curiouser and curiouser

I'm sitting on a bench on a stone ledge under what else but a mossy oak by a koi pond in the Garden of Dreams. Just outside of the trek shops and cafes of Thamel is a nondescript white archway that just says 'GARDEN' and a ticket booth with a sign '160 Rps. Foreigners, Wireless Internet 30 Rps. 1hr.' So needless to say I went in and found a combination flower garden, arboretum, hedge maze, bamboo grove, of fountains, high walls, and butterflys. The name on the admissions ticket is Garden of Dreams.

I found a statistic the other day that something like 90% of the street children in asia sniff glue or solvents and I mentioned it in passing to Daniel. Today he mentioned that while lost in Thamel he ran across 4 different packs of preteens cracking themselves out on epoxy.

Last winter I read a book, much better than its title implies or just as good depending on what you're looking for, called Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781401359669&itm=1

Written by 3 young U.N. staffers: a doctor, lawyer, and secretary, the book was a pretty big deal when it came out because it didn't mince words when describing the failings, incompetencies, and occasional negligence of the UN as seen by the authors. They were in Cambodia for the first democratic elections, in Somalia during Black Hawk Down, and Haiti which is always in some chaos or other. A few days ago I saw a woman at the bakery cafe that made me do a double take even though I didn't know her. I put 2 and 2 and 1 together and came to the conclusion with 96% certainty that she was Heidi, one of the authors of the book. Today I saw her at the Bakery Cafe and introduced myself and she confirmed my suspicion. Apparently she's here as part of the huge UN presence gearing up for the elections in the fall. She said hello and goodbye and wished me luck and that was that.