Namaste everyone,
I wasn't sure whether to blog again or wait until closer til "leaving time" but here I am. It's crazy that I'll be returning home so soon, in all honesty I'm petrified. Life here is like a bubble, it's laid back with plentyof time to reflect and gaze at the mountains, coming home is going to be so overwhelming.
This week has been much of the usual stuff. Work has been a bit boring, making cement and wheelbarrowing rocks and sand is getting a tad repetitive.
On Friday morning myself, Meena, Pratik, Ba and Sundar all walked to the temple at 4.45am. It was about a 45 minute walk, plus a casual 178 steep steps to the temple, but the temple was amazing. And I enjoyed chatting to the Nepali scouts, obviously, about what they get to do in their scouting organisation, I had my scout scarf with me from home so managed to swap it with one of the scouts there :)
After visiting the temple some of us went to Kathmandu for the day with Holly and her host sister. The buses were absolutely packed because of the festival and the whole journey to the city was looking out of the window at the goats and chickens near the temples that were about to get killed. During Dashain the families buy goats, chickens, ducks etc to kill to eat; my family bought 4 chickens for the festival which Meena, as a vegetarian, is dreading meaning I having to kill the chickens *gulp*.
Yesterday and today have been the most important days of the festival for our Nivari family. They have to wake up at 4 everyday and walk to the temple, they can only eat beaten rice (which I hate!), we have to take dinner at the old house (which is obviously built for Nepali people as Meena and I cannot stand up straight in it) and it's just very family orientated and reminds me alot of Christmas back home!
Yesterday evening when we took dinner we couldn't use plates (due to the festival) so we had our dinner on banana leaves. They also had to put dinner out for 4 Gods and for my host fathers brother and sister (which today my older brother delivered to their house). We had beaten rice, some type of curry, 2 slices of apple, a banana (which I now LOVE!) and some other snacks! My family also grow their own rice and make rice wine and rice beer; last night I tried both - rice wine is very strong, the alcohol here is much stronger than it is in England! I didn't like the wine, but the beer was quite nice! Meena loves it hehe. Sundar and his brother also came to our old house last night - our families keep making a big deal out of me and Sundar chatting as they aren't sure whether I actually like him or not - haha! Sundar's father came round last night too and I was made to call him father-in-law, very embarrassing! Meena and Jahira found teasing me hilarious though!
This morning Meena and I had to wake up at 7 to go to the old house for breakfast. Before breakfast my host father had to put red tica on everyone's forehead, give us a banana, some holy grass and some money each. My older brother then had to do the same. After breakfast we then had to go to the project office to have the same done by our deputy project supervisor. I then visited Harriet's house after as Meena had gone out with our host brother and had the same done at her house! I have a very red forehead at the moment! All the volunteer's are thinking of ways we can include this little ritual at home now though - free money? yes please haha.
One last thing - when I was at Harriet's earlier (her family are also Nivari) I was talking to her host sister and I said something in Nivari and found out that Nivari's from different counties speak a different version of Nivari! I was quite upset to find that out because I'd tried so hard to learn it! Hehe but her sister said nivari's can understand the different versions which is good, kind of, I guess :)
So yep that's about all I can think about to write at the mo! I was going to upload some photos onto this blog too but I left my camera wire in the house. Apologies for the very brief blog!
Hope everyone is well, looking forward to seeing you all in just over 2 weeks!
Lots of love,
Alyx xxxx
