Thursday, March 18, 2010

Not Happy

Today I am annoyed. Well you would be too if a Nepali Brass Band started up under your bedroom window before 7am! And why, you ask yourself, would they be doing that? Well of course, they were on hand for the grand opening by some bigwig or other of the all new Tourism Development Bank. Bet that’s the only time it’s open before 10am! So what does the Tourism Development Bank do? For tourists, not a lot as far as I could gather. For tourism businesses, no idea. I will scan the papers to see what I can find out. They certainly didn’t give me any free money when I asked for some.
So that wasn’t exactly the best start to the day. Then I couldn’t get any hot water till the power came on at 9am and I could boil the kettle – so I stayed in bed listening to the cacophony below, and considered how many potted geraniums I would need to lob before it was quiet.
Yesterday was St Patricks Day (that well known Nepali patron of getting foreigners into your bar). I could have celebrated it at the ‘Everest Irish Pup’ but I was a little afraid of what might be on tap. So I bailed early and came home to watch videos on the laptop in the dark. Perhaps “Drag me to Hell’ (thanks Kaz) was not the best choice. Gave up on that too and opted for Space 1999. Only the costumes are scary in that!
So anyway, Robin is wandering up and down near Simikot in west Nepal and looking very much forward to getting back soon. He has advised me that he smells bad – like I wouldn’t have guessed that since his last shower was 10 days ago! They have had some tough trails, and tomorrow they need to get up at 4am to go up 1200 metres and then descent 1400 metres across snow, before it melts and becomes a hazard. Gee I’m really sorry I’m missing that.
It is one of my dear Nepali friends’ birthday today – he is very fond of fishing and so I have bought him a handmade Nepali card of Santa in a raft – they aren’t big on birthday cards here and one just makes do as best one can. And what do you buy a 65 year old who has most things he wants? Another vodka of course!
I am also being kept very busy with the Nepali lovebirds who are trying to sort out where they want to study and work once they get married. Sadly, planning and option making isn’t taught in schools here, and people aren’t used to having choices, so they struggle – a lot. So good old aunty has to attempt to extract info from them and then present options and pose suitably probing questions – I knew that the kindergarten teacher training I did all those years ago would be useful for something. But oh the frustration of it all. Like pulling teeth.
Thank goodness for the soothing sounds of the iPod and battery powered docking station – so much better than a Walkman (following on from yesterday!) Do you remember clipping the Walkman onto your waistband and then having your trousers almost fall down from the weight of it? Ha ha those were the days. Not.
Have I told you how much I love my Macbook Air? It is a winner for travelling and the long battery life (at least 5 hours) means I can do stuff like this without power and then just cut and paste once the power comes. So today I have watched 2 TV programmes and done a whole bunch of documents (and I still have 40% power left), and then in 5 minutes when the power comes on a few minutes work and I will still be out the door in time for cocktail hour. And you’ve gotta love that!
See, now I’m not annoyed anymore. And I shall drink to that!
Bottoms Up!

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