Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Bouncing


I feel lucky. The weather is warming. And framily (friends&family) are coming!

These two arrive today, on a big plane from Beijing.




Ms. Stephanie Lawrence & Mr. Crank Reubens

They'll be here for 10 days or 240 hours or 14,000 minutes. (Yes I am counting.)

Then on Saturday this one arrives, fresh from [insert difficult-to-remember-name of North Indian city here]:




(The illustrious) Lizary Yepsen

We'll sweep her up, thrust her into Kathmandu's thumping heart and squeeze the juice out of her until Monday when, unless we can rig a street protest to block traffic to the airport, she leaves for her (I imagine shiny) office in Singapore.


As Liz leaves, Mom and Dad Hughes will be stuffing the last of their things - -wool caps and sheep poop (a gift for the IRC office's new puppy) and hopefully a lot of chocolate -- into their duffel bags. Then they fly to Nepal.



Mom and Pop Hughes

They'll arrive next week, overlapping with Stepho and Crank for two days. I imagine Dad and Crank will discuss the pros and cons of techno gadgets. (Like this one!) Mom, Stepho and I will drool over handmade paper. We will all buy street papaya and at night we'll eat spicy curry.

Then Steph/Crank leave for Tibet and mom, dad and I spend 8 days together eating momos, taking pictures by temples, interacting with street monkeys, etc...

Somehow I'm supposed to work through all this. Interesting. My energy feels explosive.

If I don't write for a while its because I'm hyperventilating or running circles around these visitors.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Ode to Cheesy Cheese Rings


Photo credit: Timothy (Peabody) Hughes

An ode, in Haiku form, to the ubiquitous Nepali snack food that I loved to hate. Until today.

Part 1

Bags everywhere
Staining fingers of school kids
Lining filthy streets

Part 2

My mind closed, I judged
I hate yellow dye, I thought
I’ll stick to almonds

Part 3

Today I was hungry
And cheesy cheese rings were there
Goldfish on steroids (Yum)

Part 4

I understand now
You merit a two-cheese name
See you tomorrow