We are in the midst of the Nepalese festival of Tihar which is equivalent to Diwali, the festival of lights in India. Yesterday prayers were being offered to the goddess of wealth, Laxmi. It's remarkable how theologically opposed this is to Christianity which rejects prosperity - at least in principle. In bygone years devotees would place an array of little oil lamps around their houses to attract Laxmi to their hearth but these days they drape buildings with huge lengths of fairy lights for the same purpose.
Last evening was one of the three evenings per week of scheduled power cuts. The electricity went off at 5.45 as per normal but to my surprise it came back on again half an hour later (normally the power is off for three hours). Then I realised that someone somewhere must have realised that the cut would have meant no fairy lights and no enticement of Laxmi.
This morning it was back to "normal" with no power when we awoke, the reality of Nepal's poverty and our getting up in the dark with a screaming Alisha who is now firmly in "the terrible twos".
