More entries for the “Some New Thing” file:
Earlier this week, at Taunya’s suggestion we took a detour on our morning walk around the perimeter of the park. That was a first. We didn’t see amazing new things on the outside of the park’s tall fence, but at least we satisfied our curiosity.
This was a curiosity and a first from a couple of days ago in the park.
This morning we called it good with 124 back-and-forth hits in badminton. Not a record, but just a reminder that we can keep a good thing going when we put our minds to it!
Yesterday we hit a new record — the number of dogs we saw on our walk — 46!
Today we saw:
- a live white rabbit on the dashboard of a taxi.
- a monkey doing three cartwheels in a row (Taunya saw it, I missed it.)
- a funny monkey-see-monkey-do we both saw: a monkey came near and started pulling and chewing on the badminton net rope that was hanging down near the ground. Not to be left out, another monkey and then a third came and did the same thing. It turned out not to be a tasty treat, so the enticement was short-lived.
There was another monkey first from earlier this month that happened again today! It was while we were playing, and gave us each a good belly laugh at the monkey’s antics: climbing up the tree and then onto the net tied to it; trying it out, finding it a bit more precarious than tree branches for hanging out on.
Our humanitarian work is coming along. We saw some small progress in getting our wheelchair project going, as well as in other ongoing and still-in-proposal-stage projects. We again took advantage of our project-work downtime to go out and see what Nepal (Kathmandu at least) has to offer.
We planned to visit the Royal Palace, but when we got there Thursday morning we learned that it was closed for Dashain — to open again the next day. Not wanting to wait for our dose of royalty, we went instead to Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur where there were also royal residences — and Buddhist and Hindu temples. We hired a guide for the demand-spiked-price of $22 (!) for an hour’s tour. (Manoj managed to find a parking space, so he came with us.) We learned a lot more about Nepal’s history, as well as how intertwined Buddhism is with Hinduism here. And with Hinduism’s 363 million (!) deities (according to our guide) we won’t run out of things to learn about the dominant religion and culture! And the history of Nepal with its succession of kings.
Royal is as royal does — but oh, the extravagances of royal privilege that were on display. Private spring water, a swimming-pool-sized “bathtub”, ornate thrones and clothes and the list goes on. (Royal subjects’ envy and resentment come as no surprise.) We saw some of this excess last week at Pokhara — where the royal family used to go on vacation — in the forest that was reserved for the king and his party to go hunting. Don’t even think about trespassing!
But royalty-nostalgia is alive and well in Nepal. According to Manoj, there are many (maybe most) people who wish the King would come back, preferring a monarchy to the corrupt stab-at-democracy they live under now. It makes me think about King Mosiah’s “if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, […] then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.” Rarely has that possibility been realized!
Peter’s “ye are a […] royal priesthood” rings true and states a reality worthy of pondering more often.
“Be Loyal to the Royal in you” floats around in my head, source unknown. But a piece of paper with the following thought on it was left in one of my classrooms years ago, and I latched onto it and hung it by my desk where I could see it and remember:
I am a child of royal birth;
My Father is King of Heaven and Earth.
Have a Royally Wonderful Week!
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