent these absolutely absurd things, why are we facing a global food crisis? I don't know! It doesn't seem to be a problem here in Nepal though, at least from what I can tell. Rice and corn and wheat seem to be in abundance, as most people grow it themselves. HOnestly, I'd be happy if I never laid eyes on corn again. The past couple of days we have been harvesting and husking corn. I can say that I've never seen so much corn in my life. I think it would take me the rest of my lifetime to eat all of the corn that we've harvested here.



It is nice to be helping around the house a little bit though, and sweating from working instead of just sitting around all the time. We are now in Gaindakot, staying with Ratna san and his family. It is much much different from Til's especially in terms of our accomidations. The house is rather large with two indoor bathrooms and an indoor kitchen (things we did not have at TIl's). It is really nice to shower naked, I can't stress that enough! Even though these are conditions that I'm more accustomed to, I find it a little less comfortable than I did staying at Til's. The family is really great and are being very hospitable. But, per usual in Nepal, there are lots of rules, such as we are not allowed to enter the kitchen-we might make it dirty. But Ratna has two children living at home with him now-a 19 year old daughter and a 24 year old son. They are both really nice and are very patient in answering all of our questions, and they speak english which is a plus.



Ratna works at an organization called SAHAMATI that works for ''equitable development.'' They do a lot of work with marginalized people and women, helping with disaster risk reduction and field training, health clinics, and income generation, amongst other things. It seems like they are really productive and we have been visiting lots of their sites the past couple of days.



Rewind a week...THe last days we spent with Til were in the mountains. She decided to take us on a little adventure to a mountain village. We piled into the circa 1970 landcruiser...and I do mean piled. THe sayings ''traveling like Mexicans'' or ''packed like sardines'' can not begin to describe how crammed we were in that vehicle. The mexicans have nothing on the Nepali. THere wer 17 of us inside the car and at least five people riding on the roof. It was so awful, I thought we were never going to arrive. We drove up the unpaved roads (withno barrier to block us from falling off the edge) at I swear no more than 2 KM per hour for four hours. But we arrived safely, somehow.



Til had no plans for our visit to the mountains and no contact person. So we just walked around and asked people that we met if we could stay at their house for the night. Some nice woman was very obliging and let us stay at her home and cooked us a delicious dinner-probably the best food I've had since being in nepal, the spiciest as well. It was really nice, and much cooler, in the mountains, but I didn't think it was any different than down in the valley.


The best part of the trip though was the walk back home. I was dreading the 6 hour hike, but it turned out to be really nice! we walked and walked and walked and walked, and finally made it home. I was so surprised by how many people we passed walking to or from the city carrying pigeons (or pigins as Til calls them) for the next days festival. On the way down though we saw lots of evidence of deforestation and erosion, we walked through many recently burned areas or places that were still burning. that was really gross. but walking through the river was really refreshing!



So, some funny stories from nepal that make me laugh everytime i think about them. Before our trip to the mountains Til's sister in law was offering me an umbrella. ''Na hani'' in Nepali means ''I don't eat,'' which is what I've been saying to all the food people keep trying to give me! But i said ''Na hani'' to the umbrella, everybody got a kick out of hearing ''no I don't eat the umbrella.''



People are always asking us questions around here, but my favorite so far is ''how many colors does your country have?'' Malte and I just stared at eachother like, what in the world does that mean?

And the third is one night sitting on the porch with Til we were talking about petrol prices and where to fill up, because I hadn't seen any gas stations and there were lots of buses and motorcycles passing through Kawasoti. Anyways, I said, ''Til, where do you buy kerosene here?'' and she responds, ''Do you want to buy?'' I seriously laughed for ten minutes because what on earth would I need kerosene for in Nepal, and I was pretty delerious.