Boiling Point:

I watched a show once called boiling point. The jest of it is that people are put in a situation where they are pushed and pushed for a certain period of time. If at the end of the time they don't lose their temper, they win $100.00. Well today I would have not won the money.....

If I ever wondered where that boiling point was for me..... I found out today. Today was one of the most out of control days I have ever had. I am a little chagrined that the ugly American side of me came out a time or two.

It all started last night when I went to hire a truck to take all of the supplies for the water project and also our food, water and sleeping pads to the village. There is a certain part of Kathmandu where all of these trucks park when they are idle and looking for work. I had talked with Ramesh, the project adviser, about how big of a truck we needed. He told me that we would be bringing 5 kilometers of pipe to the village. In my mind that would mean we need a rather large truck. To make a long story short we negotiated a price with one guy and today after loading all the supplies in the truck and after the truck had left Kathmandu he decided the price was not enough. I asked several of my friends to accompany our supplies to the village so they called me from the truck saying that if we did not agree to the higher price he was going to take our stuff to another city. I was so frustrated! To make matters worse this all went down when I was with the Waterfalls (oh yeah by the way the Waterfalls made it here safely and with all their luggage…which is amazing)

I can sometimes be a pretty patient person…but today all patience was lost….and I boiled over in front of everyone…..I think the crowning moment was when I yelled something like…” well just kick him in the nuts” in the middle of this tourist area with everyone looking on. In the end I had no other choice than to pay more money for the truck and that just infuriates me, but what can I do now. The funny thing is that he wanted $15.00 more…which in terms of dollars isn’t much…but in terms of rupees that is a significant amount. So tonight, after a great dinner with the Waterfalls at OR2K, I am taking a deep breath and preparing myself for the next few weeks which I am sure will prove to be amazing. We will travel tomorrow to Bandipur which is a small resort village to spend the night. The next morning we will travel into the village where we will spend 3 days working on a water project. Following that we will travel to Pokhara and prepare for our 5 day trek in the Annapurnas. This will be the same trek that I did several years ago. I am really looking forward to it.

So I am off. I doubt I will not write for the next couple of weeks…so family, don’t worry if you don’t hear from me. I imagine I will have many stories to tell…I just hope there are no more about my boiling point.