The three following short stories are random excerpts from my exciting daily life here in Nepal in this past month. I hope you enjoy, and I hope these stories encourage you to look for interesting and funny things in the world around you... there are lots of things everywhere to laugh over, or cry over, as we have eyes to see.
Driving in Kathmandu
So, as I have been enjoying my new bike and driving around the city, I thought that it might be nice to share with you a mental picture of what the streets look like. It's a bit like off-roading, except that the road is the off-roading experience. Mountains, crevasses, deep chasms and cesspools... these are all usual road features. There are also animals (cows, dogs, chickens, ducks, goats) roaming around, piles of trash set up in random places, and pedestrians (who definitely believe they have the right-of-way) wandering lazily back and forth across every busy thoroughfare. And lastly, there are other vehicles. I don't think that most of these people passed the driving test. Honestly, I don't believe they took the driving test!
Anyway, it is exciting to drive around here, because every day feels like a video game. Who needs virtual reality games? Who needs "Fast and Furious"? Just move to Nepal, and you get to BE the virtual reality! If I haven't sold you on the pleasures of driving in Nepal yet, maybe this will encourage you: It is a great place to hone up your devensive driving skills. Every moment is a prime opportunity to practice defensive driving. If you've been mandated to take a defensive driving course, look no further than Kathmandu! We have it all, plus MORE: fun, excitement, animal theme park, dirt-biking, TV-thrills, speed... rollercoasters will feel boring to you after this.
Bus Boy
"Shmorshevaddaaddaaaaahhhh," he couldn't have yelled any closer to my ear without getting candy-flavored spit all over my eardrum! I turned to face him. A typical bus boy, probably about mid-teens, with sagging pants and all his shirt buttons undone. He had a huge lollipop in his mouth, which was making his speech a bit garbled. "Pardon? Did you say you are going to Baise Pati?" I asked. He shook his head, which means, "yes," in this part of the world. So, I hopped on his bus. Magazine pictures of girls were plastered all over the sides and the ceiling. With the volume turned WAY up, inside the bus, the effect was "Nepali pop music in surround sound." The driver turned around and stared at me. Typical bus-driver attire is: muscle shirt, shorts, tattoos (especially on the arms) and a constant cigarette. This guy fit the prototype. Meanwhile, the bus boy (the one who had yelled in my ear at first) wandered around outside the bus, looking for more victims. "Bagdol, Nakkhu, Baise Pati, Baise Pati, Baisi Pati!" People trickled on, and the bus started filling up. I settled back in my seat. I knew we weren't going anywhere until the driver was satisfied that he had enough passengers to make the journey worth his time. I looked out the window. A mini-bus flew past. When I say the bus "flew," I don't mean that it literally flew... it was merely speeding. A split-second later, a college boy flew past! When I say the boy "flew," I mean, literally, he did. He made a flying leap right past my window onto the back bumper of the flying mini-bus! Sometimes, buses don't wait for passengers around here. You have to be agressive when getting on or off. That sometimes involves running, lunging, leaping, diving... but I had never seen someone fly like this before! He flew at least two car lengths, I am certain.
I wonder how many people there are in this country (or in the world, for that matter) who could enter the Olympics and put all other contenstants to shame, if they only had proper training. Or consider our bus boy: he could be a great orator, if he could remember to speak without candy in his mouth. Or he could be something else. Maybe he is quite intelligent. Perhaps musically talented. But, how far will he go to reach his optential? Boys like him don't have a lot of options. If he is lucky, he will make his way up to becoming a bus driver.
How many people does it take to make an IV drip drip?
So, I was sitting in the hospital with my little sister (we had to take her in for an extreme case of giardia). She was extremely dehydrated, feverish/chilled... so, I took her into the emergency room, and, Nepali hospitals being as they are, let me just make a long story short and tell you, it was a long night! As I was sitting on my little sister's bed (yes, ON the bed, not BY the bed, because all the other stools were taken), I scoured the room with my eyes, looking for signs of people getting up off of their stools to go to the bathroom, or talk to a nurse or something. If someone did get up, that was my queue to race over there as soon as their back was turned, capture their stool, and then race back over here and sit calmly upon it as if nothing had happened. It was like a massive game of musical chairs. Made the long time waiting for doctors and nurses a bit more exciting for everyone.
Anyway, I was out of luck at the moment, so I was sitting on the bed. Our neighbor (on the cot beside ours) was an old woman with some kind of stomach pain. She had her whole family around her... probably her brothers or husband's brothers, or something. They all huddled around the bed together. One old man in the group glanced over at us (me and my little sister on the bed) and with a horrified look on his face said, "Hey, young sister, don't you see that her IV drip has stopped!" I glanced up. He was right. I tried to get it going again by rubbing her arm, but I couldn't get it to go. "No! No! No! You are doing it wrong! I know how to do it!" He pushed me out of the way, and tried doing the same thing I had been doing. Didn't work. "You don't know anything. Here, do like this." said another of the old men, and he started waving her arm up and down. "Hey, both of you get out of the way, this is what you have to do." Before I could say anything, five old guys had surrounded our bed, all greatly concerned and fighting over my sister's IV drip! "Sirs, sirs, excuse me. Please, don't worry about this. I will manage it." It was a good thing the nurse finally came along and saved us. The rest of the day was a fun juggling act of playing three games at once: musical stools, hide-and-go-seek with the doctors, and "keep away" with the old guys and the IV drip.
As I said, daily life here in Nepal is exciting.
