Christmas in Nepal

*I'm completely free until January 2nd when I start working at a winter camp, so expect a lot of lengthy posts. I'm getting some of my older blogs published in a Nepali newspaper starting in January and will link them when they get published*

Merry Christmas to one and all. John Dewey (my school) had a staff picnic in Dolalghat on December 23rd. The plan was to leave by 7:00 am so I had to get to school before then. Of course, the bus needed petrol and the pumps don't open until 8:00 so we ended up leaving around 8:40, hooray for Nepali time. After a two hour bus ride we arrived and set up our picnic area on the bank of a river. Breakfast consisted of aloo dum and buttered bread and afterwards we moved onto playing cards. My winning streak in marriage unfortunately came to an end but I only lost around Rs. 200. Lunch consisted of rice, roasted pork for the carnivores, paneer and the hottest mushroom chilly I have ever had. I can handle spiciness really well nowadays, but this level of heat nearly caused me to vomit. Our presence brought an array of scavengers looking for scraps of food, including children, dogs, cows and pigs. I threw a scrap of pork to a pig to see if it would it eat it and it did. Who knew that pigs could be cannibals? The day was a lot of fun despite my getting really sunburnt and was a nice way to unwind after a heavy couple of weeks of teaching.

Shehrish's family threw a birthday party for Uzir on December 24th which became my makeshift Christmas celebration. Shehrish's mom even made gammon (a rich ham) with cranberry sauce, similar to the pork tenderloin that my mother makes annually during Christmas. I even tried a small piece of it, having meat for the first time since this summer when I ate lungs to show my parents that it wouldn't make them gag. The meat tasted the same to me and gave me no digestive problems. I'm considering going back to eating meat as in America being a vegetarian will be extremely difficult and not nearly as flavorful compared to the veg options in Nepal. At one point in the evening somebody's iPhone was synced to a British radio station and I got to hear all of the Christmas music that I had been missing out on. December 25th was a bit lacking in terms of a traditional Christmas day. It was nice and sunny and I was active this year, going running and doing p90X yoga, the complete opposite of my usual Christmas day which consists of sitting on the couch eating cookies and alternating between Bailey's and wine. We did go out to dinner with friends and had a big feast of momos, biryani and paneer chilly. It was certainly a different Christmas being away from family and festivities but fun nonetheless. I was even treated to live NBA action for the first time since being here, watching the Knicks-Celtics game which started around 11:00 pm here.


My gift haul this year was purely utilitarian. I requested and received a fancy 'hot water bag' through our secret Santa exchange at school, tripling the warmth of my sleeping conditions and enabling me to fall asleep cuddling a felt-sheathed bag of boiling water for the rest of the winter. One of my students got me a new backpack, as she thought my old one was "not so nice". Another student got me a new coffee mug with my pictures on it, including the photo where I am with tikka on my forehead and looking completely awkward (on Facebook). Nisha got me my first scarf since I was a child so I no longer have to borrow one of my student's pink princess ones. The only things I missed out on this year was my annual re-up of toiletries that Santa leaves me in my stocking, including razor blades, aftershave, dental floss, deodorant and cologne. I guess Santa doesn't visit the valley and I'll have to make a trip to Bhat Bhateni.

I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of their holidays and makes the most out of 2012!