A few notes on neighbors and neighborhoods:

1) Your plants, my garden = mine

I just discovered this fun fact about Nepal’s property laws – if someone’s plants grows into my property, it’s mine. Our neighbor who is separated by a wall has grown isquish (I don’t know what it’s called in English, but I think it’s in the squash family?) and it’s grown so well that the bulk of the plant has grown on top of our trees and the green pear-shaped bulbs fall into our garden.

Lately, different dishes involving isquish has found its way into my meals. Apparently, today my mother walked over and attempted to hand over the excess of isquish we had and they told us to keep them, so we did. I’ve been telling my mom we should sell them and make a few extra rupees!

2) Your dogs prevent nightmares because they don’t let me sleep

Every day my mother prays that our neighbor’s dog drops dead. The ability the cur has to bark incessantly, every night, is nothing short of incredible, although incredibly annoying.

I don’t know how the owners put up with the dog, and I don’t know why they think the rest of us are fine with having it yapping away in its shrill annoying voice every night.

My room is blocked from a lot of noise so I’m able to sleep, but when my mom’s had (yet another) sleepless night and she’s in a bad mood, I too curse the dog.

3) Your nose, my business

Like I’ve mentioned in another post, I have some neighbors who literally stay on their roofs all day watching the coming, going, and happenings in near by houses. I’ve even gone up on my roof for some nighttime peace and see shadows across the street.

I could tell myself it’s a good thing someone is looking out for our house, but I’m pretty certain what they’re actually trying to do is take a look in.

4) It’s your party and I’m not invited

In a small neighborhood, I don’t see the purpose of installing high power speakers for parties. The terrible choice of music, or worse, the impromptu karaoke is loud and clear in my house and besides having different taste in artists, it’s 10pm and I don’t want to listen to the hits from every decade.

What’s rude is that I’m able to hear everything that is happening next door but they didn’t even invite me. One of these days, I’m tempted to walk over to their house and join in, because if I can hear the music, if I’m not getting sleep, if it seems like I can’t beat them then at least they should give me the option to join them.

5) Your religion, my 5am

I love the diversity in faiths in Nepal, it makes for interesting anthological observations and I’m a fan of discoursing between the idea of religion and culture in our society. While I love talking about it and debating it, I don’t like being woken up by bells at 5am, I don’t like having my house smell like butter lamps and incense (they give me headaches) and I don’t feel the need to hear an hour of  (poor) singing and clapping while others have fellowships.

I strongly believe that everyone is entitled to worship in their own ways, and everyone is free to choose what they believe, I just wish there was a universal law that says you’re not allowed to have your method of devotion disturb your neighbor.

But while we have Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists who make their faith known in one way or another, I’d be happy to have a Muslim imam move close by so maybe I could hear the “Allah hu Akbar” call to prayer too. It only seems fair.

Saani has no real goals and aspirations but she sees opportunity in everything and goes with the flow. This is probably because she loves exploring and discovering. She writes for fun but for the same reason she also cooks, reads, and spends a lot of time on random websites that offer a chance to learn all sorts of tid-bits on life.