Dear all,

I've got lots of exciting stories to send you from the field, so I'm going to break them up and post them over the next few days, including the story explaining why I've returned to Kathmandu so early. I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've posted, emailed, ect, but I have absolutely no internet access in the field, so I hope you'll all forgive me.

For me, the most exciting thing from the field was the amazing work I was able to get done. While I've been laboring away in Kathmandu as diligently as I can, I easily accomplished just as much work in one day in the field as I would have in a whole month in Kathmandu. Of course, that's largely because my timing was just right for this trip. I arrived shortly after a wedding which the whole village was still buzzing about and several women were just begin to weave new bonas (the traditional womens' garment of the Dhimals, the community that I work with) to replace those they'd given as gifts. So while I haven't gotten any hands on experience to date, I was able to observe all but one minor step of the weaving process and while there's still a lot of deeper digging to be done, the technical aspects of my project are coming along much more quickly than I had expected. Which means, I'm one happy anthropologist!!

While I spent a good deal of time in the field, most of the work was concentrated in a short two day period where I was able to sit with one woman for most of the process. To my delight, even though weaving is a long and labor intensive process that largely can be done by a single woman, it seems to provide a good excuse to gossip and many men and women came to visit us at the loom and chat. I can tell already these sessions at the loom are going to teach me about a lot more than just the technicalities of weaving, and I'm very excited to spend more time sitting with the women in several of the communities and waiting to see what else I can learn.

I'm going to post a picture or two of the weaving process in the slideshow, and I'll post again soon about some of the more fun and interesting things about my time in the field, but now it's getting late! I love and miss you all and I hope you all had wonderful holidays!