Put Yourself in Their Place

Yesterday, one of the kids from the orphanage named Madhu came to our apartment to hang out. We talked for a few hours over tea and Meredith's favorite new snack: sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onions with lemon squeezed over them. Madhu is 17 years old and is extremely smart and friendly. He told us a story about how four years ago the orphanage (they call it The Foundation, so I will call it that, too) was run by a horrible guy named Delib. He stole money, didn't take care of the kids, and was a generally sucky owner. Apparently, this is common at Nepalese orphanages. The Foundation is run by this very wealthy German guy named Ludwig (I mentioned him in another post) who everyone has spoken very highly of. He is coming in October and Meredith and I are very eager to meet him. Anyhow, so one day Ludwig came to visit The Foundation (he visits about twice a year) and Madhu took him aside and told him about Delib. Ludwig didn't know about this and he immediately fired him and hired a board of directors who now run The Foundation. Madhu is very happy with the board of "uncles" and "aunts" who come from different parts of the community and help guarantee a corrupt-free organization. With many people overseeing The Foundation, there is less of a chance that someone can take advantage.

Madhu, Meredith, and I went on a long walk south on the main street. Here's a picture to prove it:



As you can see Meredith is wearing her new pants. I told her she could wear them as long as I can call her Aladdin. She agreed. I'm hoping she'll start calling me Jasmin and we can get a monkey.

Anyhow, we ended up at the local zoo. This is the scariest zoo I've ever been to because most of the cages were small and flimsy. Therefore, you could see all the animals and they were really, freakily close to you. Here is the most amazing warning sign ever in life:




Look at that blood!! Every other zoo you are lucky if there is animal visible at all. But at this zoo I had to pretend there were invisible electric fences keeping them in. I swear there was a two foot wooden fence around the rhinos. Here is the hippo that is only separated from us by a flimsy chain-link fence:



Many times I would look up from watching the animals and realize that people were looking at me and Meredith and not the animals. Pretty awesome that we are more interesting than the crocodiles and hippos.

A few other things. Instead of cockroaches, we have tiny, cut little lizards:




Also, as we walked to the zoo we passed by all these incredibly long lines of people with their motorcycles waiting to get petrol. The oil shortage means that people have to wait in hour long lines and pay twice as much.



It is true, there's much pollution here. Especially when you're walking down the main roads. So, I've taken to wearing a bandana around my neck and pulling it up around my nose when it gets especially disgusting. Hey, remember how a hipster fashion has turned into a useful accessory that saves my lungs? I remember. Thanks, hipsters.