We’ve eaten momo’s, we’ve driven the motorbike, we’ve had dal bhat with fried fish at the landlord’s house.
We’re back in Nepal.
And now that we are here, I’ve realized that I’ve never shown some of the smaller, practical details of living here. Because while I’m sure most of you understand that life here is different than in, say, the Netherlands, it might be interesting to know what kinds of things we use in our daily lives here. Some are to make life better, others are to avoid diseases, and then there’s the toiletpaper bin, just because we can’t flush it down here.
As you may know, there is never 24/7 power in Nepal. We have ‘loadshedding’, which means the power is out for several hours a day. More in the winter than in the summer. Right now we don’t have power for 8 hours a day. So first I will introduce this extremely ugly thing to you, because it has made our lives better in summer AND in winter. The fan-with-battery-and-light!!
Oh, the glory. Despite its ugliness, I could kiss it. It charges when there is power and then, when the power goes out in the hot summer, and the fan stops working and the sweat starts dripping, this fan STILL works and makes everything better. And, as you may have noticed, it also has a light (the weird arm on the side – it can fold in and out and you can even twist it). It has made cooking when there is no power and no light (and the back up system down) so much easier.
Then there’s the water filter.
If you think now: why don’t you drink tap water? Then please, I beg you, do not come to Nepal until you have read up on giardia and amoebas.
When there is power, this thing filters all the crap out of our water so that we stay healthy.
PS – note the safe outlet it is plugged into.
All those power outages can give problems for electrical appliances, and we needed to protect our fridge. We got this:
Don’t ask me how it works or what it does, but our fridge works fine and I’m happy.
Here you see the thing that rules them all: THE INVERTER. I first bought one after I received a generous gift from people in the Netherlands. Because of it, we can have lights on at night when the power is out. No more working with candle light, no more shining my cellphone light to find the bathroom.
Right now they have replaced the battery which was very dead after 3 years of using it, and we upgraded so we even have light in the bedroom and dining room. The glory!
Who enjoys a cold shower? Not me! This thing is connected to a gas cylinder (with the blue hose) and heats the water. I also use it for when we wash our clothes (by hand) so it gets cleaner + my hands don’t fall off after an hour in freezing cold water.
Those gas cylinders (also one for cooking) are stored outside, locked into a serious cage, to make sure no one steals them.
Back to those diseases: there is many ways to get the dreaded explosives, and while often we don’t even know where it came from, there is another way to prevent this:
Anything that is not peeled or cooked should be soaked in water with a few drops of the brown stuff and then it’s ok to eat. It’s like magic. Because now we can eat strawberries.
And last but not least: here’s the tp bin. Blurry but you get the point.
That’s just life, in Nepal.
Ruth's Journey 
reminds me of cambodia. so fun.
I don’t think I want any of those things in my house, to be honest. Except for the The Inverter. It sounds like a title of movie with Jason Statham, Steven Seagal or Bruce Willis as the lead.
The water filter make smile, rem youranswer when we asked you if you’d have one in your new house? Are each of you still doing your own handwashing? : ) miss you! Ohh and one day, if you upgrade to an air con/ HEATER (like we did) you will actually be warm. In one room of your house. It’s good, very very good.