The weekly review

There have been a few changes this week. The biggest change is that the winter fog arrived on December 1st as it was scheduled to. This means that it is noticably colder every day. Each morning it is extremely foggy on the way to work and I am covered in dew by the time I get there. The fog will lift by noon and the sun will begin to warm things up, but the mornings are starting to get pretty cold.

I started language classes this week. I meet for an hour each morning before I start my work. My teacher is named Himal, which means snowy mountain. Why did'nt I think of this name when we were arguing over baby names????? Anyways, I am only learning the script and a little conversation right now. It is a completely different alphabet with several variations of the letter T, D, I, A, E, and O. The Nepali language does not form sentences like the English language does. For instance the sentence...... "My name is Jon" is really "My name Jon is." "My wife Shawna is. My book on table is." Well you get the picture.

What they don't teach you is the international language of testosterone body language, of which I speak fluently. This is so complicated that you could never teach it. It is inbred in every man. Here is how it works......... I can look at a guy on a motorcycle and communicate to him, "My bicycle can take your Hero Honda anyday." After which he can respond with, "O'Yeah, well I will race you to the Bhagmati bridge you white faced turtle." Then the race is on. I can communicate this without taking my pollution mask or my sunglasses off. It must be communicated through my eye brows because its the only thing showing.

I try and communicate this with as many people as I can on the way to work every day. We will weave in and out of traffic, onto sidewalks, over man holes, finally ending at the bridge. I have a pretty good record on the way to work, but I have lost many races on the way home, (its all uphill).

This week I passed over a hundred cars and trucks, dozens of rickshaws, several cows, an elephant, and an monkey that must have weighed 80lbs.. It is a great way to get back and forth to work and all this comunication is done without speaking the language. It only works with men though. It must be a testosterone thing.

Other than that life is starting to settle down a little. We have little free time which keeps us from being homesick. We have made some good friends and our kids are starting to adjust to the change. Thanks for all your prayers. I know that there was alot of prayers being sent on our behalf and they made a huge difference. The adjustment here was alot harder than we expected.

Posted by Jon at December 4, 2003 09:20 AM