Last night the volunteers took didi out for a night on the town . . . caught the LAST bus from Boharatar into Thamel to listen to some live western music.
Needed to withdraw some money (10,000 rupees, about 135 dollars) from the ATM, and didi got really excited because she had never seen someone use an ATM machine before.
Ordered a whiskey sour at the bar we went to, which cost 240 rupees
An hour of internet at this cafe i am at costs 20 rupees . . . yes thats right, my drink was equivalent to a HALF A DAY of internet surfing
Kids have exams starting today,and the last three days have been HELL since Raj took the other volutneers back to Dhading (eefje hadnt seen the village bc she wasnt here at the time of the wedding), leaving me ALONE with ten kids with the responsibility of making them study. Needless to say I was a heartless bitch the past three days and all the kids ended up getting in trouble with "uncle" (rajendra).
Planning on renting a bike tomorrow and riding to bhaktapur, a more chilled out ancient city in the kathmandu valley that you have to pay TEN FREAKING DOLLARS to see. . . mahango cha (thats expensive!) I thought i would be horrified to ride a bike through the calamitous traffic here, but its a lot easier than i thought, and its kind of exhilirating!
Jungle safari next tuesday
The slave:
okay i know i mentioned that there's a slave upstairs, but we need to talk about it again. I cant remember if i wrote this previously or not, but they make her use the squat toilet OUTSIDE (like the one we all use from the orphanage) when there is a flushing western toilet inside! Eefje said she saw the slave giving the mother a massage the other day for like 30 minutes, and this woman is raising her kids to be evil, the kids completely disrespect this woman and call her names about her skin color and treat her like shit. It's absolutely awful. She's always up on the roof at night doing the dishes, and she walks super bitch's kids to school in the morning. Rajendra told me that they beat her and the best part is that she is some kind of relative of the family, i don't remember how, but she somehow was forced into this situation by the owner of our house, and is now stuck here washing dishes and taking shits outside. . . really really sucks.
think im going to take a walk back to the rock climbing place later today and see if i can find some nice tourists to invite me to climb with them
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Whoa wait there's a slave upstairs?? What?!? No, you didn't mention that before.... :-L not cool at all....
ReplyDeleteHi Ben,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the "Kids/The Slave update. If I didn't know better I would think you make some of this stuff up! We have back to back celebrations in NJ: March 13th is Zeiler's grandaughter's Bat Mitzvah, March 20th is Blumenstyk's grandson's Bar Mitzvah. Rachel is not doing too well her blood pressure is high 180/82. The Dr keeps changing her medication, so far no success in bringing it down. She may well be upset that Myron is not hear for the Bar Mitzvah. We look forward to next week to read about your Jungle Safari, and seeing pictures you may take. Love you, GM & GP
sounds like you have been called to a mission of justice, batman! i have full faith in your abilities to impact people.
ReplyDeleteI saw the protests in Kathmandu on BBC today and thought of you!
ReplyDeleteYou taking care of 10 wild kids sounds a lot like daddy daycare lol.
And that's really sad about the slave. Is that a common thing there?
Benji!! I finally got your postcard and it made me so happy. When did you mail it? Last year? haha I lovvvve that your blog sounds like a script for a Nepali reality show. And Subash sounds AWESOME. make him warm his hands over the stove before he sleeps..and make sure he pees before going to bed..this is all from personal experience :)
ReplyDeleteBenj, I'm moving to San Fran in two weeks. you need to come visit me when your back. let's talk about India soon. Miss you lots and lots. I'm glad dem elephants played nice with you.