Charpi and Disappearance

I used to be funny, I don't know what happened.  I've been very dour and miserable in my posts of late. 

In light of that, I thought today I would revisit two longtime friends, Danesh and Charpi.

You guys haven't heard about Danesh in a while.  It seems as if the man fell off the face of the earth.  Perhaps he did, aside from bizarre little appearances he makes along the main street, saying "how are you" in a very disarming way (ie, without a question mark) and thereby using up his arsenal of English before disappearing on his bike or back into the crowd.  Tonight, after having put it off for 2 days, I headed off to get a new bottle of mineral water.  It was getting close to 9 and I knew I was pushing my luck for making it to the cute little store run by the sahuni who always looks for me to say hi in the morning while I'm on my way to work.  

She was in fact closed when I arrived but insisted on reopening just to get me my 20L bottle of water.  As she circumnavigated two gas bottles and a wardrobe to get my water only after somehow working out how to get back into her shop that appeared to be locked from the inside, Danesh did his magic trick and appeared before my eyes.  

I'm quite proud of the fact that I can now  at least get my point accross in Nepali and generally understand the meaning of whatever the guy in front of me is saying.  The only thing that amazes me more than Danesh's magic tricks is the fact that I can carry on a conversation with complete strangers in Nepali, but as soon as someone that lives within 100 metres of my house appears, all words seem to become potting mix, the useless kind that just smells off.

He asked as usual, "how are you" (still sans question mark) before commenting, I think, that I appeared to be buying water.  "Water" was all I could seem to fathom in response.  "AHHHH! Water, yes yes."  Then he started waving at the bottle and saying what I interpreted to be either "rain" or "water taking".  He said it again, and completely at a loss, a certain part of my brain set aside for special events such as this stepped up to the plate and inserted a completely random word that might hope to make the rest of the exchange make sense.  That word in this case was "house".  Putting two and two together, I came to the conclusion that he was offering to carry my water home.  

Having already suffered the pains of trying to refuse help I consented and was shocked to see him do the disappearing trick again.  Picking up my bottle of water and briefly contemplating the fact that two and two never really ever do equal four anyway, I trotted home.  Seconds later he whizzed passed me on his bike.  I saw him run up to the gate, open it and disappear again.  Turns out that the words I had interpreted as "I carry water to your door" actually were "you carry water, I open door".  An easy mistake....

Its actually quite the coincidence that Danesh should re-enter my life just as Charpi has started acting up again. Poor Charpi is leaking all over the floor and the worst part is I have absolutely no idea where it is coming from.  The water has a nasty yellow kind of colour to it.  I'm quite sure that its rust from something, but to the casual observer, one sees yellow coloured liquid on the floor next to a toilet and there are only so many conclusions you can come to.  I should probably get something done about it, but as long as he is hanging on the wall, not exploding and otherwise behaving himself I can't really kick up a fuss.

I have one more thing to add:

Load Shedding Fun Fact # 1. - do not leave anything that is likely to disagree with being douched by the self-defrosting freezer on the bottom shelf of the fridge, specifically loaves of bread and milk cartons.