I just have one week until my triumphant return to the States. I can barely wait. I am looking forward to seeing Jenna, Ronin (my dog), my friends, and family. Not to mention I am excited for American movies, food, and beer. I am also looking forward to my short time in Amsterdam. On my way to the States I am spending a couple days in Amsterdam to sight see. Who knows if I will ever see Amsterdam again, right? So why not?

Probably the most eventful thing that has happened since my last post if the I.S.E.R. picnic. Dirgha (the director of the institute) and Meeta (Ph.D. student) had been arguing over the provision of alcohol at the picnic. Dirgha was arguing that the picnic was an opportunity for the staff of the institute to express themselves, so beer and rum was fine. Meeta didn't want hard alcohol at the picnic because she felt it changed the whole dynamic of picnics and perhaps gave the wrong impression to the staff. Needless to say, we had both kinds of alcohol for the picnic. It was a lot fun. We drove a couple of hours from the institute into a wooded area. I thought it would be a quite picturesque place. In fact, it was more the opposite. It was filled with people (mostly high schoolers) and the location was on a degraded hillside. In addition, every picnic group had their own music blaring from giant speakers. After we got our speaker system setup, however, I don't think anybody could compete with the sheer noise they produced. We had a covered area to ourselves. The cook had help from a catering service. Everybody got comfortable and played cards and ate food for awhile. Then we starting playing some games. For instance, in one game everybody tied a balloon around each of their feet and when the timer started they had to scramble and pop everybody's balloons without their own being popped. I didn't last long but it was pretty fun. Then the alcohol came out and things got pretty loose. One thing I learned was that dancing is mandatory at a Nepali picnic. The interesting thing is that no one is self-conscious about it like they would be in the States. Even guys. Usually guys in the US are so afraid to dance. In Nepal, they could barely wait to get up and cut a rug. I was eventually beckoned to dance, and dance I did! They also played another very interesting game. The girls and guys grouped up on opposite sides. Then the microphone was passed around to the guys first and they sang a verse. Then the microphone was passed to the women and the responded with their own verse. As they kept doing this I realized that the verses were being made up on the spot to respond to the previous verse. And all of the responses were flirty and full of insinuations about marriage and so forth. I had no idea what was being said at all most of the time except everynow and then after a particular good response somebody would translate for me. You knew it was a good response when everybody would laugh and mockingly shout at each other. At some point I realized that my friend Alex, a Ph.D. student from San Diego State University, was getting pretty drunk. It happened very fast. We were talking very casually when I noticed that he was spilling his food everywhere. He then starting dancing with abandon which was a clear indicator of inebriation. Around the same time one of the cooks, Rishi, appeared to be astoundingly drunk. He was sitting on the floor and somebody was pouring water on his head. I helped him up and with a friend we drug him to the bus to fall asleep. Eventually, the picnic was packed up and we headed back to the ISER guesthouse. Good times.

My birthday was Nov. 18th. I am now 28 years old. Wow. Most of the people from ISER were Kathmandu and so unfortunately we couldn't have a big celebration as I had hoped. But the cooks came through. They got a cake that said "Happy Birthday Nek Carter". I loved it. They asked what I wanted for dinner and like a child I said pizza and ice cream. We also had some beer to wash everything down. It was a small affair but perfect. The morning of my birthday I received a group call from my friends in Ann Arbor, MI. Jenna had asked a lot of our friends to come to her house. She called me and then everybody wished me a happy birthday at the same time over the speaker. It was awesome and really set the tone for the rest of the week.

Then on Thanksgiving, the cooks made a special meal as well. They work hard to make my stay as pleasant was possible. They made chicken (which I didn't eat because of the whole vegetarian thing -- but the other guests at it), corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, green peas with almonds, and a special vegetarian souffle. This was followed by apple pie with vanilla ice cream! Not bad at all.

My work has been going slowly. I still don't know what the verdict is on my application to camera trap. The application is in the Ministry of Forests and is slowly working its way through the bureaucracy. I hope to know the result before I leave Nepal. I have my fingers crossed. The other aspects of my work are going slowly but surely. Till next time.