It’s official. I am starting to feel nostalgic about leaving. I am seeing through rose coloured glasses again and remembering all the things that I love about living here. I know that I will come back again but it won’t be the same – I will be a visitor in a city that I once called home. And it is incredible how all the things that can be draining and frustrating about a place – the traffic madness, the inefficiency, the constant tea drinking – suddenly become endearing. I had a moment this week standing on the roof of our house looking out over the city and thinking how wonderful Nepal really is which I think means Nepal has officially gotten under my skin. So, while I am ready to move on, these last few weeks will be difficult. It will be a feast for the senses as I try desperately to remember the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feelings of this place. And, apparently, this week’s gratitude is brought to you by the letter “P” (unPlanned but precisely perfect pre-departure pondering).

• Pomegranates. The season of really really good pomegranates has FINALLY arrived. They are bigger than a softball and full of hundreds of tartly sweet and juicy little seeds.  Here they are available in regular red colour but also in the interesting yellow colour too! They both taste the same but the yellow ones are admittedly easier to eat as the juice doesn’t stain everything it lands on. I plan to enjoy a few pomegranates over the upcoming weeks. First, the seeds over yogurt that is full of dried fruit and nuts, topped with some toasted oats…like a granola but deconstructed. Second, in a couscous of some form. Yay for pomegranates!
• Packing. On December 26th, we will carefully pack up our belongings and close the door on our cozy little apartment. Two weeks will be spent house-sitting for a friend and for the final week we will hunker down in the same guest house where we stayed when we first arrived 14 months ago. So, the house has been turned upside down as we sort through things and decide what to pack. I have always enjoyed packing – the trimming of “stuff”, the shrinking of possessions into discrete and neat boxes, the downsizing of life. This time, we are packing to fit into 2 bags, plus one carry-on bag, each. Basically, a life that we can carry on our backs (or send home with gracious friends and family from our first two stops in Hawaii and the Philippines). I look forward to the seeing a life that is bundled into a few bags – that sense of freedom that comes when one is no longer tied down by a home and furniture. That feeling will wear off, eventually, but for now, I am grateful for all the packing.
• Poinsettias. Like the red saris worn during weddings by many Nepali women, to me the red poinsettia is a symbol of Nepal.  They grow as large as trees here and adorn just about every house in Kathmandu.  In most months of the year they are simply green shrubs but when the weather changes and the cold sinks into the Valley the poinsettias pop with colour.  Below is a picture of a lovely bush I photographed at Godavari Village Resort during a workshop a couple weeks ago.  Hard to believe that these tree-like plants are, back home, only table ornaments for a few weeks in December.

• Principles. I know I have always had principles, in some form or another.  But it has become clearer to me lately that my principles have become clearer since being in Nepal.  There are some interesting conversations going around  my office these days about money – how to save it and how to spend it.  We have made a set of agreements with our donor on both of these issues.  To my colleagues this is seen as a flexible agreement – something that can be bent, twisted, or perhaps even sneakily avoided.  I disagree.  Strongly.  And with conviction.  I understand the desire to try and save money for the future (particularly when the future is out of your control and in the hands of those donors).  However, I don’t think it is wise (or even legal!) to try and squirrel away unspent funds by faking bills and twisting the truth.  So, my principles, have me wading out into unfamiliar territory – not so much defending them as needing to convince others that they are valid.  But I guess the gratitude comes when I realize that without my principles I would have little to keep me afloat in the argument.  In the end they will do as they wish and I will still have my principles.