where the people who know go

Where do the twenty-something expatriots go in Kathmandu when they want to have a gin fizz? Well we found out tonight. In the early evening, we went to the eightieth birthday party for one of Haydi and David's friends, Olga. For the last twenty years, she's been running a scholarship program for bright, but underpriveledged, Nepali kids. In addition to a lot of expatriots she knows, there were about 200 of the kids there. They call her 'Olga Mommy'. She's a huge part of these kids' lives. The ex-Prime Minister was there, the one who was ousted and put under house arrest on February 1st. It was a big, big party. Very nice. Olga's speech was brief and really on the ball. She's 80, and incredibly with it.

Later, we went into the tourist part of town to hit the bars. We saw four of the expatriots from Olga's party at the bar we went to. We thought it was kind of 'our place', but apparently it's an expatriot hang-out. Don't worry though, there were also plenty of tourists with dirty long hair, formless bags, and baggy pants.

It occured to me last night, staring at the ceiling right before falling asleep, that I'll be leaving Nepal in less than two months. Two months from now, I'll be in Hong Kong. In two months and five days, I'll be back in California with nowhere to live, with a lot of things I've put aside for the last six months staring me in the face. Pretty scary, really. Everything I consider home will be gone. There'll be no Doggy, no flat in Jhomsikel, no Ewan & Nini, no Haydi & David, no Tapa, no Mylee, no Nandu, no KC, no twenty people in a microbus - it'll all be gone. Instead, the money will be green, things will be expensive, people will speak my language, I'll know what the holidays are, OSHA will be standing in the way of fun/fast/cheap things, and George Bush Jr. will rule the country of residence. And here at EcoSystems, we've still so many things to do before we go. It got me cracking on work when I woke up, even though it's Saturday.

And I'd still like to take a long weekend to Varanasi before I go. So much to do.

Holi was as colorful and drenched as one would expect. Photos of that will follow shortly. They, like the photos of the nine-course meal at Dwarika's, are on Ewan's computer and the network connection isn't accessible when his computer is asleep.