Sights Sounds Smells

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to drivers honking their horns at you. In fact, in just 10 short days, I’ve developed quite an appreciation for the sheer variety of horns, particularly the shrill, melodic, air-horns and their usefulness in saving me from death or at the very least maiming under the wheels of a gaudy transport truck. The thing is, the horns have to be loud to make it over the cacophony of life in Kathmandu. What with the packs of stray dogs barking, the Hindu puja bells ringing, the street vendors bartering, the traffic rumbling, and the throat clearing and spitting, there’s no place for pansy little toots.

Especially when you’re so distracted trying to nail down what on God’s green Earth that smell is. Is it the unidentifiable globule in that pile of rubbish, or fermenting fruit, or whatever skin disease that dog’s got, or the after effects of the curry that man clearly had for dinner? No. Bad, but kind of sweet. A unique blend of garlic and unwashed clothes and incense. And strangely, not altogether terrible…

Which really just compliments the view. Florescent pink fairy floss on a forest of sticks carried like a bunch of balloons. Beggars with twisted limbs and hollow eyes. Lush foliage bursting out of every unlikely brick nook and cranny. Gold and turquoise and fuchsia and red and green saris. Flies converging on a boar’s head and fresh meat cuts at the butcher’s stall. Elderly women carrying baskets of bricks held by a strap across their forehead. Boxes of stereo equipment leaning on ancient Hindu statues.

It’s an assault on the senses – and they love it!

Roots and Wings

I’m going to go out on a limb and say I have the best family in the world. Hands down.

I’ve always known they were great, but their collective reaction to us going away has really driven home the point. My mother-in-law battled cobwebs and climbed behind blinds to clean windows and my mum spent a day up to her armpits in my grotty oven and stayed upbeat about the whole thing with us despite her misgivings about us heading off in the wilds of Asia. Our friends, the family we have chosen for ourselves, brought their ruthless packing skills, laundering and administration services, hospitality, and just-at-the-right-time laughs to bear on the chaos. But the image that really illustrates the familial experience for me comes courtesy of my aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins – my “blood” family, as they jovially like to define themselves.

Grandma has made it a tradition to farewell all members of the family by waving a red scarf in public places – airports, train stations, bus stops. This has been met with various levels of embarrassment from all of us at some point or another and so is indelibly woven into the fabric of our shared experience. As we left my parents house for the last time, both my grandmas and my parents and brother were at the gate to wave us off, Grandma with her customary red scarf. We had a chuckle and drove off, but as we rounded a corner of the driveway, there were my aunts and uncles and cousins (just out of Grandma's range of vision), frantically waving anything red immediately at hand – towels, tablecloths and most notably the lid of the Weber kettle BBQ.

There’s nothing like knowing where you’ve come from and where you’ll end up.

Sqwark

I like to think of myself as quite a rational person. But it has become apparent to me that I have no adequate defences against the chaos that descends when one packs up a life. I keep finding myself sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of clothes and high school memorabilia and Tupperware that would put a bower bird to shame with not the foggiest notion of what to do next and an overwhelming desire to either cry or punch someone.

I hate packing with a vengeance and when we moved into our current house I told Matt I never wanted to move ever again – a comment I just know he’s very stoically resisting quoting back at me, since this whole Nepal venture was my brainchild. But that move was nothing compared to this. Not just packing to transport, but packing to store; not just packing of any description, but also mail redirecting, house renting, dog billeting, bill forecasting and paying, and so on and on and on.

I recognise that I am not the first person to have endured this particular form of torture, but the whole assault is exacerbated by the fact that Matt and I are both hoarders. I have progressed to the acceptance stage while Matt is still in denial but the truth remains. This means that we not only have little boxes full of basketball collector’s cards popping up left, right and centre, but that we are physically unable to throw them away. St Vinnie’s has helped alleviate this condition to an extent on some fronts, but even for a good cause, I am unable to part with my perishing purple feather boa or my jellybean jumpsuit from when I was 8.

Only slightly less traumatic than the actual packing experience is the realisation that if we ever are to cure ourselves of the hoarding affliction, the time is now – but the window of opportunity is closing rapidly and there’re no indicators that either of us is prepared to dive through. On the upside, at least we’re in it together – although Matt doesn’t know it yet!