Expectations

Little Sita putting lotion on her face in the morning .... priceless!

Dear All,

Expectations are a funny thing. I started wearing Nepali clothes on my first visit, and I have been slowly adding to my Nepali wardrobe each trip. For the most part, I am in a sari, and occasionally I'll wear a kulta sulwar. I hadn't realised how my clothes was viewed by the kids until a couple of days ago.

On Monday I woke up under the weather. After breakfast, Tom and the girls headed off to school while I stayed home and rested. In the afternoon, I donned a pair of yoga pants and t-shirt and headed off to pick the girls up from school (so very suburban of me!). All the kids checked on me to make sure I was OK and we headed home. The next morning, I decided I was just going to wear what I had worn the previous afternoon just because I didn't want to do more laundry, Tom laughed that I had finally gotten over the novelty of draping a sari in the morning. Ten minutes before Tikaram arrived to pick us up, Kabita says, "Mum, you are staying home today too?" "No, why?" "Nothing." Two minutes later, Apsara comes out of her room, surveys my clothes and says "Mum, today you are not getting dressed?" Called out! Tom grins and points out, "It's your own fault for creating expectations." Thank goodness it only takes me 5 minutes to slap on a sari!

Group birthday celebrations

With so many children at the home, birthdays are now celebrated as a group. This past Saturday was Halloween as well as a birthday celebration. All the children who had birthdays in October were the star event. Pre-birthday celebration was sporting games, and Halloween games. Much fun was had by all.

Kabita in disguise

While Tom chased the kids around in his Halloween outfit, I was on tikka duty. I had tikka'd the girls' house on Apsara's birthday, but the 2nd girls' house and boys' house had requested a tikka too. While I am sure there is a religious rite to the tikka, when I perform tikka, it is not religious. It is purely affection for all parties involved. The children getting a blessing from a parent and I am more than pleased to be able to hand out blessings in a way they culturally understand.

Tom in his Halloween outfit

Yesterday we took Kabita to the Lions' Eye Institute at the Teaching Hospital in Maharagunj. It was a little too far to travel in Kathmandu traffic to Til Ganga Eye Hospital. It turns out she suffers from a moderate case of convergence insufficiency, or as they call it in Nepal, "fusional insufficiency". So we will be traveling regularly to the clinic for her to do exercises on the optical machine, plus I am working with her twice a day, at home, on her eye muscles.

Warning label, Nepali style, on a box of cereal

Tom and I are bravely fighting off a cold. I think it is a combination of virus plus Nepali pollution. While we are living slightly elevated from the rest of the valley, the daily travels out and about seem to have caught up with our breathing passages.

Sending love to all!

Fi

A Crash Course In Parenting

Updated family photo

Hi Everyone!

It's been a very different experience for our little clan. A combination of new experiences, new routines and new expectations, plus throw it cultural differences, and you have a bucketload of new moments.

Our kitchen door that leads into the backyard doesn't quite close firmly, so to minimize drafts, the hotel has a cloth windstop at the base of the door. Kabita says to me, "Mum, I think we have rats." "Rats? Did you see a rat?" "No, they have this here, this is to keep out rats." "Oh, I don't think it is too keep out rats ..." Kabita then looks very troubled ... "Then we have snakes???" It would never have occurred to me that it was to keep out rats & snakes!

Tonight, the girls had to put a few things in the fridge for me when Apsara noticed the freezer. It's a little dorm room fridge, so the freezer had iced. She picked at the ice and very excitedly called for her sister. There was some chattering in Nepali and then the questions came; "What is this?" "What happens if we put in water?" "What is this in it?" (frozen chicken) I found a of couple ice trays and we currently have a tray of water in the freezer awaiting its turn into ice, hopefully before bedtime. I hadn't even thought of explaining what ice cubes where to the girls!

There have been days where I feel all I am doing it cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and doing school runs and the days just run into each other.

I've become quite proficient with hand gestures and a few Nepali words. "Eh!" through the nose and with a flick of my hands and a wrinkled nose shows displeasure at the quoted price. "Che!" with a wrinkled nose shows general displeasure.

I have also become equally proficient at sneaking legumes into meals (legumes? what legumes?), dealing with picky eaters (food pyramid) and doing several things at the same time.

Much love,

Fi