No petrol, no power, no water

It's a shortage of a lot of essential things right now.
No petrol, which means very long queues to the petrol stations, leaving people stuck for hours just waiting.
It also prevents companies to work properly since many factories are run by generators during the power cuts.
The next shortage is power and that is something we all suffer from.
Normally this time of year the power breaks would be down to 4-6 hours a day, but it's still about 12 hours.
People say it's because it hasn't rained, but that is not the case.
This time of year it almost never rains, but the summer is delayed at least a month and that means the snow and ice on the mountains are not melting to fill up the rivers.
This means there is a water shortage which you can see from this photo taken a few days ago at the river at Pashupatinath where they cremate the dead and shovel the ashes into the water.
The cows are lying on the riverbed and I have no clue what they are doing with the remains of the dead bodies.
It's warm now during the days, but the nights are not as warm as usual and I wonder what will happen in the long run.

The other day I shared a taxi with strangers going the same way and that is a good solution in times of crisis.

We've had water shortage at home too, but that apparently had to do with the redoing of the road outside of the house.
They seem to have taken water from our pipe and therefor cut the supply to us.
The Nepalese people don't seem too upset, so we just have to go with the flow. As usual!

Julia and Lisa

We have visiters from Sweden again!
Sweet Julia and Lisa are here to manufacture their own collection of clothes and doing some cultural exploration.
Yesterday we visited both Pashupatinath and Boudhanath.
On Friday they are going for a few days to Pokhara for some well deserved vacation.
Here they are swimming in a room full of vintage saris.

The guru is gone!

We have dreaded this Monday for a month now.
Six months ago our neighbors had the 24/7, very load puja, religious ceremony, and we had to leave the house before we got insane of all the singing and talking in the speakers.
This time it was our landlords who were to host this event and we knew we had to flee yet again.
For the last week they had been redoing the driveway for all priests and guests and we were prepared for the worst.
But, we woke up this morning and there were no load sounds out of the ordinary. Strange!
We soon got the answer. The puja was cancelled because the guru was gone.
I wonder what happened. I think we have to investigate this further. Not because we are sad, more of curiousity.
In fact we are more grateful than ever to our God Brahma, who we think had something to do with this guru's mysterious disappearance.
They even built this one meter deep hole for the puja. Someone told Leya it was ment for a man to sit there and collect money, but someone told me that they would keep a fire there.
Only God knows what traditions pop up in this exciting society.
I hope they will fill the hole soon since it's on the spot where we use to have our outdoor furniture.

Lizzie

We have come to terms with that Nani is not coming back home, so we have adopted a little girl from a street from the same block as we are living.
When we take our short dog walks around the neighborhood, we use to stay for a while where Lizzie use to live with her mom, dad and two sisters.
Lizzie is the smallest of them all and love to sit in my lap. I just felt that she could be the kind of dog I've been longing for.
Angel is so big and always alert, guarding us and I have been wanting a dog who will sleep next to me in the bed all night and would stay relaxed in my lap for a longer time than 30 sec.
Everything has worked better than expected. When we are working in town she is going back to her old street and when we get home we simply go there and pick her up.
She hears my ancle bells and come running.
She is tiny, but has long legs and is so cute. But. She is not cute to anyone else than us, so she is hardly going to be kidnapped.
When she was a puppy someone faught with her so her right ear is perfectly split into two ears.
So we have a dog with three ears and she will be my baby for the rest of her life.

Photos from Pokhara

Please see photos from our vacation in Pokhara here.

Swimming

We went to the local pool with the girls.
Always a hit!

Hospital in Pokhara

I promised the doctor in Kathmandu that I would go to a hospital in Pokhara for my last two doses of antibiotics.
As soon as we arrived, after an eight hour long, bumpy bus ride, I took a taxi to the nearest hospital.

Day 1:

