All the Small Things

Last night our washing machine broke. It suddenly stopped working and now it won't turn on. My theory is an old, rusty bobby pin got lodged in the spinning mechanism and acted as a stick in a bike spoke. I opened it up and found all this "debris" inside near the spinning part of the machine. Plastic beads, supari, even some medicine, but the main thing was a big, old, rusty bobby pin stuck in this hole that had to have been what stopped the machine. I managed to pull it out and then tried to start it again, but now it won't even turn on. So we're going to have to call the Washing Machine Guy which is literally what his name is in my phone. As if I could remember and know how to spell these people's Indian names. Sure if they're name is Ganesh or Santosh or Vishnu that's easy enough, but most names are like Aamritisharpeet. 

We're still hoping to move very soon. Keep us in your prayers. We hope to find a place that's at least half of what we're paying now for rent. We live in a rather expensive town though. A tourist and holiday hotspot. If only there was wi-fi available everywhere her like in Kathmandu.

A few pictures of life these days...

SBS graduation. It's a little blurry, but damn I look good in that Mekela, right? I'm wearing my husband's traditional dress for women in his tribe.

Just a self-portrait.

My newest weapon against rainfall.

I love how green everything gets during monsoon. That's the only thing I love about it.

I'm about to get a little "too much information" up in here.

My husband and I have been watching Prison Break. We're almost finished with the 2nd season and it's actually quite a good show despite the acting of the main two brothers. So last night we were watching it after drinking big glasses of iced coffee. We both had to go to the bathroom really bad at the same time so my husband went in the left bathroom and I went in the right one. We usually just turn on the hall light and not the bathroom lights and just leave the door open halfway as we pee. (I told you this would be TMI). So I'm sitting down in the semi-darkness and suddenly I see this long creature moving on the floor close to my feet. I very quickly realize it's a giant centipede, about 6 inches long. I immediately begin screaming and shouting my husbands name and of course raise my feet as far from the floor as I can. He comes running in and turns on the light and sees this centipede and says, "It's okay, it's okay.." as I'm practically hyperventilating.

He was right though, it all ended up okay. My husband saved the day and took that centipede's life. 

Sometimes this is what I do with God. I live my normal life by myself, but suddenly if anything goes wrong, if anything threatens me or goes wrong, I cry out to God to save me. Help me! I need you! I must be rescued! But once everything is back to "normal" again I go on living my life by myself.

I don't do that with my husband. Sure, I cry out to him when I need him to kill a spider or centipede, or when I need him to go to the market, but I also spend time with him doing "normal" things people do. Eating meals, reading, watching television shows, having coffee, playing cards. Normal stuff. But how can I include God in the "normal" things of life? 

It Won't Be Long, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

On Friday my Husband returns to me here in Kathmandu. I am so incredibly excited and here's why:

Don't let the bottom picture fool you. This spider was NOT small. It was maybe a little smaller than a silver doller I tell you what. 

I'm down with house spiders. I am so down with them, but this thing is not a house spider. Don't let the fact that it's in a house fool you. It was hairy. It was grey. It was fast. I have never in my life killed this big of a spider because they terrify me. There is a point of growth that it's just too big to kill with a shoe or newspaper. This was about that point, but what was I supposed to do? My husband is far away and I am here all alone fending off boogers and spiders. It's seriously the third spider I've killed in the room I sleep in. This was the biggest, but the other two weren't small either.

This is a job for a husband. Not me. Not ever. Never.

Plus, if you can recall, I've been sick and I need my Man to make me feel better. I need him to hold me in his arms and just rub my head or back or something. Anything.

A view from our living-room window.

As you may or may not know, I've been staying with a wonderful woman in her apartment while Romel is gone. It's been fun getting to know her a bit, plus she's from Florida so we get along very well as Americans overseas.

I boil my water here.

Ladies with umbrellas in the hot sun. Seriously, their fear of getting darker is insane. Or perhaps it is like always being in the shade. I don't know. I've never walked around with an umbrella unless it's pouring rain.

My TACO SALAD I had today for lunch. It was so good. I'm so glad there's a legit Mexican restaurant within walking distance.

I went to the post office today and sent out some postcards. Sorry if you don't receive one. It's not like I have everyone's mailing address handy.  Just the ones I know by memory which is basically only my parent's house. I have yet to go to a post office in India. lols.

In other, more vain news, I dyed my hair darker. I said I'd never dye it again after my straightening fiasco, but I just can't do nothing for very long. I must change it. I MUST. 

As you can see, it's a little purplish which I like.

My Nose Cannot Possibly Go On

I don't know how these things even happen, but yesterday morning I felt super-fine and then by the evening I was curled up on a couch watching Adventure Time and blowing my nose every 5 minutes because there is no end to the boogers that are coming out. I had a headache and my whole neck and shoulders were aching. How does a cold (or could it be...sinuses?!) come on so quickly? I've been sitting here now today just accumulating a pile of used kleenex and trying to drink hot things and not move so much but no matter what position I sit or lay in I cannot get comfortable.

