Week in the Life- Monday

In a belated attempt to put up some of the images I shot from my Week In the Life project, I'll be posting them here. We're almost another week along, but... oh well. Better late than never.

Monday was our last day in Pokhara. We did a lot of packing, and we did some last minute things that we had been wanting to do.

Just ordinary. Perhaps you have no idea how Chinua can turn anything at all into a

n instrument. Drumming, singing serious and silly songs, playing banjo and guitar and tin whistle all happen at an almost constant rate in our house.

Ditty bags. I separate the kids clothes into each of these bags, for travel.

We packed these boxes, hoping to send them back to India, and then discovered it was too expensive. They're full of school books that we are finished with. We unpacked the boxes and now we're trucking those books in suitcases around Thailand. Gah.

We headed out to rent some scooters. A nearby man slept through the negotiations.

Solo made friends with a man and a cow. More the man than the cow.

He's a bad guy!

First stop: picking up a bag I ordered from this place. They hand dye and weave fabric, then make lovely little bags from the fabric.

 

It may not look like much of a workspace, but it's great in Nepal. Airy and light.

One of the workers.

We fueled up. Not on diesel, I just took a photo of the wrong pump.

And headed far to the north side of the lake for pony riding. Something the kids have been hoping to do for the whole time we've been in Pokhara. Monday was the day.

You can trek with them. We chose a short ride around the village.

I showed her the picture and she commented on how old she is. "Budi cha!" It happens all the time when I take photos of older women in villages India and Nepal. I think they don't look in the mirror much, and then a photo comes as a shock.

Farmer's House is a home for orphans. I'm never sure who the orphans are and who is related to the owners. Whenever I try to ask how many kids they have, they say, "A lot."

Pony.

And they're off, with their trusty guides. Chinua and I walked.

We walked through the forest, and then down by the lake. I had about a million photos of the kids on the ponies. I edited some out. (You're welcome.)

Boat in the lake.

It is SO green at this time of year. Actually, we had to wait at the Farmer's House for about an hour, for the rain to stop.

This lady was so beautiful, I just HAD to ask if I could take her photo. And I was rewarded.

People always ride on top of the buses in Nepal.

Back at the farm with our guide. He's one of the orphan kids. A really sweet guy.

And it was time to go.

So, then we went to the Pizza House for pizza, and one of the strangest events of the day happened. A guy came along with a monkey, who was only about eight months old. He was trying to get money for the monkey. Anyways, the monkey jumped onto Chinua, and as Chinua started ruffling his fur like he was grooming him (like his mother would) the monkey fell asleep. At any moment that we tried to leave and give the monkey back, he became very distressed and clung to Chinua. At one point he actually leapt from his owner back to Chinua, using YaYa's head at a stepping stone. (She just laughed.)

It was rather sad.

The question is, did Chinua catch a monkey flu? Is that even possible?

I had a bad rash on my neck and chest the next day.

I told Chinua, "I don't know whether this is prickly heat or whether you touched me with your monkey hands."

(He really wanted me to blog about that sentence. It was prickly heat.)

And that was Monday. Coming up? Tuesday and Bandipur.