Life here is so different from America but yet it is so hard to describe why so I have been finding that narrative posts about everyday life help to explain about life here and how it looks from day to day (which is the biggest question we get from our family and friends...many of you, back in America). Yesterday I had 4 things I needed to do. I needed to teach English in the morning, pick up a package from Ryan's parents (YAY!!! THANK YOU SOOO MUCH) at the general post office, go to the dentist to have 2 fillings put in and stop by the grocery store very quickly. I left the house around 8:45 am and walked about 10 minutes to the stupa (the Tibetan Buddhist temple by my home) to teach English. I taught until 11 am and then walked home. I don't have any pictures of that...sorry. Then I spent a few minutes with Ryan, got the kids lunch prepared and then left again. The picture above is of the gate to my home. I walked out of the gate onto a dirt road in front of my house.
I walked down this road for about 4 minutes and I arrive at one of the main intersections in my part of town.
On the way to the intersection I saw a man selling carpets. This is very common here. They carry them around on their shoulders and yell that they are there to sell carpets and people should come out of their house to look at what they have. The people come and the guys sell rugs. It is a great little business for them with very little overhead...
This is the intersection that I walked to near my home. This is where I get taxis. In the right hand side of the picture you can see a three-wheeled vehicle. This is a tuk-tuk. These little guys run on propane and are pretty slow. They are REALLY cheap though (about 17 cents to go anywhere along the route they are going). They drive on set routes around the city and you get off as close to your destination as possible and walk the rest of the way. If I am going a short distance like sometimes to the grocery store or to a friends house I will take these. Yesterday though I was going further and wanted to get their faster so I bargained and got a taxi. Taxis all line up (you can see the red one here and then in front of the red one is two white ones). You go and tell them where you want to go and then you decide on a price. They always start WAY too high and I have to bargain with them to get the price down. If they won't go down on their price I just walk to the next taxi and try again. Yesterday my taxi ride to the post office was $3.
The first taxi ended up giving me an ok price so I took him.
I often take along a drink or my i-pod with me for the ride. Yesterday I had a diet pepsi...yum!
I passed many sites along the way that I could have posted but I thought this was a good one. This man is selling a Nepali snack. It is a hallowed out ball of puffed bread that you put curried vegetables and potatoes in. He carries his little shop on his head until he finds a customer or a good place to set up shop. After about 30 minutes in the taxi (with a lot of traffic, pollution, horns and noise) I arrived safely at the General Post Office.
Here is the picture of the sign and the entrance to the post office. The actual building is in the back. The process to get your package at the post office is CRAZY. I actually did a long post about it a while back that you can see (you need to click on the old posts (on the right side of my blog) it is under August 2008...for some reason blogger is not letting me paste into this post right now...sorry!). Because of that I won't go into tons of detail here but that post didn't have pictures so this should help!
This is the entrance to the 1st counter where your first form and signature.
This is the 1st counter.
After I went to the first counter I came into the customs room to get the zillions signatures I needed and paid my customs tax. Yesterday my tax was $2.
Here are my forms from yesterday. The one on the left is the customs form and the one on the right is the one I get in my PO box and have to bring to the general post office to pick up my package. there are tons of signatures on them and stapled to the form from my PO box are Keane and Gracie's passport photo copies. The package was addressed to them so I had to have a copy of their passports. It was so funny bringing the copies in and explaining that the package was sent to two 20 month olds. They loved it.
I had to follow this lady all around as she got different signatures for me and finally gave me her signature. She definitely was taking her sweet time.
I finally got to see the package! YAY! And all intact.
This man was actually really nice. They have to open your packages to see what is inside so they know how much to charge you for your customs tax so they cut it open right in front of you. I try not to look too hard at everything inside. It is so much more fun to open it all together with Ryan, K and G. Often they go through everything with a fine tooth comb and ask what each thing is but yesterday this guy just saw the chocolate chips on top and told the customs officer that it was a box of chocolate. Great! He sealed the box back up for me and I was off to get my last few signatures and receipt.
