Connected

I never received a repeat invitation to celebrate Tihar with Bhola’s family, so I didn’t get the inside experience. I did go into Thamel (the touristy part of town and home to much of the city’s commerce) during the evening to see what was going on. I didn’t expect much but was surprised to find Tihar celebrations in full swing. Most of the shops were closed, but there were decorations everywhere, huge “murals” in the street that are like temporary shrines, roving bands of singers of all ages, and lights everywhere. The firecrackers were out of hand and unfortunately almost ruined the whole experience for me. They were being thrown everywhere and they were louder than any that the average kid has access to at home. They were being lobbed off rooftops so that they blew up in mid air in front of you, or tossed at your feet out of doorways. I don’t suppose they could have caused too much damage, but it was really unnerving.

On Friday I attended a lecture delivered to the Cultural Studies Group of Nepal. This a group of expats who convene once a month for lectures and once a month for studio tours of the local artisans. I am looking forward to other events with this group, although I won’t join until the new year. The speaker in this case was a Canadian woman who has been living here for 30 years. We had been introduced via the internet when I was still at home and have been trying to connect here to no avail. She lived with the Sherpas in the Khumbu (Everest) region for years and was speaking about their culture. She is an amazing photographer and her slideshow had me aching to get back into the mountains. We are both going away next week, but I hope to spend some time with her when we’re back in the city. I didn’t have time to connect with her after the lecture as I was making another attempt at getting internet at my apartment.

For the more technical among you, here’s the story. My landlord, Kiran, arranged to have DSL added to my phone line and I chose the higher speed option (256 Kbps). He relayed a message to me from the Telecom Nepal guys that I had to buy a router, which I did. (I splurged and got a wireless one – good choice.) While doing the router setup, I got a wizard that required about 12 settings, all of which needed to be provided by the ISP. I tried to explain to Kiran that I needed more info from the telco which he just wasn’t understanding. He thought the guy who sold me the router should be doing the work. I finally convinced him that I needed to talk to the telco so off we went to visit them, armed with a list of the required information from the setup wizard. Their office is only a couple of blocks away, and much to my delight, we immediately returned home with a tech in tow who sat down and completed the wizard and got things going. He was great although had very limited English. He left me with his name and number in case of any problems down the road. I was very impressed – things like this don’t usually happen here.

The bottom line is that I’m now connected at home and can move around the apartment with my computer. Because the router requires power, I can’t use the internet during the load shedding, but that’s okay, I can live with that. I certainly enjoy the freedom of being able to check e-mails more regularly, and being able to do so in my jammies. I have become so dependent on the internet – it’s amazing how often I refer to it for all kinds of information. I hate to admit this, but this added connectivity has made me feel much more comfortable and at home here.

I am now just working on getting a new cable supplier. The one I have sucks – they don’t have many channels and regularly go down 15 minutes before the end of a movie. Kiran, the little trooper, has started the arrangements to get a new supplier in. We’ll get that wrapped up today.

The most exciting news of all is that Judy and her family arrive on Friday. I can’t wait to see them, and of course get out into the mountains for our little trek. Five more sleeps!

I have uploaded a bunch of photos of Tihar and my apartment to flicker. I’m going to try to paste the link here. If that doesn’t work, you can go to www.flickr.com/photos/feelitturn. I’ll try to add a few into the body of my blog as well.