brayntea

thursday brought the dealer from La Iguana, a km up the road from Rancho Mastatal, who supplies the residents and caretakers here with their bi-weekly fix. the stuff is homegrown, all natural, potent, and highly addictive. the dealer arrives on foot with a giant backpack full of primo stock. the junkies go into a frenzy, scrambling for cash and change, and calling in favors from their housemates, "I hooked you up last time; it's time to pay up!" the entire compound comes to a screeching halt as the dealer sits down and unloads his backpack. they huddle around him and his choice assortment that is splayed out on the table. after a minute of glossy staring and drooling, the dealing begins. as i'm a first time buyer i decide to try a bit of each variety ... read more

Social Instruction - Friday night brought the beginning of Dashain celebrations, and with it, my introduction to beaten rice. I would spend the next two weeks trying to either avoid this particular version of a food I had been living off of for the past two weeks, or trying to suffer through it. It is essentially a dried and flattened version of cooked rice, which is delicious. Beaten rice, however, tastes like very thin bits of cardboard, no matter how much dhal you soak it in. This is the only part of the longest Nepali festival of the year know as Dashain that I am not a fan of. Well, goat and buffalo sacrifices aren’t all that fun either. I’ll tell you what is fun though—drinking home brewed rice beer and socializing with Shrawan and his ... read more

A New Bedfellow - At first I thought it was just the heat getting to me as we climbed step after step, ascending to the top of the Monkey Temple at Pashupatinath. I was feeling weak and tired and decided I just needed some water. I had been hacking up the Kathmandu air pollution for the last few days like a true Nepali, and so was already feeling a bit under full capacity, but this was different. By the time Pell and I returned to Godavari I was officially achy. It had been years since I’d felt like this, but I still knew Fever’s ugly mug when I saw him creep up behind me and put his arm around me smugly, as if we were old pals. He made it clear he intended to stay a ... read more

Godavari Village Resort - Just a 10 minute walk up the road from Ama Ghar is the Godavari Village Resort, complete with a famously delicious breakfast menu, conference rooms, relatively lush accommodations, and an outdoor pool. It was the last Monday before the big Dasain Holiday break and the younger children didn’t have to go to school; so Pell and I agreed to take them swimming. Not much arm twisting was necessary as the weather here is fairly hot and humid when it’s not raining. Many people, when they think of Nepal, think mountains, snow, and cold. They often forget that, even though we are nestled in a valley at 5,000 plus feet, just south of the Himalayas, we are still in the tropics and so summers here are still very, well, tropical. The point being ... read more

Children’s Day - The night before I had committed to waking up at 5am in order to accompany Bonnie, Bhesh, and some of the children to a National Children’s Day event in Kathmandu. Committing myself to such an early rising was easy—I knew I would be awake at 4am anyway. The neighborhood the apartment is situated in wakes up all at once, but in a very distinct sequence. First there is the confused rooster who decides to start crowing a good two hours before sunrise. His cock-a-doodle-do’s come in random spurts. Once you think he is satisfied that everyone knows it is morning, even though it really isn’t yet, he lets out another sleep-destroying crow. Shortly after, the dogs begin to make their presence known. Sometimes they are fighting and snarling, sometimes they are whining, and ... read more