“Normal Life”

It’s funny that we don’t realize sometimes that what’s normal to us is very relative.  It’s relative to culture and geographic location and heritage.  It’s not until we get outside of those things that we realize that what’s normal to us, isn’t normal to everyone.  In Nepal, there have been so many things that are just normal here, that would never fly in America.

Load Sharing.  Kathmandu is broken up into sections and throughout the day, the different sections of the city take their turn at not having electricity.  This means that, at Jenn and Leah’s, there is no power for about 8 hours of every day.  Usually it’s not eight straight hours, but a total of eight.  For example, I’m hoping to get this typed and posted in the next 20 minutes, because we lose lights at 9 a.m. and it’s out until 1 p.m.  Then it goes out again later in the day for several hours.  Can you imagine the power going out in sections of Atlanta or New York City for hours at a time for the purpose of energy conservation?  I know there’s  been this kick to “go green,” and that would certainly accomplish it, but the chaos that would ensue would not be worth it!  Here it’s just normal life.  It’s actually not even that major.  We’ve had lots of romantic candle light dinners and watched lots of movies on computers.

Poop.  More specifically, talking about poop.  This is not common practice in America, to discuss your poop.  Here it’s just kinda normal.  Because it tends to be an issue for most people, it’s become common to talk it out.  As a matter of fact, Jenn’s stool sample sat by the door all morning one day last week so that Leah could take it to the hospital with her to get it tested.  Leah was glad to take it for her.  It was no big deal.  Ok, I know that my roommates love me.  They are so wonderful and we have a great relationship.  I just can’t imagine leaving a stool sample for them to run to the hospital for me and them being ok with that scenario.

Random holidays.  Just before I got here, there was a Hindu celebration where all of the children stretched ropes across the street and you had to pay them money for their gods before you could pass.  While they were doing that, all of the men were smoking pot.  And that was acceptable.  Today we aren’t leaving the house until it’s time to for me to get to the airport because today is Holi.  This means that all the children who have been throwing water balloons at us all week leading up to this festival are now adding dye to the balloons.  All of the shops and businesses in the city are closed today and no one really leaves the house because you’ll come back looking like a tie-dye shirt.

Hospitality.  There were way more people who invited me to eat in their home than I could ever have actually visited.  They all wanted very much to cook for me.  Yesterday was pretty intense because we visited two different ladies in their homes and they cooked for us.  Meals here consist of a mountain of rice with dhal on top (seasoned lentils) and a pile of cooked and seasoned vegetables and sometimes meat.  Meat can be pretty expensive, so you don’t eat it with every  meal.  Because we were guests, both ladies served meat yesterday.  It’s very important here that you eat all that you’re served because they think you don’t like it if you don’t.  Luckily the women yesterday knew we were bedeshis (foreigners) and that we can’t eat as much as them.  At lunch I was still really full from breakfast and wasn’t sure how I was going to do it.  When I got there, though, I could tell how much it meant to our friend, Nista, to have us there so I ate way more than I would have ever wanted to and enjoyed every minute with that precious lady and her husband.

Since we lose lights in four minutes, I’m going to end this here.  I leave today to head back, so please pray! Pray esp. for the Lord to give me favor with the airlines.  My ankle is still pretty swollen and I’m not super excited about traveling with it like this.  I also have a 12 hour layover in Qatar and a 7 hour layover in DC.  Isn’t that disgusting!  Pray for my attitude about it!  Jaymasee!

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