Day 50: Kathmandu

Trip Start Sep 21, 2006
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51
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Trip End Jun 01, 2007


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Friday, November 10, 2006

I spend half a day chatting over coffee to Pam, a retiree who has just returned from a Sherpa village where she's been living with a headmaster and setting up a small library for the school. (This makes me feel even more like a tourist in comparison.) There seems no tradition of reading for pleasure in Nepal. Students are bemused by non-text books and primary-school teachers are lost as to what to do with a picture storybook. I have found terribly illustrated children's books of fables but no comics other than imported Hindi tales of gods and one celebrity magazine.
Amongst the mysteries of Nepal that Pam and I discuss are: Why do butchers seem to mash the meat between an animal's head and tail? (Cuts are bought by weight rather than by recognisable parts.) And, why, when Nepalis happily chomp on pickles and chillis, is the rest of their food so bland? (Pam's experience in the mountains was of food that mostly smelt of baby sick.)
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