Monday, December 21, 2009

Nothing is ever straightforward in life...

as usual, nothing in nepal is straight forward and, possibly, becomes even less straight all the time.  

local politics is a mess w/ the vague and awkward sense of things falling further apart or, as yeats said about ireland a century back, 'some rough beast slouches toward' kathmandu -- if nothing rights itself in the coming month(s).  

there is an odd sense of foreboding in the air as the maoists and other parliamentary parties diverge further day by day.  but, this is the land of the midnight miracle, so we roll along, hoping against the daily reality that the center will hold and the peace process gets back on track before it goes completely off-track...

while i spent time in the garden today on the first day of a three day maoist national 'bandh' (strike), moving rocks by wheelbarrow that i'd piled up over the past year to another spot in order to slope the corner where they'd been resting, as well helping laxmi (our newest gardener/gita relative/straight from the village 'gaonle') transplant some audacious orange-colored bouginvillea to a distant back corner, where a neighbor has built his home, to provide security and beauty in one fell swoop of a lovely south american (trans)plant -- like some of us, to the powerful draw of these impressive himalaya.  

'tomorrow', as they say, 'is another day'.  

since i only have ten days left in my current contract til the end of january, i'm not working officially much the next four weeks, i have plenty of time for other pursuits and pleasures -- besides the new constitution and nepali politics.   finish a few books, stroll the garden, some writing and seeing friends before shaku, leah and i go to bangkok and koh samui on the 28th.  

this week, i'm also the advisor-in-chief for ezi's multiple college applications, due mostly the first or fifteenth of january.  he's ensconced at claudia's writing these essays while josh has braved the winter storm to meet his gang in new york before they all fly out to see narayan in vancouver and ez goes down to spend a week at mom's in florida w/ claudia's son, daniel, and finish his college applications.

did i mention that ez has been invited for an interview at deep springs college?  his three part essay to apply for the next round of he process was truly wonderful, insightful and full of passion.  deep springs is definitely an outside type of education (i'd never heard of it before ez sent me looking it up on the web...), but possibly perfect for ezi's unique ambitions and sense of the utopian ideal.  altho, naturally, impossible to really get in (14 out of 250 applicants, or something like that).  so, just getting to the second stage where 40 young men are invited out to the high altitude academic monastery for interviews is quite an achievement in itself.  it'll be a fascinating experience to travel on his own somewhere near death valley in southern california.  then, it's up to the g-ds to see where ezi will eventually end up next year...

nothing is certain in this life: not politics in nepal or the future direction of our childrens' lives (much less our own...).


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