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Day 75
Kathmandu has not been kind to Lungy and on my first real day at work I end up having to call in sick. How embarrassing. I was supposed to be delivering a teacher training workshop on children's needs (basically to ask the teachers to stop hitting the kids, calling them stupid and pulling their ears). I was going to introduce the Dunce's cap as a better form of humiliation, since we all appear to be living and working in 1954. Fortunately Rufus had co-written the whole thing with me and was sent off to deliver it himself - and then we discovered the whole thing was cancelled in typical Nepali style, so all was not lost and Mr and Mrs Boss were supportive of my illness and sent me home to rest. Rufus has taken to life in Kathmandu like a...er... Westerner to Kathmandu. He loves the place and the people, has thrown himself into the work programme, shops in the local markets and is basically very happy. All he needs now is a hash habit, glazed eyes and a 15 year old wife and he will blend right in.
I am not so sure about the place and when I don't feel well, the conditions seem even more basic and depressing. This is not a flat for lying around in bed in. We do have cable TV and the internet and a lot of books but it is just not as comfortable as being at home. I want to have a hot bath with Vicks (the medicine, not the girl) and watch True Movies all day. To quote a country where most things are 'not possible', this is also not possible. I miss my friends so much and I know at home Jo would be nipping in soon to look after me, with some chicken soup for me and a bottle of wine for her. As would Alison, Gillian, Wendy and everyone else who has always been so kind to me. Instead I make my first visit to the super-fabulous-state-of-the-art-world-famous CIWEC clinic where I have to explain that the reason I can't breathe is that Lungy is all alone in there and I also have asthma and a dodgy ticker to contend with. They really only specialise in altitude sickness so look confused about my situation. After a chest x ray and some steriods the doctor declares I have bronchitis and I am sent away $100 poorer. I look good in an x-ray, nice and slim, so it's not all bad.
We have now got a scooter (I think this hasn't helped my chest infection) and take the girls to school every morning on the back of our bright red 'Pleasure' bike (see photo). What a misnomer. Trying to negotiate potholes, cows, rubbish, people and traffic through some of the world's busiest and most congested roads is a huge challenge and my neck and arm muscles are permanently in agony from slamming on the brakes all the time. The girls have never had so much helmet-less fun in their lives. I did pass my bike test in London in the 90's so am sure I remember what I am doing and I feel quite safe. We did try the Forrest Gump bus but it took over an hour through the same potholes, cows, etc etc.
I haven't mastered Nepalese supermarkets yet so dinner is mainly spicy Super Noodles every night, sometimes with a non-specifc-meat sausage thrown in. And an orange for vitamins. I'll get the hang of it am sure, but they are busy, stressful places full of food I don't recognise, aisles and aisles of useless, weird crap (or 'local food' as am sure they like to call it), and each time I go back they seem to have moved everything and where there were tins of beans there are now frozen chicken beaks . I miss Asda Newton Mearns where I can identify Super Noodles and Cheezee Pasta quickly. It is so cheap to eat out that we might end up our preferred option. We have made Kilroy's of Kathmandu our local (it is nowhere near us) as it is the city's most super cool bar and restaurant and the staff now know and love us so much they have given us a loyalty card. Which is brilliant and embarrasing in equal measures. It really is the best place we have found with friendly staff, tropical gardens and a lovely roof terrace. And a permanent wine festival. Last time we went Fern shyly tried to practice her Nepali by ordering from the menu with limited confidence.... she hasn't finished a sentence when Clover, who has been sitting down jumps up and bursts into an unexpected extravagant Nepali dance and song routine thus attracting all the attention and adoration of the waiters who rush to her, pick her up and beam at her. Fern bursts into tears shouting 'I hate you Clover' and refuses to ever speak Nepali again.
I have moved on from obsessing over the babies and now want to adopt one of the young waiters there who I am convinced would fit in well to Clover's old room and a full-time job at the Eglinton Arms. He earns nothing a month for working constantly at Kilroy's and even then has to send all of the nothing back home to support his family and siblings in a rural village. This is the plight of the eldest son and he bears it with responsibility, maturity and dignity. He tells us he would love to leave Nepal and travel but this is 'not possible' as the government prevent most Nepali's from getting a passport or visa. I am going to hatch a plan to bring him home which might include having to marry him; Rufus is not best pleased.
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