The winter has ended. The freeze is gone. Finally, a few days ago, I took a shower after a really long time. Felt so fresh. I also had my clothes washed and wore something clean and decent. Now I know what they mean when they say winters are depressing. You get holed up in your room all the time, and you have to wear only one or two pairs of underwear for a whole month.
Thermal underwear. I was very curious when I first heard that term, while in Uganda, and they told me that I had to buy thermal underwear in order to survive the winters in Nepal. I thought they were underwear that had some kind of tube in which you pour hot water to keep you warm. Just as a car tyre has a tube to put air in. But well, it apparently isn't that kind. I don't know why they call them thermal.
But they are very expensive and you can't afford to buy a lot of them. I only have two pairs, which I bought from The Northface. But I cannot risk washing any of them, and I'm not sure about it, but after this long winter they probably have a smell. A really sweet smell. I wish I had a girl nearby who I could share them with :-)
Thermal underwear. I was very curious when I first heard that term, while in Uganda, and they told me that I had to buy thermal underwear in order to survive the winters in Nepal. I thought they were underwear that had some kind of tube in which you pour hot water to keep you warm. Just as a car tyre has a tube to put air in. But well, it apparently isn't that kind. I don't know why they call them thermal.
But they are very expensive and you can't afford to buy a lot of them. I only have two pairs, which I bought from The Northface. But I cannot risk washing any of them, and I'm not sure about it, but after this long winter they probably have a smell. A really sweet smell. I wish I had a girl nearby who I could share them with :-)
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This place is a hell to live in. During summers, it gets so hot that you take six showers a day - I think that you have to take enough showers then to last you through out the winter. The saying goes, make hay while the sun shines, but I'd change that to Take showers while the sun shines! So you enter the winter squeaky clean and able to live for a whole month without a shower.
I had even forgotten about taking photos, because my hands were always in gloves, and the world was so gray anyway, with mists just hanging all over the place like the dresses of some kind of ghosts, and no photo would look good.
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Now, it's like I've come out of some kind of cocoon. I've ended the hibernation. And I think that I'm in love!
But that should be saved for the secret diary (or is it dairy?) Living in Nepal has made me forget English! :-)
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I had this conversation with a friend.
Friend: tell me you hadn't taken a shower in a month...ouch!
Me: :)
but during summer, i used to shower 6times a day, so I took enough showers to last me through the winter
but during summer, i used to shower 6times a day, so I took enough showers to last me through the winter
Friend: uhmm. hope u scrubbed ure body six times to make it clean. didnt you have flakes of dirt on you?
Me: no, you can't sweat in this cold. and your body is clothed all the time, so how can you get dirty? :)
Friend: uhmmm ure body keeps shedding all dead cells though the skin..they accumulate in dirt flakes.
Me: not in nepal :)
Friend: well....thank God you survived the winter!
You
can't know how you can survive a month without bathing unless you live
here. The temperatures drop to 3degrees, there's no heating, and the
moment you take off your clothes, even if to take a very hot bath, you
shiver like you have malaria.
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There is a question that has been bothering me for a long time. This place gets too cold to take off your clothes. You actually have to wear three or four layers of clothing in order to survive the winter. And yet, you find women giving birth nine months after the winter has ended, which puzzles me greatly. How do they do it with their clothes on? I'm sure they keep their stockings on, but how do the men even get the thing standing up when the coldness only shrivels it up?
If you think the winter isn't a nice time to make love, wait until the summer. It gets so hot that you do not have energy to do anything! I mean, that activity, is no fun when it is so hot that you cannot feel your own skin. You feel like you are sitting in a steam sauna all the time. Of course you cannot keep your clothes on when you are indoors (and some men can't keep them on while outdoors either!). And the heat drains up all your energy. So I'm very sure they do not do it during the summer either.
Which makes me think that most Nepalis make love during two periods, March/April, just after the winter and before the heat of the summer becomes wrathful, and October/November, immediately after the monsoons. When the world is cool and the sky blue. The biggest Hindu festival, deshai, also happens round about this time, and my friend, it's two weeks of idleness. So I guess Nepalis make a lot of love during this time, enough to kill their appetite until the next weather-friendly window. Hmmm.
I could give a million rupees to carry out a survey and prove my theories correct!
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