Mid-march already!  So hard to believe it really.  At home, I could mark the months with work cycles, important dates, holidays, and often seasons; here is harder to mark the passage of time as readily.  The holidays are new and unfamiliar, the work cycle is totally new, and the seasons seem to wash slowly into each other like the bleeding of water colour paints.  Perhaps this why time is more fluid and less structured here…thinking in larger increments of time lends itself to a more free and bigger picture way of thinking.  The immediate details don’t matter…the afterlife, one’s legacy, one’s family history and sucessive generations…that is how time is truly measured in Nepal.

• Nepali Straight talkers. Today I had my first productive meeting with my Global Campaign for Education-Nepal steering committee.  The challenge for the past 4 months has been to try and observe, assess, and understand the organization and leave plenty of room for them to involve me where they see fit.  I am very conscious of the methods other INGOs use to push their own agendas and I am very focussed on not working in that way.  It is their country, their education policy, and their coalition…I can support but they need to feel comfortable with me.  So, months roll by, I wait.  And today, a tipping point thanks to another INGO.  They had brought along a senior member of staff to observe and comment on the planning process (we are 8 reports behind schedule for our donor oganization….blech!).  He was able to say the things I wasn’t – he could speak as a Nepali to another Nepali, with confidence about how things work , in a direct and constructive way.  And the best part was that he was able to reinforce many of the recommendations that I had been making….so without getting too hopeful I would like to believe that this signals a productive turn in the work of the coalition.  Yippee!

• Cabbage. One of the most under appreciated, hardy, and satisfyingly crunchy vegetables to hit the culinary scene some centuries ago.  Last night we made the most delicious sesame-soy-honey coleslaw with fresh green cabbage, carrots, red onion, and a smashing dressing.  Recipe is coming soon….but wanted to remind folks that the lowly cabbage is worth a second look.  Excellent in curries, instead of tortillas as wrappers for tasty fillings, in salads, pickled, in soups, as filling for tacos…consider this slogan…”where one could use lettuce….CABBAGE instead!”
• M’s Family. The parents of my dear friend, M,  arrived in Nepal this week.   M’s mother was recently diagnosed with cancer so this trip has already been an emotional and mental preparation.  A small group of us went for dinner with them this week and it was such an honour to meet them.  There we moments of intense sadness and tears but also moments shining with laughter and sheer joy for being together.  The poor waiters must have thought we were crazy, switching from laughing to tears in mere seconds.  It was however, one of the most genuine, real, and honest moments of my time here in Nepal.  Nobody tried to pretend things were okay or to create an atmosphere that felt overly celebratory.  We all just shared our meal and infused our time with love, good conversation, support, warmth, understanding, and compassion…when we felt like laughing we laughed and when we felt like crying we cried.
• Feeling a place through art. Other of my dear friends, and a fellow Canadian, is an exceptionally talented painter.  It is a hobby but in my mind it is his true calling.  He captures more vividly the mood, feeling, and inner sense of Nepal than any picture I could take with a camera.  A few of his paintings are available to view on his website.   His Nepal hills pulsate with purples, blues, greens and appear smoky with the haze of fog.  It is always one of my favourite things to be in a place with G and then to revisit that place through his paintings.