Three weddings and a leaving do

My Editor (you know who she is!) tells me (a) it's time for another post and (b) it needs to be more upbeat with less whingeing about power cuts etc. This will definitely fulfil the 1st and let's see how things go on the 2nd.

Since the last post, we have had a run of wedding parties – 3 in 2 weeks. This is not just coincidence, it is (was?) an auspicious time of year to get married. The first 2 were work colleagues (both straight so no more groundbreaking same sex unions) which were different but both great fun. Sheila was a bit poorly for the first so I went straight from work with other colleagues. It was at a community hall where after drinks on the top floor (I decided I like rice beer) we went downstairs to a large very bare concrete hall to join probably 100 people sitting on mats in rows to eat. A convoy of servers went down the rows handing out leaf (banana?) plates which were then filled with rice, dal, veg and meat curries – all eaten by hand and delicious. After we'd finished we moved out and were replaced by the next sitting, apparently there were 750 guests in total! Last Saturday our next party was by contrast held at one of the smarter hotels in town with waiters in white jackets serving drinks. What made this fun was that many of the metis (transgenders) from work came in their glam party gear and pretty soon were dancing. Foolishly I was chatting with someone a bit close to the dance floor and got dragged on to it. Someone was taking photos and if I can get them I will post a few here.

The last wedding was in our landlord's family. His daughter came round to deliver the invitation explaining that it was her brother which highlights how close the extended family is here as her brother is only 12 and we guessed (correctly) that it was in fact her cousin. Various parts of the wedding ceremonies take place over several days and I saw preparations for some of these as I walked through the courtyard on my way to work. When I went through on the morning of the party, food preparation was underway with all the ladies of the family sitting in a circle making leaf plates (that's what I though they were but it now occurs to me that we were served on plastic plates – whatever) and the men chatting and keeping an eye on 4 tethered goats which I guess didn't have much longer for this world. We joined the party for a buffet style dinner and chatted with various members of the family and neighbours before escaping back to the house because it was freezing – I don’t know how the women in party saris did not turn blue. Following our normal habit when cold we retired to bed with hot water bottles and a DVD on the laptop at about 8pm only for the door bell to ring about half an hour later. The landlord accompanied by one of the neighbours who speaks excellent English had come round to tell us that the food had finished and now the drinking was starting, would I like to join them – I got the impression that a few drinks had already been partaken of. I declined with some feeble excuses, wished them a good time and assured them that we would not be disturbed by the noise of partying next door. It probably would have been a great bonding session with my landlord's family but I have a suspicion that the main drink was whisky and I would not have been able to last the pace.

However I did have my drinking hat on the next night when we met volunteer friends for a farewell meal for one of our best friends from Birgunj. Sheila had some work to finish off that evening so when she said she needed to be back early I of course said that I didn't want a late night either and then got shirty when she expressed disbelief at me leaving a party early. And who was right? Having been elected an honorary member of the Birgunj crew, we finished drinking at 5 am and after a quick kip on a friend's spare bed I got home at 6:30.

OK, is that upbeat enough? I'm off to my bed and hottie (bottle that is) to do some revision before our first language class in 3 months at 8am tomorrow – seemed like a good idea when Sheila booked it last week.

Oh, I suppose after earlier comments it would be rude not to congratulate England on their magnificent 1-day cricket result. Managed to watch most of it on the big screen at the Pacific Guest House before the power went off (did I mention we are getting 3 hours per day load shedding?), went home and caught the last few overs on the laptop albeit with very dodgy reception. Despite checking all the cable TV schedules could not find any of them showing this weekend's rugby. Report of the England-Italy match made it sound as if I didn't miss much. Hope to pick up the Ireland-France result when I log on to send this.

Cheers, have a good week.

Roshan