Visas are whack but now it is time to celebrate...

Youtube... maybe you heard of it?

Like everyone i like to do what i want, when i want. Unlike most people i have never been able to suppress this urge long enough to attain that fabled status of 'adulthood'. 

Never really had a real job because it tied me to a routine and a place. I hate knowing i will be doing the same thing, at the same time, in the same place, 5 days and 40 hours a week. I prefer casual work and living arrangements so that if i want to jump in a car or on a plane at any given time there is nothing to hold me back. 

And then... along came the cutest little brown-eyed boy you will ever meet. His country happens to have a bundle of complicated issues that make gaining a visa a stress inducing, medication requiring, shit fight. So i am learning the art of waiting, appearing like an adult and (government approved) pharmaceutically enhanced relaxation.

I am used to be able to talk my way into or out of any problems with a little creative problem solving. Some people call that manipulation. I call it being persuasively charming. The government, those sticklers for correct process, may call it bribery. 

There is no way to sweet-talk yourself a quick visa in Australia. All you can do is: 

1.  Fill your application with lovey-dovey letters from you and your partner. This can be difficult if your singificant other is from a culture where public affection is frowned upon and English is their second language but trust me after this step it only gets harder.
2. Get your family to say how you to go together like peas and carrots. I suggest being persuasively charming.
3. Slip in photos of you and your partner looking desperately in love. 
4. Pray your application isn't delivered into the hands of one of the 'less reliable' staff at the Indian visa processing office in New Delhi.
5. Wait.
6. Wait.
7. Wait. 

I agree it should be an unbiased process performed by a faceless incorruptible office worker but i wish this worker was at least competent. We waited and waited and waited for our visa. I didn't want to complain or jeopardise (wow is that how you spell that?) the process in anyway but after not hearing anything i eventually emailed the office. And then...

       8. Wait 11 days for any acknowledgment.

"Oh sorry we gave you the wrong information, you didn't need to pay an extra $2000 and apply for a two year visa, even though we phoned you up and told you you definitely had to if your husband ever wanted to visit Australia. Yes, oops, that was a mistake. Also our mistake has now delayed your visa for another two months."

It seemed our application had been 'stalled' due to some incorrect information the office had given us. Even though they had it for well over the normal processing time they agreed they would START processing it now. Except then someone went on holidays and it sat in an inbox for two weeks. 

       9. Wait.
      10. Wait.

It's character building, right? I am sure i must be on the verge of adulthood by now because suddenly it came. I got a phone call from the Indian office. And a written apology. Mero Budda is picking up his visa in Kathmandu today. 

Even though they made a thousand mistakes I could have kissed that little Indian office worker when she told me she was granting the visa. I was shaking and crying and thanking her over and over. And then i sat down and ate a bucket of ice-cream. So visa process Australia--> Nepal STAGE ONE COMPLETE.

Date Night: Nepali Style

Date night in Nepal generally consists of Mero Budda and I and a group of friends going to a movie, drinking beers on our roof top or doing errands. Mero Budda’s idea of a date really stretches the definition to its most basic form: people doing stuff.

The other day ‘stuff’ was a movie with four friends, who I questioned were never there and in fact have never even been to a movie. Most dates here seem to be somewhat convert operations as ‘nice girls’ don’t date.

Even though I can’t understand the dialogue Hindi movies are not that complex. Good guy meets good girl, they fall in love, enter bad guy, good guy overcomes problem to kick bad guy’s butt and impress girls father. Throw in some songs which seemingly have nothing to do with the actual plot and you have 99.9% of ll Hindi movies.

I love going to the movies in Nepal. I love the predictability, the happy endings, the kitchiness. Most of all I love the audiences. When you go to the movies in Australia you don’t know what will happen in the story so you need to listen, it is so annoying when people talk. In Nepal, since you know what is going to happen, the entertainment comes from the audience interaction. They boo when the bad guy comes on, cheer when the good guy wins and whistle when the couple (almost) kiss.

The movie we went to see was Singham. I was told it was an action flick but I thought it was hilarious. Over the top fight scenes, cops who fight crime with belts rather than bullets, a scene where the hero rips out a light post with his bare hands… AMAZINGLY FUNNY. The opening song has a dance move which simulates a lion roaring… SINGHAM (lion roar open claws) SINGHAM (lion roar close claws).

I only have one criticism of the movie. The story isn’t very believable, I mean we all know there aren’t any honest cops left in this part of the world!

A rant about gender.

I have read a lot recently on other blogs and intercultural relationship forums about gender roles and the impact of culture. Gender roles are something we learn from birth, through every interaction with our parents, the media and our community at large.