I thought this sign displaying the post office hours was SOOO funny. "Office working hours: 10:15 - 3:15 (that is 5 hours people!!!) oh but wait...on Fridays 10:15 - 1:00 (that is 2 hours and 45 minutes!!!!! is it even worth it???) Crazy! Don't you wish you could work for 2 hours and 45 minutes (in a government job) and call it a day???
Out with my package and off to find another taxi to take me to the grocery store. The grocery store I needed to go to was about a 20 minute taxi ride and cost about $2.
This is a horrible picture. Although my time in the post office wasn't wonderful or anything it really wasn't as bad as my face looks like it was. I still wanted to post this picture though so you could see me with the package in hand after only 30 minutes of signatures and hoops to jump through!
Here is the inside of my taxi (my view) for my ride to the grocery store.
Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got of the grocery store I went to yesterday. it is the blue building in the back. I was trying to get in and out quickly so I forgot to take more pictures. I will have to do a grocery store post later.
There really are no good fast food options here. We don't have McDonalds or Subway or ANYTHING like that so if we don't have time for lunch we usually just grab some crackers or fruit or something to snack on to hold us over. Thankfully, at this grocery store they have a stand that sells sweet 'cup of corn' for just $.50. It is served in a to-go cup with a to-go spoon which is virtually unheard of here. I actually really like this stuff so I was glad I was able to grab some as a snack! I know...crazy!
After yet another 20 minute taxi ride (which should have only taken 10 minutes but they were 'paving' the road in the middle of the day and it held up traffic) I arrived at my dentists office. We truly are blessed to have a wonderful dentist here and a clean dentist office to come get cleanings and fillings. My dentists office is called "Healthy Smiles".
Here is a picture of my dentist on the left and the chair I sat in for an hour to get my 2 cavities filled. My dentists name is Angela (she is Nepali but has a Western name) and she is wonderful. She is really sweet and speaks great English. I am so thankful for her.
Finally after yet another 30 minute taxi ride (and 5 total hours)...I was HOME with my numb mouth and package and groceries in hand. I guess I was so happy to be home that I didn't realize that Gracie was sticking her finger in Keane's eye...don't worry...he's fine!
Then of course everyone wanted to open the package from 'Mimi' and 'Grandaddy' (Ryan's parents). We had fun opening it and of course loved everything inside. We feel SO blessed. In just 1 month we received a package from my parents AND Ryan's parents...THANK YOU!!!
Keane 'reading' his note from grandaddy.
Keane loved his new shirt and turtle.
Gracie loved her new shoes and candy.
After we opened the package we got all bundled up to take a family walk around our community to visit with some friends, do some prayer walking and pick up dinner at a local restaurant.
We walked for about 10 minutes and arrived at the stupa (this is also where I teach English). Here we got to talk to many of our friends that we know from around town and got to spend some time praying for the people as they "worshipped".
I thought these two little girls were so cute playing under this giant bell.
This is the garden part of the restaurant that we went to to order take-out (home packing as they call it here). It is one of our favorite restaurants in our part of town and they make delicious Indian food which is what we had last night. I didn't get a picture but they serve take-out in small plastic baggies tied with rubber bands. They don't deliver so you have to go and pick it up yourself. Our dinner for our whole family cost $5.
While we waited for our dinner K and G explored with Ryan. They found a strange fruit tree and Ryan cut it open to see what was inside. We are still not sure what fruit it was but they had fun looking at it.
This is the entrance/exit of the restaurant. When we got home we fed Keane and Gracie, changed them into their pj's and fed them dinner. They actually really love rice and Indian and Nepali food. We are thankful for that. Then at about 7:30 I got into my pj's and spent the rest of the night on the couch with Ryan checking stuff on the computer and watching TV. It was a good day!
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