Men at the Bearing Shop, Teku, Kathmandu

A KawaaDi, Teku, Kathmandu

That's not a typo in the title, but the standard way of marking that D as a retroflex--as opposed to dental--consonant. (By sound I think the standardized spelling should be KhaawaDi, but my Nepali tutor says otherwise..)

Anyway, Aaron and I spent yesterday fishing through kawaaDis--junkyards--in the industrial neighborhood of Teku for parts to build this ridiculous washing machine with.

All I could think of was how beautiful a lot of these piles were--and how the only people who would think so are those of us for whom replacement parts are easily had, who have the privilege to visualize a pipe outside of its ability to carry water or a conduit wires, who can see a bag of seized bearings and be happy that someone knows they're worth saving, that they'll be useful for something.

Boudhanilkantha, Nepal

My friends Sareena, Olivier, and Kholga--aka Rai ko Ris--had a little show at Sareena and Olivier's house in Boudhanilkantha on Monday. Most of the pictures ended up more than a little blurry, and the highlight was Sareena calling me up to, uh, demonstrate the Bollywood dance moves that some of the little kids at P.A. Nepal made me learn. I would humbly suggest that I stole the show. There's a video somewhere, which will almost certainly come back to haunt me later.

Koteshwor, Kathmandu