The Cold In Nepal

(Disclaimer: I wrote this post 2 weeks ago, and then forgot about it. But it’s still relevant…kind of.)

Before we left for Nepal, many people in Sweden would ask us ‘So how is the weather in Nepal?’. On a side note: I have no memory of getting this question that often when I would be in the Netherlands before going somewhere far. Why, Sweden? What’s so interesting about the weather?

Anyhow, usually the conversation would go something like this:

Us: Pretty cold, now that it’s winter!
Them (picturing Sweden in wintertime): Oh, really? Does it snow?
Us: No, it actually doesn’t go below zero where we live.
Them: So what is the average temperature?
Us: Well…in day time it can be up to 20 degrees, in the sun. (we see an eyebrow go up slightly)
Us, quickly: But it gets colder in the evening! And, and, there is no heating! No really…we SUFFER!
We can just see how they quietly judge us….how dare you say it’s cold in Nepal! Sweden in winter, now THAT’S cold!

And while we understand that cold is relative, and that snow and ice would be much worse than what we have to endure, I would like to do an effort to make you, dear reader, understand what it’s like to experience a Nepali winter. Because temperatures don’t say THAT much without central heating.
If you do like to know better what the temperatures are, I got this forecast for Pokhara. Check out those minimum temperatures! It’s ALMOST freezing, at least!

First of all, the houses are made of concrete, often with marble floors. Doesn’t quite give that cozy atmosphere you’re looking for when you can see your own breath coming out in clouds.
Then the windows are single glass, with wooden frames that never fit well. To illustrate this: with all doors and windows closed, we can still see the curtains move back and forth in the draft…
While the sun in the day time is lovely, the moment you step into the concrete house you can feel the cold come up from the floors. It doesn’t hold heat at all. Even when you put a gas heater in the room, you only get warm sitting right in front of it. Because the lack of insulation, all the heat then goes straight through the windows (and the 5cm gap under the front door doesn’t help much either, I suppose).

Cloudy days are the worst. There is nowhere to heat up, so you just wrap yourself in a fleece blanket, while dreaming of the beaches in Thailand.

This is what I wear on a regular winter day (besides underwear, obviously):

– long johns (or just some good old plain leggings from H&M)
– pants
– 2 pairs of thin socks
– 1 pair of thick woolen socks (if I’m indoors)
– tank top
– t shirt
– long sleeve (or 2)
– fleece vest

Sometimes indoors I will add one of Jacobs hoodies, or a down vest, and I always walk around on slippers, so my feet stay warmer.
On the motorbike I will wear a soft shell (wind stopper or something) jacket instead of the fleece, although when driving at night I need both.
When walking or cycling I will take of the fleece, but only if I’m moving/in the sun.

But before you start sending us electrical blankets, hot water bottles and down pants: it’s really not that bad, as the temperatures will rise again in February, and then boom, summer comes: 7 months of 30 plus degrees and humidity. We love the marble floors, then. And would be miserable if the houses were actually insulated.

So really. We’ll be fine ;)

Fans, Batteries and Filters – Life In Nepal

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.

How To…Kill A Buffalo In Nepal

(Warning: picture with blood below in this post.)

1. Get a buffalo.

2. Hammer an iron rod into the ground.

3. Attach buffalo and buffalo’s front leg to rod with a rope.

4. Get previously used (ginormous) hammer and hit the buffalo right on top of his head so it dies.

5. Hit a few more times to make sure it’s really dead.

6. Cut the throat and catch the blood.

7. Skin it, cut it, share the meat amongst the neighbors.

 

 

[Some background information: right now it’s Dashain, Nepal’s biggest Hindu festival. Animals are being slaughtered for the purpose of sacrifice as well as feasts.]

‘Today Is A ‘Whole Snickers’ Kind Of Day’

Wat doe je als pasgetrouwd stel zijnde, die in de eerste 2 maanden van hun huwelijk vrijwel alleen maar heeft gereisd en als gevolg daarvan hooguit zo’n 1,5 week thuis heeft doorgebracht…?