As always I took the emergency entrance, that is the easiest way to approach any new hospital here in Nepal, and I thought it would be a walk in the park.
One prick, waiting for ten minutes for the IV to run through and back in a taxi to the family who was sitting at the hotel restaurant.
But, no no. Nothing is simple when you expect it to be.
The desk person informed me that I needed one person to sign in and monitor that I didn't get an allergy during the IV.
I was tired in to my bones and got a bit angry. I'd had the same medicin for the last five days and there was no sign of allergy.
It didn't matter. Hospital rules!
I called Nicholas and they had just ordered food so they couldn't come right away and I really, really wanted to get it over with.
I went outside, to the line of taxis waiting and tried to explain that I needed someone to come with me, but no one understood what I meant.
I sat down on a bench and felt more tired than ever. Next to me sat a an older woman and I took a shot.
I don't think she understood, but she saw my tired face and came with me the reception. When they wanted her to sign for my health she hesitated and there was a bit of an argument between her and the doctor.
She looked at them and me, back and forth and to my relif she finally signed. Piuh!
Then I had to go to the pharmacy and buy everything from medicine, to syringe and tube.
The lady come running with a ticket that I had to pay at another counter. I paid and thought I finally was ready, but when I came back to the emergency they noticed that the pharmacy had given me the wrong medicin. Back to the pharmacy and the non-exicting queue.
Back to the emergency and I must say they are effective in Nepal. No waiting at all. In Sweden you can waiting at the emergency, in the waiting room, for six-seven-eight hours before you even see a doctor.
First he gave me a very painful shot in the left arm. It was an allergy test and we had to wait another 15 minutes to see that I didn't react, but Hey! Come on! I had the same antibiotics for the last five days!
Hospital rules! Stupid hospital rules.
Finally the doctor started searching for a vein. He looked and looked, squezed and made me flex my hand over and over again.
I had to remove my complicated wrap bracelet, that is put on not to be removed until it's ready to be cut of for the dust bin. Mamma Mia!
He finally got the needle in place and I prepared myself for a bit of rest while the fluids slowly slowly trickled down the tube.
Suddenly a man appeared on the bed next to me. He was either very sick or very drunk because he started vimiting towards me. It felt like as if I was stuck in a horror movie before the staff run up to him and closed the curtain between us.
That didn't keep me hearing he puke for the next 20 minutes. So much for a well deserved rest.
The woman, who had helped me out with her sign, disappeared in the middle of everthing without saying good bye, but I figured I'd run into her again. Which I of course did the next day.

Day 2:

The doctor from the day before told me to come between 1 and 7 pm. Then he'd be working and since he knew I wasn't allergic to the antibiotics he could give it to me without a person signing for me.
First I got the ticket and what to buy for the IV at the emergency. The non-exicting queue at the pharmacy was pretty much the same as before and the same went for the ticket counter. But this time I knew how to tackle it and made my way, just like the others.
The doctor had left the needle in my hand so he could use it again and it had been really painful walking around and sleeping with it.
When he tried to push the antibiotics through it was blocked and it burned like hell in my hand. I screamed from the pain, but it didn't stop him from trying for at least another 10 minutes.
Then he said to me, like I was a 2-year old: "Have you moved your arm?"
Of course I had moved my arm during the 24 hour I was out of hospital. What did he think?
In the middle of everything my phone rang and it was Suresh, my little brother and our freight guy, who was helping me to buy tusk pendants for our customer Sarah in France. He was in the shop and needed answers about different designs.
The doctor removed the needle from my right hand, the needle I had to put up with totally in vain.
He moved to the other side and I tried to keep my focus on Suresh talking about black with dots and blue mosaic.
Since I had silk wrap bracelet on my left arm too, about 2 meters long tangled with some bead bracelets, I let the doctor be busy removing that while I was sorting out the order in the other end of the phone.
My question was: Where the hell were the nurses? On strike? Doctors are not very good at removing braclets or putting needles in ones arms.
Next accusation: "You have such a tiny veins!"
Well, I left my big veins at home just to make your life difficult! Finally he found the vein and I could relax with my sound book, a new experience to me, the true book worm and finally I could relax to the thought of not returning to this hospital for, hopefully, a long time, if ever.
When I took a taxi back to the hotel I saw the woman for yesterday standing next to the road waiting so I stopped the taxi and gave her a ride hom.
"I help you. You help me", she said.
"Yes, you help me. I help you."

The end!

Infection

For the last week I've had a nasty infection in my face.
It started with a pimple in my nose and spread to the lip and left cheek.
It was so painful! I couldn't sleep at night and had no apetite.
First I went to the local pharmacy for antibiotics, but it didn't help so I went to a local hospital, but the aggressive antibiotics I got there didn't help either.
Finally I went to a hospital we know is good and knows how to handle international insurances and there I got three different anitbiotics intravenously, at the same time, for two days.
Then the infection finally gave up.
I came home yesterday and are still eating medicine.
Today I'm going on a check up and we hope everything is fine because we are going on vacation to Pokhara tomorrow.
After this painful experience I just have to warn you about squezing pimples in the nose area.