Characters > Rory

The Rormeister is Katherine's boyfriend and has quit his job in the middle of the recession to come hang here with us for the last 3 months of Katherine's year.  After that he's gonna return to do a PHD at Yale.  Lucky bloke.  

He's been here almost a month and pretty much has been sick at any point where one would really rather not.  He doesn't make good decisions regarding food.  

Rob:  Chicken Rory?  Really?.  You've been on the toilet for 2 days.  Why not go with the veg?

Rory: No big cat...I've got a good feeling about this!

Rob: I think you should reconsider.

Rory: Oh, look at this a ham, cheese, toastie.

Rob: Ham, Rory?  Really?

Rory: You think no ham hey? Yeah, I suppose that's a good decision.  I'm glad you're here man, OK, Raj, just get me an Ice Cream Float.

Raj: Uh, sur, we madea  mistake on the menu, we can't do ice cream float, that one is meant to be coffee with ice cream in it.

Rory:  Well I don't want that!  That sounds horrible.  How about a milkshake?

Raj: We can't do milkshake sir, there's no power.  

Rory: Damn, I really wanted that too...

Raj: Well, we could do it manually for you.

Rory:   Oh no Raj, don't worry about it, get me the ice cream float.

Raj: Sir...the...

Rory: Yeah, yeah, no power, OK. I mean the coffee thing.

Rob: Good decision mate.

Rory: No, its not.  I HATE coffee man.

Recently, having suffered a 2 day session of intimate love-making with Charpi, Rory became my self-appointed poo doctor.  The man is an expert.  He warned me against taking too many drugs to combat it as I'd be stopped up for days.  However, after 2 days I was at the point where mainly clear water was making its way out my poop-hole, I thought it was time to put an end to it all.  Blocking myself up with immodium (Gastro-Stop) appeared not to be working, until I woke up on Friday.  

Rory: I told you not to use that stuff...you'll be a lucky man if you ever get to poop again, man!

Rob: You have no idea what it was like.  I couldn't go an hour without running to the toilet!

Rory: Of course I know what it was like.  You are talking with a man who has been having his own love affair with the toilet for the better part of three weeks.  I actually feel the best today that I have ever felt for my whole time in Nepal.  This is really quite a special moment.

Rob: But now I am totally stopped up. I need to go before the music festival this weekend!  I can't go riding on a bus for 3 hours like this!

Rory: you should have thought of that before you pumped yourself full of those drugs man.  I'm gonna tell you a story.  Its a story about the American Dream.  The American Dream is the one that just comes out, no effort, thought or exertion need be made on your part.  Wiping is purely optional because you don't really need to (but you do anyway).  That my friend, is the American Dream.  One day, it can be your dream. 

Characters > Katherine

I have been feeling creatively pathetic recently, and I haven't had a clue what to write about for months.  Then I remembered this old little thing.  The characters that I have met in Nepal.  This post is about one of my favourites.  Katherine.

[joint birthday party hilarity]

She's an American who arrived here just two weeks before I did on a program called Princeton in Asia.  She's working somewhere between Child Protection and Education at the US branch of Save the Children [SAVE THEM!  SAVE THEM!].  She's the only one amongst my close friend circle living in Lazimpat and it means we get to do a lot of amazing stuff together.  She could fall asleep inside a lion's mouth, or on the tracks of an oncoming steam train at the drop of a hat which makes her a rather bad movie-watching buddy but is an amazingly good-hearted and optimistic person.

Our first encounter pretty much was an epic 30km uphill bike ride (man, those ARE beautiful photos, and I wish I was writing stuff like that now) through mud and rain in the middle of the monsoon, where we got lost and had images of appearing in the newspapers back home as "two stupid Western tourists lost in the forest"*.  

This even was closely followed by an adventure through the Nagarjun Forest - an area in which the former king lives.  It was organised in the heat of the moment on a Friday night over drinks.  "Its the weekend tomorrow and we don't even know what we are going to do?!?!!" Luckily, Gemma's friend Jaya (you should remember him from such adventures as Mero Charpi Explode Chha) came to the rescue and recommended the walk.  Amindst talk of "making the most of our time in Nepal" and doing something every weekend and totally embracing the outdoorsiness we climbed up another hill and I can't seem to find any post that has shared those photos with you [gasp].

Of course, the frequency of these adventuires deteriorated, once we established ourselves with routines and discovered that we might actually need to do work while we are here.  So, while we still try to organise the occaisional adventure, or get ourselves out the Hash, we usually content ourselves with hanging out between my place and hers and our favourite locales in Lazimpat.  

And we still have 4 months of adventures to enjoy!

*Incidentally I have heard rumours that there are mass graves in that particular national park from the insurgency (just in case this post left you with too good of a "happy feeling")

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.