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Cult of Personality

I can't decipher what they're saying as it's all local dialect but they're certainly loud enough to be heard; cruising down our street in a white van equipped with two extra-large bullhorns spewing into the air at full volume what I can only assume is a call to their Communist agenda. With a big red flag billowing out behind them, the Maoists have apparently invaded our otherwise quiet Samakushi neighborhood.

Like Napoleon, but without the horse, I ran through the house shouting to Hamid, "The Maoists are coming! The Maoists are coming!" I wanted to point out these exotic interlopers like a tourist appreciating the local flavor - but my excitement was immediately sobered by the realization that these are 'the bad guys'.

I don't pretend to understand the politics they engender or the space these guerilla rebels occupy in the culture we're currently camped out in but it certainly was a bit of a surprise, and admittedly quite interesting, to look up from my work to spy the giant red symbol of Communism flying gaily in the morning breeze just outside the compound walls beyond our garden.

Fortunately, they did not stop in for tea.

Ketchup snobs

When we lived in Seattle M and I were snobs of a sort, as most girls-in-groups will tend to be, although we were the politely de-clawed kind of snobs. Very quietly dissing someone's choice of footwear or blush and never outright insulting anyone for their fashion faux pas, however disturbing...but snobs all the same.

It happens when you work retail, especially when you're pushing pret. M worked the floors a heck of a lot longer than I ever did; thriving on the commission checks, the monthly allowance, and the promise of a constantly overflowing closet. I prefer to stock my bank account and my closet in other ways, abhoring the long hours and equally snobby customers, but am as yet left with some vestige of having been a picky picky clothes horse.

Of course, now we both live in Kathmandu, Nepal - not exactly the fashion capital of the world. While girls here tend to be more style conscious than their Indian counterparts they do still seem to struggle with color and pattern and M and I will fall into suppressed giggles and a gut-reaction mutual 'tut-tut' every now and then over a crazily dressed mannequin posed as garish window display [most recently we photographed one sporting lavender leg warmers, a purple negligee, one of the amazing hand knit Nepali mountain-people sweaters all topped off with matching hat and ear flaps - darn good fashion]. In a city where acid wash and neon green fishnet shawls can not only easily be found but are pressed on the unsuspecting consumer from every direction, these moments of spontaneous laughter between friends are once again common, and all the more precious for having been denied us so long.

It's been ages since I'm able to laugh in person with the most beloved of all females on the planet (next to my mom) and I'm so happy in the knowledge that she's literally right up the street once more. To sit down for a lunch of steamed veg momos and ketchup with M across the table as if four years hadn't passed between us is six kinds of wonderful.

The only thing disturbing this perfect-once-again scenario is the ketchup...
Ketchup in India was a sticky, watery, agent-orange concoction with ten times too much sugar. Nepal, about as much a center of production as it is a fashion hub, relies on its gigantic neighbors for condiments and imports everything from India and China. It doesn't seem the Chinese are very big on ketchup so we end up with the unpleasant orange stuff everywhere we go.
Before our first holiday visit to Nepal M was daily begging me to lift a few hundred ketchup packets from the local McDonald's. Like a pusher to a junky needing a fix I would promise, "Just enough to get you through the next few weeks..."

Mellowed by travel, a bit of age, and the simple art of not picking on other people for no good reason, we now turn our noses up at ketchup and marvel at how disgusting such a simple thing can be when done wrong; spending half of our marketing trips hunting for plastic squeeze bottles of Heinz or even Hunt's - anything stamped 'Made in America'.

We're still snobs. I guess some things never change.

Jitterbug

He sat next to us at one end of a row of three connected chairs, at the American Embassy in Ankara; a kid of maybe 20 waiting solo for his chance to charm a visa out of the consular officer. He wasn't particularly notable aside from tiny beads of sweat accumulating on his forehead in the air conditioned room, the stubby fingernails he'd apparently eaten in anticipation of his visit that day, and his near comic inability to keep any one part of his body still.
Exuding enough anxiety for all three of us, his constant nervous tics and jitterbugging in the seat gave me a sideways kind of permission to relax - we'd been through this once before after all - and I slung my arm over my darling's black-clad shoulder (posing as Johnny Cash in honor of an American hero, Hamid had opted for a crisp fitted black dress shirt, untucked, and faded blue jeans) and planted a kiss on his gorgeous cheek.

We waited patiently, alternately holding hands and taking turns triple checking our paperwork as we kept the seats in place for our fidgety neighbor and listened intently to the conversations at the interview stations before us; we were amazed to hear that the Embassy seemed to be handing out visas left and right that day as the very cheerful people behind the counter smiled and twittered sweetly at their applicants over the fabulous plans each had for their arrival and respective lives in the United States.

