I like cured pork so much. Unfortunately, I cannot bring meat to Nepal so I decided to make one myself. I've never really made one before but I have the ingredients, so why not.
After 3 days of curing, I managed to screwed it up so I decided to feed it to the dog instead. As I was cooking it, I became busy talking to my Mom over Skype and I completely forgot about the pork. When I finished talking to my Mom after 28 minutes, the kitchen was covered with smoke. I burnt it. This was the 2nd pan that I destroyed in my whole year stay here in Nepal within 288 hours I spent in the kitchen, more or less.
My husband is about to come home from tennis and the house is still full of smoke. I panicked!!! I lighted some scented incense and walked around the house as if I was praying. When my husband arrived, he was happy to see that I was lighting some incense. Then I started to laugh. My husband was sweet enough to just laugh with me after hearing the full story.
The day after, I was sure that our cook saw that burnt pan but he did not dare to ask! Hehe!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Inflation and Bandha in Nepal
Today, my husband and I announced a salary increase to our house staff (three guards, 1 cook, 1 Didi, and 1 driver). The salary increase does not necessarily mean they are doing a good job. We increased it because of the inflation. There was an inflation rate of 7.7 percent.
What is inflation percentage? It is the percentage rate of change in price level over time. This is when your thousand rupees cannot buy you a whole lot of things like it used to be. If you can buy chicken for 250 rupees per kilo before, now it is already 270 to 300 rupees. All commodities are increasing its prices, not to mention those retailers keeping their goods in a padlocked warehouse to create a fake food shortage. How evil is that???
No matter what stage of life you are in, you will always be affected by this price increases. Here in Nepal, it's worst. A big percentage of people in Nepal are not rich. They feel every single centavo of increase in prices. They suffer from it.
One thing more that makes the situation worst here in Nepal is what they call "Bandha" which means close. It is some sort of a big demonstration where all the establishments are being forced to close and all types of transportations are being stopped to function. Yes, it's a hassle. Our house staff have to walk 2 hours just to get to our house and 2 hours again back to their houses. Even if they have a bicycle, sometimes they will encounter demonstrators who will ask them to walk or will take their bike to dismantle or to destroy the tires. And hey, bandha is not a one time thing, it is becoming more and more regular these days. We can have bandha once a week or even 3 days in a row in a week.
Anyway, I'll just talk more about bandhas on my next post. It makes me furious everytime I think about bandha here in Nepal.
What is inflation percentage? It is the percentage rate of change in price level over time. This is when your thousand rupees cannot buy you a whole lot of things like it used to be. If you can buy chicken for 250 rupees per kilo before, now it is already 270 to 300 rupees. All commodities are increasing its prices, not to mention those retailers keeping their goods in a padlocked warehouse to create a fake food shortage. How evil is that???
No matter what stage of life you are in, you will always be affected by this price increases. Here in Nepal, it's worst. A big percentage of people in Nepal are not rich. They feel every single centavo of increase in prices. They suffer from it.
One thing more that makes the situation worst here in Nepal is what they call "Bandha" which means close. It is some sort of a big demonstration where all the establishments are being forced to close and all types of transportations are being stopped to function. Yes, it's a hassle. Our house staff have to walk 2 hours just to get to our house and 2 hours again back to their houses. Even if they have a bicycle, sometimes they will encounter demonstrators who will ask them to walk or will take their bike to dismantle or to destroy the tires. And hey, bandha is not a one time thing, it is becoming more and more regular these days. We can have bandha once a week or even 3 days in a row in a week.
Anyway, I'll just talk more about bandhas on my next post. It makes me furious everytime I think about bandha here in Nepal.
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