nepal: other cultural things

just a few other things i noticed...

when you buy vegetables or anything else that is bought by weight, i saw some digital scales, but many of the scales were the kind where you put the vegetables on one side and the actual weight on the other side. it looked so cool! old, rusted scales, but they do the job. fill up the vegetable side until it balances. i thought of Words about honest scales. it was so visually right in front of me with those older-type scales, though of course you could mess with digital scales as well.

another thing is banda. from what i understand, this is a ban on driving in the streets or opening shops, and it can happen on any given day for a variety of reasons--some kind of protest against something, is usually what it seems to be. it has happened a couple of times while i have been here. when we were at nagarkot, we had to see if the bus would actually take us down the mountain that day, because the driver said there was banda. when there is banda, it can be dangerous to drive, because the protestors will consider the people who go against the banda to be against them, so things like slashing people's tires or burning people's shops have happened before. i don't completely understand what the bandas are necessarily for though, and i wonder if they actually make any difference or not. i don't know.

this yogurt was amazing.
they make it in this stone bowl, and you buy the whole thing. it's plain yogurt, no sugar or anything added. it's quite good with honey. the honey here is also amazing!! SO yummy.

here is a picture from the new year celebration that i mentioned before, everyone gathered around the bonfire.
this is before they started cooking the meat over the fire. here everyone is just getting warm after sitting in the cold inside room for a long time.

these are the things ruthie and i had made for ourselves!
we chose the fabric and then the tailor measured us and made them. ruthie's is a tibetan style dress, and mine is the kurta that i mentioned before, the style that so many ladies wear here. so comfortable! i guess you can't see the pants very well, but they are awesome. baggy and it's easy to move in them, but also pretty and well-made. the shirt is not always that long and i wish i'd had it made kind of shorter. oh well. they also don't always look this fancy, there are all sorts of different kinds and designs and colors.

we also tried on sari!
i think the sari is awesome, once you learn to put it on...it's kind of hard to put on correctly so it doesn't have a risk of falling off. i guess they use pins in strategic places sometimes. and of course you wouldn't wear such a brown shirt under it.... so saris are for warm times. but i think they are so great. i think any woman could wear a sari and feel like they are beautiful and that any woman could look good in a sari. there are so many different ways to wear it and i think it would work for everyone. the clothes for women here are so smart. no more of these crazy western clothes. what do people who design such clothes think???

this picture makes me happy. =)
we are eating momo, which are the nepali version of chinese jiaozi (dumplings) or japanese gyoza. quite yummy. in china they eat them with vinegar though, but here with some spicy sauce (that ruthie has) or ketchup (which i have). i love it with vinegar, but i love ketchup so much that i didn't mind that either.