Understanding Africa through different Screens

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Tonight was an interesting night filled wtih Africans but first I'll start from the top. I actually slept in a bit and had a leisurely breakfast after changing my room. Then I took a taxi to the Stupa at Boudha and did a bit of shopping for a singing bowl and some postcards. Then I took a lot of pictures of the Stupa and walked all the way around it - it was really beautiful. Then I walked down to Chabahil and bought some Hindi movies and a converter and CD case on my way to the mini Boudha stupa in Chabahil. Then I went to Pashputinath. After walking around the courtyard a bit I went down to the burning ghat - a touristy area. I got haggled but shook a couple off by not talking. Then one tried to really stick to me and I turned to him and said in Chinese "I don't understand what you're saying. I don't speak English". He said "Oh. So you're Russian are you? It's ok. I don't mind that you don't understand. Do you know guide? I'm a guide" I looked at him like "What?" and he showed me his tourist license. "Come this way, I'll show you. This is the way to go. I looked at his hand and went in the opposite direction away from the ghat. He wasn't there when I came back and I heard him tell the others, in Nepali, that I didn't understand. I'd saved myself! It was wonderful. All I had to do was not talk to anyone and I could walk around and be in peace for free. It was wonderful! I felt so at peace finally and could take all the pictures I wanted. I had to walk a bit away from the tourist area before getting a taxi to Nagarjun - a forest area away from the pollution and busy-ness of Kathmandu where I could see the whole city and hear the birds. I walked into Balaju and put my pictures on a CD before I decided to go to the doctors. My last night in Tibet I noticed a bunch of bumps on my hand after I pet the cat. We thought it was something in the carpet or the cat so I moved and stopped petting her but it still bugged me. It's been 2 days and it hurt today so I asked him what it was. Fortunately his English was fluent and he told me it was an allergic reaction. He gave me medicine and instructions. Only after did I realize I was allergic to my ring which I took off and put in my money belt. Then I took off in a taxi to Third Eye an Indian restaurant.

What an intersting dinner! First I was sitting alone with all the Nepalese people working there talking about me and the other customers in Nepali. I tried to igve them some hints that I understood but they didn't read them. I said "chawal" instead of rice and wrote a short passage in Hindi so they could get that I could read and write but they just understood that I knew Hindi, not Nepali. Then four girls walked in and sat right next to me. They said hello and continued speaking in Chinese. I said hello in Chinese and we started talking in Chinese. They had a ton of questions for me about my life. Turned out their English was very poor so I helped them order a couple of dishes. We talked the whole time they were there and then they left to eat some place else. I got up to leave but ended up paying and switching tables to sit down with a girl from South Africa. Her name was Gabby. What a story she told me. And most was fact. She told me the history of South Africa how the Dutch and British tried to find a way to the Indies and landed in Cape Cod back in the 1600s and they killed the natives. Only later did North Africans come down to live with the Europeans in South Africa. Now the black party rules South Africa and has todl people there are many jobs in Cape Cod and Johannesburg so poor have come but there are no jobs so they've resulted in doing crazy things for food. Shooting people for cigarettes. Breaking into people's cars for their purses at red lights. She said she'd been mugged, her house burgled and her car burled many times. Her sister's house had a security alarm with an extra on the door and she'd still woken up with people in her room. People there were scared to leave the house after 10pm and lived in constant fear of blacks knowing they all had AIDS and were extremely poor. They went to witch doctors to cure AIDS and were told they'd be cured if they had sex with a virgin. So they went to any degree to do that - even raping one year old children. The government gave the poor birth control which they didn't know what to do with as they didn't know how to swallow pills so some even put them in their belly buttons. The government also gave TB pills to cure tuberculosis - what most AIDS victims die of - but they didn't ake the whole dosage so the disease just changed to something else so everyone's bodies are immune to the pill and even AIDS cures as well. I said why doesn't the government stop giving pills? Cause that would be inhumane to keep a cure from the sick. But it's making it worse. They don't understand that. She was afraid to go back to South Africa as she didn't want to get used to that kind of life. Just around 10 she got up and we left with no explanation. I realized afterwards it's implemented into her to be scared around then no matter where she is. What an awful thing!

Funny thing is when I came back to the hotel there were two Africans who invidted me to sit with them. One from Ghana and the other from Nigeria (Stanley). Stanley hit on me for 2 hours straight and I never at any point considered being into him. He told me Africans sometimes like to make up stories about Africa. he is a professional footballer (for Americans that means soccer player) and the man from Ghana does import/export trade with shirts and has 5 cars in Africa so they have quite a bit of money. They both like Bush a lot and asked me what I think of him. I told them the truth and Stanley told me he wanted to be a politician in Nigeria and what I thought about politicians. I told him I hate politics and think politicians didn't care about the people. He didn't agree but didn't say why. He begged me to stay in Kathmandu tomorrow and go up to his room but I declined and left when Prim did - a really nice Nepalese guy I met here at the hotel through a guy I chilled with from Australia last night. Stanley and his friend hated India and Indians even though they'd lived in India for a while. I didn't really ike that but kept my mouth shut.

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