It's the Holidays!

Last week I experienced my first Nepali Dashain.  Kathmandu has been busting at the seams with the influx of what must be every village relative of every kathmanduite.  That same intensity and excitement that bubbles in America during the month of December had been building since early October here in Nepal. All offices close their doors for an entire week and families congregate. I quickly made plans to go to Bandare, although I was given a whole lot of grief from my Kathmandu friends and coworkers. I reasoned that Bandare is the closest to home and family that I have in Nepal.  I left early Wednesday morning. -By the way I met the Prime Minister of Nepal on the Tuesday before.  I went with reps from NDC to push the Dalit Agenda in the constitution making process.  A very interesting opportunity. The PM shook my hand at the end and thanked me. I smiled and said the same as I wondered, “wait, now why is he thanking me?”- Right now back to Dashain: I had to take a tourist bus because every single local bus was quite literally overflowing, with an additional 15-30 people precariously perched on each roof.  The normal 3-hour drive took 5 because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic.  As the bus slowly meandered its way on the twisting Himalayan highway I watched a number of curious sights from my dusty, grease-smudged window.  At one standstill a small girl pops out of the sliding door of a microbus, pulls down her pants and begins peeing in the middle of the road.  Most unfortunately for her the traffic suddenly begins to move and before she’s finished her father calls to her and she quickly waddles, pants at her ankles, to reach her father’s hand and he sweeps her into the moving vehicle.  Further down the road as a full sized bus passes by I inattentively view the people looking back at me when suddenly my eyes pop as I try to comprehend what I see in the back half of the bus. There are roughly 30 live goats piled on top of each other and crammed in seats.  Goat is the main dish of Dashain and I’ve gotten used to seeing goats these past weeks on street sidewalks, on top of buses, and under arms but not sitting in buses. I wonder if their owner had to pay full fair for them? 

I arrive in Bandare and just as I would at my home in Vermont instantly settle in.  Here are the highlights of Dashain: there is a tremendous amount of drinking and eating and I think I gained a couple Kgs in the process.  This is peak tourist season in Nepal so Narayan had to leave early for a number of rafting trips.  During the day I spend most of my time with Pampha and Punima going on mini adventures or just spending time together, but at night Narayan usually entertains me with his friends and we go on more adult adventures to nearby villages (Pampha and Punima are complete teetotalers).  So with Narayan gone my nights were a bit dull, especially because the owners of his room like to switch the power off when he goes on trips so I was stuck in that dank cave of a room and left to imagine the types of knarly bugs that I swatted from my body.  I was completely eaten alive this time and the villagers would remark at my swollen bites that it’s because I’m so white, and I act as a magnet for the bugs and a nice repellent for those around me. On one trip to the hole in the ground that poses as a “toilet” the bugs took a delicious feast on my bum and bare legs and when I got back to my room I discovered a dozen welts that kept me scratching in unsightly places all morning. 

Last weekend was the Christmas Eve and day of Dashain. On Saturday morning the goats that had been tethered to the front posts of nearly every village home began to ‘baa’ nervously as if they knew what was coming.  I hadn’t given it much thought until I saw my friend Shova’s father walk bear chested with a giant machete over to the house next to where I was sitting outside.  I was chatting with Punima when I glace over at the exact time the machete makes contact with the goat’s neck and watch paralyzed as the goat’s head flies from its body in a bloody shower.  My god that slight will stay with me!  I sit rather stunned as Shova’s father moves to the next house the machete hanging from his fingertips leaving a trail of bright blood behind him.  I retreat to my room to wait out the series of beheadings.  When I emerge I sit and watch Pampha’s sister-in-law chop up the carcass into bite-sized pieces. Pampha’s sister hands me an omelet and my usual iron stomach churns as I slowly put a spoonful of egg into my mouth and make eye contact with the glassy eyes of their goat’s head.  The rest of the afternoon is spent cooking, eating, and drinking.  Narayan’s friends swarm me and insist I journey to the next village with them.  I throw caution and cultural gender norms to the wind and although it’s about 15 young men and myself I agree.  We basically go from one house to the next, drinking and eating- I had a wonderful time and was able to practice my mounting knowledge of Nepali with less embarrassment as the day and alcohol consumption went on. Sunday was the big day; it’s called ‘Tikako Din’ or ‘day of wearing tika’.  A tika is the red dot worn on the foreheads of Hindu followers.  Essentially what happens is the eldest member of a family puts a large tika (a mixture or raw rice, oil, and red colored power) on the rest of the family’s faces as they mummer prayers and blessings for the tika wearer.  The elder also gives money and fruit away.  First I received tika from Pampha’s family and then headed to Narayan’s home to hang with his family and receive tika form his mom.  They are a lovely family; his mom feeds me fresh buffalo milk from the buffalo standing about 10 feet from me.  I’ve tried to explain the concept of lactose intolerance but people don’t seem to tolerate that intolerance here. And much to my pleasure they seem to be right because after my first tentative tries I’ve found buffalo milk doesn’t cause too much trouble for me. 