Juist. Je gaat er eens lekker tussenuit. Een weekje de Himalaya bergen in, met koude (of geen) douches, chloortabletten om drinkwater te fabriceren en dikke ratten die ‘s nachts over de plafondplaten rennen.

Maar het is niet alleen maar afzien tijdens zo’n tocht – er valt ook heel wat te leren. Zoals wat, vraagt u zich misschien af. Of niet. Maar ik ga het u toch vertellen, want zo ben ik.

* Bohnanza. Want nadat Jacob mij zijn strategieen had uitgelegd, wist ik hem keer op keer genadeloos te verslaan. (N.B. Veel dank aan de gulle gever. Geweldig trouwcadeau.)
* In sommige gevallen betekent ‘Swiss toast’ eigenlijk rösti, maar het is niet persé rösti.
* Ook als je samen reist in Nepal wordt er niet altijd vanuit gegaan dat je getrouwd bent (met dank aan de hippies?!). Maar samen reizen als je niet getrouwd bent is niet gepast. Wat te doen? Les geleerd: het antwoord op de vraag ‘Uit welk land kom je?’ (hoort thuis in de top 3 meest gestelde vragen) werd ‘Holland, en mijn man komt uit Zweden.’
* Denk je als getrouwde vrouw eindelijk af te zijn van veel te persoonlijke vragen van taxichauffeurs en obers (ben je getrouwd? niet? waarom niet, je bent al bijna te oud. wil je een Nepali trouwen? m.a.w. met mij/mijn neef/de buurman? (want Nepali spreek je toch al, dus zijn alle obstakels uit de weg geruimd (?!) )) dan ben je mooi in de aap gelogeerd. Want: oh, getrouwd? Hebben jullie kinderen dan?
Ik dacht met ‘we zijn pas 2 maanden getrouwd’ er vanaf te zijn. Maar dat antwoord was niet afdoende voor het vrouwtje in één van de dorpjes. Ze richtte zich rechtstreeks tot Jacob: ‘Bachhaa banaaune sakincha??’ (kun je kinderen maken??)

We gingen uiteraard niet om Bohnanza te spelen en rösti te eten – het was een werkbezoek, zogezegd. En over dat werk kan ik zeggen dat het bijzonder geslaagd was.

En verder: ook enerverend was de terugreis. De bus die wij hadden gekozen als vervoermiddel de bergen uit bleek niet opgewassen te zijn tegen een modderige helling. De chauffeur deed wat hij kon om de bus gecontroleerd terug naar beneden te laten rollen, een Nepali passagier klom over de tassen en krukjes die het gangpad blokkeerden en riep ‘Fast! Get out!’, een Israeli passagier die als laatste aan boord was geklommen en daarom het gangpad als zitplaats had gekregen vond dat teveel van het goede en liet hem luid en duidelijk weten dat zij niet gepusht wilde worden.
Wij wisten genoeg – als de Nepalis de bus uitwillen, fast, dan moet je de bus uit. Meteen. Wij sprongen fluks naar buiten en keken in de regen toe hoe de chauffeur de bus tegen een bergwandje aan parkeerde, onderaan de helling. Beter tegen de bergwand dan van de weg af, zo vonden wij.

We hadden genoeg gezien en besloten dat we er nog wel wat kilometertjes te voet aan vast konden plakken. Het volgende dorp was 3 kwartier verder, en daar vonden wij een ratloze doch eenvoudige kamer. De volgende dag was het 4 uur wandelen naar Beni, waar we een taxi naar Pokhara regelden.

Amen.

(Ik wist niet hoe ik een einde moest breien aan deze blog, dus vroeg ik raad aan Jacob. En dit was zijn antwoord.)

dit is een brug

zo ziet Parijs er dus uit

mijn man, de fotograaf

 

Recharged

Work, Skype, moving, packing, cleaning, traveling, planning, wedding-ing, and what not had left us looking sort of like this:

We needed to recharge, and quick.
So we went to Thailand.

