Shivaratri

Yesterday we celebrated the Hindu god Shiva with an early dinner with Naho, Suresh and his wife Muna.
The festival Shivaratri is the only day that it's legal to smoke something else than tobacco.
It's crazy with naked, high, dancing holy men, sadhus, around the Hindu temple Pashupatinath, but I had to work so I'll go next year.

Felt factories

Yesterday we went to three different felt factories to see the women working the wool in to beautiful bags, purses and shawls.
We were exhausted in the end of the day.
Here they are making the felt, from the Merino wool fibers imported from New Zealand, and the base shapes.

Here they are doing embroidery and other detail work.

Emelie and Naho.

Leya was playing outside with a daughter to one of the workers.

Emelie and Naho

Today Leya and I met two new, wonderful friends.
Emelie is also Swedish and has decided to try to live here in Nepal and today we finally met.
She is interested in and wants to work with environment in textile production like natural dyeing, something that is not easy to find here in Nepal.
We will definitely work together in the future.
Naho is Japanese and lives in Canada since 11 years.
She is here in business, but we have already talked a lot about how it's like to live in Japan, Canada, Sweden, India and Nepal.
A huge subject we need more dinners to cover.
Tomorrow we will all visit two felt factories and I will sure remember to take photos, something I completely forgot today.
We talked and talked so the camera was left in peace in the handbag.

Dung

Those guys are really brave throwing dung from the truck in to our neighbor garden with their bare hands.
I'd prefer a space overall, big boots and a shovel.

Flyers

I'm so tired from all worrying for Nani.
The thought of her suffering from pain, hunger or loneliness is completely crushing my heart.
Not knowing is the worst part. She is not a tough dog who can survive in the streets.
Our landlords think she is kidnapped and what will they do when they realize that she is steralized and useless for breeding.
They will probably dump her somewhere and we'll probably never find out what happened to her.
Tomorrow we will print these flyers and walk around giving them to people in the neighbor areas.
Please help us pray for her safe return home to her family.

Nani is missing

Our dog Nani has been missing since 7 yesterday evening.
I'm so worried I just want to cry. She would never stay away this long by herself.
She might be kidnapped!
Please help us pray she'll be back soon, safe and sound.

Lollipops school

As you probably know Leya is not going to school right now and we have waited for the universe to send a suitable school our way.
We are tired of the high pressure, non-Nepali speaking schools with huge classes with the only focus on exams results.
The other day the principal of a new school bought paint in our landlords' paint shop and they started talking.
Our landlords' son realised that Lollipops school could be a good school for Leya and today we visited the school.
For one year they have had lower classes in the small house with the garden full of toys and coming year, the Nepalese new year starts in the middle of April, they will start with the classes 1 to 5.
They let the kids play, they are allowed to speak Nepali, they will pick Leya up right outside our house with the school van, they provide breakfast, lunch and snacks and the classes will be small, at most 12 students in each class.
For the first time in months Leya was excited to go to school and it was so nice to see her laying in the grass and throwing the basket ball in the school yard.
The first year the admission fee is free and naturally the classes will be even smaller since their school program is new.
This is good for Leya since she is in a period in her life when she feels a little insecure and don't like to be in big groups of kids.
This is the kind of small, family-like school we have been looking for and finally we found it.

Plane crash

From an early spring to the coldest days this winter. What just happened?
Yesterday a plane crashed outside of Pokhara. The first report says it crashed because of bad weather.
All 18 people on the plane died since they had nowhere else to go but crash land in the jungle.
Since 2010 it has been six plane crashes with at least 97 people killed.
The pilots don't have adekvat education to fly in the extreme conditions you find in Nepal and many of the airports are located in narrow valleys.
I would never recommend anyone to fly domestic in Nepal.
God bless their souls!

Rain

After a long winter and months of dry weather we finally got some rain.
I just love to fall asleep to the soothing sound of rain.
Now it's definately weather change towards warmer temperatures, even though it's rather cold right now and the heater has given up for this winter.

Prayer flag print

If you think that everything is made by high tech machines this will show you how most things are made here in Nepal.
I suppose you have seen the Buddhist prayer flags.
They come in thousands and thousands, especially in the area where we live around the Buddhist Boudhanath stupa.

