leaving the country

Due to the type of visa that I currently have in Nepal I am forced to leave the country for a few weeks. On Monday morning I found myself sitting at the travel agents making arrangements to go to India.

My plans are rough to say the least. What I have planned so far is to make it past customs, board a plane, and hope to find a phone when I arrive at my destination. From that point I have a name and phone number to call…and pray for the best.

I would like to believe that I am flexible, laid back, easy going etc. thus making me a pro at navigating through “rough” travel. The truth be told I don’t trust myself to travel alone. It is in times like these that I cling to the knowledge that God is traveling right along side me.

He asked me to sign up for this adventure “single” fully knowing that He would be my travel companion.

meet my friend

It was turning out to be a bad day. It was another rainy day; I had errands to run, forcing me to drive in the rain. By 5:30pm my errands were finished but I was cold and wet. I decided to go to my favorite restaurant for some Tibetan soup called tentuk. As I indulged in my warm hearty soup the owner, a friend of mine, came up to me and asked if I would help her friend. She explained to me that her friend was getting ready to go to Korea for more beauty school training and that she was nervous about her English and wanted someone to practice with.

Now, you should know that for days I have been walking around the streets of my neighborhood praying for a friend…wondering how I could connect with single girls my age.

I told the restaurant owner that I would be happy to help and the next thing I know we are walking down the street to the salon to meet my new friend. After drinking some tea at the salon we came up with a plan. I would meet Dolma at 8am at her salon. We would talk for and hour and a half and then go get lunch. Yes that’s right lunch at 9:30am. During lunch we would speak Nepali, thus helping me out. (The Restaurant owner, Me & Dolma)

Although I have not been a fan of getting up early and eating lunch early I have enjoyed our conversations. During our language practice I have found a lot about Nepali and Sherpa culture. I have also had the chance to share a little about my life and the things that are important to me.

I am so thankful that God dropped this friend in my lap. Due to my visa I have to leave the country for a few weeks. The bad news is that when I come back into Nepal Dolma will have left for Korea where she plans to be for six months.

I plan on continuing to visit Dolma’s beauty parlor while she is gone in hope to form friendships with the employees. I will miss my morning chats with Dolma but I am thankful for the few weeks we had. We have already set plans for dinner when she returns to Nepal in April.

               "Marinoz" beauty salon

hitch hiker

This week the majority of Nepal is celebrating the holiday called Dasain. It’s a Hindu holiday dedicated to the goddess cali. This holiday is the equivalent to America’s Christmas. There are a lot of Hindu traditions involved but what I can figure is that the majority of this holiday is spent with family eating and talking.

All schools and businesses are closed and the neighborhood kids spend their afternoon singing and playing games.
Today as I was rolling my scooter out of the gate I was suddenly surrounded by the neighborhood kids that kept saying hello. I took their picture, which they enjoyed, and had a quick chat about the games they were playing…turns out they were playing what we in America call “tag”.

The kids decided that they wanted to race me and my scooter. So after a “one, two, THREE” we were off. I went as slow as possible so as not to hit a kid but eventually passed them. As I came to the end of the street, with the children waving at me through my side mirror, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Low and behold one of the little munchkins managed to jump on to the back of my bike and hitched a ride. We had a good laugh over his little trick as I helped him off and I went on my way.

I found myself smiling as I drove to language school. That little hitch hiking kid made my day.

Yes, their little foreheads are red from the blessings given to them by the older members of their family.

friends in town

I’m catching up on my bog so forgive me for starting out with the phrase “a couple of weeks ago”…

A couple of weeks ago it seemed like all of my single friends were in town plus a few more. When everyone is in town we often eat together. If it is not out at a restaurant then it is at someone’s house.

One evening had us out at the Nepal bowling ally. This is a two-lane alley where I’m pretty sure that the lanes slant just a little. Some other quirks are

*you choose your own shoe and there is not super natural bowling alley shoe spray.

*when the ball hits the lane it sounds like it is making a hole in the floor

*Nepalis are impressed with a score of 60 i.e. Nepali bowling allies are good for the ego.


The day after bowling my friends came over to my house for dinner and dessert. Betsy baked these yummy gewy brownies for dessert. A little mishap occurred some where between pulling the brownies out of the oven and letting them cool. Next thing we know there was a crashing sound and brownies were on the floor.
It was a sad sad moment.

Because I am not the only person who has lived in my current apartment I decided to search through my kitchen to see what I could find when low and behold I found a mysterious packet. It looked like either a cake mix or a brownie mix but it was not in a box. Our friend Jeremy walked into the kitchen took a look at the mystery mix and said, “that’s a brownie mix…add an egg and oil and you’re good to go”.

We took Jeremy’s word for it and 35 minutes later we had warm gooey brownies.


