Flowers and Storms

Well I'm very glad you all seem to like this blog - I've been hearing from family I didn't even know I had and finding out all sorts of cool stuff. So, apologies for not adding another update until now - it also doesn't have pictures and I'm sure that's what you're all really after! :) Most of the links I wrote here do have photos. I'm not sure why I have so much news about flowers, it seems sort of random; I'll just hope you like them.

Just when I finally seemed to be getting over a cough, I got bacterial dysentery again. I'm taking medicine though and feeling fine now. Other, worse news first: my nepali family's goat ended up dying, and then a few days later their dog got very sick too and just recently died. Now all that is left is the poor little baby goat. Very sad.

I went to a place called Budhanilkantha and stayed with a family there (the wife and children of a 'brother' who is working in LA). It's a beautiful but large village up in the hills, famous for a huge temple/statue of sleeping Vishnu Narayan, his head surrounded by yellow flower petals. I saw this as well as a recently built Buddhist ghumba, which was covered with really brightly colored and detailed paintings of representations of Buddha, scenes, and mandalas. We (me and my 'sister-in-law' and her 3 year old son) came during a prayer ritual, so I got to hear the prayers recited by all the monks (this is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery as well) and the gong and horns too. There is an ISKON (Hare Krishna)temple in Budhanilkanth also, but this was closed so I didn't get to see the Krishna statue. There were some devotees outside (Nepalese) and one of them gave us tikaa, just a cream colored spot on our foreheads. Instead of 'namaste' they say 'hare krishna,' and the devotees wear a distinctive tikaa of two cream lines running vertically on their foreheads. Different colored tikaa denote different religious devotions. The laypeople of Budhanilkanth worship Krishna in much the same manner as they worship Vishnu in the other temple, but devotees to the ISKON tradition often come from all over the world and are practicing the religion differently - it isn't the same sort of Hinduism you find here in Nepal really. I won't list all the differences or similarities, but anyways - there is an ISKON temple in Los Angeles, on Venice. It's worth checking out if you're in the area, they have a great buffet of Indian food which they sell by weight. There is a Nepali restaurant near there as well, called Katmandu Kitchen. While I'm at this restaurant advertising, here's the website for the Pasadena Nepali restaurant, Tibet Nepal House: http://www.tibetnepalhouse.com . Another website on Nepal I've found recently that has some great photos and is totally unrelated to restaurants is http://www.culturefocus.com/nepal.htm .

I'm not sure if jasmine plants are rare in the US or not, but I don't recall having seen them. There are these huge vines of jasmine all over the place here, and I can smell them all the way from my window. They have little white flowers. There are also a lot of orange trumpet looking flowers blooming on vines in the area - the colors are great to see, along with leaves on trees that have been bare for some time.

The weather here has been strange, hot and sunny during the day with a storm in the evening. Apparently this isn't the start of the monsoon, but it sure seems like it. I heard but can't find verification that there was an earthquake in Nepal a couple of days ago. Apparently people could feel it in Kathmandu even thought the epicenter was some ways away. At that time I was on a picnic in a place called Godavari and didn't feel anything. Going on a Saturday picnic is surely a famous Nepalese pastime - there are a number of picnic spots and they rent buses to get there, as well as huge dishes and kerosene stoves to cook on, and sound systems to play music for dancing. I hadn't been on one before and was surprised by the numbers of people who came. A group of teenagers on the next level up (it's a terraced area of course) were dancing to hiphop music with their own (somewhat strangelooking) style (sort of shifting weight heavily from one leg to the other) which made me wonder where the learned that or if that's just the general dance around here. The other groups were dancing to Nepali music or Hindi music in a more traditional style. I was invited to this picnic by my Bungamati didi and her friends, and we joked around a lot and had a good time. Near the picnic area was the Royal Botanical Gardens, which were surprisingly nice and very relaxing to walk in. In Nepal there are rhododendron trees rather than bushes, and I saw my first rhododendron flowers in Nepal that day also, very bright red. Lali guraas, it is called. You'll be blown away, check out the photos of the rhododendrons and mountains on this site: http://www.nepal-dia.de/int__England/EV_Annapurna/EB_Rhododendron/eb_rhododendron.html

My Bungamati didi is going to get married in about two months - this time I was around to see more of the process of the arranged marriage, um... arrangements... It has been hard to come to terms with cultural realities like this and dowries, trying not to see things from my own cultural bias. My sisters are really emotional about it and I find myself caught up in it a lot.

