Why I Love Nepal

In my short time here, I have tried to participate in Nepali culture as much as possible. Ellen and I have been wearing the traditional lungi (long skirts) that most women wear, eating a lot of dal bhat (rice, lentils, curry, and other delicious things: expect to be cooked some of this at home, since we took a cooking class), and speaking the minimal Nepali that we have learned as much as possible. We compiled a list of things we love about Nepal:

-Tea (Chiya)
-Lungi (long, colorful, Nepali skirts)
-Trekking
-Prayer Flags
-Dal Bhat
-Squatting Toilets
-Playing Nepali card games (Jack-Cheetah, Call-Break, and Dumbal)
-Stupas
-Yak Wool Creations
-Yak Cheese (be on the lookout for this in the US for me!)
-Fireplaces to dry clothes
-Enormous mountains (himal)
-Nepali language
-Meeting people
-Friendly wild goats (bakra), especially puche bakra (baby goats; we saw some that were only days old!)
-Sunny mornings
-Gurung bread/Tibetan bread/Pun bread
-Mountains at night (aaaahh!)
-Hot springs
-Nepali music, and 3 Sisters dance parties (especially Resam Filili)
-Green bananas that taste ripe

I can’t even tell you how happy I am to be traveling right now. Something – or everything, I guess, – about it appeals to me so much. There’s so much new input and new culture to experience. I would like to incorporate a lot of it into my own culture, and what I do not, I will at least keep in my mind. I can’t believe I am leaving Nepal now; I have sort of fallen in love with this place in the short two and a half weeks that I have been here. But the good thing is that I have also completely fallen in love with traveling, so I am insanely excited to go to Kenya too. My flight leaves here in about 6 hours, and I arrive in Kenya 16 hours later. So next time you hear from me will be from Daraja!