“Some Nepal Stories:” Email Two
Hello everyone!
Since it has been two months since I've been here, I felt like I should write a little update for you all. I'm doing well, now. I had some stomach-intestine-sickness issues that I won't describe in detail, but it wasn't so bad. I mean, I made it through the ordeal... The only side effect is that I have ended up craving non-nepali food more than I ever have here before. As it is the only cheese available nearby, I was once reduced to eating swiss cheese (something I could not bear in the US). Yikes. I've also found some safe-seeming yoghurt here, which is really heavenly though rather lumpy. I eat it with banana. And let me just say cereal. I'm a traitor to Nepali food customs, as I only rarely eat my daily rice requirement when I'm not with my families. I've been having quite a time telling stories about how americans (well, some anyhow) eat vegetables - they don't quite believe that people just boil things and eat them with salted butter. How do you explain that salted butter is a good thing? And since there is definitely a staple food here (rice), everyone tells me that the staple food in america is bread. I argued with this at first but may give up soon.
So besides food, the subject in which I know you are all so interested, I am getting used to living on my own in this apartment. This has the positive and negative aspect of being a hiding place. Sometimes having a hiding place is nice and a really good way to relax and not be constantly stressed about following cultural rules. Other times it is a little too convenient to stay in for half the day and waste time, when I should be going places. Getting the internet here is definitely putting an emphasis on that negative side, but I think that now the novelty is visibly wearing off and I won't be tempted to stay in that much. Besides, everyone knows that my best quality is self-discipline, right?
Where are the places I go, you ask? Well, if it's a bad day I have to go into the city... going anywhere here is very very much like being stuck in traffic on an LA freeway, and I'm not sure why. The main reason to go into the city is that I need to buy something that isn't available in my area, such as a computer modem or something. I'm not liking writing about the city so I'll get on with writing about what I really like, which is going to visit my families and all the interesting festival activities that were going on recently. And actually even before that I can tell you about my little trip over to Pokhara. And, now that I think of it, I will be able to give an explanation for the photos I am about to send to you all conveniently at the same time. The only picture of Pokhara I've included is of the mountains, which were clear and beautiful the whole time I was there. I flew to Pokhara and paid a huge sum for this 20 minute flight. I would have gone by bus, but I'm technically not allowed to ride buses outside the Kathmandu Valley. I stayed with Kamal's family while I was there, and had a great time exploring Pokhara with his sister Cheena (cheena means horoscope in nepali, kamal means lotus flower) on her scooter (girl version of motorcycle). I wasn't allowed to ride motorcycles the last time I was here, and this is probably the most life-risking activity I'm going to ever volunteer to participate in, so it is thrilling in a that-huge-on-coming-truck-in-our-lane-didn't-slow-down-and-I-almost-died kind of way. I didn't like Pokhara the last time I visited because we stayed in the touristy area and I didn't like that too much after living with families. But this time it was great! Pokhara is clean, the traffic is sparse, there are lots of lakes and green trees, and the mountains are reallllly close. Also, there are a lot of buffalo roaming the streets (think very huge cow with bigger horns and deeper moo but no fur like the american kind), and who doesn't like a buffalo-scooter encounter? Anyways, this family is great and liked that I knew something about Nepal... but apparently the more 'modernized' girls in Pokhara don't really wear kurta suruwals anymore, only jeans. Since I don't have any jeans, and mostly only kurtas, I ended up looking like a wanna-be fuddy duddy. Oh well, when I'm in my villages around here I'm normal - er....my clothes are more normal. I guess I should give up even thinking about fitting in.
I flew back to Kathmandu, and soon after the biggest festival of the year, Dashain, began. Actually there is only one picture related to Dashain and that is the one of me putting tikaa (red uncooked rice paste) on my little cousin's forehead. This is an important religious blessing and all the patriline (men always stay at home, women always move out after marriage, the resulting home family is the patriline) gives tikaa to the younger members. You then sprinkle flower petals and put some special Dashain plant shoots into the hair. The festival lasts five days, and for many of these the entire city of Kathmandu shuts down, so I stayed there at my family's house for a while. Some of you may remember about two years ago, for this same festival, with the goat stories. WARNING. IF you do not want to read about animals dying, please skip to the next paragraph NOW. Apparently the only man in the patriline (a man's gotta do it) with the, uh, goat horns to do a sacrifice is my dad who is in the hospital. I think that it has to do with chopping the whole head off and stuff. So my family just killed a goat instead. They don't kill girl goats, only boy goats. For a sacrifice you need a complete boy goat, for just eating a fixed boy goat is ok. This has to do with ritual purity, and you just don't want to get me going on that one. I wouldn't complain about this goat thing at all, as I have no right to complain and these people only eat meat like twice a year and actually kill it and do all the work themselves rather than pretending it's not a dead animal just another food-in-plastic, buuuut they did manage to choose the front door as the best place for cutting the whole thing up and I was thus forced to walk by a couple times to go to the outdoor bathroom (the process of cutting is difficult and takes a number of hours). I didn't say anything though I just averted my eyes.
