A Season of Holidays

It has been getting cold here in Kathmandu. The air has been clear and the mountains have been beautiful. We have been trying to walk around our area and take in some of the beauty. Petrol, gas and diesel are still in short supply, but we  have been able to get around here. My kids are getting used to walking! Here is a picture from our area, the kids taking a break of course. Every inch of available arable land has some kind of crop on it. We have been watching the rice being harvested and laid out to dry.  

The past month has also been full of holidays for the Nepali people. The holiday of Dhashai is a week long festival in the middle of October. Then in the 2nd week of November they have the celebration of Thiar which is about 5 days long. These holidays are Hindu holidays that reflect the worship of certain deities. For Tihar many people make mandalas on the ground in front of their house. They are made using colored powders. They then draw a line into their house. The homes are usually also adorned with candles, electric lights and dried flowers hung into garlands. The belief is that the goddess Laxmi sees the lights on the house she will come and bless it with wealth. We thought it looked a lot like Christmas around here with all the lights.

We have taken the opportunity of all the holidays to visit our didi's house. We really enjoyed going to her place and seeing another place in Nepal. We were stopped by a procession of people having some sort of parade and in typical Nepali fashion we enjoyed the chaos. 

The blessing of late has been that we have had power for almost 24 hours a day. Since we are almost out of cooking gas I have not been using the oven. Jeff surprised me one day and came home with an electric oven! So, I have been baking and cooking. The joy of some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!

Happy Fall!