Shopping and Wreking... All in a day's work!

December 23, 2009
Well, it was the first day back to life after the 3 day extended holiday, also known as a strike :). And it started as quite the normal day. Wake up, prayers, study, breakfast, get ready for school, school. Then, when I got home, I headed out with Uncle and Auntie to the Wholesale shop to shop for Christmas gifts for the kids (winter clothes, jackets, etc.). Well, that in itself was an adventure!

We parked on the street in “downtown” Kathmandu and walked through a maze of small streets and alleys to find ourselves in this pavilion filled with vendors selling items at wholesale price, from jackets and scarves to jeans and hats. People milling everywhere, buying this and that for their shop or stand in all parts of the city. I was pretty much useless as I don’t speak Nepali and thus couldn’t negotiate, and I had no idea how to determine what would be best for the kids. So, I had the job of watching the mounting pile of bags, which was just fine with me because it gave me time to just watch people! The small round lady over there must have a clothes store with those jackets, that man probably has a roadside stand that sells mittens and scarves and hats for the cold of winter. That family is looking for jackets for their two young kids, that mother is shopping for her teenage daughter. It can be very interesting to watch people knowing that you have absolutely no idea what they’re saying (outside of the hit and miss words that are familiar to your foreign tongue!).

Finally, with several huge bags full of warmth and joy for Christmas, we headed out, dodging cars and motorbikes and pedestrians with our bags wobbling like two unbalanced sides of a scale! We reached the car, and loaded the bulging tangle of clothes into the back, and headed home. We stopped for an afternoon snack (it always makes me happy when I get buffalo MoMo... soooo tasty!), and then continued home.

As we drove along, I lazily watched the cars passing by, listened to the horns continuously droning, and let my head wander in and out of reality! In my subconscious, I realized there was a bus next to us, right outside my window. Suddenly, I jolted back into the car with the loud crunch of metal on metal with the screams of paint being torn from its original body and relocated to the side of a large bus. All inches from me. My 5 senses seemed to multiply as I realized that we were indeed just hit by a bus!

Uncle stopped the car (in the middle of the road... where else would you stop?!) and the bus stopped as well. Then came the yelling and shouting of determining who was responsible. I’m really not sure how you determine that when there aren’t really observable laws, rules, or general road markings, but they duked it out verbally (soon, a traffic police officer joined the match) for about an hour and a half. Finally they came to the conclusion that they would each pay for 50 percent of the damage done to Uncle’s car (you really can’t tell whether or not the bus had damage because it was already banged up!). Well, about 15 minutes into the arguing match I dozed off again and wandered in and out of consciousness until we finally reconvened our drive home.

There’s something about shopping and driving that just makes me want to sleep, and I guess I got a little extra sleep on this trip! A word to the wise: if you ever live in a foreign country (or America, take your pick!), drive a banged up car (like one you fix with spray paint and a hammer!) so that if you get hit by a big bus without insurance, no worries!