Ok it's safe here! Unless religious possessions really freak you out for some reason. Later on the same tikaa-day, I went to my other family's house in Bungamati. I apologize beforehand for not having the pictures of this night developed, because if you are like me you will really want to see them after you hear this. Ok maybe you won't, I don't know. That night there was a jaatra in the main temple square/courtyard. Think flat grey stones fit together to make a surface on the ground, very cold air, a lot of people milling around and filling the square. On a stage an ancient dance play is being performed (the dancing narrated in Newari language so I couldn't understand), a play which takes perhaps 5 hours to complete as the dancing is very special and slow. I saw one of these plays last time, and I am going to ask around to figure out the story-line, but for now my favorite part is when the guys come out dressed like monkey-things and provide comic entertainment by standing on each others shoulders and doing somersaults, along with a shirtless guy in a ghost mask who sucks in his stomach so his ribs show. Women don't take part in the play so all the men are dressed very convincingly like women. Now for the best part. Every couple of minutes four very old and special instruments were played to call the monkey god Hanuman to the jaatra. I guess that night he didn't hear for a while, because they had to go around the square a couple times and he still didn't come for a few hours, till around 11pm. (I usually go to bed before 10, so this was a bit hard to wait up for). Hanuman could come and possess any man's body at that time, and he chose a man who stayed at home on purpose because he had been chosen before and didn't want it to happen again. There is no controlling gods, we all know that. He came running in the courtyard and proceeded to climb halfway up the 30-40 foot thick bamboo that was set up against a building for this purpose, using his bare hands and feet. The priests then anointed him with oil and massaged his legs and arms because he would end up swinging around and climbing the bamboo many times that night. The men then carried the bamboo (with Hanuman hanging onto it) horizontally to some special locations. Newari festivals tend to involve a large group of men pulling a very tall or big object through the streets, most often resulting in injury. (For those who understand this, WWFS?) After watching Hanuman climb a few times it was around 2pm and my sister and I went back home to sleep. Apparently at 5am Hanuman fell (as is customary) off the bamboo and 'died.' Then after some twenty minutes the man was revived back to life and remembered little of the past night. That night was quite an exciting experience, I must say, and my didi enjoyed telling me everything that was going on. I stayed a couple days in Bungamati too. Dashain is a festival to the fierce goddess Durga, celebrating her victory over an evil demon. It is also a harvest festival, for around Dashain all the rice fields are cut and the rice dried and husked. Now all the beautiful yellow fields are bare and stubbly :(
And, here, before you all throw me in the polluted but holy Bagmati river, I'll tell you about the other photos I sent. The first is of me and a visiting cousin, wearing saris. This was on Tij, a festival I believe I mentioned earlier, and I'm including it only because I like that picture so you have to look at it. I never wear a sari normally and I don't think I could even if I wanted to. Below that is the purification ceremony I mentioned in my last email, one where the new baby is given a secret name. I don't know why this scanned so dark, sorry. Behind the two women (on the right my mom, left my aunt but a different aunt than had the baby) is the ceremony, carried out by a Brahman priest. There is a fire in the middle, and the father of the baby had to do a lot of puja (religious offering) to many different objects. The women of the family spent many hours making different-sized leaf bowls to hold all the religious substances. The other picture is of me holding the baby on that same day, eleven days old. He is a boy and he has the black put into his eyes for health and ritual and a black tikaa as well. And a cute pointed bonnet. They slathered him with oil every day and are astounded that we don't see the importance of oil in america. My mom told me basically that I had better be in Nepal when (she says when, not me) I have a baby so she can take care of it properly. That picture is in the same house, it's the fan that is tricking you. They have tvs, too. :)
Ok, other random things. Goats, when not completely grown and crying for more food, sound exactly like a screaming child, only more annoying. They don't drink goat milk in Nepal and when I asked them they looked at me like I must be joking, and told me no, and they don't drink dog milk either. I got a big kick out of that one. There was, before it got too cold like it is now (no snow here just cold) a certain sort of bright blue wasp that lived in my room at my Balkot family's house. Apparently I'm supposed to believe that this sort of wasp is very good luck, doesn't sting, and isn't really a wasp at all but just a type of fly. Riiiiiight. So I'm glad it's cold now. My little girl cousin in that same family is maybe 1 year old and is scared of all animals and bugs, including goats and dogs and cats. My slightly younger brother loves to hide and say 'meow' which makes her get all worried and look everywhere and tell everyone there is a "maow" somewhere in the room. Goats are also labeled a very threatening-sounding 'maa.' Please don't let the maa get me. The new baby doesn't have a 'good' name yet, it takes a while to pick one and this is totally normal in south asian culture. The ravens around here like to steal soap if it is left outside.
