what a great day!

dear you,
i'm burnt.
not crispy, but maybe medium-well.
it's cuz i was in the sun basically all day yesterday.
and i forgot sunscreen on the other side of the world.
i was helping goma do laundry up on the roof.
it's a very long process involving many pans of water and many scrubbings and many rounds of dunking to get all the soap off.
i was the hang-the-clothes-on-the-line person.
i wish i could have helped more, but i don't know her system.
so while was waiting for something to hang, i took artsy photos.
well.
as artsy as i can get with my little point-and-shoot.
gita came up and started helping goma too, so then i had more things to hang because it was going faster.
so basically i was on the roof, in the middle of the day, in the bright sun, wearing all black.
good move for a white girl.
and then, as if i hadn't had enough sun for the day.
goma and i walked all the way back to the place she bought me the kurta.
i don't mind being in the sun at all, and the walk was really nice.
goma doesn't like the main road, which makes perfect sense.
walking in the dust next to a bunch of cars and motorcycles isn't super fun.
so we took a bunch of back roads, which was really quiet and relaxing.
when we got to the little shop, the lady was working on my kurta right as we walked in.
it didn't take too long, and we were back out again, new kurta in hand :)
we slowly made our way back, going via the fruit market and the vegetable stands.
i think all the produce stacked together is beautiful.
and there shall be pictures eventually.
goma also treated us to lunch at a little cafe.
we had tiny pizza and cake!
it was normal chocolate cake, but they froze it, so it was ALMOST like ice cream cake.
almost.
we also went to a juice stand, and they squished pomegranate seeds right in front of us and made juice!
i was scared to drink it cuz who knows what kind of diseases these places carry, but it tasted ok.
i'm praying that God will answer my prayer about having an iron stomach cuz i've been eating a bunch of crazy stuff.
the juice was surprisingly pink, since the seeds are really deep red.
as we walked i tried to find postcards, but no such luck so we just returned home.
i was only home for a couple minutes when debaki came in and said we were going out.
so we did.
i was looking for postcards, she was looking for sweets for the gods because saturday is their holy day too.
and we found postcards!
the ugliest, most tacky postcards i've ever seen, but postcards nonetheless.
so if you get a postcard in the mail that is sent from nepal, but has a picture that makes your eyes want to die, it's from me :)
we went to a shop where a girl was putting strange things on top of leaves and then rolling the leaves up.
a lot of men were putting them in their cheeks, so i'm guessing a tobacco, nicotine, bad stuff for your body but very addicting thing was goin on.
and of course, the gods love these things, so debaki bought some to take to the temple.
as we were walking back home, we passed a white guy who was the epitome of hipster.
navy cardigan pushed up to the elbows.
tan chinos.
thick black glasses.
TOMS.
i was about to tell him that i liked his TOMS, but then i remembered that just because he's white, doesn't mean he speaks english.
or that i should talk to him.
so i walked past, pretending i'd never seen him like a champ.
we walked back through a bunch of little trail type streets and split at the orphanage.
and that's where the case of the stolen camera begins.
don't worry.
i didn't lose my camera, it was just taken from me and used until the battery ran out.
i probably have at least one picture of all the kids now.
not very well focused, but that captures the essence of the chaos that ensued from the sighting of my camera.
i was a little worried at first, but i told them they could use it if they put the strap around their wrists and they all did very well at remembering to do that.
no worries.
2 little girls attached themselves to me and taught me the usual little girl hand games.
of course i didn't know what they were chanting as we high fived and clapped but one of the rhymes was about tom and jerry and something about coca-cola and pepsi.
idk how they got from one to the other, but whatevs.
everyone was sitting in rows eating rice and dahl, which made our game kinda a spectacle.
except that my camera was still taking center stage.
i didn't see it again until a sheepish little boy brought it back to me because the battery was dead.
it was really dark when i started the leaving process.
lots of yelling and laughing and more yelling.
in the babies room they all wanted me to shake their hands.
so i did.
each one had like 5 turns.
they're so cute :)
i've decided i like 4 year olds.
that's how old jumuna and suse are, and they're the cutest things i ever did see.
lots more yelling out the windows as i walked down the street.
did i mention that that's a great feeling?
cuz it is.
we had a girl supper cuz lila was at a friends house.
goma made a suspicious looking salad that turned out to be pretty tasty, which was a relief :)
and debaki and i watched the last 2 episodes of 'boys before flower'
i've already seen it, but i don't mind watching a good love story again ;)
and by good, i mean really cheesy.
but that's totally what makes it good.
so yea.
lots of sun, walking, smiling, cuddling little ones, laughing, posing for pictures, yelling, and just loving on these kids.
they have so little and yet they're still so happy and cheerful.
they give my soul a serious facelift :)
love,
me