Home to Stay

I woke up early so I could pack up my suitcase and leave for my homestay house. I had taken out a surprisingly lot of stuff, so packing took much longer than it should have. I was a bit sad to leave my hotel, as it was super nice, but glad that I could finally unpack everything and set myself up for the next two and a half months.

My room!

After arriving at the homestay and throwing my things in my room Yanik and I walked down to a European bakery for some breakfast. I had a delicious cup of coffee and a cheese croissant, which was warm and gooey. The food here is simply amazing! When my language teacher arrived we walked her to my homestay so she could figure out where it was, and Yanik left so I could have my first language class.

The living room

Having a one on one language instruction is really interesting because there is no way to slip under the radar. You have to repeat every phrase almost perfectly before moving on, and she expects you to be able to come up with the phrases on your own pretty quickly. She seems like she’ll be a really good teacher, and that I’m going to learn a lot. Afterwards my brain hurt a little, though. Hopefully it’ll get easier as time goes by because the first class took a lot out of me.

After the language class was over Yanik came back and we walked over to the RHEST office. It’s a short walk, and pretty easy to figure out thankfully. The office itself is really nice, and I met the office manager and the woman I’ll be working under. I’m still not quite sure what I’ll be doing exactly, but it seems like I’ll be helping the employees with their English in the late afternoons. They eat lunch at 2, and seeing as it’s about 70 cents a day I think I’ll probably eat with them most of the time. It’ll help me practice my Nepali, and it’ll be nice to get to know the other employees.

After walking back to my homestay I spent the rest of the day relaxing and hanging with the family. I bonded with my brother over are mutual love of Glee and Castle, and we watched the Disney channel together. It’s amazing how widespread American media is. You hear a lot of American music playing in shops, and most of the movies at the movie theater were from Hollywood. I had a chance to unpack too, which was nice. I really like my room, and am excited to live here for the next few months.

Lemon candy

Dinner was delicious! I’ll have to remember to take a picture next time. It seemed like it was pretty standard Nepali food, with dhal bhaat, rice, pumpkin leaves, and spicy chicken. Super yummy. My stomach is still adjusting to being in a new time zone, so I wasn’t able to eat as much as I wanted, but it was still an awesome dinner.  

Day Two in Kathmandu

I slept surprisingly well, only waking up a couple of times and was able to get back to sleep pretty easily. Yanik knocked on my door around 10, and we went downstairs to wait for my language teacher to come by. I ordered a coke in the meantime, which ended up being complementary by the hotel. The soda here is really interesting; it tastes slightly different than the stuff in the US and is a lot more carbonated. It also comes in glass bottles which you return to the people when you’re finished drinking. It makes the soda a lot cheaper, because you’re only paying for the liquid itself. It’s also environmentally friendly, which is definitely a plus.

My language teacher is a very nice woman who seems like she’ll be tough but fair. After chatting for a bit she got out the book we will be using which caused me to double take. I had bought a Nepalese language book in the US to prepare me for my trip(I should have studied much more before I left but was lazy) from Amazon. Turns out, she wrote the book! I couldn’t believe it, out of all of the Nepalese language books on Amazon and all of the language instructors in Nepal I had ended up with her. The coincidences get stranger, it turns out she had taught a New College student a few years ago so New College was mentioned in the book! Our 800 student college mentioned in this Nepalese language book. It’s a small, small world.

New College!

My language teacher

After she left Yanik went to meet a friend to discuss a restaurant he’s planning on opening, so I went to a café to steal their wifi and drink some scrumptious coffee. I’m not much of a coffee person, but the stuff here is DELICIOUS! I’ve only had it this good in one other place, and that was in San Francisco with my sister. Everything is organic and done by hand here, no Starbucks or mass production. They were also playing football(soccer to you Americans) on a big screen tv which was fun to watch.

I managed to get myself lost walking back to the hotel because all of the stores in Thamel look exactly the same, so I got to enjoy the constant solicitations of merchants trying to sell me pretty much everything. Walking to the café I didn’t really experience that, but maybe it was the look of bewilderment on my face that was taken as a sign that yes, I really did want to by a knockoff North Face jacket. After walking up and down the street a bunch of times I finally found my way back thanks to a shop called ‘Black Pashmina Outlet’, which I remembered because I thought selling only one color of pashiminas was stupid.

Yanik came back and I hopped on his bike and we left for my homestay house. Driving in Kathmandu is kind of like a video game, but I’ll need to dedicate a whole post to the chaos to do it justice. My homestay house is really nice, and my homestay Aamaa is awesome. She’s super sweet and warm, exactly the type of person you’d want to take care of you for three months. Her partner seems really chill too, and her son is really cool as well. He enjoys watching tv and playing video games like God of War, so he’s totally my kind of kid. I’m bummed that he’s only going to be here for four more days; he goes to school in India and will have to return.

My homestay Aamaa's partner and son

After meeting them we went and met up with some of Yanik’s friends who are currently living at his house at a cool little restaurant in Thamel. One of them, Megan, is actually a fellow Passage alum as well. Her friend, Ruth, is 18 and has just graduated High School. They’re both from Maine and were super nice, and really down to earth. Ruth actually left the next day, but Megan will be here for another month. I ordered a mango lassi at the restaurant, to continue my quest to drink as many as possible while mangoes are in season.

After leaving we went to see Cars 2 in 3D with a few of Yanik’s other friends(Yanik, btw, seems to know everyone in Kathmandu). They had just built the mall around 5 months ago, and everything was still shiny and new. In Nepal when you buy your movie ticket you buy it for a specific seat, like when you go to a play. The screen went dark about halfway through the movie, which I thought meant that the projector had died, but was merely an intermission like they have for Bollywood films. Cars 2 is a pretty good film in my opinion, but has a lot less heart than some of Pixar’s other works.

To give you an idea of how cheap this is it's about 70 rupees to 1 dollar

After the movie we went to a bar called Jazz Upstairs and listened to some live Bluegrass music, which was really cool. I got to meet another girl doing a Passage program that has been here for about a month. Megan and Ruth were also there, and I had a great time hanging with them. At around midnight we left the bar, and I passed out in the hotel after watching the Britney Spears episode of Glee. Some things never change, I guess. I’m excited to move into my homestay tomorrow and get to go to the NGO where I’ll be interning.