Finally. My family's lives aren't all happy and funny, either, but it is hard for me to frame those sorts of difficult things because I really want to be able to describe them in a way that you will understand - or, maybe just in a way that you will really know how I think it shouldn't be understood. I don't want to say "women in villages here work really unbelievably hard and are expected to do so their whole married lives," because I don't want you to respond in your mind with "oh, Nepal is really third-world," or "somebody should 'free' those women," or something along those lines. There is a lot of negative stuff here that I don't want to defend by any means, but I also think that here, like everywhere, there is a really complicated history and current political and social and religious layers that go into what is happening to many different people in many different ways. I don't claim to understand it very well myself, but I also really want you all to have some sort of more broad understanding than just "they eat rice with their hand, they have tall mountains, they are Hindu and/or Buddhist, there's a lot of poverty, and the women have to work really hard." If you have made it this far, this is why I can't help but try to include a lot of details in my email, because I think it would be a pity for me to not try as hard as I can to convey a small part of my life here to you. I try to make it entertaining and educational, so hopefully you'll like it and give me a little time so I can work through writing all my one-on-one emails and get to yours. Also remember that I have a pretty wide audience with this and I'm trying to make this accesible to everyone. OK, for places like Nepal's sake, along with every other living thing on Earth, I hope the election goes well today. I'll be checking on my computer with a huge knot in my stomach. Talk to you all soon! Your fuddy-duddy Alani
Since it has been two months since I've been here, I felt like I should write a little update for you all. I'm doing well, now. I had some stomach-intestine-sickness issues that I won't describe in detail, but it wasn't so bad. I mean, I made it through the ordeal... The only side effect is that I have ended up craving non-nepali food more than I ever have here before. As it is the only cheese available nearby, I was once reduced to eating swiss cheese (something I could not bear in the US). Yikes. I've also found some safe-seeming yoghurt here, which is really heavenly though rather lumpy. I eat it with banana. And let me just say cereal. I'm a traitor to Nepali food customs, as I only rarely eat my daily rice requirement when I'm not with my families. I've been having quite a time telling stories about how americans (well, some anyhow) eat vegetables - they don't quite believe that people just boil things and eat them with salted butter. How do you explain that salted butter is a good thing? And since there is definitely a staple food here (rice), everyone tells me that the staple food in america is bread. I argued with this at first but may give up soon.
So besides food, the subject in which I know you are all so interested, I am getting used to living on my own in this apartment. This has the positive and negative aspect of being a hiding place. Sometimes having a hiding place is nice and a really good way to relax and not be constantly stressed about following cultural rules. Other times it is a little too convenient to stay in for half the day and waste time, when I should be going places. Getting the internet here is definitely putting an emphasis on that negative side, but I think that now the novelty is visibly wearing off and I won't be tempted to stay in that much. Besides, everyone knows that my best quality is self-discipline, right?