I left Bandare and my first Dashian a little fatter, a tad itchy, quite dirty and very happy.

October 7, 2010

On Monday I started work at the National Dalit Commission (NDC), which is a Government branch. Remember, Nepal’s government is wickedly unstable and corruption, beaurocratic BS, and politicians without merit are currently the three most powerful candidates for election.  As I observed and met the NDC staff I felt like I was in some Nepali version of “The Office”.  Everyone that works there is a character. From the one armed typist (emm curious…perhaps not the most efficient way to go about affirmative action) to the super friendly and super sexually ambiguous financial assistant to the perpetually liquored up senior finance officer.  Today I was assigned the task of meeting with a representative from a Danish INGO to discuss a proposal for financial support of DNC.  It was absolutely fascinating and I surprised myself with my ability to navigate my way through the meeting, I guess AU and SIT taught me more than I realized. I am learning so much about so many things! It just took a month to get the ball rolling.

For the month of October I’m staying in a guesthouse in the center of Kathmandu.  October is a busy month in Nepal because it holds the two most import holidays: Dashain and Tihar.  The festivals and activities go on for days and weeks and extended families unite. Kathmandu is swarming with people shopping for gifts for relatives and the amount of petrified goats tethered to bus roofs have increased 10 fold.  Goats are to Dashain as Turkeys are to Thanksgiving.  But goats are so much cuter and it pulls at my vegetarian heartstrings. Mommy and Daddy are hosting all their relatives for dashain and their top floor is still unfinished.  I decided to save everyone some trouble and move out till things calm down.  Also, if the prospect of sleeping on the floor with 5 other people for who knows how long wasn’t enough to urge me to move out, then the simple fact that I could use a break is.  Don’t get me wrong they are all lovely and I appreciate their hospitality but they can be a bit boisterous.  I’m also fiercely independent and not being able to decide what I eat, where I go and when I’ll return at night begins to feel very restricting and I start to resent those who try to hamper my ability to choose.  The same was true for my host family in India (Auntie and Uncle). So I’m staying at Monumental Paradise for the time being and I’m really enjoying being on my own! But, my one room plus bathroom is neither monumental nor anything like paradise. J My bathroom is about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long.  It’s so skinny I have to turn sideways to wash my face in the sink because my butt hits the wall before I bend low enough to reach the tap.  Haha, I actually didn’t see the oddity in this until one day while washing my face I suddenly thought how difficult this would be for anyone over 5’ 4’’.  This room is costing my $5.75 a day, too expensive.

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Sometimes I get a little sad that I’m no longer surprised or curious about many of the everyday sights here that new visitors stop, stare, and exclaim at.  However, there are some things here that never get old and I ALWAYS think “what the shit?!”-For lack of more eloquent words.

For instance: the local bus experience. Each bus has a driver and a conductor. The conductor hangs out the door and searches for people in need of a ride and collects money when they leave. In addition to buses there are microbuses and tempus (electric tin vehicles on three wheels). After my initial introduction to Ratna Park (the central bus park) I’ve discovered dozens local Kathmandu routes; I get immense satisfaction from the feeling of confidently knowing my way around, and after all getting to know the city is one of the major objectives of being here. I flag down random unidentified buses, I shout my desired location and if they give me the head nod I hop on and I’m pushed through the people by the ‘conductor’ to be flattened against a window or body. One arm will be clutching a bar on the ceiling, my legs bent awkwardly between two or three other legs, my head cocked sideways to avoid an elbow.  I cringe at the hot breath of a cough on the back of my neck.  This scenario occurs everyday, most of the time I’m comfortable with it but when a particularly sick or dirty person pushes himself on me I tend to get a little twitchy and I’m certain my face shows it.  Most people stare at me in amazement or maybe it’s confusion at first, but once I show my comfort or speak some Nepali phrase their attention tends to fade. I’ve never once seen another foreigner on a local bus before. The routes are fantastically difficult to understand and there is no systematic method that makes sense to outsiders or even a central place to unearth such information.  I wouldn’t have had the nerve or even the awareness if it weren’t for my Nepali contacts initially filling me in. 