Turns out, all you need to recharge is this:

Upon arrival in Nepal we could use all that new energy right away to get visa extensions, a clean house and back in the work routines, so today, instead of many words, I have some pictures to share with you.
But remind me to tell you soon about that time that Jacob tried to fit plastic shelves under the kitchen counter. I married a genius.

This is what we left behind in Vetlanda: lots of snow.

These are our flip flops, on the beach. Because it looks cool.

This was after many hours of travel. We could still smile, at least.

Jacob got an awesome hat. We got me a hat too, but because this is my blog I decide what photos are put on here.

We went squid fishing. This is the first squid I have ever caught, and that face means ‘Look-at-that-I-caught-a-squid-please-let-it-not-spray-ink-in-my-face-take-that-picture-quick-do-it-now’

Did Someone Ask For A Cultural Experience?

Well friends…I sure got a cultural experience last week. And not just one. Several. The bus ride there was not even that bad. Of course it took longer than expected, but that’s expected…wait. That doesn’t make sense. But in Nepal it does.

After many hours of travel, hence the crazy eyes. Remember: we got up at 1am, left at 2:30 am, and listened to loud Nepal music for most of the trip.

Here you can see our comfortable seats. My seat was relatively in the front, and I had a tiny view of the road ahead which probably prevented me from motion sickness. Not everyone was that lucky, but that’s why every bus has a stack of plastic bags. And that’s why you can see long distance buses decorated with vomit lines outside the windows.

We arrived late, and there was only a few beds left. This one was for me:

Doesn’t look too bad, right?
See that door on the left? There is another one, and behind them are bathrooms. And when there is not enough water to flush, those tend to get a bit…smelly.
And did you think this bed was just for me? Oh no. I shared it with a friend. They told us someone else had to sleep there too, but even I have limits and said I’d rather sleep on the floor than in that bed with 3 people, because then I would have at least have a chance of getting some sleep.

This is our room. I think there was a total of 12 beds, which means 24-28 girls, including 2 small children. Praise God for ear plugs! :)

The conference was great. Thanks to ear plugs, and many prayers, I slept really well at night. We had great teachings, and in the afternoons we got a few hours off, so we could sit in the sun and hang out with friends.

Despite the request to ‘only wash underwear’ (who doesn’t bring enough clean underwear anyway?) we ran out of water the first day. And the second. I didn’t get my shower, but I did get to wash my hair on day 2, which was awesome.
At 6 am I woke up and heard the tap outside running. Old instincts kicked in and in 2 minutes I had jumped out of bed, put on some clothes and grabbed a bucket from the bathroom. I filled it halfway up and managed to wash my hair in that. Soon after I got my share, the water ran out again.

Then we started the trip back. We left at 5:30 am and hoped to be back in Pokhara around 6pm. We were wrong.

After about 5 hours, we saw this:

This is a long line of vehicles that are not moving. As soon as we got of the bus to check out what happened, we heard that there was a protest because someone had been killed in an accident. From someone else we heard it was because someone had been kidnapped.
Anyhow, when people feel they don’t get support from the government for their problems, or compensation for the loss of a relative, they block the streets for a while, which affects hundreds, maybe thousands of people, especially if it’s on a main road like the one we were traveling on.

Right before we joined the line, a bus from the same company on their way to Dharan had told our driver that he had taken a short cut through the forest, to avoid the bandha. Clearly he had succeeded, and so our driver decided to go for it.

We took a turn and drove on a dusty narrow road in the jungle. I remember thinking ‘If I had organized this bandha, I would check these roads.’
We had to take a sharp turn which took some time with the long bus, and right as we were ready to take it, I saw a motor bike coming at us from the left. There was 2 guys on the back, carrying big sticks. This is not good, I thought. And it wasn’t.
Without wasting anytime discussing the issue, they smashed the front windows and then some on the side, too.

