Assorted Bits and Pieces

Last week the other Fulbright professor and I decided to split the expenses of a driver and car. We figure we’ll spend at least $250 each per month, but it will give us a lot more flexibility in our transportation – and it has to be more comfortable than the Kathmandu University commuter bus.

Our driver, Sachin, is an extremely pleasant young man in his late twenties with perfect English. The first place we asked him to drive us was the Godavari Botanical Gardens south of Kathmandu. There were few flowers blooming this time of year, but it was cool, shaded and a very nice respite from the noise and heat of the city. After walking around for a few hours, a group of six Nepali girls (not too much older than twenty) came running up to Bonnie all excited. It was obvious that they had never met a Western woman before, especially a blonde. They wanted their photos taken with her and gave her some of their bracelets. As small as Bonnie is, they were all a head shorter than her and all their bracelets were too small to get over Bonnie’s hand. But one girl managed to force one on even though she took some skin with it. After five minutes of giggling and screaming, they hugged and kissed Bonnie and then pranced away. While watching all of this from the sidelines, little did I know at the time that a leech had fallen into my boot and was making a meal of my foot. Bonnie has all the fun and I get to be dinner.

Earlier this week we decided to have Sachin drop me off at Kathmandu University in Dhulikhel and then drive Bonnie back to Bhaktapur which is between Kathmandu and Dhulikhel. She wanted to see Bhaktapur’s version of Darbur Square (there are three Darbur Squares in the Kathmandu Valley). She convinced Sachin to walk around with her and get “Nepali” prices for her on things like camera batteries. She took some nice photos, especially one of Sachin posing with a cobra sculpture. Then after lunch Sachin drove Bonnie back to join me at campus. We had been invited by the biotechnology students to attend the opening night of their weeklong film festival, so we thought we’d grab a hotel somewhere in Dhulikhel after the movie.

After the film, the students told us that they’d walk us to the hotel since they were having a party near there anyway. I told them to wait for me at the main gate since I had to grab my bags from my office. Unfortunately, when I got there the entire building had been locked up. I found a custodian to let me in while Bonnie went to tell the students I’d been delayed. I thought the guy knew that I’d be right out, but he misunderstood and locked me inside in the building! So there I was yelling through a wrought iron gate trying to get someone to help me. I finally called Bonnie on my cell phone and she brought half a dozen students with her. They eventually found another custodian with a key but not before getting a good laugh at my expense and insisting on photographs before letting me out. They say the photos will be displayed prominently in their upcoming student magazine. Great.

On the way off campus, we passed a professor I’m working with who insisted on calling the K.U. International House in Dhulikhel to make reservations for us since the university would pick up the tab. It was over an hour’s walk to Dhulikhel with a few delays caused by some students wanting to change clothes before going to the party and some others forcing me to eat hot noodle soup since I was just catching a cold. They took us to the International House and checked us in before taking us to their party headquarters – a big, dingy conference room in a two-bit hotel just down the road from our place.

All together there were us and about 20 guys, all third year students and all in the recombinant DNA class that I’ve been helping to teach. There are 11 third year female students, but it would not have been appropriate for them to attend the party with the boys. So Bonnie was the lone female. We started out by having a little beer or whiskey and then a plate full of food. My cold was progressing fast and all I wanted to do was lay down, but the boys were ready to party. Someone cranked up the music and all twenty guys broke out in frenzied dancing. They dragged me into the middle of their circle and

made me dance with them. A little later they

asked Bonnie and me to dance together, and one

of the more daring ones asked Bonnie to dance with him.

We stayed there for about an hour and a half then politely excused ourselves. A few of the boys escorted us back to our room. I had one of the most uncomfortable night’s sleep I can remember. I was feverish, hot and cold, and overstuffed. The room was too hot and in the morning there was no hot water for a shower. Bonnie let me sleep until 9 am and then we decided to split. The caretaker tried to charge us 800 rupees ($12) for the room, but with the help of his English-speaking son we convinced him that we were official KU guests. Actually, only KU guests are allowed there, so I think he was just trying to make a little extra money on the side.

We walked back to campus and waited until noon when I was supposed to meet with a few students to get a research project going. I was feeling pretty miserable, but they had been looking forward to isolating potato DNA all week so I couldn’t let them down. My colleague and their advisor, Dhurva Gauchan, arrived with a bag full of small potatoes from a local farmer and we got down to business. Bonnie and I spent the next three hours in the lab supervising the students, Arjan and Dipali, as they went through the procedure. Once we get some good DNA, then we’ll start doing some DNA fingerprinting to see if we can tell the difference between the various potato varieties in the area.

At 3:30 we left the lab to reserve our seats on the K.U. “G” bus that would take us back to Kathmandu. There are three drivers that I’ve had on this bus. One is a very patient driver, one is generally patient, and the guy who drove that day has no patience at all. He was weaving and swearing and flipping off everyone the whole way back to town. He’d alternately slam on the brakes and then speed up, obviously trying to make me puke. He came dangerously close on a few occasions. I was so happy when we got back home. I didn’t even care that the power was out (again).