I'm slacking

13 July 2010 8:31pm Maitikhan

It’s been too long since I’ve last written. For the first part of last week nothing much happened, but then everything seemed to happen at once and I had no time to write at all. Tuesday we met with Gagan Thapa, a Nepali Congress member who is in both the parliament and the constituent assembly. Unfortunately I didn’t get to ask him anything as it wasn’t ‘my’ meeting, but I still got some useful information. The rest of the answers he gave to people’s questions were really good as well.

After the meeting most of us stayed behind at New Orleans restaurant to work and wait for news about another potential meeting. That meeting did take place, but was very short as our interviewee got lost on the way and had another meeting soon after. The woman we got to meet is Manushri Bhattarai, who is the leader of the Maoist student union and also the daughter of Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, number two in the Maoist chain of command. Only 4 people got to ask questions as she needed to leave. Unfortunately, it was even worse because she is ridiculously soft-spoken and was very hard to hear.

The following day Cecilia, Katie, Jakub and I met with Pasang, the chief of the PLA. I was expecting some buff, intense, angry guy just because of who he is, but he’s actually an average-looking guy, and incredibly nice, too! He only spoke the party line, but that’s to be expected. That discussion was good, and I finally got to ask some questions for my own project. We got signed copies of his book, a photo op, and even his permission to visit a PLA cantonment (we still have to get UNMIN’s permission for that last one).

In the evening I met with Dee and Eugenia to discuss our India plans, and had an experience with one of the worst cab drivers ever. I used the meter, and when I finally got to Pulchowk it said around 120. I gave him that, and he said no, it was 300 because he had an old meter and it didn’t charge enough. I told him that I didn’t care, I was giving him what the meter said, and that if he had an old meter that he should get a new one (in his defense I think he did have an old meter, but he should have disclosed that at the beginning). He kept arguing with me so I eventually put the money on the seat and got out. He was pissed, he kept looking at me from out his window and stayed there for quite some time. Eugenia and I had to go inside while we waited for Dee to get away from him. On the bright side, we mostly figured out our India plans.

I had another bad cab experience, although neither Keesler nor I can remember where or when this happened. Wherever we were, we caught a cab back home at night and negotiated a price beforehand. Keesler got dropped off first, and after I repeated to him that I was going to Purano (Old) Baneshwor, he started muttering angrily to himself in Nepali. I think he thought I was also in New Baneshwor. When we got to the main intersection by my house, I told him where to go. He started yelling at me, that the way I pointed was actually Battisputali and that it was more expensive. I let him take me the way he insisted (as there are 2 ways I can go from the intersection), but when I pointed the way after that he got angry and started swearing (I’m assuming from the tone) in Nepali. He was mean the rest of the way to my house, and tried charging an extra hundred rupees. I got into an argument with him and eventually ended up just leaving the money on the seat and getting out as quickly as possible. Damn cab drivers…

Anyway, Thursday was uneventful and Friday was spent finishing the editing I had to do for Martin Chautari. After work on Friday I first went to Bishal Bazar to pick up my kurtas from Bharati. They fit pretty nice, but not as nice as the one Kaki bought me (which she gave me Thursday night). The only bad part of the experience was Bharati trying to charge me Rs. 400 more than she originally told me when I ordered them. I was pissed and eventually gave her the money, but thankfully she could tell I was mad and agreed to 4600 rather than 5000. Oh well. After that I met Dee and Eugenia to start booking our tickets for India. We only got as far as the plane ticket to Delhi on August 1st as the train ticket place in India was already closed. We still have to concretely plan that out anyway.

We ate dinner at the Northfield Café after, which was actually really nice. We decided to change things up a bit and try something new. The food was ok (I think it was just what I ordered, though), but they had a live Nepali band playing which was cool. The atmosphere of the whole place is great. Luckily, the cab ride home was uneventful. Saturday I went with Dee, Jakub, and his girlfriend Hana to the palace museum. It was pretty cool, although I was sad that we weren’t allowed to take pictures. I think the worst thing about the palace is that it totally screams “Florida retirement home.” Once we found out the place was built in the 1960’s by an American architect, it didn’t seem as surprising anymore (still ugly, though). The front entranceway has one of those awesome double staircases, which I thought only existed in movies. Apparently, not. The staircase was also flanked on both sides by giant stuffed tigers rearing on their back legs. Pimpin’. We got to see receiving rooms, bedrooms for visiting dignitaries, personal offices of the king, dining rooms and even the king and queen’s bedroom. It was surprisingly small and not ostentatious- exactly the opposite of what I was expecting.

We got to see the garden (which was horribly overgrown and just ill-maintained) as well as the remains of the building where the royal massacre occurred, as the building itself was destroyed by the government soon after the massacre. Because that’s not suspicious or anything.

We met the whole group at Fire and Ice for lunch. They had already ordered a bunch of pizzas for the table, all but two of which had mushrooms on them. Eww. After was a free day, where I finally got to get a picture frame and print the photo for my host family. I hung out at OR2K with some people for a while after, until I went home for what I was hoping to be one last dinner with the family, and to finish packing. Unfortunately, when I got home only KFC was awaiting me. I was pretty disappointed. When Kaka and Kaki came home they said they were hoping that I would join them for dinner on King’s Road but I never came. They had called earlier and said they were on King’s Road, but didn’t say anything about dinner. If they had I would have went.