Happy Holi

Holi festival is here! As I had mentioned earlier kids have been preparing for this for the past 2 weeks, targeting young girls and tourists with water balloons and buckets. Today however, the game is different and EVERYONE participates, and not only with water but also with tika paints. I have spend all day hiding while local kids and even foreigners downtown have chosen to join into the water war or as I liked to call it ”get the tourists” event. I have been observing carefully the festivities from my supervisor’s house and its insane. Anyone who walks through the street gets soaked from kids prepared with balloons and full on buckets of water which they pour on people and if you are lucky, the water is bright red and leaves a nice sewer like stench. Kids, and teenagers have been storming the streets looking like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, with their faces painted in various colors, and yelling like someone is ripping out their guts. I say “NO THANK YOU,” to that and good luck to my fare faced comrades downtown who are bound to get water ballooned in the face....OH NO, have i turned into a party pooper!?

Other than that I had my first field visit this past week. It was in Nagarkort which is known for having spectacular views of the Himalayas, but I barely got to see any mountain since most of the time haze was covering the peaks. A few of the photos I took ended up ok after some photo shopping and int he end the 2 days of fresh air away from Kathmandu were much appreciated. RHEST was having their annual meeting there to talk about new policy and the successes and failures of the past fiscal year. course it was all in Nepali, and my purpose there was to get a better idea of it all it all and maybe interview some of the volunteers from the regions. relaxing right? Well, it was for about a hot second, until my supervisor sprung a surprise Focus Group Discussion and four 40 min interviews on me. My preparation was close to nil and my translator was no where to be found. Somehow it was all pulled off and I got some answers by rugged men, who were not really sure what this white little lady was doing there in the first place. I think that for the circumstances it all went down ok. During the two days I also got to experience my first Bollywood sing off and it was amazing. After dinner everyone met up in one of the hotel rooms, all the women (around 15) were sitted in a tiny bed, and all the men sat on chairs around. The crowd was split in two teams and they would start a different Bollywood song beginning with the last syllable of the previous song sang. It was confusing, and I heard about 50 Bollywood songs in the span of 15 min. It was an amazing experience, and their knowledge and skill was impressive.

And let me end with the exciting news that I now have a new apartment with a cool roommate from Spain for about half the price of what I pay now. WooHooo! Also my supposed field trip starting on Tuesday might have to be pushed due to the fact I am having translator issues. However if everything stays on track I might not have Internet for the next week and a half and will be able to communicate normally around March 10th.