Have decided to create a seperate page called Asides for some smaller observations and thoughts. Am just going to dip in here and write something when I feel like it.

Aside No. 1:

I have never watched a pigeon fall asleep before.

Exactly as people do when tired, her eyelids began to close against her will, despite her survival-instinct need to stay watchful and awake. Granted she had two eyelids that moved, one up and one down but the result was the same. Heavy eyelids, tired, head to one side, wanting to take a rest from being a pigeon for a while to be simply become a resting being, asleep.

How could I tell she was female? Because no sooner had she nodded comfortably off on her perch outside the second-floor restaurant window than a large male bird tried to jump her bones. No rest eh?

And then she was back, no doubt, to scrabbling for corn in the square below, or being chased by small children (the lot of pigeons everywhere), or bathing in the cow festival calf’s bucket of drinking water. Or just perhaps she found another more secluded place to sleep. I hope so! Namaste .

Aside No. 2:

The people here work very hard.

I used to moan sometimes about working hard. No surprises there, everyone does that and yes, the UK education system is a pretty tough system to work in (thanks due here to all the Education Secretaries who stayed in the job 5 minutes, created 14 new initiatives and then moved on… anyone who works in education will know precisely what I’m talking about), but the Nepali and Tibetan people work HARD.

In the past few days I have seen a man carrying a full-sized wardrobe on his back, tied to his head for support; a woman literally doubled over with a sack of corn or other produce on her back; a man with an entire store’s worth of brightly coloured plastic containers on his head; and shop-keepers who have to set up and pack away a market stall space dawn and dusk every day of the week.

It has occured to me stongly since I posted it that the noise I’ve mentioned in my vid on Photobucket:

… is the sound of a people working with tremendous industry to improve their lives and their country. Like the young man in the shop today with his wife and small child who said that in 10, 20 years time, perhaps Nepal will be a rich country. I paused over that, having my own associations on what wealth brings but…. NOT my place to decide or comment there. Just aim be an observer, recognising that as I slow down into the pace of things here a bit better that perhaps I can learn to be a less distant and judgemental observer in future. Namaste .