Some Final Shenanigans

It was a slow but still eventful final week in Kathmandu. Mostly, the week passed hanging out with volunteers and eating delicious food. But I don’t want to bore you with details. There are three main events that took place that I think are worthy of blog-posting, so here they are.

My uncle Lelei happens to know multiple people from every country. It was of no surprise to me when he sent me the email address of a man named Christian who worked for UNICEF in Kathmandu. Christian sent me an email asking me if I wanted to go “hashing” with him on Saturday afternoon. I tentatively accepted, quite unsure if this person Lelei had set me up with had a drug problem.

I had little to worry about. Christian and a friend picked me up and we drove to the north rim of the Kathmandu valley and parked amongst a bunch of other cars. Apparently two guys from the hashing group had made a trail of finely shredded paper dots earlier that morning. We were split up into two groups, walkers and runners depending on personal preference, and then were to follow the trail. There were false trails set up, and check points where the path could go multiple directions and we would have to scout which way the real path went. So for two and a half hours we were bushwhacking up and down hillsides, through rice paddies and random back roads. By the time we had followed the paper trail back to the cars, I was exhausted and extremely dehydrated.

BUT, there was beer to be drunk. A BIG cooler of it too. I thought it would all be casual consumption, controlling your intake and such, but I was wrong. Since I was a “hashing virgin” I had to be initiated. So I stood in the middle of the circle with two golden/brass mugs filled to the brim with beer, one in each hand to keep my hands out of my pockets, and was interrogated about where I was from, what I was doing in Nepal and World Cup football. Then, while the circle of about thirty people sang and chanted, I had to drink the beer in my hands…all of it. Anything remaining went on my head.

Needless to say, by the time I was dropped off in Thamel to meet up with volunteers for dinner, I was well on my way and waved sloppily to Christian as he drove off. That’s what you get for not drinking at all in Nepal…and then chugging the equivalent of 5 or so beers after 2.5 hours of running and dehydration. On the bright side, Christian ended up being extremely nice, and as I found out, he didn’t have a drug problem at all, just possibly a minor drinking one. But let’s be honest, who doesn’t?

The second event to be noted was rice planting. Since it is the “monsoon season,” there are lots of little festivals for the planting of rice, since it occurs during this time of year. A group of us volunteers went out to help a family plant their rice. We probably did more harm than good. Since there was no rain (the monsoon is very late this year) we were pumping water from a well with a generator. The generator, like most things in Nepal, broke, so then we were confronted with the task submerging the entire paddy in several inches of water manually. Then the well ran out of water. So we just had a big mud fight. Literally, faces pushed in mud, bodies tackled, all out mud wars. It was awesome. Oh, and we planted a couple rice seedlings in a small area that had been successfully watered.

Then our director Sajani suggested we go rinse off in the river. The “river” ended up being an 18-inch wide cement canal with a little water running through it. We didn’t get very clean, but the family still treated us all to a Nepali meal for our efforts in the field. I felt a little guilty eating it.

The third and final event worth noting was a Fourth of July festival that I attended on the third of July here, so the second of July in the States? It was at the American Club…an extension of the Embassy. All you had to do was show your American passport and you were allowed past the massive walls with barbed wire and armed guards.

The grounds were clean and very westernized. There was a huge grass field with a baseball diamond and a soccer goal. Two large tents of red, white and blue provided ample space for people to eat and drink in the comfort of shade. There was a full-fledged BBQ going on: hamburgers, potato salad, the works. My friend Jerene and I got ice cream (which is never really good in Nepal, not much flavor and always half melted when you buy it, but hey, it was the Fourth) and wandered around talking to other people. I was amazed at how many families there were and how American they looked. Little kids in American flag dresses, women with the ridiculously patriotic looking broaches and hats and men with beer in their hands. It was interesting to hear what these people were doing in Nepal and see that they were actually raising a family in this place.

Jerene and I were not too old to get our faces painted, henna tattoos on our hands, enjoy a watermelon-eating contest and play some Frisbee. It was a very different way to celebrate the Fourth of July. I would have much preferred the Columbia River back home as usual…and fireworks…but it was an experience all the same.

Well, now I’m in the Hong Kong airport on a layover and headed back home! It is technically the Fourth of July now back home, so I think I will treat myself to a REAL hamburger (those don’t exist in Nepal) and a beer from Burger King. Yes, the Burger King here sells beer. It’s awesome.

Thanks for following the blog, hope you got some enjoyment out of it! Maybe you all want to travel to Nepal now? Maybe you don’t want to travel to Nepal anymore? Either way, can’t wait to see you all back in the grand state of Washington.