This is what it looked like afterwards. There was people sitting right behind the wind shields, and next to the side windows too, but no one got hurt. While they were smashing the windows we all got out of the bus, not sure what else they would do, as sometimes they set vehicles on fire.

They were kind enough to tell us what was going on: the driver of a bus that had killed someone in an accident had been kidnapped, and they suspected the government to be involved in that. And they were very mad that we, a bus full of people from Pokhara, on our way home, dared to not be obedient and wait for hours until their demands were met by the government.

We joined the line again, which is a bit embarrassing, to come out of the jungle again with no windows…
About 2 hours later the police had come and had ended the bandha. We drove to the next town, where they solved the no-window problem:

That’s right. Plastic and tape. But not on the driver’s side, because he still had to be able to see the road.

 

This is Ram. He wanted me to take his picture at his seat without a window.

The rest of the trip back was quite miserable. It was cold, freezing cold, and it took us another 12 hours because we got stuck in a traffic jam. I was home at 12:30 am, which made it a trip of 19 hours.

Hurray for Nepal!

Off To Dharan

It has been a while since I’ve been on a trip within Nepal that was not to buy groceries, or the tourist bus to Kathmandu. It’s not that I stay home on purpose, but to be honest, it doesn’t really bother me to not go.

I like to see new places, sure. But when seeing those new places means I get to sit on a broken bus seat for many hours, while listening to loud Nepali music and eating greasy noodles for lunch, suddenly my own little town of Pokhara is so appealing to me. Another cappuccino at Lakeside, sure!

But next week there is a staff meeting for everyone working in my group from Nepal, Bhutan and North East India, so only if I had had 3 kids or was violently ill, I would have had reason to stay home.

Instead, I get to get on a bus at 3am (!!) tomorrow morning, and then get off at 4pm, if we’re lucky. That means: if we don’t get a flat tire, come across an accident, get into an accident, or are stopped by a demonstration. So really, yes, 4pm is totally doable.
Then, in Dharan, I will most likely stay in a room with 20 Nepali girls, on a thin mattress on the concrete floor (it gets cold at night!!).
I am not expecting to be lucky enough to be able to take a shower.
We will eat rice and lentils everyday, and probably a hard boiled egg and some beaten rice and spicy chick peas for breakfast. We will listen to sermons every day and talk about our vision and goals.
For most of the people that are attending, it will be like a family reunion since many of them are from the bible belt of Nepal and all their family lines can be traced back to one Grandpa and Grandma that were among the first believers here. Fun, except when you are not from their ethnic group.

But – I am excited. Ok, not about the 13 hour bus trip over Nepali style roads (more hole than road), but about the fun we will have during that time. It actually already feels a bit like a school trip because my good friend and I have promised to sit next to each other.
I’m excited to spend a lot of time with my Nepali friends I usually see only a few times a week; excited to be in a new place; excited to remember I live in Nepal…

Sometimes I get a bit too comfortable in my life with backup battery, electric heater, cappuccinos and spaghetti, and there’s nothing like a trip to Dharan to change that.

One Year Of Awesomesauce – To My Friends And Family

In this picture that was taken on November 7th you can see Jacob and me, right before we ate a huge Korean meal with chopsticks. I used to not like Korean food, and I never knew how to eat using chopsticks, but somehow between a day in February 2011 and when this picture above was taken, that has changed.

It has been a year since Jacob asked me to be his girl. Of those 12 months, we were in the same country for about 6,5, which is not too bad considering we live on 2 different continents.

That day in 2011 was the first time we had Korean food together, and we will always refer to this day as the ‘non-date’. I liked him but couldn’t tell him yet, and he liked me but didn’t realize it yet. Still, we would always find excuses to hang out together and that day we had somehow spend together from morning to evening, starting with breakfast, later on a fika, and then dinner at a random Korean place. But he didn’t offer to pay, which I was thankful for, because that would have made it a date which it wasn’t supposed to be.