One wanted to work on a cruise ship, another - a pretty blonde Turkish orthodontist, planned to open offices in New York. There were students transferring to stateside universities, grandparents wishing to visit family with a new baby, and a married couple hoping to emigrate. There was only one girl who was denied entry for lying on her forms about having successfully completed her courses that year. Even though she'd been dishonest I still felt truly sorry for her when she got the news and her shoulders slumped; her previously optimistic posture reduced to nothing short of devastation with the defeat of her purpose.

We watched as each approached their designated window and shuffled their paperwork through the slot, every single one leaning forward on tip-toes while they waited to answer their own series of questions as if it was an assigned part of the process. [Step 1: Please press the fingers of the right hand firmly onto the digital fingerprinting-thing. Step 2: Repeat with left hand. Step 3: Press your nose against the window and stand in a demi pointe with aplomb. Plie is optional.]

When it was our own turn to be interviewed we must have shocked the still-twitching young man out of quite a worrisome reverie because he nearly fell out of his seat with the sudden imbalance caused by our absence; I could hear him collecting himself and resume foot tapping behind us as we settled ourselves in at the window. [You are number 202 - this ticket does not necessarily represent the order in which you will be called. Please do not approach the window until you see your number is signaled above one of the interview stations.]

We answered a total of five questions, each of which was put to us in a friendly manner and without even the slightest twinge of grinch we'd experienced at the consulate in Chennai, and were told without pause or ceremony that Hamid's passport containing an immigrant visa would be delivered to us at our local hotel within the next three days.

When we turned to leave, wrapping ourselves around eachother in astonished silence, I glanced at where we'd been sitting and our dancing queen was nowhere to be found - he'd gone already and I've no idea if he received that much coveted visa, but for the sake of what was left of his fingernails I certainly hope so.

Americans abroad

He came around the corner - or, his stomach came around the corner and the rest of him followed suit - an American abroad in India dragging his carry on behind him. Pasty white legs puffing out red with strain above the rims of too-tight black knee socks pulled up as close to the hem of his baggy shorts as possible, requisite Tevas strapped on his feet, he moved past me and spied the Subway sandwich shop. His eyes lit up with the recognition of something non-curried, non-rice, non-masala and I noticed that his head literally lurched forward suddenly as if trying to spur his hulking mass to move faster toward the intended target.

He slowed down just long enough to glance behind him, spying his Laura Bush look alike wife and bellowed in a perfect southern American accent, "Hey huhn?! These folks gots them a SUBWAY right here!"

His Laura, dressed in her best J.C. Penney travel suit with reddest red Mary Kay applied to lips and bluest blue applied to eyes bugging out in excitement beneath frosted bangs, hollered back with unrestrained joy, "Rights here in Delhi!? Well a'll be!" She then sped up her pace, flipping her flops noisily across the tiled floor and pulling at the hem of her elastic waistband in an attempt at getting it right up there under her bustline.

Rounding the corner to join her husband's stomach she brought her hands up to her face and wailed again, 'Well a'll be! Now doesn't that beat all? Looky there - a Subway in India!' her sentence trailing off into a reflection of shock and awe generally inspired by the seven wonders of the world and/or natural wonders/disasters.

They clasped hands momentarily before moving toward the deli counter together, feet in unison; the perfect harmony of a long-married couple fulfilling their common destiny. Soul mates in the pursuit of a hot turkey sub with extra-extra cheese, lots of mayo, foot long (each), with sodas, chips, and those horrid little dried out biscuits Subway calls cookies.

Once seated, and with a mouthful of food in mid-nosh, Laura gingerly touched her husband's shoulder and said quietly, all serious-like "I've just got to call Marilyn."
He nodded enthusiastically with a little sludge of lettuce and mayo dribbling down his chin as she dialed her Nokia with the flick of a wrist and took another bite while waiting for a connection...I imagined she was ringing through to New Hampshire or Texas (the Bible-Belt seemed much more likely given the blue eye shadow).

"Marilyn? Marilyn? Hmmmm??! Hallow? Hallow? Can you hear me now?!" she shouted across the ocean. "Marilyn, Marilyn, you're not going to believe this! I just knew I had to call you, I mean....blah blah blah....(all the reasons she thought it was important Miss Marilyn know about the Subway counter in Delhi, India) and we're eating them right now, in the airport!!"

