small goals

When you live on this side of the world you tend to get into the habit of setting small goals for yourself. For example, the other day my goal was to have passport photos made and then drop off an application for a new passport at the American Embassy.

In the states this goal would take no more than an hour. 15 minutes would be spent at Kinko’s getting the picture taken and printed, 5 minutes spent addressing the envelope and dropping the application in the mail and then 30 more minutes at Subway eating a turkey sandwich on honey oat bread. (Turkey sandwiches are on my mind today)

Back to the passport photo…

That morning I got up and ready and met some friends for breakfast. By ten I was headed with a friend to the place to get the passport photo. My friend and I noticed that there was an unusually large amount of traffic…and not just car traffic but pedestrian traffic.

The photo place is just a few stores down from the Stupa gate and the closer we got to the Stupa the amount of people increased.

the Stupa on a normal day

a lot more people than usual 

After taking my picture I was given a ticket to return in 2hrs to pick up my pictures (that was when the power would be on again and they could print the picture).

To get home I had to walk through the Stupa and as I entered the gate I immediately knew that there was some sort of holiday going on. There were sooo many people around. I kept looking at the people trying to decided which group they belong to. I knew for sure that they were not Sherpa or Tibetan.

the nose rings on these ladies are pure Thamong

When trying to figure out a people I look at the women. They are the ones who often give away their heritage with their dress and jewelry.

After looking at a few hundred of these women I was pretty sure that they were Thamong.  On my way home I stopped in at my friends teashop and there she confirmed that it was indeed a Thomong holiday.

where there are a lot of people there is an ice cream guy

A few hours later I made my way through the hoards of people again to pick up my picture. 

What usually takes just a few minutes to walk through took me much longer. So the passport photo process that started at 10am was not completed until 1:30pm.

free water...just don't let the water bottle touch your mouth

This day only proved once again why I set small obtainable goals for myself. One never knows when there is going to be some random holiday, road blockade, or any other random hickup that delays the common task.