Into the Concrete Jungle

I arrived in Nepal several days ago, after a long and harrowing (44 hours?) plane journey through Seattle, Newark, Frankfurt, and Doha. I met many nice people on the plane, especially on the last flight, during which a mother and 15-year-old daughter from Nepal "adopted" me, gave me fantastic amounts of information, and helped me get into a taxi and to a good hotel when i was woozy from the flight, practically rupee-less and completely overwhelmed.
Kathmandu is gigantic and bustling, but not in the same way as New York City, which is kind've what I imagined. The streets are tiny, numerous, and very similar, and they are all bundled under neighborhood, thus directions are just about as approximate as saying "The Bronx". I spent the first day trying to track down Prisoner's Assistance Nepal, and succeeded entirely through luck when I began talking a British woman in an Internet place after the internet failed, only to discover she was there with the same program. Since then I have gone every morning to help the kids get ready for school, and also in the afternoon to pick them up, help them with their homework, and play with them. The children are amazing- very strong, sweet, and clever. One child, Puja, who normally lives in the Sankhu home, is staying in Kathmandu for several days, and spent at least half an hour yesterday teaching me Nepali colors and parts of the body. It is nice to have a teacher! She says she will keep teaching me in Sankhu, and that her friend will teach me if i get there before her.
Despite all of the lovely aspects of PA-Nepal (the children), the staff has taken a little longer to warm up. Some of them are quite friendly, but i get the feeling others feel almost like we are in the way- perhaps they worry about "babysitting" us. The leader of the organization, Indira, has been gone for several weeks, so many of the volunteers have not met her yet. She is supposed to return today, and hopefully will be able to give us more information about Sankhu. I plan to travel there tomorrow or on Sunday, with another volunteer, Joe, who stayed in Sankhu for three months before. We are a little worried that we won't be able to stay in the home with the children, based on a comment one of the other directors made, but hopefully this will not be the case, and we will truely get to stay with them.
My afternoons and evenings in Kathmandu are generally spent with other volunteers, either from my program, or who are staying in the same guest house. They make up a whole range of nationalities, ages and interests, but i feel very close to the people I've met already, and will probably miss them. I am now sharing a room with Joe (technically Joehanne, how many of those can i sleep in the same room with? i mean, really?) to save money, and it is very nice to have someone to walk around Kathmandu with, where the storekeepers, beggars, and especially the drivers, are very aggressive.
I have also had some wonderful encounters with Nepali people, who have been very nice and welcoming. I ended up speaking with a shop owner near my hotel for perhaps an hour- he order tea and we talked about politics and economics (he is currently getting a masters degree). There are some wonderful Nepalis working in the hotels as well, and some of the people at PA Nepal are just lovely. One woman always calls me "Miss" and is trading english words/phrases for nepali.
I will update again in a week or so- apparently there is quite slow internet in Sankhu, which i will be able to use, though perhaps will not undertake very often. Let me know if you have any questions, or even if you just miss me , and would like to say hello (I already miss the cold and my mountains) . Namaste.