The next photo, I promise.

There is a band today: the streets are bare, there is no honking, no coughing, no yelling, the cows have plenty of space, it's nice. Basically, no body went to work today to protest something or another. It's so hard to keep track of all the protests here; with the formation of a new constitution for Nepal on the horizon, everyone is acting out to get their voice heard: the bar owners, the festival coordinators, the schools, everyone; and as nice as it is that they get their opinions noticed, with no vehicles on the road I was a little bored. Yesterday I finally mastered bicycling in traffic, and man is it fun. I spent four hours with close calls, sudden stops, passing cars, narrow passages between vehicles and weaving in and out of open spaces, (it's a lot like a puzzle, in fact I think it is my favorite puzzle) all while following a van through Kathmandu, giving food to the needy. But now no one is on the streets and it's just like at home. But any way, I should probably finish this blog before the power cuts out. For those who might not know, power is not as readily available or plentiful throughout the world as we westerners have come to rely on it. Case in point, here in Kathmandu there are scheduled power cuts in which parts of the city's power is turned off for three to five hours at a time. Thus the city puts out a week long schedule to which you can count on having power; and you plan around this schedule until all of a sudden somebody comes up and asks you, "Did you get the new power schedule?" But you are confused, not knowing if your schedule is the new one or the old one; because even though there is a schedule, the word schedule in Nepal is very loosely based, (there is a two hour window here in which one can still be called, "on time"). It may be your side of towns turn, or it may not, they may decide to go an hour early, they may not and they may change the schedule or they may not, it is all at the whim of the power company. But as much as I complain it is nice just to sit with the family around a candle and talk, I enjoy it quite a bit actually. Also, I think my Nepali might be getting better but I'm not certain. For instance I will say a sentence to my family and they will nod and say correct, but then I go out to use this knowledge in public and no one knows what the hell I'm saying, and then I look like a fool. The other day I got caught out in the rain on my walk home, normally this wouldn't bother me but it was raining hard and I still had a mile to go before I got home, so I stop at this bench under a tarp and ordered some fried bred and some sort of potato dumpling. While I'm waiting for the rain to stop I meet this Nepali actress, Harisha, and she begins to teach me Nepali, but she is laughing at everything I'm saying as if I don't understand what I am meaning. So I walk her to her office, she introduces me to all of her coworkers and friends, she shows me her movie posters and then she says that she'll teach me better Nepali, but she never called back...women. Any way, I know I promised one of you to put some pictures of me in Kathmandu up, but I don't have any yet. But know that I have all intentions of doing such. I love you and will talk to you later, and thanks for the messages. Seth.