Nepali Class

My Nepali teacher is either the most tolerant man in the world or he swears all the way home. Today we did some revision. Revision of 10 months worth of Nepali class. Below are the sentences he asked me to translate, followed by the English version of what I did in Nepali.

1. Till now, I have not eaten anything.
>>Now I don't eat.

2. Have you been to Australia?
>> You have went to Australia?

3. I am not yet married
>> I have not do wedding.

4. Is Katherine learning French these days?
>>These days, Katherine learn French.

5. What were you doing at 7 yesterday evening?
>> Yesterday evening to at 7 at, you did what?

6. I was thinking of going to India this June.
>> In June, it is my opinion that India I go to.

7. It is hotter today.
>> It is hottest today.

8. Immediately after coming here, we started leaning Nepali.
>> We came here and then Nepali language learn...*&#@% what's the word for start?

9. He always feels tired.
>> He is everywhere happy.

10. He has a bad habit of drinking alcohol.
>> He is a alcohol drinking man.

11. How long have you been working at the hospital?
>> How many years have you been working? DAMN! At the hospital? I mean, How many years have you work at the hospital...I mean... DAMN! How long have you been working at the hospital? [WHEW]

12. Who is this for?
>> Who's is this?

13. He knows how to play chess but he doesn't play.
>>Actually I got that one right -> not bad eh?


Thankyou Bejoy, you are so patient....

Characters > Bhoj Raj

Bhoj Raj G/aut/am is a fascinating creature that I see daily at work. He is very affectionate, highly intelligent, looks like he is about to cry just about most of the time, says thankyou one or two more times than necessary in a single conversation, is a Brahmin (very high caste status), can go by the nickname of Bhoju - although I am not prepared to get that familiar with him, lest he start trying to hold my hand in public- and is probably not quite as good at English as he thinks he is. This is fine, as my Nepali is a long way short of his English, I'm just setting the scene here.

Bhoj Raj, as has been pointed out before has appointed himself the "Rob Nepali Guru" meaning, he tries to teach me Nepali. Usually, this results in him saying things to me very quickly and pausing meaningfully while waiting for me to respond. This usually results in a 20 minute conversation where I mainly try and work out exactly which is the new word he is trying to teach me, as it is not either clear or easy to pronounce. Any attempt to get him to repeat a sentence prompts some kind of cognitive reset function resulting in him saying something completely different with no memory of having said something different 10 seconds before.

Today he told me his love story. "You and I are very alike Rob-ji," he starts, "we are both very young to be married, and both our wives are NURSES!" OK, so I lied when I got here, telling everyone that my girlfriend was actually my wife. Something I did on the advice of some Nepalis living in Australia who suggested it would "just be easier" when she comes to visit. Unfortunately, that won't be for a bloody long time, and in the meantime I have to keep together this web of lies that not only had us married before we started going out, but involves a honeymoon in Thailand (a place I have never been to) and means that I pretend to actually own a home.

Me: Are you in an arranged marriage? (FYI, options are love marriage or arranged marriage - about 50/50)
BR: NO NO! I am in a love marriage. But the story around my wedding is very strange.

The short of it is that Bhoj Raj met his wife, Urmila, while working at a hospital in Pokhara, over time they got to know each other rah, rah, rah. Where this gets interesting is around the point where Urmila's parents start to look for a good husband to set her up with. They found a nice chap. A businessman I believe that might or might not have known something about engineering.

She refused to marry him saying that she was in love with somebody else. You can almost see the scene now can't you? Demanding to know who it was, Urmila's father set out on a mission to discover more about the mysterious (and in my opinion over-friendly) ophthalmic assisstant.

You see, although you might not quite understand it, I most certainly don't, Nepal works (less and less nowadays, but it exists nevertheless) on a caste system. I haven't got a great grasp on it except to say that if you are a Brahmin, then you are pretty much ok, you have quite a lot of status, are likely to be able to afford education and won't be going begging. What I did not understand is that even among the various castes, there are ranks. Although Urmila is also a Brahmin [YAY], unfortunately poor Bhoj Raj is a lower rank than her [poo].

Her parents refused to allow her to see him and demanded that he come and see them alone. Afraid that they would be waiting with a bevvy of large brutish family members to do him an injustice, he refused to go unless he could take friends. As I understand it (and I am sure I have got part of this wrong) eventually they came to the conclusion that they could be together only if BR agreed to marry her the next day at temple, or the whole thing was off and Urmila's father would not take part in it at all.

It was 2pm in the afternoon and BR wasn't expecting this particular development. He had no money for a dowry (also required) and none of his relations knew anything about this. Apparently he went crazy that afternoon, finding special clothes, contacting relations to tell them about the wedding and borrowing some money and or gifts for a dowry. And the next day they were married. That was back in February, and unfortunately she is in Pokhara for now and he in Kathmandu.

He really is a character and always has a smile on his face (if it does look like he is also about to break out in tears).

[on the left - yes, the over-affectionate one]

Mero Charpi Explode Chha

My Nepali teacher visited on Wednesday, and, as is his custom, enquired how everything was. Lacking the liunguistic acumen to explain that I had a party the other night and invited 5 Europeans I had never met before, as many AYADs as can fit into my flat, an American and our Nepali friend Jaya, and that the first of them to use my toilet created a chaos only before seen when the aliens blew up the White House in Independence Day. I started to explain but after a few false starts, a couple of giggles and an illness fried barin I simply said "Mero charpi explode chha". Meaning "my toilet explode is".

