My Husband

Before I keep talking about my village-side adventures there's someone I need to mention.

Much to the dismay of Nepalis, and my grandmother, I am a happily unmarried 25 year old woman. In Nepal this makes me rather old to be unmarried, while most of my friends my age here have kids in primary school. That's not to say I'm single either, the Handsome Pen pal, as well as being me favourite international correspondent, is also my long-time (and long-suffering) boyfriend.

This causes a bit of difficulty in Nepal, because here there's really only a binary difference between 'single' and 'married' - I once tried to explain to a shopkeeper that in Australia it's verycommon for people to live together without being married, and he asked if the government makse that hard for people. How do you begin to explain that the government actually make it easier by legislating for de facto relationships?

And so, to make life easier here, the handsome Pen pal very kindly masquerades as my Faux-Husband. I don't really feel too bad about lying because it means people don't think I'm single, or crazy. Also, as most of my lying is done in Nepali it doesn't feel as weird because more often than not I'm talking about my 'sriman' and not my 'husband'.

Of course, the standard question that comes after asking if you're married is to ask if you have kids. The answer, as it is to my nan is always 'later'.