Today there was yet another situation for which "ke garne" ("what to do?") was an appropriate expression. I was at the children's home again this weekend (have I mentioned that I love it there??!!), and the plan for today was that I was going to go with the house mother to buy some kurta suruwaals, the traditional clothes for Nepali women. [As a side note, I did end up buying 2 such outfits, but I don't have photos at the moment, because I bought the non-pre-made kind, so they won't be ready until Dec 22. Stay tuned...]
Anyways, the plan was that we were going to leave at 10, catch the bus into Kathmandu (about a 45-minute bus ride), and go shopping. Well, true to "Nepali time," we weren't really quite ready to go at 10, so we decided to take the 10:30 bus instead. Which was fine, until the 10:30 bus didn't arrive. We waited for awhile, and then decided to walk to a place where more there is more traffic and you are more likely to be able to catch a bus...about a 30 minute walk away. To be honest, I didn't mind the walk. It was SO nice to be out walking in fresh air, where you are not worried about being hit by a car every 2 seconds, and there isn't constant honking at you. It was quite relaxing, I thought. But you can see how if you are living every day with the uncertainty of whether or not the bus will actually come it can get a bit tiresome. It's especially a challenge for kids who usually take the bus to school. No wonder school attendance is a bit unpredictable!
Anyways, we got to the bigger road, and there was actually a bus waiting there, which wasn't full, and we were able to get on right away. That in itself was amazing. Last week we had encountered the same situation, and waited for a long time while several full buses passed us (more on full buses in a minute), and there didn't seem to be any hope that we'd be able to get a bus. That is, until my Nepali friend recognized one of the bus drivers driving in the other direction and asked him to turn around and take us, which he did. Great for us...not so great for people waiting for a bus to come in that direction :) Ke garne!
So we got on the bus, and started driving. About 5 minutes later, we stopped behind a truck that seemed to not be going anywhere. I couldn't see what was going on, except that I knew we weren't moving. We sat there for quite awhile, and I could see that motorbikes were passing us, but we were stuck. I eventually found out that a truck up ahead had run out of gas (or petrol, as they call it here), and it couldn't move, which put all traffic except for motorbikes at a standstill. Roads in the Kathmandu area (and maybe in the rest of Nepal as well) are VERY narrow. There really isn't space for 2 vehicles to be side-by-side in a lot of places along the road. This, apparently was one of those places! I have seen people try to pass each other in those narrow places, and it's not pretty. They get alarmingly close to each other! Sometimes they manage, and sometimes they give up. I guess there was no hope of success here, so there we sat. A few people decided to get off the bus and walk, and others (including us) did the typical Nepali thing: shrug, and say, "Ke garne?"
Eventually (it actually wasn't that long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes), traffic started moving again. I never saw the vehicle that had run out of petrol, but something must have happened to it. First the traffic coming in the opposite direction got through, and then we were also able to go. And we did eventually reach our destination. My friends took me to a hole-in-the-wall shop, where you can get the same things you can get in touristy areas for about half the price. Thank the Lord for Nepali friends!
A word about buses. Picture a nice big spacious bus, with enough seats for everyone, air-conditioned in the summer, heated in the winter, well-kept, etc. That is NOT a Nepali bus! Nepali buses, for the most part, are actually called micro-buses. They are really large vans (probably would be a 15-seater van in western countries), and some are in better shape than others. Their horns work well, though. There is a driver, and then a guy who usually looks to be in his teens or early twenties, who works the door and collects the money, and who stands at the door as the bus drives along the road and announces to everyone the bus's final destination. To someone who doesn't understand Nepali, it sounds very much like an auctioneer doing his thing at the top of his lungs. There does seem to be some sort of system for where the bus does or doesn't stop, and sometimes they stick to the system, and sometimes they don't. I haven't quite figured it out yet. The other job that the boy has is to cue the driver on when to go and when to stop. He does this by banging on the side of the van, or by doing a funny whistling sound that I can't imitate.
So you get on the bus, and then if you're lucky there will be a seat available. They have the usual seats that a 15-seater van would have, and then have added some benches along the side and wherever they can, to cram as many people as possible onto the bus. It is not uncommon for there to be 25-30 or more people in one of these micro-buses, and when it's really full, they might actually be kind of hanging out the door, holding on for dear life. I can imagine that it wouldn't smell very good in there in the summer! There is an old joke about how many people you can fit on an African/Indian/Nepali/whatever bus (one more). That is definitely true here. Unless the bus is packed full in the driver or the boy's opinion, they will keep picking up more people and then order you around, telling people where they can squash one more person. If the bus driver is in a hurry, he might not actually fully stop for you to get on or off, so you have to run and jump a bit.
That is the public bus system here. You do usually feel like a sardine, and sometimes you're not sure you'll make it out alive, but it's actually quite efficient. And cheap. The 45-minute ride from the children's home to Kathmandu costs 20 rupees (about 25 cents). Can't really argue with that!
This is a photo I took of a little roadside shop - pretty typical shop for Nepal. Not a great photo, but gives you a bit of an idea. There are LOTS of these little shops around. I wish I could show you a picture of a packed microbus, but I haven't figured out how to take one discretely yet.
Back to Nepali lessons this week. They've been going well, and I'm enjoying them. I can now conjugate verbs in the present and future tenses (same for both), and probably will learn past tense this week. And I have some more vocabulary. Going to the children's home is GREAT practice for me. The kids speak English, but they are very excited to help me learn Nepali. They have taught me several Nepali songs, as well as some vocab. And yesterday one of the 9-year-old girls made me read her a children's book in Nepali (which I could read painfully slowly but couldn't really understand), and then she was quizzing me about it, and making me write words down, etc. It was great! The house mother speaks some English, but is also great to practice with. They are all very patient, and also rather relentless with me, which is good. Sometimes I have to tell them that my brain can't handle any more Nepali and I need a break! My didi (house-helper) is also a good one to practice with. I've been trying to have some semblance of conversation with her every time I see her. She is also very patient, which I appreciate.
Well, I'm off to a Christmas concert in 15 minutes. There are some Christmas things going on around here, though for most of the country Christmas is just another day. It was declared a national holiday a few years ago, though, when Nepal was declared a secular country (as opposed to a Hindu Kingdom), so they do get the day off. I will be spending Christmas Eve with other bideshis (foreigners), and then on Christmas Day I will go to the children's home and join them in putting on a big program and celebration for their community. Should be fun.