I've been to a nursery show recently at the Kathmandu Exhibition Hall - Ginny, the professor with whom I went to see Shivaraatri, invited me to come. It was a nursery fair, really, and if I had a garden I would have spent a lot of money on some of those flowers, they were beautiful. I bought a really gorgeous orchid, a fairly big one for only about $12. Which is a lot of money for here but very cheap for an orchid. It has medium sized flowers, white-pink with a little yellow. Last month's issue of ECS magazine (mag for foreigners living in Nepal) had an article on orchids with awesome pictures but I can't seem to find it on their online site, http://www.ecs.com.np . It hasn't shown up in their archives yet I guess. It's worth checking out their site to see the other photos and articles though.

Recommended reading about women in Nepal/South Asia, look them up by title on Amazon or somewhere: In the Circle of the Dance - Guneratne; Daughters of Hariti - Rozario (ed.); Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters - Bennett. For those who are interested I'll send more recommendations. For now I'm off to the villages!

Welcome! Read this first.

Hi everybody, welcome to the latest improvement on telling you all news from over here! This is called a ‘blog,’ which is short for the word ‘weblog,’ and I for one wish they had never shortened it. Anyways, I have had a ton of stuff happen since the last time I emailed, and I’ve tried to give a little info on everything in this blog. I will be posting a description of my sister’s wedding soon, once I have the pictures ready. Kathmandu at the moment is rather dry and thankfully not so very cold anymore. I only need one blanket to sleep in and don’t have to walk around my apartment bundled up like I’m ready to go sledding anymore. The coming heat means that the mosquitos will soon hatch, though, so I’ll be having to go buy a mosquito net to hang over my bed. I’m trying to think of recent news to put in this first post…

I’ve been taken on a really nice walk with my sister and one friend from Bungamati, down to the valley where their fields are. The weather really is wonderful right now, if a little hot in the sun, and the fields are green again with wheat instead of rice. These wheat fields are interspersed with patches of mustard; the mustard flowers are not only proliferous and bright yellow, but they also have a heavy honeyish scent that hangs in the air when one walks by. My pants got a lot of yellow pollen on them from being brushed by these flowers, but I didn’t mind. There are some fruit trees in bloom now that are also really lovely, tiny light pink and dark pink flowers. I’ve been told that they are peaches but you never know how these fruit translations work out. Avocado are not indigenous here, and I found out that their Nepali translation is something like, butter fruit, which I found appropriate as well as delicious.

I went to a wedding reception with my sister and friends from Bungamati. A bunch of those ladies came over to my house to get dressed up beforehand – we all wore saris and it took like two hours to get ready. I wore my new one from India, but I just know saris just don’t look quite right on me… My sister and her friends looked beautiful. It reminded me of getting ready to out with my friends during college, helping each other with hair and makeup and lending earring etc. The actual event was held nearby here in a building that used to be a theater, there must have been a couple hundred people there. The bride and groom (who had been married the day before) sat in these huge red chairs on the stage and everyone came up and congratulated them or gave them a present. We gave them bouquets. There were snacks being passed out all over the place and a huge buffet. We sat down to eat and everyone told me to eat slowly, which they usually tell me and is ridiculous because I am always really slow compared to them, but this time they actually meant it and ate like sloths (slowly) and even left food on their plates. I imagine that this is for public appearance, there must be some idea that eating really super-fast isn’t appropriate. I explained to them that this seemed confusing to me and they laughed.

