Dashain, etc.

The 30th of September was the last day of school before Dashain, the rough equivalent of Christmas for the people of Nepal. Many people leave Kathmandu to be with their families in India or elsewhere and the city was rather empty during the main days of the festival. One ritualistic aspect involves elders blessing the younger ones with tikka to encourage good fortune and happiness. The basic tenets are the same as the Christmas season (or 'holiday season' for the sanctimonious bunch): get together with family, cook and eat a lot of stuff, drink, hang out, exchange gifts, etc. The main differences are the 'hanging out' part involves gambling instead of watching sports on TV and the gift part comes in the form of money rather than wrapped presents. The card game of choice is 'marriage', a 21-card variant of gin rummy where the optimal number of players is 5. The objective is to accumulate as many points as possible at the end of a hand. It started rough, but toward the end I felt as if I was holding my own. I lost a bit on the first day and won a lot on the second day. I still contend that it's much less skillful than something like poker, as paying attention to what cards are played and knowing basic odds are the only things that separate players, but the sharks maintain that much more skill is involved.

My favorite part of Dashain is that it coincides with the end of monsoon season. The last couple of weeks have been hot and sunny as opposed to the perpetual gloominess that I had become accustomed to and I couldn't be happier with it. Running in the hot sun has given me the sickest farmer's tan ever, and strangely I have actually gotten dark(er) as opposed to my usual pink/red color from sun exposure. I'm torn on my new color; in America, paleness is undesirable, but in Nepal everybody wants to be white. Women walk around on sunny days with umbrellas to shield themselves from darkening UV rays. With the recent influx of tourists, I may no longer hold the crown of Whitest Cracker anymore, which was one thing that set me apart from every other non-trekking white person.

Unfortunately, my latest quirk was a negative one. Recently, my forehead decided to go through puberty and had broken out pretty thoroughly. I'm not sure if it was related to the sun, my diet, sweating from running every day or what, but until recently I have looked like a 'before' individual in a Proactiv commercial. I had pretty bad acne as a teenager, but never on my forehead. Thankfully, my regimen of apricot scrub-echinachea-cream is clearing me up. The kids kept asking me if they were mosquito bites...

Having days off with nothing to do has given me a lot of time to think and write about stuff, so I'll update the next few days with random lists, rants etc.

Things I Don't Miss that I Thought I Would:

-A/C: I used to be a big fan of conditioned air, keeping my thermostat at an expensive 67-68 (F) in the Winston apartment. The summer months in Kathmandu have been hot and most places in Nepal don't have air conditioning. The only time the heat has ever bothered me was at night, as my room is on the top floor and the thermometer on my clock would hover around 85 (F) at night for the majority of May and June, but I adjusted pretty quickly. I think drinking probably 3x more water here than I did in America somehow helps. Nowadays when I am around A/C (in hotels, malls, movie theatres etc.) I find it artificial and uncomfortable. I would now rather be a little too hot than be chilly from air conditioning.

-Food: Not fully applicable since I became a vegetarian but still noteworthy. I thought I would miss things like Utz Crab Chips, italian food, nachos etc. but the alternatives in Nepal are just as good, if not better. Chaat is my current favorite snack food and I get it everytime I go to Bhat Bhateni.

Shehrish, on the other hand, really misses American food, including funny things like McDoubles, Arby's roast beef, Chili's and Hooters, and recently expressed a desire for Andy's Hot Fries and fried food from the fair.

NFL: I miss watching it, but I can't say that I miss it overall because I seem to be better at handicapping games when I don't actually see them play out. I'm currently 41-33-3, crushing my pick 'em league, in 2nd place in normal fantasy and 6-2 in Bodog wagers. A small sample size, but still. I've drifted from the NFL the last few years due to getting into soccer, but only going by what I read and hear seems to be a formula for success. Who knew that the Vegas books actually want you to watch the games?

More blog tomorrow..