Part Two: And A Happy New Year

After Nagarkot everyone came back into the valley to see a little bit of Kathmandu, meet my Nepali family, and visit my school. Unfortunately all of those pictures must be on other cameras because I don't have them. Hopefully some kind family members will send some to me or upload them to google drive very soon!

Then it was off for a quick trek in the Annapurna region. If you are familiar with it, we went from Nayapul to Tikedhunga to Ghorepani to Tadapani and back down to Nayapul. Some days were challenging but ultimately the views were totally worth it!

The path was actually quite easy to follow, but we went with a guide.

I was surprised to pass so many gorgeous waterfalls along the way.

The landscape was all "Nepali Flat" meaning a little bit up, a little bit down.

When you encounter a line of mules, avoid standing on the drop off side of the road.
 

For us this was trekking, but for many people it’s just life.

You won't see me in pictures of bridges because I consistently wanted to get off as fast as possible!
This one was one of the best.

What can you see Becca?

More beautiful waterfalls. Later on we passed several that were frozen. 

In the next post...the magnificent Himalayas.
(Sorry, but every photo requires editing HTML code and I can only do so many in one sitting.)

A is for pomegranate.

(From 24 July 2013)

Only two days in and my Nepali language skills have grown exponentially. Learning how to write devanagari (deh-van-AG-ar-e) script reminds me of learning to count in other bases. Not knowing the basics- like the alphabet- is humbling, but already understanding the larger concept makes progress exhilaratingly quick.

Today we learned our first phonemes: a, aa, ka, kaa, ma, and maa. There’s a picture below with some of the devanagari characters, the English letter(s) they represent, and an English word where the beginning sound is a good approximation of the phoneme. (Keep in mind that I'm just learning to write the characters, let alone write them on the touch screen of my computer!)

The best part is learning the Nepali words that typically go with each letter. A is for anaar (pomegranate), AA is for aama (mother), KA is for kamal (lotus flower), and MA is for maachhaa (fish). It’s a weird concept to wrap your head around.

Besides learning how to read and write, we have also done a lot of work with listening and speaking. Mostly key phrases and simple conversations, but even a few words in Nepali can help you get the lower “local prices” as opposed to the much higher amounts casually paid by unassuming tourists. Someday when the internet is being cooperative I will try to upload a video so you can hear ali ali (a little) Nepali.