Where are the places I go, you ask? Well, if it's a bad day I have to go into the city... going anywhere here is very very much like being stuck in traffic on an LA freeway, and I'm not sure why. The main reason to go into the city is that I need to buy something that isn't available in my area, such as a computer modem or something. I'm not liking writing about the city so I'll get on with writing about what I really like, which is going to visit my families and all the interesting festival activities that were going on recently. And actually even before that I can tell you about my little trip over to Pokhara. And, now that I think of it, I will be able to give an explanation for the photos I am about to send to you all conveniently at the same time. The only picture of Pokhara I've included is of the mountains, which were clear and beautiful the whole time I was there. I flew to Pokhara and paid a huge sum for this 20 minute flight. I would have gone by bus, but I'm technically not allowed to ride buses outside the Kathmandu Valley. I stayed with Kamal's family while I was there, and had a great time exploring Pokhara with his sister Cheena (cheena means horoscope in nepali, kamal means lotus flower) on her scooter (girl version of motorcycle). I wasn't allowed to ride motorcycles the last time I was here, and this is probably the most life-risking activity I'm going to ever volunteer to participate in, so it is thrilling in a that-huge-on-coming-truck-in-our-lane-didn't-slow-down-and-I-almost-died kind of way. I didn't like Pokhara the last time I visited because we stayed in the touristy area and I didn't like that too much after living with families. But this time it was great! Pokhara is clean, the traffic is sparse, there are lots of lakes and green trees, and the mountains are reallllly close. Also, there are a lot of buffalo roaming the streets (think very huge cow with bigger horns and deeper moo but no fur like the american kind), and who doesn't like a buffalo-scooter encounter? Anyways, this family is great and liked that I knew something about Nepal... but apparently the more 'modernized' girls in Pokhara don't really wear kurta suruwals anymore, only jeans. Since I don't have any jeans, and mostly only kurtas, I ended up looking like a wanna-be fuddy duddy. Oh well, when I'm in my villages around here I'm normal - er....my clothes are more normal. I guess I should give up even thinking about fitting in.
I flew back to Kathmandu, and soon after the biggest festival of the year, Dashain, began. Actually there is only one picture related to Dashain and that is the one of me putting tikaa (red uncooked rice paste) on my little cousin's forehead. This is an important religious blessing and all the patriline (men always stay at home, women always move out after marriage, the resulting home family is the patriline) gives tikaa to the younger members. You then sprinkle flower petals and put some special Dashain plant shoots into the hair. The festival lasts five days, and for many of these the entire city of Kathmandu shuts down, so I stayed there at my family's house for a while. Some of you may remember about two years ago, for this same festival, with the goat stories. WARNING. IF you do not want to read about animals dying, please skip to the next paragraph NOW. Apparently the only man in the patriline (a man's gotta do it) with the, uh, goat horns to do a sacrifice is my dad who is in the hospital. I think that it has to do with chopping the whole head off and stuff. So my family just killed a goat instead. They don't kill girl goats, only boy goats. For a sacrifice you need a complete boy goat, for just eating a fixed boy goat is ok. This has to do with ritual purity, and you just don't want to get me going on that one. I wouldn't complain about this goat thing at all, as I have no right to complain and these people only eat meat like twice a year and actually kill it and do all the work themselves rather than pretending it's not a dead animal just another food-in-plastic, buuuut they did manage to choose the front door as the best place for cutting the whole thing up and I was thus forced to walk by a couple times to go to the outdoor bathroom (the process of cutting is difficult and takes a number of hours). I didn't say anything though I just averted my eyes.
Ok it's safe here! Unless religious possessions really freak you out for some reason. Later on the same tikaa-day, I went to my other family's house in Bungamati. I apologize beforehand for not having the pictures of this night developed, because if you are like me you will really want to see them after you hear this. Ok maybe you won't, I don't know. That night there was a jaatra in the main temple square/courtyard. Think flat grey stones fit together to make a surface on the ground, very cold air, a lot of people milling around and filling the square. On a stage an ancient dance play is being performed (the dancing narrated in Newari language so I couldn't understand), a play which takes perhaps 5 hours to complete as the dancing is very special and slow. I saw one of these plays last time, and I am going to ask around to figure out the story-line, but for now my favorite part is when the guys come out dressed like monkey-things and provide comic entertainment by standing on each others shoulders and doing somersaults, along with a shirtless guy in a ghost mask who sucks in his stomach so his ribs show. Women don't take part in the play so all the men are dressed very convincingly like women. Now for the best part. Every couple of minutes four very old and special instruments were played to call the monkey god Hanuman to the jaatra. I guess that night he didn't hear for a while, because they had to go around the square a couple times and he still didn't come for a few hours, till around 11pm. (I usually go to bed before 10, so this was a bit hard to wait up for). Hanuman could come and possess any man's body at that time, and he chose a man who stayed at home on purpose because he had been chosen before and didn't want it to happen