Dog Worship

Yesterday was Tihar here in Nepal. It’s a day when people worship their dogs for the safety they provide by guarding the houses. People cook large feasts for their dogs, adorn them with wreaths of marigolds and put “tikkas” -red chalk marks – on their foreheads. We were wondering if we would see any tikka-marked marigold-clad dogs on the streets yesterday…and indeed we did!

Glorified Street Dog

Now, while at first I was thinking how strange this was…Sally pointed out that it’s no different in Seattle. Back in the US people worship their pets as well. We don’t put flower wreaths on them, but we do have doggy daycare, and doggy spas and such. In Seattle there are more dogs than children. And some dogs are treated better than some children. It’s all the same.

We also went to the Monkey Temple yesterday and saw tons of monkeys. Ever since I had a horde of hissing angry monkeys surrounding me the first time I went to India…I’ve been a little skittish around monkeys. There was one monkey this day that chased a little boy up a couple steps. But thankfully no angry monkeys attacked us!

The Monkey Temple

Monkeys at the Temple

After the monkey temple we went shopping for a bit. The streets here put you on sensory overload in a quarter second. They are so narrow, yet that doesn’t seem to stop motorists from flying down them!

Oops…Gotta go! We’re doing a skit on germs today and giving Hep B shots to the kiddos! More to come…