Ramechaap Continued...

From left to right: Sita, Gita, Alex, Depak, Cabita, Kesar.

Ok, so I forgot to mention some things that might be interesting to you folks back home...

Food: they drink "milk tea" (tastes like English breakfast) at about 6 or 7am.

Then at about 9 they have breakfast (rice, cooked squash, and maybe some lentils for the rice). They eat this with their hands. Their breakfast is the same as dinner. For lunch they might have the same thing with mashed corn instead of rice or instant noodles. Sometimes for dinner instead of putting lentils on top of the rice, they would put their fresh milk on top. They sit on the floor to eat, on mats made out of straw. They have one "stove" which is a mud stove, with a hole to put fire wood and a hole on the top to put a pot. They also have an area for a freestanding fire which sometimes they would use. The "kitchen" area (the entire downstairs) was usually very smoky. The ceiling looked as if it was painted black from the smoke.  While the fire was burning it was hard for me to be in the room, because the smoke burned my eyes too much. But by the time it had settled down and it was time to eat and I sat down, the smoke didn't bother me. A lot of the words that I learned in Nepali were food related: I am hungry: boke lagu. Pujyo: I don't want any more. Me-toe-cha: I like it/it is good/it is sweet. Below is a picture of the view from my window. Even though it is hard to see, the mountains are beautiful and large below is some corn on the balcony.

Because of the different seasons, rainy and dry, they did not water any of their crops. Being an amateur gardener in Seattle, where it rains plenty, I still have to water frequently...so this was amazing to me. Everything was doing well and flourishing and they never watered once. It never rained while I was there. For the corn, they let it dry on the stalk and then pick it. When it had dried it was easier to take the kernels off. The cows ate the husks. Everyone ate the kernels.  The left over inside bit was used as a rag for cleaning and to fuel the fire. Nothing was wasted.

Every night I saw more stars that I've ever seen before. The milky way was so obvious.  It was truly amazing!

The only ALL SCHOOL picture of the Shree Sham School

Oh, and for all of you who has ever potty trained a child...in rural Nepal...at least in Cabita's case, she just pees her pants wherever she is, and then her mom changes her pants...I'm assuming this goes on for a very long while.