Garbage Man

Saw the craziest thing the other day -

As many of you know we are in monsoon season.  As I was heading to my language teacher's house with my friends and fellow classmates, Klaas and Dineke, we ran into a huge traffic jam on the main road.  To start, there was a literal waterfall gushing across an intersecting road, creating a bit of lake in the middle of the main road, which severely constricted traffic.  Second, a poor garbage man had been rear-ended by a car.  Garbage men in Nepal have a three-wheel bike+cart system that they use to pick up garbage, and his whole cart and been knocked over against the side of another car, driven by a very irritated, wealthy woman.  The whole driver's side of the car was plastered with rotting garbage, and the garbage man's cart was minus one wheel (you can imagine his horror as his entire livelihood depends on his garbage cart, and repairs are not cheap).  But the sense of community in this country is wonderful: when we stumbled on this scene, there were five Nepali men helping him get his cart disentangled from the car, and clean up the garbage that had spilled out.  Not only that, but one Nepali man used the water from the "lake" to clean off the garbage slime from the woman's car before she drove off.

Of course, there are layers and layers of propriety and expectation in the culture that could reveal all this "goodwill" to not be so generous after all, but for now I am still the ignorant Westerner, and I choose to be encouraged by this display kindness.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

Well people, it has been awhile.  And I apologize.  Life has been humming along here in Kathmandu, busier than ever, and blogging pretty much slipped my mind.  However, the American Club and Embassy paired together to make a fabulous 4th of July celebration (well as fabulous as one can be when it is not shared with family and friends IN America) and I thought this would be a great opportunity to hop back on the bandwagon of blogging :)

At 11am, when my friends Jessi, Megan, and I arrived at the American Club, we waved our passports at the guards outside, had our bags checked, and then passed through the doors into a world of red, white, and blue.  Awnings splashed with our national colors peppered the massive lawn/baseball field, under which tables stacked with American products sat waiting for their American victims :) There was "pop" - as in, something other than coke, sprite, or fanta (MUG ROOTBEER! Amazing stuff when you don't have easy access to it hah) American candy, chips, cookies, and or course, beer.  Now none of the afore-mentioned items may sound very exciting to those of you who are in the States, but for the American ex-pats -  it was glorious!  They had a giant grill set up and were grilling chicken and hamburgers. There was a dunk tank, a slip n' slide, pony rides, and blow-up games (all for the kids, of course!)  If you were an American, or a club member/guest of a club member, you were welcome to event; therefore, people from many different countries were present to celebrate the fourth of July.  Instead of seeing a sea of white faces and hearing strong, American accents, the lawn was covered with multi-colored shades of brown, copper, yellow, white, tan, and black - along with many different, colorful accents.  The main commonality was that everyone wore something either red, white, or blue :)  It was beautiful.

We spent a sunny afternoon (a miracle for monsoon season) eating, chatting, watching the craziness of the dunk tank and watermelon-eating contest, and tossing frisbees.  I was also introduced to the Pizza Hut here in Kathmandu - and let me tell you, it is the REAL thing! Not that I ate pizza from Pizza Hut on a regular basis while in the States, but it was amazing to sit down at an "American" restaurant on the 4th of July, and eat pizza that tastes exactly like it does at home.  Double cheese-pepperoni pan crust pizza, you were heavenly.  

The Fourth of July festivities were wonderful, without a doubt.  It was an excellent excuse to spend a day doing nothing but being with friends, outside, with the added bonus of enjoying American food products typically unavailable to us in our everyday lives here.  I hope you all also enjoyed the parades, fireworks, and time spent with family and friends.

Blessings!