one life to live

I was talking with a friend about the human ability to adapt. It is amazing what we can get used to—what can come to be normal…so much that we don’t even notice things that are out of place. A cow hanging out on the side of the road? A huge hole in the middle of the road for no apparent reason? These things become normal. Yet sometimes I still find myself in situations in which I remember, wait a minute—this is not normal! How is this happening to me??

Today I found myself in daycare training teaching preschool workers about the importance of helping children develop emotional intelligence by learning to put their emotions into words. Somehow, with no prior experience of my own, I was also explaining the usefulness of positive reinforcement in disciplining children.

Friday I found myself biking through a foot and a half of water during a sudden thunderstorm, similar to the ones that have begun to visit Kathmandu daily in the afternoon. Not only was I soaked to the bone and practicing my water aerobic technique on my bike, but it then started hailing—buckets of ice pelting our skin! By the time we were through the river of what used to be a street with poor drainage, my bike had pike up leaves, trash, rags, and anything else it could find floating in the water.

Saturday I found myself standing on a stage with 20 kindergarteners performing “I’ve got peace like a river” for smiling parents beaming at their children who were graduating. I tried to help them stay in tune. Thankfully I did not find myself making a speech for all of them, as my friend did.

Sometime last week I found myself on a Maoist campaigning bus, sitting next to a guy speaking into the load speaker that was on the top of the bus. There was no way we could pretend we didn’t know it was a Maoist bus—not with all the red flags all over it bearing the hammer and sickle symbol of the party. Still, somehow, we were on it. I held my breath for 2 reasons: I was trying not to laugh…and the guy on the load speaker was asking me if I knew Prachanda, the Maoist leader and did I like him…but all with breath that made me not want to breathe. At least we didn’t have to pay a bus fare.

Even if you are not on a bus, you still see signs of the elections…buses, cars, vans, all bearing flags and symbols of their party, riding around for the world to see. One van had the brilliant idea of taking handfuls of fliers and just throwing them all over the streets as they drove by. Paper everywhere, falling into puddles and amidst traffic. In my country we would call this littering. In Nepal, this is campaigning.

But still, then we have the purposeful interesting experiences. last night all the girls had a night of fondue, courtesy of our Swiss girls. SO good! yummy cheese and bread all the way from switzerland, chocolate and every fruit we could want, games, and fun memories made.

Oh the life we live here. Always interesting, always an adventure. I love it.