I want to paint a picture for you.  Each day I have to walk about ½ mile from my guesthouse to Ratna Bus Park to catch a tempu to work.  After greeting and chatting in Nepali to the lovely young guys that work at M.Paradise I skip out the door onto the crud cobblestone street.  My street is called Freak Street and it’s where all the hippy travelers used to congregate to smoke hash and swap stories back in the 60’s. Over the years the matted dreadlocks and glazed eyes have dwindled and Freak street has become integrated into downtown Kathmandu and the narrow street is buzzing with people, motorbikes, rickshaws, wandering dogs, and the occasional cow. I walk briskly and curve my body around the endless stream of human obstacles.  In theory you’re supposed to walk on the left as traffic also theoretically should, but order doesn’t exist in such defined ways in Nepal.  Once I make my way past New Road Gate I brace myself for the next ¼ mile because the impoverished and deformed beggars break up the way like highway tollbooths.  I think beggars make everyone uncomfortable but when you’re living as a westerner in the developing world that discomfort is heightened by not only the beggar’s perception of my relative wealth but also my own.  I ready myself with rupee in hand as I approach the tiny and ancient looking woman who sits just after the apple vendors. She yells “heeeeeelo, heeeeelo sister” and I drop the coin in her dish.  Next is the retarded teenage boy who plays with his ding-dong most mornings.  Occasionally, their will be a small girl (no more than 10) with only one arm who energetically repositions her scrape of sitting cloth from one part of the way to the next. After the girl is a man who stations himself directly in the middle of the path on all four like a father who is playing horse with his child.  Except there is nothing playful about him and he is my least favorite because it is impossible not to look at his face. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him- all of his limbs are mangled and he doesn’t seem to have much control over them.  Next comes the man with one leg that is as large as my entire body while his other leg is thinner than my own.  He seems to attract the most attention from the Nepali crowd and often I see him talking to concerned passersby. Today, I suddenly thought, “what will he do during the winter?” In order to evoke emotion and therefore money he has to show his engorged leg off but a blanket will hide his disfigurement.  I’ll have to wait and see. I get a brief reprieve from guilt on the next stretch of my journey because no human, however poor or disfigured, would condescend to sitting on this street.  I mentally refer to it as ‘shit street’ because it’s where the homeless and drunk piss and empty their bowels during the night and early morning.  The smell is almost unbearable and as soon as I lift my foot onto that curb I quicken my pace and hold my breath for as long as possible.  Disgusting piles of waste dot the way like land mines and reaching the end always brings relief.  I cross a street and only one more bridge to cross before I reach the bus park. On the bridge, I pass a man whose feet, hands, and parts of his face have been eaten away by what I think is leprosy. The last and saddest is a small girl who either had acid poured on her or was caught in a fire as a baby. Her face is intact but the skin of her arms and legs are fused together, it looks painful and completely debilitating. An adult, maybe a parent, holds her by her armpits to emphasize her disfigurement and increase the flow of rupees.  I keep walking with the ebb of people and meander between the piles of combs, framed pictures of Hindu gods, and packets of mothballs being sold to find the tempu that will take me to work. I scrunch down between two people on the tempu bench and make myself as small as possible and then reflect on my walk until very quickly a new sight and a new thought grabs my attention and brings me forward, and in this way I am pulled through the day.  

October 1st, 2010

I have tried to start this so many times but with each attempt I become lost in the complexity of not only this experience but the layering of events and relationships that I started in my previous trips to Nepal.  So today I’ll simply begin and hope that eventually the story will become complete for you (and me).

“Oh holy shit”- my first lucid thought as one eye cracks open to roam my brother’s Wall Street apartment.  Today is the day I leave everything that is normal and known and go to Nepal.  During my senior year at AU I discovered this emerging NGO that works for Dalit rights (the name for the lowest caste in the Hindu Caste system) called the International Commission for Dalit Rights (ICDR).  DB Bishwakarma is the President of this NGO and I'm currently living with his wife's parents (Mommy and Daddy) and younger sister (Sanu) in Naku, Lalitpur (not quite Kathmandu but essentially the same). I’m still rationalizing why exactly I've decided to spend the next 8 months here but I think it truly boils down to three reasons. The first: I have people here that I love as deeply as those in America. The thought of not being with them is as difficult as not being with you. The second: I really connect with this culture and way of life.  I am more aware of life here, including my own.  The third: I need (or I believe I need) to learn Nepali, gain NGO experience, and build upon my knowledge of Nepal's geography and culture so that I can secure a place for myself in Nepal with future employment.