The day after this reception I met up with a professor who is here on a different sort of Fulbright grant – she teaches classes at a university on top of doing her research. We went together with her Nepali ‘son’ and her cook’s twelve year old son to Pashupatinath temple, where the celebration of Shivaraatri was taking place. I had heard that many many Indian people come on pilgrimage to this temple for this holiday, including many sadhus, ascetic holy men. I had heard also that these sadhus would be naked, but we didn’t see any of that, thank goodness. (Not that they shouldn’t be naked, I just wasn’t particularly interested in that aspect.) The roads to Pashupati were almost completely jammed with people, and on each side of the path to the temple were the sellers, trying to convince you that you really need either some tourist jewelry or a fake leather purse. We got onto the temple grounds for free with our “U.S. Mission to Nepal” cards (I still despise that phrase) and pushed our way along with the rest of everyone. It was interesting to look at the sadhus just hanging out (and smoking), some of them got twisted up into pretzel shapes and one guy had his face pierced with bunches of lemons hanging off the piercings. Don’t ask me, I don’t understand the lemon part either. The crowd was a bit much to handle though, so we left after an hour. I’ll have pictures of this to post soon.

I will also have pictures and a description of my sister’s wedding soon hopefully. I decided that it will be much easier to describe this through the photographs.

My new find is a little coffee shop down the road from me that lends out books informally. So far I’ve read the Stone Diaries and another book called Harm Done. I recommend them both. I also recommend any of the books on my ‘favorite books’ list, if you click on my complete profile up on the top of this page. Also for those of you who might be interested in the environment and religion, check out this article that was forwarded to me a while ago (some of you have seen it already), called “There is No Tomorrow,” I found it interesting: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/013105F.shtml

Please take a look at this pbs.org link,
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/daymygoddied
This talks about a documentary they ran about girls being tricked, kidnapped, or sold into sexual slavery in India (commonly referred to as trafficking). It is worth being aware that such things are going on in this world, and remembering that it isn’t just happening here but in the US also. What a reflection this practice is on the desperation of poverty and the continual objectification of women all over the world. I have not seen this movie but perhaps it is available to watch over there. There are a number of NGOs (non-government organizations) here working with trafficking survivors and awareness programs, and the NGO described on this website, Maithi Nepal, is one of the largest. They apparently have a record, however, of distorting their figures or not releasing certain numbers in their efforts to fundraise– if you are really interested in making donations to these types of organizations in Nepal I can provide you with a list.

Some other news on the sad side: My family’s goat, which gave birth during the wedding, of course, is now a month later very ill. The baby goat has grown up enough that it will probably survive without its mom, but it is still very sad to hear the mom goat making its sick bleating noises from inside its shed. The baby goat has cute white, brown, and black markings, and loves my aamaa and tries to jump on her lap. I fed it some pieces of apple.

I have around four months left here in Nepal and I’m about ready to do some formal taped interviews. I’m also considering, due to the number and serious nature of questions I have been asked about pregnancy-related issues, having a really informal class here in my apartment where I can show pictures from the internet and at least share what I know. I don’t feel quite qualified to give health advice, obviously, but if I’m who they feel comfortable asking then I feel somewhat compelled to do a little research and give them any answers I can. It would be a reciprocative event, as well, as I will be able to ask them questions as well.

Sending love and best wishes to all of you!

