days off

A dancer, happy to have finished picking his nose.

I haven’t been taking most of my days off.  I technically have every Wednesday off, but I feel bad taking it when none of the other employees in PT get a day off, and, with an upcoming trek, I figure that’ll be enough time off.  I’m slowing learning, however, that I can burn out.  Anyhow, PT in the last week or so has been eternally slow...for a combination of several reasons.  There are now 7 of us working in PT, and I think that contributes to the large amount of sitting around time.  Also, one of the ortho doctors is on vacation and the other doesn’t refer as many patients to PT.  AND, it’s been pouring rain non-stop since last ... I forget.  The rain makes it hard for people to get places.  So, since not much was going on in PT, I didn’t feel as bad asking for a half day off on Tuesday.

Annual change of the janai.

It was the first festival of festival season, Janai Purnima.  I went with Parvati in the morning up to a Hindu temple on the side of a mountain; well, tall hill.  As we went up the hill, we slipped and slid in the thick mud along with hundreds of other people.  The whole hill was completely socked in by fog, and it was a very pretty hike.  It seems kind of funny to me that you’d have this huge festival on top of a hill, but at the same time it’s good everyone has to exercise to get there!  I didn’t actually go in the temple - didn’t feel the need.  However, I did take plenty of pictures of things going on around the temple.  It felt like I was at a fair, and sometimes I even felt like I was at a Pathfinder fair - but I think that was just because it was raining.  I borrowed a huge umbrella, one under which 3 people could have stayed dry, and Parvati told me, “Everyone is commenting on how big your umbrella is!”  Right after that, someone told me, “So big your umbrella!!”  “I know!!”  I said emphatically.  But at least I was dry.

Parvati took me to her house where we had tea, bread, and kwatti - a special festival dish consisting of 9 different pulses.  Tasted SO good.  We looked at pictures of her family and then we dressed up in wedding saris and took pictures.  After I sloshed and slipped and puddle jumped back to the hospital, maintenance finally came to fix my leaking bathroom pipe, so I didn’t make it back to work until 2:45 pm.  Upon my arrival, there were no patients (there were 4 only in the morning - because of the festival), and Sajan and Ujit were there taking inventory.  Everyone was in an especially good mood and we had a lot of laughs over little things.  Then Januka gave me backrub; working in PT has its perks!

Today, Wednesday, I took my actual day off.  I needed to go to Kathmandu to collect the appropriate permits for next week’s trek with Jeff.  I took the hospital van in and they dropped me off at the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) Office.  They were very helpful, and I managed to convince them that I needed to fill out the form in Jeff’s absence, because at first he was not going to let me.  And then conveniently, the office right next door where I have to get the TIMS card was closed.  I hadn’t realized that today was a holiday as well.  It’s not celebrated by everyone and not all schools take the day off.  It’s a cow festival, where, as the man I met on the bus later told me, “people dress up as cows and people will laugh at them.  They find enjoyment in making people laugh.”  So apparently these lovely TIMS card folks were celebrating the cows.  The ACAP people sent me off to find another office in Malaguin.  But first I went to the Nepal Mountaineering Organization in Naxal.  This was probably my favorite part of the day.  They were closed as well, but Sherpa Tendi just happened to be sitting outside.  He’s an instructor for the mountaineering classes, and told me a little about the expeditions he’s going on in the next couple months.  He answered all my questions and gave me his email, phone number and website address.  Wow, I so want to be climbing right now!  After this he directed me to this other ACAP office.  His directions sounded quite simple, but after asking about 10 different people where this ridiculous place was, and nobody knowing, and walking around the same 4 blocks a few times, I gave up.  I’ll have to find a way to get Jeff’s TIMS card some other day.  If only Jeff were a local like me, he wouldn’t need one!  haha.  

I walked clear back to Thamel where I took refuge from the noise outside in Or2K.  As soon as I got inside, it started to pour rain again, so my timing was perfect.  I read the Himalayan Times while I waited for my food.  You may or may not have heard about the flight to Lukla that crashed yesterday, but it has been top news here.  They had a nice little article about the three people who missed the flight.  One man due to traffic and the other lady and her child due to the child falling off the bed in the morning and they had gone to the clinic.  I’d say there’s never been a better time to fall out of bed!

I bought a few other needed things, and then headed to the Bhaktapur bus park.  And then guess what happened?!  The sun started shining!!!  You would not even know how good it felt.  I haven’t seen the sun since the day I saw the Himalayas, and it has been continuously dumping rain for the last 5 days.  We have new lakes, rivers, and mudslides everywhere.  Fortunately our flooding has not been as bad as that of Pakistan’s and our mudslides not as bad as China’s, but we are definitely in need of some drying out, that’s for sure.  After finding the Banepa/Dulikhel bus, we left relatively empty.  (All the seats were full, but nobody was standing, so ... basically empty hah.  However when we got to Bhaktapur, nearly 40 cow festival goers loaded onto our bus and we barely made it up the hill to Sanga.) I sat next to a nice guy named Prabin, who studies Electrical and Computer Engineering in Kathmandu and works in Sanga.  We talked about lots of things, and he told me he used to always fall asleep on the bus, missing his stop in Sanga and ending up in Banepa or sometimes even Dulikhel!  But he told me that now his body recognizes the cool breeze when you climb the hill to Sanga - and it was true, the air gets so much better right at that point!  After all this rain, the sun shining on the hills and fields reflected such a bright green.  Man I love Nepal!  And if this weather is fall, well then I approve!  But I’m trying not to get ahead of the weather.  Who knows, it may be raining again in the morning.  

roaming priest

Slogging through the mud

I'm too tall!