To top it all off my husband is not here to take care of me and hold me. Ugh. He will hopefully be here soon though, I'd say within the next 2 days. Our dear friends took care of the Mumbai stuff and our marriage license is now on its merry little way to Delhi. It should arrive today. I pray it arrives today.

I'd write more, but who wants to hear me ramble on about how much snot is coming out of my nose and how when I washed off my gel face pack earlier I wasn't sure if it was the slimy face pack I was rubbing off my face or my own snot that was coming out of my nose!

In other news, I dyed my hair. I like it best when it's dark I think.

Before. I know it's kind of a weird picture, but I was about to go outside. This is yesterday when I was feeling so fine.

After. It looks black, but it's like a burgundy. It's super cool. Here I am on the phone with my husband whom I miss incredibly and I am not feeling so good.

I was going to add another picture. A current one of what I look like at the moment I'm writing this, but I'll spare you the ugly.

The Never-Ending Story

My husband has left me.

If you read the last entry you'd know that my husband has gone back to India to "get 'er done". He is doing all the work for me to be able to apply for my Entry Visa to India. In hindsight, I suppose we could have somehow found out more information about all this, but I did not read anywhere that in order to apply for this visa outside of India you need all these dumb stamps on your marriage license. And, if you know me, you know I tediously research anything that has to do with visas, job applications, taxes, etc. Anything official and important, I research like a mofo.

My wonderful, sweet, handsome, manly husband went to the Ministry of External Affairs today and found out that we also need some sort of stamp from Mumbai on our marriage license before they can stamp it in Delhi.

What does that mean for my husband? Hopefully, one or a few of our friends back at our house will go to Mumbai for us and get this thing and courier the paper to him in Delhi who will then get the Delhi one done and come back to me, his wife, who is waiting for him ever so patiently to return. Otherwise, he will also have to go to Mumbai which was not anticipated.

I did not enjoy sleeping alone last night. On the floor. After killing a giant spider all by myself. Well, it wasn't so big. Just about the size of a quarter.

But in the midst of all this I have a way to calm down and just wait.

Regina Spektor. She has a new album out and my Soul-mate a.k.a. Best Friend in the whole world sent me an iTunes gift card and I immediately purchased Regina's new album and I must say it's amazing. She keeps growing as a musician and artist. Her songs I think were super unique and strange before she was signed and released her "Us" or "Fidelity" single. But slowly, her music is becoming more "Regina." It's going back and forward. Back to her strange sounds and unique words but forward to new stories and maturing, beautiful sounds. She is marvelous.

The first song off her new album, "Small Town Moon"

I walked to the grocery store today hoping to get some good stuff, but all I end up buying is candy, chocolate, and alcohol. But thank the good Lord I found "Strawbs" Nothing is better than strawberry shaped gummies.

 

I ate Meusli and dahi for lunch and then pigged out on those Strawbs, so we'll see if I'll be having dinner. 

Excsqueeze Me?

A lot has happened since you last tuned in.

I was pretty set on staying in Nepal for 60 days (well, 50 technically now) and had even found numerous opportunities for places to stay and things to do and new friends to hang out with. BUT THEN...something amazing happened and guess what, it looks like I'll be able to apply for this Entry Visa and return to India sooner than later after all!

A friend of mine e-mailed me and after talking and praying with some others they have decided to give us enough money for Romel to go to Delhi, come back to Kathmandu so that I can apply for the visa, and then fly both of us back to Mumbai!

Basically when I heard from them I was like

My husband will fly down to Delhi on our already paid for return ticket and go to the Ministry of External Affairs and get the stamp on our marriage license we need, then with the money we received he will fly back to Kathmandu and I will apply for the Entry Visa and then hopefully receive it within just 7-10 days and then we'll be on our way back to India hopefully before the end of June! 

Can I get an AMEN?

So who knows why it didn't work out the first time and so we have to do this, but it's all working out none-the-less and we can all learn a valuable lesson from this:

No matter how much you can research, prepare, and save for something it still doesn't mean it will work out perfectly.

I've definitely learned through this situation that no matter how much effort I put into planning and making sure I know all the information and know where to go and how to get there, in the end it's my strength and my plans and my wisdom that I relied on and not God's. Of course it is so good to be prepared and to know what you're facing, but at the same time I needed to also seek God and rely on His grace in all this. I never included him in planning this trip. 

So I thank everyone who prayed for a resolve of our predicament because God definitely answered those prayers in a most unexpected way.

