Jailbreak

After volunteering today....... actually I didn't go to volunteering today. Before you get upset, realize that I was sick and it wouldn't have been possible to go because my stomach was not agreeing with me. So instead I stayed back and hung out in the bathroom. I know you guys don't want to read about this but if you want a real Nepal blog, this would be much more graphic and talked about much more often. I told a friend, after they asked what the most difficult thing about being here was and I decided that a collective answer would be, getting sick. Whether you try hard or not (like Sam downing vitamins daily) you will get sick here if you spend enough time in Nepal. Most people have stomach problems, it's just a given. It's not that bad unless it lasts for days or weeks on end and you're really tired because you're so dehydrated. However, if you have Uma for a host mom, she'll force you to chug 1L worth of dehydration salt that "tastes" like orange. It's only taken to make you feel better but let me tell you, it tastes TERRIBLE!

Anyway, after all of that, Sam and I continued helping our kids here with their studies. However, at this point, I'm even sick of studying and I'm not even being tested, I can't imagine how these kids feel. Actually I can imagine, it took me almost twice as long just to get Pangum and Sangmu to tell me what subject they have tomorrow. (It's confusing because they were given a schedule last week but the schedule doesn't really matter here because in Nepal you can tend to have bandh (strikes) about three times a week, just another happening here) After studying with them we decided to go to the corner store for a treat. Uma had gone out for a meeting, so we took the kids to the corner store and bought them Kurkure, these delicious spicy cheeto like things. Sam and I had an ice cream sandwich and got one for Nubina as well. It was yummy.

After that, we asked Nubina to show us how to cook and I took notes, chopped veggies, took pictures and observed as she cooked for the children downstairs and as she and Uma collaborated upstairs for our dinner and dessert; fried rice and rice pudding. Would you like some rice pudding with your rice? :) We thought it this was amusing because we have rice every day, twice a day and today, three times! Ha. I took notes and tried to get down as much as I could about the cooking but just like most things here in Nepal, there's no measuring, nothing is exact and you just roll with it. We enjoyed the rice pudding warm with all the children upstairs in the family room. It's a great feeling when all of us are together in the family room before the children go to bed, they usually dance or do goofy things and call us fat cat and it's just fun to be around.

That's mostly all for today, but I thought I'd add some possible blog titles for the future:
-Goodnight Mummy (we hear this everynight, usually from the kids and in unison)
-Your Name is Fat Cat
-This is What?
-Part-Time Boyfriend

Goodnight! I've got to go run and grab my drying clothes from the roof before the nightly monsoon starts :)