After a relatively easy two days of travel, in which introspective pondering was equally paired with frivolous Mary thoughts, I reached Kathmandu (ex: While deep in cultural immersion daydream I was abruptly pulled back to Newark International by new observation of small boy eating starbursts..."mmm starbursts. I wonder if they are dairy free?" Oh right impending adventures...nah let's pursue this starburst thing." However, when I reached Kathmandu my bags were, not suprisingly, still in India. With the thought of a third day in the same clothing and un-brushed teeth adding just a drop of disappointment to my excitement of arrival.

I headed outside to find my ride and was dropped at my host family's house where Mr. and Mrs. K quickly established themselves as 'Mommy and Daddy' (this is made slightly more amusing when you consider the fact that I call my own mother 'Nancy' 50% of the time ;-).  They speak about 30 words of English between them but that was no barrier and we were able to communicate well enough with smiles and laughter. Their home is small but very comfy and not unlike a modest house in the US. I got my bags the next afternoon after a very irritating ordeal that involved a lot of Nepali BS and a whole bunch of tears.

With a few festivals and dozens of introductions to distant relatives of Mommy and Daddy behind me I finally found myself on a packed local bus on my way to Bandare. Bandare or Trisuli Centre is where I lived and volunteered during my first trip to Nepal 4 years ago.  It’s where I fell in love with Nepal and where my closest friends live.  A young man sat next to me and after what seemed like hundreds of side ways glances I said hello to curb his curiosity and we struck up a bus ride friendship.  He bought some bananas from one of the running merchants who run alongside (or hop inside) the buses while shouting their products name and trusting them into windows and faces.  We chatted in broken Nepali over the bananas (bananas in Nepal are about the size of my thumb) and before I knew it I was there.  I arrived filthy.  My massacred eyelashes where chalky grey and fluttery like goose down from the thickly polluted Kathmandu air blowing into the bus window.  My face was also a few shades darker from the constant puffs of sooty exhaust billowing through my window from the passing lorry trucks that seeped its way into my pores like pancake makeup.  My disheveled appearance instantly left my mind when I saw Pampha’s bright face poke through the bodies to grabs my hand and wriggle me out of the bus.  Pampha is my closest friend in Bandare and as I give her a tight one-armed squeeze I think, “It’s good to be home!”

I pass the next 6 days in Bandare and quickly reestablish old relationships.  I am never bored here although I can pass an entire day doing little more than sitting and being.  Life is lived outside and the boundaries and privacy of a home is nonexistent during the daytime.  People come and go without notice and there is always time for chatting and a cup of tea.  Not fully understanding a language and culture leaves room for constant curiosity that fills my mind and days.

 Some complaints exist: it’s way too effing hot.   I mean from the moment my eyes open to the moment I begin my interrupted sleep I am coved in dewy moisture.  I sleep in Narayan’s room, which he sweetly tries his best to make comfortable for me. But it’s hard to spruce up what is essentially a dirt hut with stone slabs as roofing.  It’s monsoon season and it torrentially rains at night.  Bandare is right on the River Trisuli and I get scared at night that I’ll be swept away in a landslide. Perhaps slightly irrational but it happens! The roof leaks at night right onto our bed, which I whine about until Narayan gets up and moves the bed.  I had the misfortune of being bestowed my monthly gift while in Trisuli and had to purchase the only available product: bulky pads that feel like a giant wad of synthetic pillow stuffing.  I got a nasty rash from the heat and constant sweat. This was as unpleasant as it sounds.  But in my moments of self-pity I think of my friends who don’t get to return to the relative comforts of Kathmandu.  Pampha never gets to take a shower in clean water or revert to tampons the second an opportunity arises as I did.  My life is easy and wonderful and I know it. I feel my privilege here and I want to not only appreciate it but also do something with it.  Spread the wealth so to speak.  My current unpaid NGO aside, I’m still trying to figure out how to do this best.

Here is a brief synopsis of events since returning to Kathmandu:

I promptly became sick and couldn’t leave the house or my bed for a week.  Fever, cough, and stomach woes- the whole shebang. The next week was filled with failed attempts to get work started and by the end of it I was becoming depressed and frustrated thinking “what the hell is the point of this if I’m not working and I’m not experiencing anything new?” This week was better.  I met with the organizations I’ll be partnering ICDR with and I’ll officially begin on Monday.  Sanu and I took a trip to see the largest Shiva statue in the world.  It was monumental!  Also adding to it was the fact that I was the only white person and as Sanu and I sat in awe of Shiva she says to me “Mary you are different.  You aren’t like other foreigners. You are like Nepali.”  I’ve been told this before but it fills me with warmth because that is how I feel inside.  I feel like I fit here. I know I am not the same and I will never fully be a part of the intricately woven culture of Nepal yet I feel happy, alive, and even beautiful here.