On a different topic, tomorrow we ride for Pokhara and will be staying in a nice hotel on Lake Phewa surrounded by the Annapurna Mountain range. For this I am SUPER DUPER EXCITED! If you're interested in where we will be staying just visit this website and you will soon be wishing you could hop on a plane to Nepal and join us. 

Blanded Fruite Smoothe.

The water here that comes out of the taps reminds me of lake water. It's comforting. It reminds me of summer in Minnesota.

Yesterday we packed up the computer and planned to walk to a Coffee Shop nearby because they have free Wi-Fi and coffee. What could be better? Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) we arrived only to find that the one day a week it's closed is the day we decided to go. So we walked around trying to find other Wi-Fi places and ended up just next-door at some Wimpy Burger place but their Wireless didn't work and so we got out and wandered around some more and went to a place called New Orleans Cafe or something like that. Very funny. The only thing on the menu that had any New Orleans flavor was Jambalaya. Their wireless worked nicely so we settled in their beautiful outdoor seating and ate some food and had some drinks.

Here's some pictures of our adventures in Wi-Fi:

Fake Applebees, Blanded lemonade, The New Orleans Cafe, Romel's first heineken ever, my piña colada which was more like cold milk with rum. Thanks Nepal.

We're still figuring out what to do for the next few weeks. Should Romel stay or go...and we've had some good ideas and prayers from our friends and family and we will ponder and pray as well and catch you on the flip-side.

You Kathmandu Anything!

Yeah, okay, enough of the Kathmandu puns.

SO I pretty much love Nepal. It is really peaceful and a nice little oasis after being in Maharashtra for so long. Don't get me wrong, I love India, but it's just so different there. People are more blunt/rude in India (especially Maharashtra) and here in Nepal everyone is so friendly and smiley. I could get used to this.

Can you see the mountains? CAN YOU? It's hard to see them in the city.

The most awesome cell phone holder I have ever seen, and it's now my cell phone holder.

We have not done too much in the past four days, but at least I think tomorrow we will go see a tourist sight and check out some major Hindu and Buddhist temples.

I'm sure many of you have heard that our plan for me to get an Entry Visa which would allow me to go straight back into India and let me stay there for one year without leaving...that plan was crushed when we visited the Indian visa office two days ago. Apparently, in order for me to get that visa our marriage license (which is already stamped by Maharashtra government) needs to be also stamped in Delhi by the Ministry of External Affairs office in order for it to be recognized outside of India. This is something Romel and I did not know about before we arrived here, and now that I've left India I cannot return for 60 days under my tourist visa and so I asked about the re-entry permit which allows a tourist to re-enter India before the 60 days. He told me that along with my return ticket to Delhi, I also need to show a receipt of a ticket that shows I am leaving India again after I re-enter otherwise I cannot get the re-entry permit. I cannot afford to just buy a plane ticket that shows I'm leaving India again in a few months, and so I cannot get that either.

It all boils down to this: I am stuck in Nepal for 60 days. My husband is going back to India on the 5th of June because he has recording to do and I will not be allowed to go with. I can return to India on the 22nd of July.

There are a few options:

1. If we were made of money Romel could fly back to Delhi as scheduled, get the stamp on our marriage license, fly back to Kathmandu, we'd get the visa, then both of us fly back to India again, but that would require us to have extra money to fly him back to Nepal and fly both of us back to India again (not to mention during all this we have to pay our house rent which has recently increased by 3,000 rupees). In order for this option to happen we need an extra 22,000 rupees approximately ($397).

2. Romel stays here for 2 months with me, but again we'd still have to pay rent in India and also don't know who would stay in our house for that long. Plus then Romel and his band would have to reschedule their planned out recording session which they've been really looking forward to and I wouldn't want this to stop that.

3. Romel goes back to India on the 5th as planned and I stay here for 45 more days and fly back down to Mumbai without getting any different visa. This is the cheapest, easiest, yet hardest option because then I'd have to be separated from my husband after only 2 months of marriage! Plus, I have no idea what in the world I would do here for 45 days alone. I'd have to pretty much find somewhere to stay free-of-charge.

We are not letting this ruin our honeymoon, oh no, we are still having fun, going sight-seeing, and plan to go to Pokhara next week for three days staying in a really nice hotel with massages and all that stuff (and a bathtub! I'm so excited for bathtubs!) Romel has never ever in his life taken a bath in a tub, I will remedy that and he will never look back. Unfortunately, there's no way to have a bath in our house in India.

So there you have it. This is how it is, but we are learning a lot from this. We're learning more about each other and more about God. He is teaching us something during this and I am okay with it. We could let this destroy our honeymoon but in spite of this bump in the road we are joyful and not living in despair. As a cross-cultural couple, you have to just get used to these challenges and things not working out. I wish it wasn't that way, but how would we grow and become stronger if we never struggled with anything? We just so happened to choose the path of most struggle. The narrow road indeed.