I imagined Marilyn being impressed at least to a knee-slap at the faintest possibility India would have any clue about Subway and that her own shock and awe was followed by an intense question and answer period capped off with "Are there really camels and elephants in the streets?" which would naturally be followed by calls to all the other ladies in the quilting bee/tupperware party/coffee clutch/bowling league to be sure everyone was quite up to speed on the adventures of Laura and her husband's stomach in India.

I wonder if the same calls were made when they came across the gazillion McDonald's, Baskin-Robbins, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Domino's and Pizza Hut locations spread out all over the country.

The unmistakable smell of India - DKNY to the rescue

We'd already dropped close to four grand on flights to and from Anakara plus hotel reservations, so when we realized the tickets we'd booked put us in Delhi's international transit lounge for twelve hours each way and the alternate option of travelling through Doha would have added another thousand dollars at least, we thought for the sake of a bit of cost-savings we could handle it. From the moment we stepped off the plane in Delhi, breathing in that familiar smell of fresh-baked yuck that India is permeated with we knew it was a choice we would come to regret.

Sitting in the airport, where modernity is just starting to eke it's way into existence, we looked around at the few other tourists smiling and perfectly happy to be there for hours on end and understood that the charm of India has been lost on us entirely, forever.
We made a pact that day never to return and I dashed off to the duty free to spritz myself with all manner of liquid couture in an attempt at reclaiming my olfactories.

I picked up a bottle of Gucci, Envy Me - my current favorite fragrance and sprayed away until I was a walking cloud of perfume. Remembering that Hamid was sitting alone on a bench that smelled all too strongly of the hundreds of pairs of dirty feet that had been propped up there over time I picked up a bottle of DKNY Delicious for men and breathed it in. It was so truly the definition of delicious that I reached for the girly version and felt as if I'd died and gone to heaven. Whipping out the bank card, I invested a measly hundred on the Costco sized versions of each and made my way back to my darling who greeted me with desperate groans of stink-intensified boredom.

We spent the next couple of hours dousing ourselves in perfume and breathing through our sleeves.

Until further notice

Or at least until I get some sleep....I just can't seem to get the chicken scratch I penned while we were in Turkey these past two weeks from paper to keyboard.

However, at the risk of wrecking the anticipation I'll jump ahead a bit for now and report that we *did* in fact receive Hamid's visa to the States during our visit with the Embassy in Ankara. It took all of five minutes in the end and I had to check the bottoms of my new stilettos after we had left the interview and were seated, stunned and happy, in the back of a yellow Turkish 'taksi' - I wasn't at all convinced I'd actually walked out of there; it was really something more like ethereal floating. Sure enough, that famous Loubitin red was still patently shiny and completely intact.

The view from where I sit

Be here now

Awake at six a.m.!? and I'm wondering what has happened to the natural order of things?
Daily now, I keep the schedule of a farmer - awake at hours I've not seen since the glowing red eyes of a much-hated digital alarm would snarl me out of my eighth grade Catholic schoolgirl sleep, and in bed at a time normally reserved for the seven-to-ten year old crowd serving time grounded [my own parents always called it 'restriction' which sounded worse; relatively causing more suffering simply for the name of it.]

For two weeks now I've been privy to the sunrise, a spectacle to be sure; especially from our rooftop balcony four floors up. On one side lives a very tall and verdant forest and on the other three sit small, fat cousins of the Himalayas endlessly piled up on eachother. The view is no small work of art and I am reminded of the friendly bearded man broadcast on Seattle's Channel 9 public programming, painting his heart out every afternoon and quipping all the while about brush strokes or shadowing as he manifested 'happy little trees' and 'cheerful mountains'.

The view also reminds me a bit of the spectacle from our rooftop in Tehran and were it not for odd whims of the universe I imagine I'd be waking up there now instead of Nepal. If that were the case we'd have a flight of just a few hours to look forward to today - instead we've got something like 24 hours travel time in front of us with most of it spent in the transit lounge in Delhi, India. In any other circumstance we'd just exit the airport and take a room for the time being but because securing a transit visa for my darling would be nothing short of an exercise in frustration (dealing with Indian customs officials is now and forever will be way down on my list of pleasureable activities) we're going to spend the twelve or so hours between flights practicing our skills at living in a terminal.

Once, I washed my hair in Bangalore's airport bathroom on a trip to Goa, and I've slept in more than a few airports in my life; most recently in Thailand and Sri Lanka. With my luggage serving as a kind of pillow I'd self-consciously doze in and out, waking up to find some small child peering down at me or a group of maintenance people giggling together as they swept past me with a pile of rubbish in tow. It's not the most comfortable way to get from point A to point B but it is what it is and at least it's somewhere in between this early morning anxiety of 'how will this all pan out?' and actually knowing the answer.

