Full day of learning

OK, jet lag is done. I can't sleep on the plane which may suck but fortunately, I don't suffer from jet lag (three cheers!). I woke up after a good sleep at 6:30 AM (thanks to a rooster) and still feel great now at 10 PM. And the ankle is no longer swollen (fine after a night of sleep). Moving on from the boring stuff...

I had orientation this morning and afternoon with Rajendra and Geetika. CECI first, etiquette and then Uniterra background. All very interesting. Rajendra, who's been with CECI for 20 years covered the history of CECI from the beginning. It's been quite a journey for them. Uniterra is a product of a merge (shared interests) between WUSC and CECI and it too has had quite an evolution. Their hedgehog concept (sustainable forestry, dairy, micro finance) has been firmly hammered out for the next five years. Uniterra I evolved from an international volunteer program servicing projects with 2 year term volunteers to a focused program with short, medium and long term volunteer placements. This new plan, Uniterra II, launched this Spring. This is a short and 'not worthy' synopsis of a lot of information and history but I'll stop here.

I walked around a bit mid-day, got a phone card, had lunch at 'Trendy" which is a nice restaurant...except for the big dead bug in my meal, many legs, laying on his back, dead (gross). Fortunately I had already eaten most of the plate of briyani and rice. Or maybe not so fortunate...the jury is out on that one.

Later on in the afternoon I went to Thamel with Naomi, Tessa and Moose (nickname obviously). We took a crazy cab ride (I still can't get over the driving) to Thamel and went for dinner at this cute hippie restaurant. The food was good, everyone was Badeshi (foreigner) and the seats were really low, sitting on cushions, black lights, candles, cute and mellow man. Then we wandered around the shops a bit and had a look at some things I want to pick up such as the mandalas and colourful hangy-thingies and nice artwork, and clothes... I can't believe you can get tailor made jeans (saw them myself and they're nice) for $7. Isn't that wild? Oh yeah, my meal was 180 rupees and the drink (mint lemonade that tasted like a mojito) was 80 rupees so all together 260 rupees which is $3.50. Love it! It's cheap to eat and the portions are big. However, cars and real estate are crazy expensive, at least 3 times the price of housing in Vancouver.

I've uploaded videos of Thamel and the OR2K restaurant here. I have to mention the smell of Thamel. Imagine some spices and incense wafting around, a warm sweet smelling air, and listen to the sounds of honking and music. Kind of dreamy really despite all the commotion.