It was bound to happen. I mean, obviously, we all knew, it was only a matter of time. I'm surprised he made it this far.to be honest. Perhaps over the course of my three months in country I have become familiar with his habits. I know that when he is flushed he likes to have the flush handle raised back into its regular position. He doesn't like exceedingly large downward pressure applied to the tank and when there is no water in the building tank to refill him, he knows that I am more than willing to use my precious hot water (filled from a seperate tank) to flush him.

Danielle however was not aware of this. She was not aware of the history. Of the pain. Of the three weeks I spent effectively toiletless last time he exploded. She does have a good ear for humour though, as she picked the best time to hatch her dastardly plot. Most people had arrived, and we were all sitting down to a few warm glasses of beer (which the Italian girls claimed to prefer over cold [which has to be a lie, why would anyone PREFER to drink warm beer?]). Danielle sat back down from her visit to my friend the temperamental toilet and I was in the kitchen doling out the warm Everest beer packed in bottles clearly printed with the word Tuborg (a different kind of beer). There was a horrible crashing sound like a ceramic sink smashing all over a ceramic tile floor.

Immediately I had images of what had happened - knowing how much the sink also dislikes downward pressure. Before you knew it, 5 or 6 people were crammed into my bathroom to witness the scene making it impossible for me to get in to see the damage. It was not the sink, as I had feared but poor Charpi. His tank had suicided off the wall, the filling hose had torn itself right off (a brand new one too) and water was shooting out at a flesh damaging rate*. Grabbing the hose I bought for fixing him last time that turned out to be the wrong size but I kept for a moment just like this I put Danielle in charge of holding that while I grabbed Jaya and ran to find Danesh while still having my wits enough about me to grab Jaya to help translate.

Turned out that Jaya had had a little too much rum to speak him own language intelligibly, Danesh managed to work out what was going on and shut off the tank but not before we lost a good 100 litres of water mainly depositing itself on Danielle and myself.

I decided to do the fixing 100% myself this time, not wanting to "bother" Danesh with it and I am happy to say that Charpi is back to 60% functional.**.

*not quite as strong as the Stupid Pressure Hose Incident of 2005
** He's actually only ever at 60%, so I take that as a good effort on my part

Linguistic Adventures I

For me, visits to other countries are all about making mistakes and learning from them. Like ordering a "latte" in Italy and getting a warm cup of milk. Sometimes learning about myself along the way. Nepal has definitely been a learning experience. I would like to share some of the following things I have learnt.

1. Language class - my teacher, Bejoy Ji, did not seem to see the irony in the fact that the past version of the verb to drink or to smoke (same word) is "pie:". Further to that, it is illegal to hurt or eat a cow, making the acquisition of a beef and bacon pie that much more difficult (read impossible [this of course is an assumption because I haven't checked out the black market for beef n bacon pies{i'm not quite that desperate yet}]). This makes the gorgeous meat pie I ate the other week at the Australian Red Dingo restaurant all the more amazing. Follow it up with the apple pie people, you will be content, and probably have to check into the hospital on account of an exploded stomach.

2. Language class - The words gae:, gare: and gaare: apparently have some kind of phonetic difference that is impossible to pick up without come kind of cybernetic ear set so loud you could hear the ants crawling all over my kitchen bench.

3. Crazy neighbour lady - There has been an accumulation of stuff mounting on my carpet. Dust, bits of rubbish, crumbs and the like. Having tried to clean it up with the only tool available, a rather pathetic broom handle, I decided to bite the bullet and ask crazy neighbour lady (who speaks a lot of Nepali very fast and then stands there wondering just why it is I can't understand her) if she by any chance had a vacuum cleaner. I knew it was a long shot, but I looked up all the words in advance and went armed for the inevitable frontal Nepali verbal assault. "Tapaaiko vacuum chha?" (so, as it turned out there wasn't a word for vacuum, so I really only went armed with "you have" and "is/true". "eh?? oh, chhaina" - meaning "is not", was the response I got. As I was prepared to mumble OK and disappear the assault came at me quite unexpectedly from the side. "something something something maThi something something something" which I took to mean that someone upstairs had a vacuum cleaner. Either that or she wanted me to make sure I checked for spiders in the rafters. The upstairs people aren't around during the day so I went back inside. Moments later...a knock on the door. Crazy neighbour lady is there with a broom and a big grin. Waving it around like Christmas, she goes to give it to me. "Actually I already have a broom", and pulled it out to demonstrate. WIth a look of surprise she indicated that I should probably try using that, to which I responded "bad on carpet" and pointed at the carpet. She made a funny little side wobble thing that clearly meant I should brush harder and faster with my broom and promptly walked away. Probably in disgust. Needless to say, I used the broom and no more need be said.

4. Work lessons - Other lessons aren't quite so simple to understand, and I have to make the mistake many times before I learn. When I make it to work early, my office buddy is often not there yet, so I have to find the key to get in. There's a really friendly guy behind the desk at reception where the keys are kept. He always says hello and asks me how I'm going. As far as things go, I think that's not bad. "Rajujiko saa:cho kahaa chha?" - "where is Mr Raju's key?" After a brief look the response is ultimately "saa:cho chhaina (no key), but I think Mr Raju is upstairs". So I get upstairs only to find that Raju is not there, and he usually doesn't show until after 8. I go back downstairs, walk in behind reception, grab the key off the hook and glare and reception guy who somehow manages to smile at me at the end of it all. The blind girl that also works in reception never has a problem finding it.

Go figure.