People and Parties

People  often want to know what I'm doing every day.  It's a hard question to answer because mostly I'm just hanging out with my villagers and attending community gatherings.  Here's a quick glimpse of some of our happenings.

 

This was at a meeting celebrating the donation of some chairs by the Magar group to the community.  Dancing is a very common fundraiser-- that's why there's money in her hair.

These are three of my little pals just being silly.

One day a bunch of us went to a big Gurung meeting of some kind.  We all got dressed up in traditional dress, marched around in the street a bit, then listened to speeches.  I have no idea what it was all about really.  I often don't.

My village is an hours drive from the nearest sizable town, so it was a pretty big deal when the ice cream man showed up on his bike one day.  A large group of us were gathered at the community building to build that fence you can see in the background and thoroughly enjoyed the snack break.

Groups often come to my village to check out all the agriculture development projects that have been done here.  In preparation for their arrival, long hours are spent in the kitchen preparing a feast for them.  They even let me help work sometimes now instead of just watch.

This is one of my favorite old women.  She's got a lot of spunk-- she's giving someone a piece of her mind in this photo while a group is hanging around waiting for some meeting or another.  She's also a cat lady, which is not normal for this culture.  Maybe it's a universal trait that comes with age.

I call this photo "Self Control."  That's fresh meat being divied up right infront of that dog and he didn't even try to steal any of it.

These kids were pretending to plow a field, taking turns being the cows and the herder.  The cows had a lot of fun being stubborn and having to be pushed forward, while the herder had a lot of fun hitting the cows with a stick and pushing them around.