It is in every children’s program which show boys playing with cars or running around outside and girls at home playing with dolls or cooking with mum. Every time your mum does the laundry while your dad sits watching TV or your dad drives the car “because he is just better at that kind of thing”, our gender roles are reinforced.

Over the course of our lives we may recognize that some of our gender roles are sexist, stereotyping or just plan wrong but it is hard to change beliefs that you have been unknowingly molded by your whole life.

My family are essentially a traditional gender roles kind of family. My dad cooked sometimes, but only if he decided he wanted to, mostly the cooking cleaning and child raising was my mum’s domain. Dad drove the car, held the TV remote and made the decisions. Despite the traditional arrangement my mum and dad had, they taught us fairly relaxed gender roles. We were never told we couldn’t do something because we were girls.

I actually remember when I realized I was a girl and that came with ‘rules’. I must have been 8 or 9 when I realized I would have to have the babies. I had always thought I’d be the one working and I’d come home to someone who’d look after me the way my mum did. It was a huge shock to realize I was part of the “weaker” sex.

Of course as I got older sexism in Australia became less tolerable. At school we were told women can be anything they want and I truly believe that. I studied, I worked and I travelled the world alone. Mostly I was fine (apart from a few calls to mum and dad when I was lost in Spain but that’s another story). Then I came to Nepal.

Now my worth is measured by having a son and cooking good Dal Bhat, both of which I have not been able to master yet. The other day I heard a woman tell my mother in law that Mero Budda should get a new wife to do all the work. I wasn’t rude enough to tell that bitch I am the only one in the house that actually has paid employment and maybe if Mero Budda or my MIL had jobs I wouldn’t have to work so much and I would have time to learn all the ‘important’ things like making good tea and washing laundry in a bucket.

I am really struggling to find that balance between respecting the Nepali culture and my “modern ideas that men and women should share the house work”. I am slowly realizing how frustrating it must be to be a woman in Nepal. I can’t imagine how a talented, educated Nepali woman would make peace with roles she is handed here.

Does technology make us lazy about love?

After posting the other day I started thinking how technology has changed relationships and romance. I know we wouldn’t have made it through a five month stint apart without Skype. I could never have been one of those women during (what we call in Australia) World War One, who sat waiting for monthly letters from their boyfriends or husbands. I need much more immediate forms of communication.

Mero Budda says he hates Skype but I credit Skype with our marriage (Oh shit maybe that’s why he hates it?).

Anyone who has tried to Skype Nepal knows how frustrating it can be sitting, waiting for a call to connect, then finally… “Can you hear me? Can you see me? Hello, are you getting this? Is my text coming through? What about now? Now? Now?”

As annoying as it is the excitement when that grainy, lagging picture finally comes up and you see the face of someone who has put up with countless dropped calls and static ridden lines just so they can have a few minutes talking to you is always worth it. I think I speak for a lot of long distance couples when I say Skype is one of the things that gets you through the times apart.

But it isn’t just modern couples using technology to foster romance. I know two women in arranged marriages who used the internet to check out the partners put forward by their parents. Both of these women were given options of Nepali men studying abroad and both engaged in some cyber stalking, using Facebook, to give the guys the once over.Then they both used Skype for a number of cyber dates before consenting to the match. Without the internet these women may have had to choose a husband purely on their parents recommendation.

So I recognize that technology is making it easier but is easier better in the long run?

My sister and I had a discussion the other day about what is an acceptable amount of time for a guy to wait before he sends you a text after he gets your number. I maintain if he doesn’t text in 24hrs he is too lazy / busy for me to consider him proper date material. My sister and plenty of my friends give a guy three days.

I think technology is making men romantically lazy and lowering women’s standards. We have already forgotten the days when a boy would need to be brave enough to call our home phone and ask whomever answered if they could speak to you... AND THEN be brave enough to ask you on the date. These days we are lucky to get a text saying : C U 2nite hu6? And we are meant to get excited by this!

Instead of sending flowers, now a guy just sends you a picture or flowers, or if he is really lazy, an emoticon of one. I remember telling my friend Mero Budda sends me a romantic text nearly every day (this was when we were dating, these days I am lucky if he wastes his credit to tell me important things). She looked at me like i found the Holy Grail of men. Are we seriously that love deprived that a few nice words tapped out while he waits for a tempo passes for romance?

I want real flowers, I want words written in pen or whispered in my ear, I want to go to a movie not watch one pirated from the net. Romance isn’t supposed to be easy. It is about effort and time and care. Call me selfish but now that my husband and I are in the same city I want some old fashioned love.