Maph Garnus (Sorry for the delay....)

Sorry for being a horrible blogger – I know it has been waayy too long, and now the task of catching y’all up is daunting…so I may do it stream of consciousness style.
On Saturday our group returned from a week long excursion in the Terai – the southern most part of the country that borders India. We stayed in the village of Sauhara which is located on the northern entrance into Chitwan National Park. The town itself is super touristy, but it was also really quiet and free of dust and insane horn honking. While there we visited a variety of NGOs – a Biological Conservation Center, a beekeeper, a woman’s micro credit group, a community forest, a biogas plant and a few others. On the last day we had a “fun day” during which we “canoed” – basically, floated, down the river that runs through the village and saw crocodiles, rhinos and peacocks. It was gorgeous and very relaxing – I felt like I could have stayed there all day. After the canoe ride we went to the elephant breeding center where we got to see adorable baby elephants, some of which were actually extremely aggressive. The babies weren’t tied up or anything so they roamed freely and a few decided it would be fun to bluff charge us and/or head butt. In the afternoon we entered the National Park on elephants – it is the only way you are allowed in. There were four of us essentially in a basket on top of the elephant and we cruised around for a couple hours. We saw more rhinos, deer and peacocks, but the heat and dust were pretty oppressive and riding an elephant is not exactly a smooth ride.
Now, some other fun tidbits from the trip. First, the bus ride. Anyone who has traveled abroad is probably familiar with the absolutely terrifying bus rides. The “highway” that runs east-to-west in Nepal is roughly 1.5 car widths wide and teeters high above a deep river gorge. Huge buses are constantly whipping by and passing each other on corners at 60mph. Many of the buses or trucks we saw were carrying 20ish live goats on the roof!! The best part was, every 20 minutes or so we would see the shells of buses crashed into the side of the hill, no doubt the result of some fiery crash. How we survived is unclear at this point. The bus ride took like 6 hours, and it’s only like 150 km from our school in Kathmandu. It seemed actually much longer as I was having my first legit digestive problems. Ha.

Random News from Kathmandu:
Much to my dismay goat meat is now playing a prominent role in my diet at home. It’s hard to describe what it tastes like, but I feel like 90% of it is fat and a thick, chewy skin. AND, leaving food on your plate irritates the Gods, so my family sits there as I finish every last morsel. Additionally, when I first arrived my family made sure that the food wasn’t too spicy, but they have slowly upped the ante to the point that at dinner I have to consume ridiculous quantities of yogurt and water to cancel the heat. I have eaten some chicken here, which has been quite good, it takes a little while to get used to picking through fat and bones after so many years of boneless chicken breast at home, but perhaps this is the way meat is actually supposed to look like. My family has almost no premade foods in the house, just the staples that they use to make curried vegetables and rice etc. Often they have biscuits (cookies) that we have with tea, and they do have some ramen noodles that we eat raw, but aside from that almost everything is in bulk form.
Today is a Holy Day in the city, the celebration of the birth of the god Shiva, it’s called Shiva rhatri and I think we are the only school/work place in all of Kathmandu that has school. Thousands of people from Nepal and India go to Pashupatina, the Hindu temple in the eastern part of the city and do puja, get naked and smoke a lot of marijuana. Today is the only day that weed is actually legal here. The temple is flooded with sanyas – they are devout Hindus who are in the “final stages” of their lives and thus renounce everything, get rid of their possessions, stop eating and just hang around temples etc. They often only wear loin clothes and paint their bodies. If anyone has seen the cover the Lonely Planet Nepal book, the guy on the cover is a sanyasan. We went to visit the temple yesterday before it got too crazy and two of us were actually really awkwardly interviewed by some news media.
As for school, last week we were surprised with a “pop up exam”, our Nepali language teachers version of a pop quiz. We had to write an essay and then read it in front of the class which was shockingly difficult, but I think we are all amazed at how much we can actually say now. It’s frustrating still at home because while sometimes I think I could say most of what I want to articulate in Nepali, it’s just so much harder and so slow to formulate in my head. Nepali is a postpositional language (?) so the word order is so very different than English. In Nepali if I wanted to say, “Ashley and I went to Thamel,” the word order in Nepali would be “Roz Ashley with Thamel go.” Sounds simple maybe, but with more complicated sentences I panic and revert to English.
Load shedding is definitely still in effect, still 16 hours a day, so a lot of time at home is spent by candle light, or the light of my headlamp or “torch” as my family calls it. They are newly fascinated by it. I actually don’t mind the load shedding because it limits the amount of time that I will be forced to watch really horrible Bollywood films slash Hindi Music Videos.
Almost two weeks ago now, my friend got attacked by a dog on our walk home. The crazy thing was it was a small, white, fluffy, manicured house dog that bombed out into the street when its gate opened as the owner drove inside. It got some good bites out of her leg, and eventually we took her to the clinic here, but luckily we were able to find out that the dog had been vaccinated so it wasn’t necessary to get the $1,500 rabies shots. Other than that we have had no troubles thus far, though I have had, of late some annoying instances with men following me etc. For the most part they are harmless but the other night I was walking home, it was still light out and was followed for quite some time by a begger before my long legs were able to beat him out. Luckily all the Nepali men are so short and out of shape I can usually get away quickly.
I have been reading The Snow Leopard and have determined that I really want to do my ISP on yetis! I figure that this will be a great way to get me into the mountains…I find it interesting that my family never reads, they will actually just sit there silently and watch me read than do it themselves. And, whenever I’m reading they think I’m studying, they couldn’t possibly understand that I enjoy doing it. Oh Nepal.
I realize that this doesn’t exactly flow nicely, and for that I apologize, I will try to be better about updating more frequently. Please let me know if you have exciting questions or things you want to hear about. I miss you all and thanks to everyone who has emailed me!! Also, I have been trying to upload photos but have had no luck, so I guess you will just have to use your imagination (and google images)...sorry Mom. :(