Amrit is just about one of my favorite people who I met in Nepal. He’s 23 and just has one of the most optimistic and happy dispositions on the planet. Amrit’s uncle, Barbajaun owns Family Guesthouse  (and just about everything in Pharping) and Amrit lives at the guesthouse and acts as the “den-mom” of sorts for all of the volunteers living at the guesthouse through VSSN. Our first days in Pharping will forever be shaped in my memory by Amrit’s joyfulness. Although we had some problems with VSSN, Amrit’s welcome came instantly…and even though he couldn’t figure out my name at first…or really ever, he was as genuine as they come and has a fantastically infectious laugh that registers in somewhere between a giggle and crescendo-ing cackle (video will come in a future post).

For the first week of our stay at the guesthouse Amrit was responsible for handling the cooking of our meals because Carna, the regular cook, was on a vacation back to his village.  Once Carna made it back to the guesthouse our meals were a constant source of murmured laughter. Although the world of uber-style and the latest fashions is new to me…I quickly became a student of fashion over the weeks in Pharping. Man did they beat to their own drum! Carna was a pretty hip guy – he wore trendy Western-style clothes and was always sporting the latest in Nepali fashion. One day he came  in with our dinner plates and we all stared in fascination at the carefully placed band-aids at the bottom on his shirt. Band-aids are apparently “hip” when worn on the clothing in a cross pattern, an “x,” or any other variation said wearer can come up with. Over the three weeks we witnessed these band-aids steadily migrate around Kona’s clothes from the hem of his long button-down shirt to the calf part of his knee and other decidedly bizarre positions.

Another baffling trend in India and Nepal – the gel-met. I don’t want to be catty or anything…but…I mean…well…ok…how can I not…it’s a full-on GELMET. How can I not at least notice it and point it out I ask you?! Between the gel-met and the soft mullet, I was just a little thrown. Couple the gel-met with a two-inch pinky finger nail (for fashion’s sake here, nothing to do with drug culture…I asked twice to be sure!) and a couple of band-aids on your clothes and you would be at the height of Nepali fashion as I observed it.

Mostly everyone we met in Nepal was genuinely friendly and curious -the only really frustrating part about the whole country is the power situation.  For the first three weeks in Nepal the government allowed each region of the country eight non-consecutive hours of power a day. The kicker though was that we never quite knew when the power was coming back. Basically, each day it ran from either 12-4 am and pm, 4-8 am and pm, or 8-12 am and pm – once the first block of power came on for the day I could be relatively certain that it would come back on at the same time that evening. As an added bonus,  Nepal was just entering a bit of the rainy season so the power company would so graciously gift us with a few extra hours a couple days a week.

I got really good use out of my headlamp (so very fashionable as well, let me assure you but a backpacker essential!) the whole time I was in Nepal because I had to have it on my person from dusk until dawn or risk being, literally, caught with my pants down sitting on a toilet in the pitch black darkness. We did a lot by candlelight every night -it’s a lot harder than you think to take a shower by the tiny illumination of a small headlamp or read a book by the glowing light of a dim candle precariously perched between our two beds! One of the Nepali men I passed on my walk to the monastery told me his favorite joke nearly every day: What is the most romantic country on earth?

Nepal, because they treat their wives to candlelit dinners every night!

Ok, I know it’s corny! But this hunched-over-ancient-little old man would beckon me over to his morning perch on a rock wall and delight me with this joke – it’s a testament to his sincerity that I was able to listen to it with a grin on my face and give a hearty chuckle.

During my last few weeks in Nepal the Indian government agreed to sell more power to the country – then our electricity was bumped up to 12 hours each day instead of eight! I just have to note, it is soooooo frustrating and foreign to me to be without power. Then when you consider that I am working online from the road to pay for this trip…well, it was difficult.

Every time the light in our room would flicker to life and greet me with glorious illumination I  would snatch up my laptop and scurry over to the internet cafe three shops down from our guesthouse to post my work, update my blog and furiously whirl my fingers over the keyboard in an effort to get as much done as humanly possible while the electricity lasted. As an added plus, internet was just 25 rupees an hour (roughly 40 cents) and the man who ran the shop was super sweet. One wee little girl frequently played on the floor of the café while I was online -she could tell I was a sucker for children, would chant didi at me (big sister) whenever I stopped playing peek-a-boo with her.

Holidays have come and passed over the past seven months – some went virtually unnoticed and I scarcely remembered they existed with Hallmark commercials to jog my memory. Others though are fun to keep track of and celebrate as a way to remind ourselves of home. Helen, Cara, Laurel, and I (Louise left to head onward to Thailand and Indonesia and Laurel joined the crew and volunteered at the nearby health clinic) boiled and colored eggs (with markers) to celebrate the Easter holiday and treated ourselves to curd and honey for desert.

For Helen’s birthday we went a little fancier and actually bought a loaf of brown bread for breakfast and taught the cooks how to make French toast (Helen mentioned a secret craving for this breakfast food the previous week) and celebrated in the evening with a little cake and some snacks we picked up in Kathmandu.