Stage 3, In the Family

Namaste!
  I have embarked on the next part of my adventure, and am living with a wonderful Nepali family! We are a brisk 50 minute/ 2.something mile walk from the program house, where we still have class everyday. Myself and 4 other students are situated in a gorgeous little village nestled into the hills called Jagata. On clear mornings I can see the Himalayas from my roof. My family is more liberal/modern than most, we have a dining room table and solar powered lights. However, I would still describe my experience as rustic. We shower only on Saturdays, the day off. And my family eat a vast majority of food that we grow. We have a fantastic array of vegetables and fruits and grains, most of which I have no idea of the English name, but to name a few huge crops of rice and corn, patches of pumpkins, sour gourds, the ever ambiguous "saag" or various kinds of greens, orange and guava trees, and many more. Thus we have wonder fresh food daily. However, this excitement is slightly diminished by the fact for health purposes everything I eat must be boiled. I can feel myself starting to slack on the health rules, but still haven't gotten sick yet.
   My family consists of hajur baa (translates to grandfather, in Nepal we call everyone by kinship terms, which is very consistent with the strict social hierarchical systems based on age and gender.) Hajur baa is 84 or 86 depending on who you ask (?) and can be found a vast majority of time sitting on the porch listening to Nepali talk radio at top volume. He's not too good at talking slowly or simply, so I rarely understand him, but he loves to sit with me and the newspaper and help me with Devanagari (Nepali script.)
    Next is baa (father.) He is incredibly enthusiastic almost to a fault (a bit like me...) He loves his children more than anything and has completely adopted me as one. Every day I come home from school he makes me tell him what we learned and then practice it with him, which is, in fact, quite helpful although quite honestly after an hour walk the last thing I want to do is go over Nepali grammar. Baa also loves his children to be first! Luckily I've been good grades so far so I get lots of high fives. In a shining moment that really made me love him, baa found me a dance teacher. I had talking about wanting to take Nepali dance lessons for a school project and asked him if he knew of a good place in Kathmandu. The nest morning I was awoken early (5 instead of 5:30...) only to find that baa had contacted an old family friend who is a "dance master" to come meet me. Now every morning this last week from 6 to 7 am before school, he comes and teaches me. It's been such a joy, I'm learning folk and classical, both very different from anything class I've ever taken, but I have a very good teacher.
  I've become closest with aamaa (mother.) She is a wonderful, patient, and gentle woman with hidden spice just like her cooking. Every morning and evening I help her cook and we have a wonderful arrangement where we jabber to each other half understanding and smiling. I feel so comfortable making heinous grammatical errors with her, so I am able to really practice just talking. We always try and talk about more in depth things than I actually have the vocabulary for (the election of the Maoist prime minister, or Hindu beliefs behind menstruation taboos, for example.) Phil pierced my ear the other day at school (don't freak out mommy, it looks really good and we sterilized!) and that night it was hurting, so aamaa helped me soak it in hot water for an hour. It was really painful and whole time she had my head in her lap, stroking my hair and talking to me. After she finished she looked me in the eye and made me promise that if I ever feel sick to wake her up. Nothing like a little mothering to make one feel at home.
  My oldest little sister, Suraksha, is 16, and your typical teen. She is cranky 90% of the time and the only really good interaction we've had is showering together the first time. Neplai's are never naked (a bit of an adjustment for me..) so we have to wear these sort of mumus when we shower, in a group obviously. I had a bit of an incident trying to clean myself under the mumu and may have accidentally gotten some Dr Bronners in the nether regions. For those of you who haven't had this experience it burns like hellfire. So I started screaming and trying to get water down there with out exposing myself. In my frantic efforts, I grabbed the tap the water comes out of too hard and broke it off. Water came pouring out. This of course made me scream more. The whole time my sister was laughing hysterically.  It was, at least, a bonding experience.
   My younger sister, Sujata, is 11 and a real delight. She loves to dance and sing with me, we teach each other songs. She's super sassy and always adds a hip swing to everything. Every morning I braid her hair like Burton used to do for me on my birthday.
   My little brother, Sushant, is 5 and has more energy than anyone I have ever seen. He runs laps around the house. But it is not an obnoxious energy, he entertains himself completely. Sometimes he needs a break and likes to come sit on my lap and read his book. He also has an unhealthy obsession with uno, however he cheats. His newest strategy is to hide the  plus 4 wild cards around the house and then during the game go take a "bathroom break" and gather them. 
   If you hadn't seen the pattern, everyone in my family is named Su- something. Thus, my new Nepali name is Suda.
   I'm really getting along with the family, but one small comfort is Phil, anther student and close friend, lives about 100 ft up the hill in my uncle's house. So we are cousins. In fact, our whole extended family lives within a block. It's great to have a whole lot of cousins running around. In particular I'm really getting close to Phil's sister who is 22 and helps me with my laundry (in the river.)
  Well I am about to be late to school, so I must stop rambling. But I miss you all muchly.
Love to the moon and back!
        Suda/ Emily