The Nepalese man stole my slippers

This weekend we had visitors from the Nepalese Human Rights Commission staying at Stairway. I never really thought about what it would be like to meet a Nepalese person, nor did I think about the fact that if I did meet one, he would steal my brown and pink flowered, size small, flip flops (they call them slippers here).

But that is exactly what happened. Usually here, we take off our shoes at the doors, and in the Yellow House, we place our flip flops by the stairs on the patio, going up to our room so we don’t get everything sandy. All was well with my flip flops, I thought, until Carissa came up from the bathroom and told us we should check to make sure our flip flops were still at the base of the stairs because she had had an awkward and unexpected run-in with a Nepalese commissioner as she watched him casually slip into her slippers and walk away in them. Of course I went down to see if my slippers were there. I didn’t want to lose another pair of flip flops, mostly because I didn’t want to haggle with the women at White Beach again not to sell me flip flops for 250 pesos just because I am white. (We got our price down to 80). Anyway...I went downstairs and hysterically, my slippers were absent as well, along with the other 4 pairs that were down there. REALLY? Apparently the Nepalese people thought that our ragged, worn in flip flops were put their for them to use.

That is not the funny part.

As we were showing the Nepalese people around Stairway and the beach, they continually asked us why we weren’t wearing any shoes. In my head I thought... BECAUSE YOU’RE WEARING OUR SHOES! In fact, the commissioner who was talking with Alex even offered him "his" (Mitch's) flip flops on the way to the beach!

I didn’t get my slippers back until the next morning, when I saw that my culprit had left them outside his door. As much as I enjoyed the awkward hilarity of the entire situation and making up excuses for why I wasn’t wearing shoes the whole weekend, I swiped those slippers as fast as I could and kept them in hiding until the Nepalese departed from Stairway that afternoon.

We did have fun with the Nepalese however. After they watched Cracked Mirrors on the stage, we whipped out the bongos, guitars, and other instruments and jammed while they taught us traditional Nepalese dances. Mitch, Carissa, Alex, and I continued the party with our buddies Lexter, Diego, Tonio, Jao, and one of the Nepalese men until 2am, singing American songs and probably keeping up the rest of the Yellow house.

Hmm...serves as payback for the loss of our slippers over the weekend!