ONE of THREE.

dear you,
i FINALLY got my camera pictures!
so i'm gonna post like 3 posts, so be ready :)
love,
me

pictures for post entitled: 'refresher courses needed. asap.'

pictures for post entitled: 'what a great day!'

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

refresher courses needed. ASAP.

dear you,
yesterday:
usual morning.
goma and lila went to a wedding, and they wanted me to take their pictures.
and of course i obliged :)
goma looks lovely in her sari.
the one picked out by ME.
went to the orphanage around one and played with the little ones.
don't worry, i'll pester lila for his flash drive soon :)
their game of the moment was 'jump off chair onto mat'.
the giggles from each jump were so contagious!
i couldn't help myself, and so we all laughed together as they jumped.
suse started pushing people off the chair, which ended badly for suntali, but brought forth even more laughter from the others.
when they saw my camera, they started trying to take it from me, so i made sure to hold onto the cord and gave each of them a turn.
sujan is a cutie, but from the very beginning, he seemed like a sneaky little kid.
i was right.
when he thought i wasn't paying attention, he would grab for the camera.
too bad for him, i was holding the cord :P
i distracted them for awhile by putting one on each leg and bouncing them all around.
they giggled and giggled and sujan started 'tickling' my knee which actually made me laugh a lot.
it was great fun :)
gradually, the older kids started coming back from school.
they all got what seems to be an after-school snack of tea and rice-puff-type-cereal-stuff.
a few of them had rice and curry, so i'm not sure if it was a full meal or a select few get to eat a bigger meal.
idk.
then came the hard part.
they wanted help with homework...
susantahal's wasn't too bad.
it was just surface area of 3D objects like cubes.
biplov wanted help with graphing things, which was a little trickier because i don't really remember this stuff...
curse my amazing SHORT-TERM memory skills!
i remembered more of it, however, when i saw an example.
it really wasn't that hard, so i felt really stupid because i was in one of the boys' rooms with like 8 boys huddled around me.
watching me stare blankly at an equation...
wonderful.
then he wanted me to explain light, and concave vs convex mirrors and refraction and reflection.
i basically read his science book to him and tried to explain it better for him, which i really hope was ok.
i kept asking them if it made sense and all they would say was, 'thank you'
so you can see my predicament.
'does that make sense?'
'thank you for helping'
yea.
doesn't answer the question.
so i went upstairs to a girls' room with sony and saru.
i met anita, susmita, and gita.
they should start a singing trio.
and call themselves.
THE ITAS.
i think it would be a hit.
i helped them with grammar.
things like:
which would best fit into the sentence - 'the shopkeeper deals _____ cloths' (in/with/from).
i said with, but i admit, i hesitated because in could also work if you think about it.
and i helped with matching words to a synonym.
some of them were actually tricky, because the english language is so stupid.
like - disciplines --> subjects.
it makes sense to english speakers, but they were confused because it could also mean 'punishes'.
that one was kinda hard to explain.
i got a free manicure from gita while i was helping tho!
it's kinda unusual in that she didn't paint all the way to the cuticle like i would have thought, but started halfway down each nail so they look square.
i stupidly asked why she didn't finish, and she just looked at me and told me it was a pretty design.
oh.
mah bad.
anyways, with a crowd of girls instead of boys hanging over me, homework soon turned into riddles and confusing puzzles that they wanted me to try and solve.
sudoku type stuff.
which i suck at.
so i brilliantly brought the camera out, and got out of figuring out tricky puzzles :D
every time we took a picture and i showed them what it looked like, all of them.
every single one.
screamed.
LOUD.
i'm sure the kids in the other rooms were wondering what was going on.
i wonder if the boys playing football (soccer) outside could hear it.
probably.
it was great :)
but then they had to go for supper so i bid them goodnight, and waved all the way down the street as they yelled out the windows to me.
that's a great feeling.
you should try it sometime.
debaki and i cooked pasta together.
i'm determined to come back from nepal with some recipes under my belt.
lila took a picture of me by the stove because he wanted to prove that it's possible...
HA. very funny.
and then we went to bed.
i actually really like the going to bed at 8 or 9 and getting up at 7 or 8 thing.
it's divine.
you should also try that :)
there's some homework for you.
just what you always wanted.
love,
me

p.s.
picture delay, as per usual.
hold your horses.

what i came for.

dear you,
yesterday was another great day, just in a different way.
i spent a lot of time at the orphanage with the kids because it was another festival for something, so they didn't have to go to school.
my ipod was the hit of the season for a group of them, by far, and i took sooo many pictures of the same kids :)

this is me and little jumuna.
she's such a cutie, and very very quiet.
just stands and watches and smiles.
i just sat with the kids and watched them, occasionally asking questions and answering some.
it was great.
everyone came to the balcony for a lunch of tea and crackers (known as biscuits).

suntali with her lunch

most of them put the crackers in the tea, which i think is gross because i don't like soggy bread, but they really enjoyed themselves :)

i went home for lunch and almost stayed in the house for the rest of the day.

i don't know why i  feel so bashful about going to the orphanage, but whatevs.

so i got myself up and went back over.

and i'm so glad i did.

more of the older kids were around and they sat me down in a chair and then surrounded me, asking lots of questions and telling me to sing for them and fun things like that.

i've discovered that nepalis seem to have a fascination with names starting with 's'.

suntali. suse. suvash. sudha. susantahal. sumit. susmita. suvod. sony. saru.

it's crazy. 

but they're great kids.

i'm finally doing what i came for!

i volunteered to come back today after they got back from school and help them with their homework.

that was definitely met with enthusiasm!

saru wants help with her english handwriting.

sony wants help with grammar.

susantahal wants help with math (oh boy...)

i can't wait til they get back!

i'm really hoping that i'll find my niche, and that all of them will really get comfortable with me instead of hanging back.

they're pretty good at english, which is fortunate for me, although it is hard to understand sometimes.

also, i got my pictures off my camera, so i'll stop writing and share my fun adventures :)

love,

me