When he went back to Sweden we started to Skype, and when he realized that I was not just a friend we started Skyping more, and by the time he came back it didn’t take long for it to become official. That’s the short version, of course.

There’s something different about dating in another country, especially if he has a different nationality. We finally met each others families and friends after 7 or 8 months of dating.
We got engaged just a few weeks after my parents met him for the first time.
I had never brought him to my friends birthday parties.
We didn’t celebrate Christmas with my family.

So they have never seen him show up at my house with roses, on the 7th of the month (and getting roses in Nepal is NOT the same as getting them at home..).
They haven’t seen him make me breakfast when I don’t feel well.
They don’t know his 2 different dance moves (in my mind I call them Bollywood Move and Nameless Move).
They don’t know his annoying habits. (I will let them find out for themselves)

There’s a lot they don’t know, so that’s why I am using this opportunity to tell them. Of course they know he is awesome and that I am the lucky one to be marrying him, but all the rest matters too, right? So that they know with what kind of guy I will soon be living in Casa de Collin, our little purple apartment that I will soon write more about.

He reads the Swedish news so often that I know all the ads on the website.
He thinks it’s ok to talk about poop.
He writes his to do lists on his hand.
He makes the best coffee.
He can be very, very, very immature. (ok, me too, but this is supposed to be about him, right? Right.)
He has a sense of humor that I don’t always get, but still I get it more than the average person.
Once he did a wheelie on my motorbike – while I was on the back.

And then there’s so much more I could write but which is, though true, also gonna sound too cheesy. Because that’s what happens when you’re in love.

Let’s summarize by this: He makes me smile, he makes me laugh, and he makes me very happy.
And I hope one day you will get the chance to get to know this crazy awesome Swede better.

Life

Maybe, if I got paid for this, I would write more. But life is happening too fast and sometimes there simply is no time to sit down and type my stories for people at home to read. And not just at home, actually. By now I have somehow gathered a group of readers from all over the world, from which many have clicked the ‘Follow’ button. I don’t know why…but it’s kinda cool!

One day I started writing about the gooood food at Almond’s café, and another day I wrote about the stress of having to get your signature exactly right everytime you want to get something done at the bank, but these posts weren’t ready for publishing yet and now you’ve been waiting too long for a new post here.

Remember when I started this blog, even before moving to Nepal?

In January I will have lived here for 3 years. That’s sort of in between short term en long term. Somehow, in these almost-three-years I have made this my home. I love Nepal. Sometimes I hate it, but I love it.

And I am still adjusting, still growing roots, still finding my place here.

At the same time, I miss home. I miss being with my family at my dad’s birthday, I miss seeing my niece and nephews, I miss having coffee with my parents, I miss being Dutch among Dutchies.

Then one day, in the not very far future I will move to Sweden with my then husband.

And though all of this may be cool and exciting, it’s also terrifying. When I think about it, I get a knot in my stomach. Not because I don’t want to go, but because of everything I will leave behind. I will never really leave behind Nepal, but this time of my life will soon be finished and I’m not quite ready yet…

But still – this is the life and life is good.

Spending lots of time with Jacob, while he is still here.
Planning for the apartment we will start renting soon, my first ‘own’ home in Nepal.
Learning how to cook Nepali food (finally).
Working hard, fighting discouragement, and sometimes being encouraged.
And keeping in mind: this world is not my home, I’m just passing through.

We Are Married, Or Engaged, Or Something.

I looked in the mirror while Bimala wrapped a 5 meter long pink piece of clothing around me. You don’t just tie a sari around you. There is a specific order and technique, and the folds will show whether or not you have mastered this or not.

Bimala walked around me in circles, stuck safety pins all over the place and kept worrying about the sari being too short. But suddenly she realized what was going on – it was not that the sari was too short, but that I was too tall!

We had to practice walking (small steps!), sitting down (hold the folds!) and getting up (hold the folds!). The bracelets were put around my wrist, a necklace was borrowed from a friend, and I was ready for our engagement party.

