Oh Banda My Banda

So I was sent home kind of early today, but it wasn't a celebration like one might often expect.  

Over the weekend things were kind fo crazy - a huge group of us went away to The Last Resort, a cool  little getaway near the Tibetan border for a weekend music festival.  As a festival it went off!  They have bungy and canyon swinging and high ropes courses and all kinds of adventure.  Or you can do what we did and just chill out for a brilliant evening of music.  

We spent Sunday lazing away in the sun enjoying some cards and poking fun at one another.  Three o'clock rolled up and it was time to leave  We spent about 20 minutes at the gate waiting to get across the suspension bridge due to some beurocratic issues, but eventually got on the bus and headed on our way.

Before too long we came to a bruidge upon which was a rather lazy looking group of smiling teenagers, who had just set fire to three or four tyres lying, rather unconveniently, in the middle of the road.  Quite pleased with themselves they were waving the flag of whatever political party they happen to be currently associated with, but generally standing around smiling at everyone.

As a general rule I object to bandhs, especially those where people are doing for the simple sake of setting something on fire or as an excuse to take the day off work.  This particular one (like many like it this Sunday just gone) were because the Prime Minister recently announced the sacking of the Chief of Army Staff of the Nepal Army.  This is big news.  Its hard to give the full story, because not only don't I know it, but it's intriguingly complicated and twisted.  

To summarise (badly) the Chief was responsible for the integration of the guerilla army into the regular army.  Which has to be about as much fun as integrating toothpicks to you behind.  Suffice to say, they have always hated each other and there's no love lost right now.  Apparently, the President disagrees with the reasons for the sacking and has announced that the PM's word doesn't count.  It's very difficult to really know who to listen to as Nepal is still without a constitution, so the powers held by certain positions are a little unclear.

The only thing that is certain is that you know you can rely on this story as I heard it from Liz who heard it from the guy on the bus who heard it from a reliable source that heard it from his cousin's husband's concubine's cat.  Who in turn heard it from the mouse he ate for breakfast.

The big news is actually that at 3pm today, Monday 4 May, 2009, the PM addressed the public.  This is why many of us were sent home.  No one knew what was going to happen at this point.  No one knew what he was going to say, and no one knew how anyone else was going to react.  As far as security goes, that's a good enough call for me to go home and shut the door.  It turns out that he resigned.  I heard this from the same source.  I really won't know what has actually happened, or what it means until I get to work tomorrow. BUT resigned!  It's BIG!  I mean, what the hell happens now?  For a long time he and the finance minister have threatened to take up their guins again.  Against whom, we weren't really certain.  A coup (or perhaps anti-coup, I'm not really sure how you can overthrow the government when you are the PM) has been suggested.

I think we just have to wait and see.  

[I'm trying to look unimpressed, unfortunately, due to my unfortunate pick of clothes that day,

 it seems to appear like I just lit the fire]