Back in Kathmandu

Sama:  Hi Everyone 
We're back in Kathmandu for a few days only, which has been quite an assault on the senses, but also it's nice to be amongst modern comforts again, like hot showers and the internet.  Our 3 weeks in the village was a rewarding and at times quite challenging experience. The children we taught were a delight and as is often the case I think we gained more from our time with them than they did from us.

Living in the village was like stepping back in time and made me appreciate how simply these people really do live and how much more simply I could live.  One interesting example was the constant stream, every morning and evening, of bicycles with people carrying milk cans of all shapes and sizes making their way slowly to the local dairy, achieving  their milk delivery without throw away cartons, plastic bags or vehicle emissions  (Bikes are still the main form of local transport, with just a few motorbikes, and hardly any private cars). Moreover, the milk was fresh from cows and buffaloes grazing in fields within a 1-2 km radius of their homes.

One of the most challenging aspects of living in the village was that your business becomes everyone else's.  Indira took great delight in keeping everyone informed about the things we got up to, for example Sean and I not eating meat, and especially when Sean did something very unmanly, like washing clothes at the outside hand pump.  The women of the village were fascinated by my non-arranged marriage (in Nepal over 95 per cent of marriages are still arranged by the parents).  They referred to our marriage, with lots of giggles and sideways glances, as a 'love marriage' and gave us the titles 'buda' and 'budi' (lovers) and within days small children started calling these names out to us as we cycled by.

After a week of eating dahlbaat at every meal, I decided to share some of my favourite recipes with Indira.  She was shocked by the amount of vegies I served up and the next day invited a group of her disbelieving friends to come over and watch me cook.  I felt like a contestant on Masterchef, while Indira gave a running commentary that evoked lots of ooohs and aaaahs from the audience, especially when I declined all spices offered and opted for only a light salt seasoning.  The lightly seasoned vegies and poached eggs were a resounding failure and everyone went home convinced that Australia would be the last place on Earth they would want to go and have a meal.

pics missing here but will complete upload later.

For the next two and a half weeks we will be trekking in the Langtang National Park.  It is very unlikely there will be any internet access, so we will reply to any emails after that and update the blog.