again. There is no controlling gods, we all know that. He came running in the courtyard and proceeded to climb halfway up the 30-40 foot thick bamboo that was set up against a building for this purpose, using his bare hands and feet. The priests then anointed him with oil and massaged his legs and arms because he would end up swinging around and climbing the bamboo many times that night. The men then carried the bamboo (with Hanuman hanging onto it) horizontally to some special locations. Newari festivals tend to involve a large group of men pulling a very tall or big object through the streets, most often resulting in injury. (For those who understand this, WWFS?) After watching Hanuman climb a few times it was around 2pm and my sister and I went back home to sleep. Apparently at 5am Hanuman fell (as is customary) off the bamboo and 'died.' Then after some twenty minutes the man was revived back to life and remembered little of the past night. That night was quite an exciting experience, I must say, and my didi enjoyed telling me everything that was going on. I stayed a couple days in Bungamati too. Dashain is a festival to the fierce goddess Durga, celebrating her victory over an evil demon. It is also a harvest festival, for around Dashain all the rice fields are cut and the rice dried and husked. Now all the beautiful yellow fields are bare and stubbly :(
And, here, before you all throw me in the polluted but holy Bagmati river, I'll tell you about the other photos I sent. The first is of me and a visiting cousin, wearing saris. This was on Tij, a festival I believe I mentioned earlier, and I'm including it only because I like that picture so you have to look at it. I never wear a sari normally and I don't think I could even if I wanted to. Below that is the purification ceremony I mentioned in my last email, one where the new baby is given a secret name. I don't know why this scanned so dark, sorry. Behind the two women (on the right my mom, left my aunt but a different aunt than had the baby) is the ceremony, carried out by a Brahman priest. There is a fire in the middle, and the father of the baby had to do a lot of puja (religious offering) to many different objects. The women of the family spent many hours making different-sized leaf bowls to hold all the religious substances. The other picture is of me holding the baby on that same day, eleven days old. He is a boy and he has the black put into his eyes for health and ritual and a black tikaa as well. And a cute pointed bonnet. They slathered him with oil every day and are astounded that we don't see the importance of oil in america. My mom told me basically that I had better be in Nepal when (she says when, not me) I have a baby so she can take care of it properly. That picture is in the same house, it's the fan that is tricking you. They have tvs, too. :)
Ok, other random things. Goats, when not completely grown and crying for more food, sound exactly like a screaming child, only more annoying. They don't drink goat milk in Nepal and when I asked them they looked at me like I must be joking, and told me no, and they don't drink dog milk either. I got a big kick out of that one. There was, before it got too cold like it is now (no snow here just cold) a certain sort of bright blue wasp that lived in my room at my Balkot family's house. Apparently I'm supposed to believe that this sort of wasp is very good luck, doesn't sting, and isn't really a wasp at all but just a type of fly. Riiiiiight. So I'm glad it's cold now. My little girl cousin in that same family is maybe 1 year old and is scared of all animals and bugs, including goats and dogs and cats. My slightly younger brother loves to hide and say 'meow' which makes her get all worried and look everywhere and tell everyone there is a "maow" somewhere in the room. Goats are also labeled a very threatening-sounding 'maa.' Please don't let the maa get me. The new baby doesn't have a 'good' name yet, it takes a while to pick one and this is totally normal in south asian culture. The ravens around here like to steal soap if it is left outside.
Finally. My family's lives aren't all happy and funny, either, but it is hard for me to frame those sorts of difficult things because I really want to be able to describe them in a way that you will understand - or, maybe just in a way that you will really know how I think it shouldn't be understood. I don't want to say "women in villages here work really unbelievably hard and are expected to do so their whole married lives," because I don't want you to respond in your mind with "oh, Nepal is really third-world," or "somebody should 'free' those women," or something along those lines. There is a lot of negative stuff here that I don't want to defend by any means, but I also think that here, like everywhere, there is a really complicated history and current political and social and religious layers that go into what is happening to many different people in many different ways. I don't claim to understand it very well myself, but I also really want you all to have some sort of more broad understanding than just "they eat rice with their hand, they have tall mountains, they are Hindu and/or Buddhist, there's a lot of poverty, and the women have to work really hard." If you have made it this far, this is why I can't help but try to include a lot of details in my email, because I think it would be a pity for me to not try as hard as I can to convey a small part of my life here to you. I try to make it entertaining and educational, so hopefully you'll like it and give me a little time so I can work through writing all my one-on-one emails and get to yours. Also remember that I have a pretty wide audience with this and I'm trying to make this accesible to everyone. OK, for places like Nepal's sake, along with every other living thing on Earth, I hope the election goes well today. I'll be checking on my computer with a huge knot in my stomach. Talk to you all soon! Your fuddy-duddy Alani
posted by Alani Price | 9:03 AM
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