Live Jazz and Networking

I started the day at 7, which was much earlier than I probably should have because I was tired the rest of the day. My Aamaa told me that breakfast was in the kitchen, but when I looked it took me a second to figure everything out. I understood the cornflakes well enough, but there seemed to be a pot of something sitting on the stove. After a failed attempt at locating the milk I realized that it was in the pot. I guess Nepali’s enjoy eating their cereal with warm milk? I’m still not really sure. It was okay, but I must say I prefer cold milk in my cereal.

I practiced my Nepali for awhile and watched some television with my bhaai(younger brother). It’s a good motivator to be the only one in a language class, because I really didn’t want to look like I hadn’t been practicing. The class went well; it was a bit easier this time now that I had the basic sentence structure and pronouns down. An hour and a half can definitely seem like an eternity, but I think I’m starting to get some of it down.

After class I walked to the RHEST office, taking pictures of my walk. It’s nice to be living in Baluwatar instead of Thamel because I’m not hassled at all here. Granted I do get a lot of stares, which I don’t remember happening as often last time I was here. This is probably more due to faulty memory than a change in attitude, though.

RHEST office

I walked into the RHEST office, unsure of what I was supposed to be doing. One of the employees pulled out a chair for me, so I sat there for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only fifteen minutes. It was one of those awkward times when I wasn’t sure if there was something I needed to say or do, or if they would tell me. Finally after some confusing questions from the staff members(I need a letter of intent from my school? Wha?) I was given two papers to compare and make sure the names on them were on both sheets. I compared them incorrectly twice, but finally on the third try managed to get it right. The other employees kept making comments about how boring I must find this work, which was sort of confusing. I’ve held a job before, it’s not like every minute is supposed to be flashy and exciting. I actually sort of enjoyed doing the comparisons, it feeds my inner OCD. The only frustrating thing is because there is usually no standardized translations for names sometime you just have to assume the two are the same, because if you were to sound it out phonetically they would be similar.

Tomorrow I start a language class, which I’m pretty confused about. I don’t have any experience, and it’s not like teaching school children who just need the basics. They seem to want lessons in professional sounding English, which I don’t think I know very well. The lessons are also an hour long, and I have no freaking clue how to fill up an hour. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, though.

For lunch we had something called beaten rice, which I’ve never seen before, spicy potatoes, kurd and some spicy something. It was pretty yummy, although no one had a drink during the meal which seemed kind of strange to me. Afterwards I went back to work and they brought tea to everyone. Hooray for the amount of tea people drink here, it is great. I swear they probably drink it about four times a day.

I went home around four because I didn’t have the language class today and took a pretty awesome nap. Maybe awesome is a strong word, it was more like a two hour nap. Luckily my Aamaa woke me up at 7 or I might have slept all night. It was her sisters’ birthday so they were going to Jazz Upstairs, and they wanted to see if I wanted to come along. I took a shower first, overpaid a taxi cab driver, and made my way to the bar to listen to some live jazz music.

 
I love Upstairs, it’s probably one of my favorite places in Kathmandu. The atmosphere is great, a rum and coke is about three dollars, and the live music is awesome. I was introduced to these two girls by my Aamaa who work in the development industry in Nepal. One of them, Amy, works for USAID. How great is that? We chatted for awhile and she gave me her card and told me about this Fourth of July party on Saturday. Apparently the Ambassador is going to be there, it’s free to get in, and there’s a pool. I’m crazy excited to go! Also, it was really cool to talk to someone with the job I want. The people you meet here are so amazing. It was also really nice to hang out with my Aamaa, she is one cool customer.