girlies and darkha. (updated)

dear you,
www.docsfoundationnepal.blogspot.com
life has gone from zero to sixty in a blink of an eye!
let me tell you about it.
sunday i met some awesome people and felt like a girly girl for the first time in awhile.
urusha, matina, and indira (a different indira).
i met urusha first because she's related to ramchandra and she's going trekking with me this weekend.
she introduced me to her two friends.
and we all lived happily ever after :)
in reality tho, we walked around and ended up at the kathmandu durbar square.
the durbar squares are all over the place, and are just where the kings used to live when nepal was divided.
i was going to have to pay Rs. 750 cuz i'm white, but we found a guard who let me in for free.
maybe corruption isn't THAT bad :P
just kidding.
these girls know all the in and outs of this place, so we wound around through little tiny alleyways until we came to a little cafe place.
oh, did i mention that urusha is 18, mati and i are 19, and indira is 20?
it's perfect.
they're crude and giggly and FABULOUS.
anyways, at the cafe we had cake and pizza.
because we're health conscious.
and so we spent the rest of the night walking around dark street markets, laughing, talking about our boyfriends, etc.
there are so many cool markets that i want to go back to with them.
they said they'll do the bargaining for me so that i'll get better prices, which is very generous of them.
and we all decided that sometime before i leave, we're going to get mendhi.
that's the funky black/redish henna-type stuff that ladies draw on their hands with.
apparently, if it stays dark on your hand instead of lightening up quickly, your future husband will love you a lot :)
women have to get it for their wedding, but you can do it for fun as well.
anyways, we finally got tired of wandering so we went to mati's house and stayed there for the night.
in the morning a super loud wedding band was right outside the window.
so we had no choice but to get up.
mati and indira had stuff to do, but urusha took me back to the thamel office, went to class for a couple hours, and then we set off for another adventure, picking indira up on the way.
we went to swayambhu.
it's a big buddhist stupa known as the monkey temple, for obvious reasons.
it was really cool, although at the top of a bunch of steps.
can anyone say BUM WORKOUT?
that's what i call positive thinking ;)
while we were there i saw a monkey grab a piece of watermelon out of a lady's hand!
she was so scared.
it was so funny, but only cuz it didn't happen to me.
i would have freaked out :P
it was a gorgeous view of the kathmandu valley, however, evil monkeys or not.
anyways, sunday and monday involved a lot of walking.
but it was nothing compared with what was coming.
early tuesday morning, ramchandra and i headed out for his mountain village, darkha.
3 hours by bus, 3 1/2 hours by jeep, 1 hour walking up.
we got off the bus at dhading, then drove over a bunch of mountains in a intense jeep ride.
there were probably 15 people in one jeep, and it took so long because there isn't a single flat or un-potholed place on the dirt road we took.
-the nepalis call them hills, but whatevs. they're mountains to me-
it was soooooooo bumpy.
and everything was coated in a lovely layer of red dust when we finally arrived at the 'bus station'.
and then we had to climb one of the hills to get to ramchandra's house.
i thought i was going to die, but it was totally worth it.
his family has 3 water buffalo, a bunch of goats, 3 cows, a cat, a huge garden, and their own plot of terraces.
it's absolutely gorgeous.
i would definitely live there.
if there was a cable car to my house :P
wednesday morning i got to help plant some corn, although i mostly watched ramchandra do all the work.
then after a short rest, we walked up.
for like an hour.
if this is bad, i'm going to die when i go trekking...
oh! mati decided to come trekking with urusha and i!
more people = more fun, hopefully :)
anyways, i got to see the school where ramchandra went to secondary school at (an hour and half up the mountain).
and he showed me another school on a distant hill that he went to.
a 3 hour hike every day.
WHAT?!
and he said he had to run away from a tiger once, since it's literally a jungle out there.
i can't even imagine living like this for my whole life.
a couple days is good enough for me.
we were only going to stay for one night, but ramchandra's mom wanted us to stay an extra night.
his family is really nice (his younger brother lives with him mom and dad)
i got to try water buffalo milk straight from their water buffalo.
i watched ramchandra's mom milk the thing herself.
it has a really sweet taste, but the weirdest aftertaste.
the aftertaste tastes vaguely like stripples (adventist reference haha)
it was really weird, but still yummy :)
anyways, we woke up really really early on thursday to run down the mountain and catch the first jeep back to dhading and then then bus to kathmandu.
and now i'm here, waiting for lila to come back from visiting the other orphanage in hetauda so i can get my pictures.
there's a thunderstorm going on outside.
my first since i've been here.
and tomorrow i'm heading out to go trekking for 4 days.
as if i didn't get enough mountain climbing in already :P
i'm going to be in serious need of a few rest days when this whirlwind lets me go.
but i have just under a month left in this amazing country, so i'm gonna do all i can!
even if trekking costs my life savings...
so anyways, i'm gonna go unpack and repack and hope goma doesn't make me eat anything anytime soon :)
love,
me