"The white people in your country, they do not like the black haired people so much…I am sorry to tell you this," Shyam told us, summarizing his observations from his recent trip to America.
Emily's first friend in Nepal was born the same day as her, on the other side of the world. Today, he's a fairly well-off Nepali with two stores in Thamel, the tourist-center of Kathmandu, and a factory which makes "traditional" "handcrafted" Nepali clothing. He primarily exports his wares to France and the United States and spends at least two months a year in Europe and America.
Over dinner, he broke the sad news to us that our fellow countrymen are bigots. He visited Nepali friends in Los Angeles who stick together because they do not feel welcome into society.
However, America has many aspects he likes including Las Vegas and AAA. "It's like magic! They came in less than 15 minutes!," he said of AAA which towed his faulty rental car when the headlights inexplicably went out while heading from Vegas to LA.
The miracles we overlook….
Having dinner with Shyam and his new wife was fun. These are the things we came to Kathmandu to enjoy. The unexpected observations and exchanges with Nepali friends is a clear "up" to our days.
At the moment, I am down…on the floor, typing in the dark at 3:07 am while Emily sleeps. My iPad ran out of power, the cord isn't that long, the outlet adapters aren't great and there are only so many power outlets. We leave for Nagarkot at 11:30am and I have articles to write "tomorrow", so I here I am.
Ten minutes ago, I finished my last article of the day. Why things are taking so long these days, I can't fully explain. The Internet works well enough here. It has some slow downs and outages, but not enough to take the blame.
I don't feel well – my stomach has been hurting for days and I'm often tired. The fatigue has improved and I think the stomach is just some bug one gets when you first start traveling the third world. It will pass, but it plays a part in my slowness.
We spent some time today working on settling a hotel for Mumbai. That has been surprisingly complicated. It turns out Mumbai isn't cheap – everyone says the most expensive place in India – and high-speed Internet is common, but not ubiquitous. Plus, no one knows their Internet speed on the first try and the hotel rates in the Lonely Planet are all "very old" despite the book being published less than a year ago.
Thankfully, we got it all sorted out and Mumbai is looking promising.
Why did it take three hours to get this project done? I really can't say. That's just what it takes.
Everything in Nepal seems to take longer than we expect. Nothing goes quite as smoothly as one would hope. It reminds me of Thailand – so long as you don't need anything, it's really a lot of fun. But if you have things to accomplish and you're used to efficient systems, then it's a real downer.
Emily has also found that work which took her a couple of hours has turned into full days because of Internet speeds. Even our "fast" connection at our beloved Vajra doesn't prevent major slow-downs for her. And her 3G wireless modem works wonderfully, until it doesn't. The speed always drops off at some point leaving her stranded.
Sometimes when you're stranded, the only thing to do is hike. So, in the morning, a car will pick is up and drive us to a small town and hour and a half outside Kathmandu. From there, we will walk about two hours to Nagarkot where we'll spend the night at The Farmhouse – the sister hotel to where we're currently staying.
Our choice of day was neither random or accidental. Vajra is filling with American physicians and medical students here for a global medicine seminar in which they will collaborate with Nepali clinicians and government officials on issues troubling the country. Some elements are trainings, others involve developing ways for the American medical community to support the Nepali one.
Talking with the intelligent and adventuresome doctors and nurses putting on the program is inspiring. Watching the med students with their laptops and iPad's pour in is interesting. I'm not the sole iPad user anymore and it's Gray's Anatomy in the hotel lobby.
Since the hotel was fully booked for the night of the 19th, we decided on this weekend to go to Nagarkot to view the Himalayas at sunrise. We had no idea how ready we would be for the change.
Best yet, while we go get some fresh air and experience the "real Nepal", we leave our physician friends to do some good and uplifting work. The brilliant doctors from the University of New Mexico have been working hard for the last week setting up everything and we're excited to come back and hear how it went.
It's a time of ups and downs here. Each day, we have moments of laughter and support and others of frustration and fatigue. Time warps here. Things are challenging. At the same time, our life is easy and great.
We have the tallest mountains in the world just nearby and we're going to go spend the weekend with them. From the floor in Room 101, everything's looking up.
PS – This weekend is the first time it will be possible that I can't send the blog. I will endeavor to as usual, but if our faithful readers don't see a new post Saturday or Sunday, please don't be alarmed.
Sent from my iPad