We have found a man that is sitting in his small shop printing flags all day long and he gave me an idea.
I think the prayers are so beautiful. I have no idea what they say, but they feel soothing and peaceful.
Why not print on fabric and make, for example, cushion covers? So I cut a few pieces of old saris I had at home, I have a few as you can imagine, and went to him today.
He smiled and thought I was a complete lunitic, but he printed them for me.
First he rolled black color at the block print laying in front of him.

He put the fabric on the block print.

Then he rolled the fabric like a dough.

Voilá! Fantastic result!
Here is a print with prayers and LungTa, the Windhorse.

And here is Tara, who is a Buddhist diety.

Winter olympics

For a Swede the olympic games are a natural part of your life.
Yesterday we watched the crosscountry skiing sprint with three Swedes, of six, in the mens final.
When a Norwegian, a Swedish and a Russian fell in a curve, down hill we screamed so loud I think we scared our neighbors.
There is actullay one Nepalese competitor. Last winter olympics he ended up in the 92:nd place in crosscountry skiing. Fingers crossed he'll do better this time.
And how did this final end?
We were beaten by a Norwegian, we always want to beat the Norwegians, and came on second and third place. We snatched the third place thanks to the fall.

Chopsticks

Today we ate at a Chinese restaurant and Leya tried eating with chopsticks.
Frankly neither Nicholas or I had any hope for her to succeed since we both have tried several times and failed.
We couldn't believe it when she she picked up the food and ate it like she had used chopsticks all her life.
She even asked if we could buy a pair and when we asked the restaurant they were kind to give her her very first chopsticks.
When we came home she ate a can of corn with her new cutlery.
It's sure great moments like this you want to look back to and remember when Leya grows up.

Japanese films

Leya and I have found our common passion for Japanese animated films.
They are beautifully made and the stories are amazing.
Our favorite so far is Howl's moving castle. Watch the trailer here to get an idea of what we love so much.
We can also recommend:
My neighbor Totoro
Arrietty
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Wolf children

Leya - our little designer

Leya has designed her first dress!
I must say the Barbie movies are encouraging and not at all stupid. Which I thought until I saw one.
Thanks to Barbie, Leya is full of confidence and excitement to design her own clothes.
She draws the clothes, buys the fabric and goes to the local tailor in our street to have it made.
See the film here from when she went to the tailor.
Here is the final result:

We are so lucky to live in a country where it's actually affordable to make your own dress:
Fabric 5 USD/35 kr
Making charge 1 USD/7 kr
The dress was so cheap to make that I of course paid some extra.
Today we bought fabric for the next dress. Very exciting!

Wedding party

This evening we were invited to a "small" wedding dinner just one minute walk from home.
During the wedding seasons we could probably go to the party palace every evening and eat. No one would question what we were doing there.
Becoming wedding crashers would definitely be an option. At least when it's time for me to cook dinner.
Mamma Mia! So many guests! The whole neighborhood was there.
One big outdoor hall...

And one big indoor hall.

Lots of food, free icecream and open bar.

The wedding couple is sitting on the stage the whole party receiving congrats and gifts.

This is the groom's parent's house at night. So beautiful!

Making malas

Today I went to Boudha to design malas for our new customer Kelly in Australia.
I had good help from these guys.

Angel came with me.

Wedding band

Even though we've lived in India and here for more than four years now, I don't think we'll ever get used to the wedding party bands and their loud noise.
This morning we were brought back to this world with trumpets and drums and they didn't play the same tune. They kept on for hours.
You are welcome to listen here.
Well, well. We know the groom, who lives two houses down the road. He owns the small coffee shop at Boudhanath where I love to spend time with an iced peach drink and watch people walking around the stupa in the sunset.
We ran in to him yesterday and he invited us to the wedding dinner on Thursday.

Sunday buffet lunch

The absolutely best way to spend a Sunday afternoon is with a buffet, an outdoor warm, soothing jacuzzi and a long, hot shower at Hyatt Hotel.
I love dessert!

Portrait

I must say he captured her dreamy gaze.
Leya wants it framed in a pink frame. Not surprising at all since pink is her color at the moment.