Shuva Din, Good Afternoon from Sirutar!

Another successful few days at work. We've finished bricklaying the top floor and have begun concreting the rooms we leveled on the bottom floor. The skilled workers we have on site sometimes have to sort us out if we're doing stuff incorrectly, but on the whole they seem happy with our work rate. We've also been digging a trench parallel to the school to funnel away some of the persistent rainfall we have.

Until this week the weather seemed to go cloudy in the morning, blazing hot in the afternoon and raining in the evening. This week however monsoon season has really took hold and we've been rained off site once or twice. There has been some flooding in Nepal but not in Kathmandu Valley where we are based, and no where near the levels seen in Pakistan. On Sunday Gemma & James led a Global Discussion about Climate + Environment, mainly focusing on Global Warming. Recent events in Pakistan (and now it seems India as well) made this all the more poignant.

Last Friday evening we made our first unsupervised trip into Kathmandu. We had to be back at the hotel by 10:30 but it was still good to left off some steam. We went to an Italian restaurant to break up the Dall Bhat routine and then we checked out a boss little Irish bar. It looked like every attempt to climb Everest in history had begun in there. There were national flags, climbing gear, photos and all kinds.

The wall's were covered in graffiti written by previous visitors to the bar. Some of it was philosophical and deep, but most of it was f-ing hilarious! We got our names and a quote or two up there of course! We were also celebrating one of the girl's birthdays and she had a great time. I let her put a henna tattoo of a smiley face on my hand, which has been amusing all the Nepalese I meet as henna is only meant for girls. She only told me afterwards that henna takes a week to come off!

Our Saturday off work was spent browsing the shops and mad markets of Thamel in the centre of Kathmandu. There are a lot of beggars and street sellers about and the pressure from them can sometimes get really intense. If you stop walking on the street you can end up surrounded in 2 minutes.

My heart bleeds for some of the beggars, especially the kids and disabled, but sometimes you just have to be firm. I'm not exactly sure where I stand on the whole complex debate of helping homeless and destitute people, but in Thamel I just tried to politely knock them back.

Tuesday and Wednesday were national holidays in Nepal for a Hindu festival. Excuse my crude explanation of it but it's basically about remembering the dead. Families who have recently lost someone lead parades through the village to pay tribute to those they have lost. People also give thanks to a local priest through food and money. They also exchange food between themselves and we had handfuls of peas and beans forced on us as we were wheel barrowing cement through the village.

Later our family took me and James a nearby house to see a priest and havecolourfulcotton bracelets attached to our wrists. I stupidly left my shoes on when I went in and sat next to the priest. You're meant to remove all footwear before going indoors. My first cultural faux pas, hopefully my last!

Life with our family is still great; it's great to be completely at ease with them, sitting watching TV in the evenings, trying to jump in with the odd bit of Nepali banter. Also, the two chickens that were kept in the backyard when we first arrived have now been dispatched for our eating pleasure. James was offered the chance to kill one of the chickens prior to our eating it. He was well up for it but it didn't pan out. I also think I would be keen if offered. Not for any sick pleasure, just for the experience. Does that make me a bit weird?

Me and James were also discussing how we've become used to life here. Mostly in good ways, like washing all our clothes by hand, taking cold showers every morning, entertaining ourselves during the regular power cuts, helping Princess and Pratik with their English homework, all stuff that's good for the soul! But also in odd ways like how our acceptance of lower standards of cleanliness and hygiene here has become normal. There is no way we could reasonably expect any better from our family or from the local population, and nor do we, it is just surprising how nothing makes us wince anymore, no matter how different to back home...

Anyway thanks for reading, lots of love.

=)