Yams!

On Tuesday we were invited to celebrate Makar Sankranti, celebrating the new month (Nepali calendar) and return of the sun, with a few of our new friends down the street from Papa's House. The day has a few traditions which folks seemed to loosely abide by: you're not supposed to utter a single word before taking a bath in the morning; and everyone is supposed to eat a TON of yams, roti (rice-based bread), and sweets.

A few of the other volunteers and I had a seat on a rug outside our friends' combined home and restaurant and pawed through a FEAST of boiled yams (six or seven varieties I think..), sweet potatoes, roti, green buckwheat balls, candied stuff, yak butter, burnt sugar candies and milk tea. The yams were only boiled and cut into big chunks, and silverware was nowhere to be seen, so eating them was a fun mess of starchy finger-peeling. I never imagined I'd eat so many yams in one sitting!!!

To top it all off, everyone proudly wore a yam-starch tikka on their forehead (at least in the morning) to mark the day.