That can't be safe...

I did my friend Panga Joe a favor today, in return for one he has done for me. But before I tell you about the favor, let me tell you the things I’ve seen in Pokhara.

As the title of today’s posting suggests, there is a very different mentality here in Nepal with regards to liability concerns. Last night, we watched two youngs boys, no older than 10, throwing flammable objects into an untended bonfire in an empty lot. Later on, I watched a small boy of perhaps 8 walking along with a box of matches trying to light a piece of paper on fire as he walked along. In the morning, I saw a family hop on a motorcycle, with the dad driving, the mom in the "bitch seat", and their toddler in the middle. Of course, none of them had a helmet. I was also greeting by a street urchin of perhaps 7 or 8 with "Namaste [hello] - want ice cream. Want ice cream". Don't we tell our kids to avoid strangers with candy? Apparently the parents here tell their kids to seek them out!

Anyway, daughter #1 signed up for an early morning pony trek to see the sunrise over the mountains and the lake here at lakeside Pokhara. So she had to get up at 4 am. Better her than me! I intended to sleep in till she came back, but she needed some help adjusting the straps of the camera to fit her more delicate frame without hanging too low. Still, I was able to go back to sleep for a little while. When she returned, we went to breakfast at a small restaurant overlooking the lake. The breakfast menus at all the restuarants are the same. You know that scene in "My Cousin Vinny", where Joe Pesci and Marissa Tomerei are in the little diner in the town, looking at the menu, which just reads "Breakfast", "Lunch" and "Dinner". Well, it is kind of like that. All the restaurants have "light breakfast", "English Breaksfast" (or sometimes "European breakfast"), and "American Breakfast". Guess which one has the most food. Anyway, as soon as the sun starts to beat down on us the temperature leaps up at least 10 degrees. The food is pretty good, however. The daughter decides to save some of her bread in order to feed the many street dogs that one encounters (I guess she misses our idiot dog Mojo). When the wife hears of this she is appalled, since rabies is endemic in Nepal. But I figure I spent good money on her vaccinations for rabies, so I want to get good use of it.

After breakfast, her early morning is catching up with her, so the daughter heads back for a nap. I go back for the camera to get some photos of the mountains ringing the lake, then do some more shopping. It is around this point that I do my favor for Panga Joe.

Now first I have to go back in time to explain how Panga Joe defines "favors". About a year ago, at Panga Joe's "request" (although insistent demands would be more accurate) against my better judgement, I took my digital camera with a waterproof housing on a short white water kayak trip in the Lehigh River. At one point in the trip I was unable to excute a roll, and ended up doing a wet exit, resulting in the loss of the camera. Panga Joe declared he had done me a favor because he thought the old camera was slow and took poor quality photos (right on the first account, wrong on the second. And so why did he want it brought along if it was going to be so poor?). And now I would be able to "upgrade".

So when I planned this trip, I told Panga Joe I wanted to borrow his SLR, since the funds for MY SLR were spent replacing the lost waterproof camera and housing. Clearly not one to let history guide his judgement, Panga Joe agreed. Mostly the camera itself takes pretty good shots, although the lens leaves a lot to be desired. It is slow to focus, and has a focal range of 18-55, which is pretty useless for the sort of distance I am photographing, or for most purposes other than close ups and portraits, lousy for landscapes.

Now, unbeknownst to me, at some point when the camera straps were shortened (or perhaps when they were being jostled on the pony trek) they loosened up. While walking down the street, I suddenly feel the camera drop off my shoulder and hit the ground with a bad sound. There is no obvious damage, and I take a couple of shjots with no problem. Until later in the day, when the piece of plastic inside that snapped somehow must have lodged itself somewhere rendering the lens more less unusable except for very limited outdoors shots. So my pictures in Tibet will be made with the daughter's point and shoot.

Now here is how this is a favor. It is actually three favors. First, this will allow Panga Joe to open up his wallet to upgrade to a better lens. I suggest an range of 18-200 with ultrasonic vibration reduction, which is more useful in general. Maybe something that can focus before the monkeys scamper away, and could get close enough to see that they ARE monkeys, not dots across the field. Second, it repays some karmic debt, so he will not drop lower down in his next life (although he has a lot of groundhog lives to catch up on, so this may take some time). Third, I am giving him a chance to put Buddhism into practice, as life is suffering, suffering comes from desire and attachment, and now he no longer needs to be attached to the old lens.

Anyway, that's how I see it. That's my story, and I am sticking to it.