I'm not nervous about the fliying, although I absolutely cringe at takeoffs and landings. It's the reason behind our trip that settles in my stomach like a heavy stone. Obtaining a United States immigrant visa for my Iranian husband has proven to be one of the most challenging and complicated games I've ever played. With yet another interview on the horizon and memories of a much failed interaction with the Consul in Chennai we're both filled with that same excitement of possibility but it's now tinged with a little fear. These people literally hold the keys to one of our possible futures and I've heard some intimidating stories about interviews turned interrogation that leave me feeling the slightest bit wary. Apparently, they are just as interested in seeing me as they are Hamid - curious to learn if I've been converted to a hard-core Islamic tradition (ie - will I be in hajib or scarf?) or if we're a more 'socially appropriate' mix of modernity and faith. I'll be wearing stilettos and a sundress - no sense leaving any question which axis we take our fashion queues from now is there?

Anyway, as much as I'd sincerely love to continue to wake up in Kathmandu indefinitely, Nepal just isn't the place we've worked so hard to get to. We've paid taxes to the United States government since the inception of our business, we've shopped for houses in our American neighborhood of choice, we've researched the process for acquiring Hamid's coveted PhD in CS as well as extending my own university studies (I'm thinking a switch from Philosophy to Theology is in order), we've even gone so far as to research birthing centers and midwives - all with the idea that America is 'the best place on earth' (regardless of the inherent political issues, it's still a belief I hold as truth after living abroad so many years). At the very least America has the best internet connections and sidewalks (yes, sidewalks) on the planet...two things I've added to the list of "I miss..."

With all the packing done and arrangements made there's nothing left for me to do at this point other than wait. Wait for it to be time to go, wait for boarding, wait for the sweet business class crew to bring me something wonderful to eat, wait for the bloody mary I am destined to imbibe en-route, wait to see if our hotel is all it's meant to be, wait to be interviewed about how much I love my husband.

Fortunately I'm much more practiced these days at the art of handling the strange imbalances that exist in my intercontinental life, and sit on the roof surrounded by the happy little trees and cheerful mountains as the sun comes up, typing all of my anxst and worry onto the page so I can, at least for the time being, leave it there and be here now.

Once again, for good measure - and a salad on the side

It's just about time for us to head to Ankara, Turkey to meet with the U.S. Embassy there for yet another interview regarding Hamid's visa. I'm hoping it goes better than the meeting we had at the Consulate in Chennai, India - at least we know now that we're applying through the right country.
Too bad they can't just see us at the Embassy here in Kathmandu - it's right up the street from our house...but no, that would be too easy.
As I said before, it's really fine with us either way - we're more than happy to have an excuse to go adventure around in Turkey, it's just kind of a pain to realize that we'll likely have to return to Ankara months from now if the visa is approved because they refuse to send the documents anywhere but inside Turkey itself.
So it will be another round of flights and hotel bookings and packing of suitcases.
I love travel for any reason and working toward that visa for my beloved is no exception, but after being in our amazing peaceful house these past few days have really started to get comfortable with the idea of just staying put for a while. And it will be nice when we can return and experience more of all that Nepal has to offer.

Speaking of which, last night over tuna sushi rolls and cold rice wine at Kotetsu our friend Sacha recounted the story of his recent death defying bungee plunge from a 160 meter bridge at a place called The Last Resort - this resort, the bridge, and it's promise of pee-your-pants adrenaline/fear are now on our immediate to-do list upon our return to Kathmandu. There are any number of ways to reach The Last Resort, but we're opting for the two-day whitewater rafting expedition as our transportation of choice.

But there are places to go and people to see so in the meantime we go about business as usual; shopping for fresh vegetables, eggs, and bread at the local evening farmer's market that spontaneously appears every day a few streets up at about six o'clock. Kneeling with the locals to inspect the day's take of spinach, eggplant, tomatoes, green onions, potatoes, lemons, and any manner of salad-making fare is so much fun I find myself doing my level best to eat the green stuff often so we have an excuse to return just for the experience of interacting with the smiling agricults and their earthy wares. There's something about buying produce and preparing it at home - an art I'd long forgotten while living in Bangalore - that feels homey and solid; takes some of the edge off our seemingly endless spate of hotel-living and rushing around between airports. Who'd have guessed something as simple as a salad eaten on the balcony during sunset could be so very therapeutic.