Free Gift Coupons!?! Does it get better?

November 12

Dear all,

I just wanted to take a second to share a few funny moments from today. To begin with, our darling Jyopsi has learned to pretend, which is very exciting and has opened up a whole new range of games for us. When I returned from visiting the cyber café today, she had placed every one of her stuffed animals on top of their own individual pillows all across the living room floor. As I opened the door, she looked up at me, and informed me that the animals were napping. It was sooo cute. Of course, she immediately began to scold me for being to loud, but even when she’s being bossy (so basically when she’s awake) she’s still the cutest thing in the world.



The other funny moment happened while Didi and I were out shopping. I think the humor was lost on Didi so I felt that I needed to relay the incident to an American audience. Today, Didi and I had several errands to run, and so we headed out to Jawalkhel, where the main street is lined with shops of every kind. I needed a warm jacket as the fabled cold that I had heard about for so long has finally appeared. Of course, it’s still 80 degrees by noon here, but at night, I’m sleeping with a blanket and a sleeping bag. My nepali friends find the cold to be absolutely torturous, but being the good michigander that I am, I still find it to be rather pleasant. That said, I’ve been shopping for my scootie lately and I think that at least on the road a warm jacket will come in handy.

We looked at a few of the smaller shops first, but as I’m the nepali equivalent of Gulliver in the land of the Lalliputs here, everything was far too small. So we went to a larger department store. To my delight, I was able to find a jacket that I think is super cool, super warm and fits great. Now here’s the part that tickled me. Since the jacket was a little expensive (though still probably less than $25 USD), I handed the woman at the counter my nepali ATM card. She politely asked if I had cash, saying that she could put the purchase on credit card, but that I would get more “free gift coupons” if I paid in cash. Being the silly American that I am, I assumed that the coupons would really be for a discount on future purchases, but as it turns out, the 20 or so coupons I was handed were really the equivalent of Chucky Cheese tickets!! How cool is that!?! I was instructed to go downstairs where I found a long glass counter in front of floor to ceiling shelves. On the shelves were an assortment of items, all with small signs in front indicating the number of coupons required for the item. I was given the choice between a set of colored pencils, a pencil case, and a set of 3 small Tupperware containers. Since I’m obviously so responsible, the choice was clear and I passed up on the hours of coloring fun for the Tupperware containers. Though, in all fairness, I must admit that my first thought was that they were the perfect size for storing candy, but we’ll pretend I was going to fill them with nuts or lentils or something equally healthy.

Anyway, I was just so excited to walk away with a cool jacket and three new teeny tiny tupperware containers that I just had to write home about it. And now I should get back to work! Love you all!