Description: View from my Window

In the midst of all this fact-telling (which apparently you all find enjoyable to read but which I find inadequate at describing my reality over here), I thought I’d include something more descriptive, just so you’d know how I’d really like to be writing about everything I see here. So for those of you who think all of this is too long, now you’ll know that it really is a very summarized version of what I would in theory like to be sending you. :)
It is a glorious day: The sun is shining through a thin layer of haze, and a family works on their plot of land across the street. I don’t mean to spy on them – their land used to be a plant nursery and my eyes have grown accustomed to looking over at the pretty flowers. I am lucky to have this view, as most of the apartments in this area have another three-story house or apartment building’s windows a couple meters away. Fate (or Fulbright, I guess) gave me a room with this view, now of a family’s yard and soon to be vegetable garden, or possibly house. An old one-story brick building with a v-shaped roof squats directly adjacent to my window, and although now in the dry season it doesn’t look particularly pretty, the dried brown grasses sticking up from where the roof and wall meet remind me of the delicate morning glories and tiny white flowers that sprung up among the mossy green foliage and the mist of four months ago. Now through the brown stalks I see the family’s yard, a work-in-progress surrounded by fairly tall brick wall. Dirt and rocks sit in little piles randomly, so I can’t guess for what purpose they’re being moved around so diligently. Every once in a while the man brings around a large cardboard box, and out of this he gently pulls out half-grown chickens and places them in a hand-made wood-and-mesh enclosure, held down tight by loose bricks. The chickens aren’t quite old enough to cluck, so their peeping blends in with the general bustle of the neighborhood; hammering, crows cawing, the kids playing next door, the cheep-cheep of the handsome sparrow sitting on the electric wire, and the intermittent strange howlings of the zoo down the road. A woman and a teenage girl watch as two toddlers sit on their haunches to observe the chickens through the mesh – they look as though they’ll pull open the wire any moment so their bird friends can come out to play. Two new baby goats (kids, I should say) run freely around their compound and over the aforementioned piles. They’re having about as good a time as can be had, jumping onto everything, including their own mother goat who’s tied to a stumpy wooden post. I wonder vacantly as I watch the little goat perched upon the apparently un-phased mother goat, how such adorable animals grow up to be such ugly, neurotic, obnoxious creatures. The babies at one point advantageously used a poorly placed brick pile to hop all the way up onto the top of the wall, and though they probably wouldn’t be brave enough to jump all the way down onto the street on the other side, a young man pulls himself up onto and stands on the wall as easily as the goats had jumped, to spread his arms wide and slowly convince them back into the safety of their yard.

Svasthani and Lord of the Rings

Before I went to India, I had brought my computer and a (bootlegged) dvd of Lord of the Rings over to my Chhetri family’s house and proceeded to give a little showing to my aamaa and sister and one brother. One of those movies is about equal in length to a Hindi movie (anyone who has seen one of those will know what I’m talking about), so they didn’t mind being patient, and I managed to get across most of the (very strange from their point of view I’m sure) things going on in the plot. My aamaa I think was the most into the movie really, she really went for the feeling sorry for Gollum and hating him at the same time. Her favorite character by far was Sam. I did have to keep reminding her that the scenery wasn’t from America, it was filmed in another country. She said that the story reminded her of a story from the Hindu scriptures, which is secretly what I was hoping they would conclude – many Hindu stories include a lot of fighting wars and magical interventions (by gods) and quite a number of heroes.

The story it reminded her of is in the Svasthani, about which I know very little but another Fulbrighter here in Nepal knows a lot – her research is on this scripture. For one month, about a month ago, every night, my Chhetri brother would read (very rapidly) from a very old book. This reading is also considered a pujaa, and beforehand he would use the red powder to make a “Om” symbol on the book’s cover, then pass out some uncooked rice grains to everyone present, and read a prayer. Afterwards we all set the rice grains onto the book cover. After reading his section, he marked his place with a little spot of the red powder, and repeated a closing prayer, again with everyone holding the grains of rice in a namaste (prayer) position. After again tossing the rice onto the book, everyone dabbed their finger into the powder and gave themselves tikaa (placed a spot of it on their forehead). Then we all ate a small piece of whatever food had been offered at the pujaa, fruit or nuts and coconut. During the actual reading, the tv would be on and mostly people would ignore the story, which was being read very quickly and in monotone – no doubt my brother was copying the way the Brahman (Bahun) priests say any of the Sanskrit prayers. I guess I would compare it to the way people (may or may not) space out during a church service, but here they’re realistic about it and don’t bother pretending they are listening intently to something they have heard every year and practically know by heart.

Photo: I can't help but post more photos from the disk Jennifer and Pradeep sent me, even if it's a little out of order. This one shows the terraced fields of rice growing in Bungamati. by Jennifer Shrestha. 

Photo: Street in Bungamati. The man with the bicycle is door-to-door selling the fruit there on the back. by Jennifer Shrestha. 

Photo: Corn and Chillis, drying in Bungamati. And a jacket drying too. You can also see the old wood carving. by Jennifer Shrestha 

Photo: Woman in Bungamati carrying load of 'ghaas' to feed her goats or cow or buffalo. The little piece of wood there on the top is the handle of the curved knife she used to cut all of this foliage. by Jennifer Shrestha.