Where the streets have no name

It is four weeks since we stepped through the doors of our new house, with three suitcases and an a couple of odd bags. Prior to this we spent two days looking at dozens of different places, and even though from this particular apartement we turned back almost from the doorstep, it kept palying on our minds. "There was this one quite a nice one, but it was just way too big", I told a friend over a pint, little uninspired of what I had seen. "And what exactly is wrong with that?" he replied. The following morning I called the agent and in the evening I signed a contract (ignoring the safety and security rules of my employer. And a good thing too, as the security assesment is still not done).

Big empty rooms, one after another. Room to breath, space to lounge in.

Our bed, travelling home in bits. Just like Ikea.

First day we buy one massive bed and bedding, get carpeting done in one room, the landlady kindly gives us curtains. Then we buy some cups and a kettle, live on tea and noodles and cup-a-soups. The painter comes in every morning six o'clock for almost two weeks, it's cold, we have a constant headache from paint fumes, toilet keeps breaking, electricity off every night, sometimes there is water, sometimes not. But we are still happy to be in a new house that feels like home from the beginning despite all the primitiveness. We cuddle up at nights in our nest.

Next weekend we expand to a new room, get a small table and floor cushions, and a cooker. Now we can eat proper. Food tastes better than possibly ever before.

Come the weekend again and we get red, soft carpet fitted for our 4x5 m living room, buy material for curtains and get them sewn in a corner shop. A collegue is leaving Ktm and we buy their wicker sofa and table and now we are very comfortable: to be able to sit somewhere other than a floor is surprisingly exciting.

Today I ordered a second bed from a carpenter next door, bought a matress and the loveliest Nepali made, heavy, cotton filled blanket. Now also a gas heater is warming us up; the cold season really kicking in, making the concrete house with its huge windows and marble floors desperately cold in the night. Towards the noon I open up the doors to let warm air come in.

I have tried to keep my shopping as local as I can, but I find that many shopkeepers are a little faced when I choose a Nepali make over an imported item. "West is luxury" is the line of thinking fast spreading to these corners of the earth also. The first KFC in the country opened this week with a huge success and most probably it is just the beginning of the giant chains pushing in with their plasticised crap.

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Supporting the local products, materials and handicraft is therefore even more important and really it is quite an interesting mission to find each item in a different shop, and it is pleasing to realise that handing over my rupees I am supporting that particular person and their family, not a faceless chain. Getting to know the merchands in the neighbourhood also guarantees you the very welcome discounts and extra services you might be in need of. Like food security during a strike or a home-delivery free of charge as they already know where you live.

Knowing where one lives is a tricky thing in a city where the streets have no names. Maybe they do, but no one knows them and they are not indicated anywhere. Some of the very big new roads have been named, but even those are so few it makes the usage of maps completely a pointless activity.

One of the first days in our quarters I met the landady's daughter, who speaks just a few words of English, in the stairway. I had some forms to be filled and wanted to know what I should write down as my address. She looked at me as if I was a little simple and after a long puzzled silence she said "Kathmandu". How silly I must have seemed in her eyes, not knowing which city I live in.

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I am wiser now and know what to write on forms on the address bit and on the "Please describe any recognisable landmark near your residence": A three-storey blue, yellow and white building with a blue gate opposite the pink house, about 50 steps south from a big tree on the St. Mary's school corner of the zoo. So the internet and the gas provider among others know where to come with their bills. Too bad if don't happen to be at home.

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But then, upstairs I have our landlady, her daughter, a mother whose's obviously gone a bit funny in her old age, her didi and the night-watchman, and all the rest of the extended family (plus the chicken), who all just wander into our home on various business, of which I half the time do not even have a clue what it concerns. But I trust and feel they take a very good care of our life. Maybe the'll pay the bills too.

This way to our home, on a nice street with no name. Welcome!