It was truly a brownie miracle.
I believe that sometimes God wants to give us the "small" things in life...like a hot pan of brownies. I pray that you may someday experience this type of miracle.

Hug a Raindrop Today

Monsoon life is quickly coming to an end. It’s not raining every day and already the temperature is cooler in the evening.
Yesterday I was supposed to meet up with some friends for lunch. As I walked outside it was raining but because it was only a sprinkle I thought that I could outrun it. It always rains in Boudha and sometimes once you get to the other side of town the sun is shining. This however did not happen yesterday…it was the opposite actually. The closer I got to the other side of town the harder it rained. By the time I arrived at the restaurant I was soaked. At least I was in good company for my friends drive scooters as well and they got caught in the rain just like me.

As we took off our helmets and jackets my friends stopped and looked at me. They pointed to my shirt and said, “this is all your fault” That day I had decided to wear my “Hug a Raindrop” shirt. I purchased the shirt in honor of living in the Portland metro area.

Sitting at the restaurant swapping stories we hoped that the rain would die down before we moved on to our next appointments. Two O’clock rolled around and the rain was nowhere near stopping. We all donned our gear, took a picture, and headed back out into the rain.

I was off to language school with the hopes that the rain would stop during my two-hour class….again this did not happen; in fact I’m pretty sure it started raining harder. My teacher was gracious and we sat drinking green tea for an hour praying that rain would stop long enough for us to go out. My teacher had to leave for a birthday party so we were both forced to go out into the rain yet again.

My drive home seemed to take forever. It just kept raining and raining and all the while I was cursing my stupid Hug A Raindrop shirt. Then, as if mother nature was mocking me on my head phones (yes I listen to my i-pod while I drive) the song “Umbrella” came on. The words “you can stand under my umbrella ella ella ella” were like cruel cruel joke.
Because of the heavy rains and flooding my rain soaked journey home took an hour. By the time I reached home I was chilled to the bone and headed strait to the hot shower. If I were superstitious I would probably never wear that raindrop shirt again.

Baking a Cake

I have never been much of a cook. Don’t get me wrong I know how to cook; I even took a cooking class in high school. It’s just that I have never enjoyed cooking. Over the years I have been the ultimate younger child in the sense that I always rope someone else into cooking. Growing up mom or dad cooked. In college I was always blessed with a roommate who could cook and when I lived in Bangladesh I had a live in cook. Now that I'm living alone I am currently without a “cook”. If I don’t eat out then I usually opt for toast or cereal.

This is a problem when I volunteer to host Sunday night fellowship. The host is supposed to provide the meal and I’m too proud to NOT provide this meal….even though I would love to dump it off on someone else.
This week fellowship is at a single guys house and so I took pity on him and volunteered to bring dessert. Now in the states I would leave my house a few minutes early on the way to fellowship and pick dessert up at the store. Here in Nepal that is not an option. So this evening I took on the task of making a cake.

Thanks to my house helper I now know how to light my stove. Making the cake batter was not too difficult and to my surprise I managed to bake the cakes without burning them. I say cakes because the plan was for two layers.

Now, the frosting for the cake was what I was worried about. I have never made frosting and was not sure what confectioners sugar was (thanks to the internet I now know that it is powdered surge) My original plan was to call up my friend Betsy and get her to make me some frosting. To my dismay Betsy was not home, leaving me on my own to make the frosting. So with apprehension I dove into “creaming the butter” adding in cream and sugar, and eventually adding the vanilla. When it was all said and done I ended up with some pretty tasty frosting. Although the actual frosting of the cake turned out to be a messy process I managed to cover the entire cake and that’s what counts. As a special treat I pounded some M&Ms and sprinkled them on top.


Why do I blog about making a cake? Because this was my first time to make the whole cake from start to finish…with no help. (Insert a pat on my back)
I was talking with my old roomie the other day and I said, “I’m pretty sure this country is going to domesticate me.” We had a good laugh.

Tij

Recently Nepal celebrated the holiday called Tij. This holiday is for women only. It is a day when all women get the day off…no school, no work, no cooking. Most women on this day dress in red and head down to the temple to offer up prayers. Thanks to the festivities I was stuck in traffic and took a few pictures to show you a few of the women in their red saris.


Four years ago when I was living in Nepal my roommate and I were invited to go and hang out with a few women on this holiday. Although we did not go down to a temple we did get all dolled up. Our Nepali friend did our make up and made sure our saris were tucked and folded in all the right places. One particular friend did not like the fact that my hair was short and that she could not put it in some sort of fancy up do.
The picture that I post below is a result of our friend attempt to make me more Nepali.

Out of all of the holidays that we have in the states why don't we have one for women? Sure, there is mothers day but what about the rest of us. Although there are days when Nepal seems like it is far from advanced I have to admit that they have one up on the US when it comes to having a holiday for women.