And it surely was a party. Everything went real smooth, in Nepali style.

The room was cleaned and decorated nicely for the occasion.

During worship time, there was guitars, djembe’s and a harmonica.
The songs we had chosen were (except for one) not sung.

We started the meeting with a 30 minute delay.

According to Nepali tradition, Jacob and I gave each other a gift in the ceremony, and also according to tradition, it was not unwrapped until later, something which the children thought was stupid. A few days later Isaiah (6) told me:  “You forgot to open your presents!!”

The guy who led the meeting thought it was a good idea for us to kneel down on the floor while people prayed over us. Kneeling while wearing a sari, now that we had not practiced, but (probably due to the number of safety pins) it was a success.

After the meeting was finished, the catering was ready with dal bhat, chicken, and yoghurt as dessert.

And we celebrated all this with our family and friends here:  Nepalis, Americans, Canadians, Australians and Germans.

So yes, we are engaged, something that is not entirely clear for all Nepalis. In their own mysterious ways some of them thought this was our wedding party. And this after the confusion last year, when a few months after announcing our ‘exclusive relationship’ we discovered that some people thought we had gotten engaged.

It’s about time we just get married :)

!Kerry and I doing our Nepali ‘light bulbs’ dance move

friends

 

The speaker and his translator

 

socializing with the bideshis

 

typical Nepali engagement photo, I think…the distance, the serious looks, the sari.

 

sangati

 

the worship leaders picking some songs

 

giving the gift

 

Peace Out

 

Ik keek in de spiegel terwijl Bimala een roze lap van 5 meter lang om me heen wikkelde. Een sari knoop je niet zomaar om je heen. Er is een bepaalde volgorde en techniek, en je kunt aan de plooien zien of je die techniek al dan niet beheerst.

Bimala liep rondjes om me heen, stak her en der veiligheidsspelden in de stof en bleef maar zuchten dat de sari te kort was. Maar ineens begreep ze waarom – het was niet dat de sari te kort was, maar ik te lang!

Er moest geoefend worden met lopen (kleine stappen!), zitten (hou de plooien vast!) en opstaan (hou de plooien vast!). De armbanden werden om mijn hand geschoven, er werd een ketting geleend van een vriendin, en ik was klaar voor ons verlovingsfeest.

En een feest, dat was het! Alles liep op Nepali rolletjes.

De zaal was mooi versierd en schoongemaakt voor de gelegenheid.

De muziek werd begeleid met gitaren, djembé’s en een mondharmonica.
De liedjes die we hadden uitgekozen werden (op 1 na) niet gezongen.

We begonnen een half uur later dan gepland.

Volgens Nepali traditie gaven Jacob en ik elkaar een cadeau tijdens de ceremonie, en eveneens volgens traditie werd die niet ter plekke uitgepakt, wat de aanwezige kinderen maar stom vonden. Een paar dagen later werd mij door Isaiah (6) verteld: “You forgot to open your presents!!”

Het leek degene die de samenkomst leidde een goed idee om ons te laten knielen terwijl er voor ons werd gebeden. Knielen met een sari aan, dat hadden we niet geoefend, maar (waarschijnlijk dankzij alle veiligheidsspelden) liep dat goed af.

De catering stond na de samenkomst klaar met dal bhaat, kip en yoghurt toe.

En dit alles vierden we met onze familie en vrienden hier: Nepali’s, Amerikanen, Canadezen, Australiers en Duitsers.

En we zijn dus verloofd, iets wat niet voor elke Nepali duidelijk is. Op hun eigen onnavolgbare wijze bleken sommigen te denken dat dit ons trouwfeest was. Dit na de verwarring vorig jaar, toen we een paar maanden na de mededeling van onze ‘exclusive relationship’ ontdekten dat een aantal mensen dachten dat we ons hadden verloofd.

Het wordt tijd dat we gewoon getrouwd zijn :)

En dan nu wat foto’s!!