There is a certain excitement in the air these days. The great festival of Dewali is approaching and people are stocking up on ghee lamps and lights to brighten their homes at night, they are buying fruit and walnuts to give in exchange for tikka and blessings given by older sisters, and every once in a while a fire cracker goes off in impatient anticipation for the week of celebration to come.
Yesterday evening I sat by the neighborhood Mandir (hindu temple) where neighbors gathered for the weekly singing and dancing session. They sing songs to different gods with harmonium, tabla, another drum, and chimes. Many people sing along and old women dance and clap with great joy radiating from their faces. The singer, a skinny guy in his 50s probably, has a great voice that effortlessly weaves through complex melodies nuanced with tones foreign but so sweet to my western ear. One song ended with a small chant of oooommmm, oooommmn, ooommm, and then chia (chai tea) was served and people were just really having a great time. Those who tried to leave were forced to stay and drink tea, eat biscuits and shoot the breeze during that auspicious time just following the sunset. I thought of church groups in the States and other communities that get together to sing. I tried to think about how this was different but I cant really say. People in their own neighborhood and culture getting together to make merry.
This morning after the breakfast I went to go play basketball at a court hosted by a library / community center not to far from my house. On the way i passe by the Lama Family fruit stand unusually loaded with goods. As always I was invited to sit offered a banana or papaya. Its hard to say no to such offers, but they come so readily from these great friends that it wasn't too difficult to just sit for a minute and then be on my way. Basketball was alot of fun and I hope to make a habit of it. But school starts again after Tihar, so I will have to figure out the right time to go.
After a few games of 21 with guys ranging from 10 years old to late twenties, i noticed a Community health clinic just there next to the court. In the evening time this court also becomes a bustling bazaar with full layouts of produce on the carpets and people selling right out of their basket outfitted bicycles they ride around yelling what they are carrying- fruit, garlic, ginger, potatoes, maybe milk. The health clinic was closed at the time so i went upstairs where their is a government office that deals with water issues.
There people told the clinic would open in 20 minutes, so I should sit down. I was talking in half Nepali half English with a young Nepali guy who had recently returned from Australia where he is a student of business. He said if the political situation of his country did not improve he would surely take his family there to live. After talking a bit longer I found out that his father had just recently died. His father had diabetes along with high blood pressure and other related health problems. His father had eye problems, kidney problems and leg problems. In the US diabetes is the leading cause of both blindness and limb amputations. Another woman in the office herself had high blood pressure and was worried about a chance of having diabetes. Her husband suffers from the disease. She was very curious about what foods he should be eating because she said their doctor had not said very much about this.
Recently i have been reading a couple different books about diabetes and food. One book called "Syndrome X" claims that the introduction of processed foods in conjunction with a sedentary lifestyle is the cause of insulin resistance. This insulin resistance, caused mostly by overloading the system with simple carbohydrates, then is directly related to a series of symptoms including hypertension (high blood pressure), irregular blood fat levels, obesity, and glucose intolerance all of which induce diabetes and heart disease if not treated by adequate exercise and a diet which the human body is adapted for, namely a diet of unprocessed, unrefined whole foods.
Other books I have read are much more reluctant to even mention the phrases "whole" or "processed" foods. Even books released by The Johns Hopkins medical group or other big names will rather suggest 'counting carbs' regardless of the form of those carbohydrates. In such books diabetes is noted as one of the leading causes heart related illness, but the two issues are still compartmentalized and treated separately. One such book talks alot about the importance of legumes and fiber in the diet and also includes a large recipe section. The recipe for the bean soup is very hard to find and calls for mostly canned or frozen ingredients. Much more prominent in the recipe section of the book are recipes to appease the diabetic sweet tooth. This includes recipes for brownies and cup cakes all of which call for crysco, artificial sweeteners, and processed flours. I cant help but notice how these books might be purposefully trying to depoliticize the issue of health by ignoring the issue of processed foods as harmful.
Meeting diabetics in Nepal is not hard and I think my research has alot of potential to investigate the links between development, change in diet and diabetes. The holiday season is just ending now so I will finally get the chance to meet with professors and doctors to talk about the issues and get some guidance in this research project which weaves together immense fields of medical and social studies.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Lama Family Series, Entry #1
A couple minute walk down the street and just across from the Bhaatbhaateni mandir (Hindu temple) is a small shop that sells fresh fruits and vegetables and also makes fresh squeezed juices of pomegranate, pineapple and sweet lime. I remember the first time buying a couple pomegranates from the didis (older sisters) there and receiving the kindest smiles and encouraging remarks on how good these pomegranates were. I ensured them that if they were indeed good I would be back for more. That was a month ago and today the family that owns the shop has become my closest Nepali friends here in Kathmandu. I never seem to go a day without seeing them, and they become concerned if for whatever reason I don’t pick up my phone or don’t make it to their shop until later in the day. The way they have included me in their circle of friends and family is an incredible thing, and I will be forever grateful to them. It is now the holiday season so meeting with professors and other professionals to really get my diabetes reasearch going headstrong has been hard. In another week or so the holiday season will be wrapping up and i will find better direction within my proposed research field.
Spending time with the Lama family has given me an up close and personal experience from which I have learned so much about not only the intricacies of their family’s situation, but the general shared experience of Nepalis. They have opened up to me in ways I would have never imagined and treated me like family. I would like to share some of my experiences with them and their story that they have shared with me. This story has given me such a great insight into a sliver of contemporary Nepal. I say ‘a sliver’ because this is only one family of one ethnic group of a richly heterogeneous country. However going deeply into one story I think sheds light on thousands of others which have mismatching and overlapping shared experiences in this country and abroad.
After buying fruit from the shop a few more times, they started inviting me to sit and chat each time I cam by. One of the brothers, Rajan Lama Tamang, who is also in the family and works there is a very energetic, friendly guy who is also quite effeminate and a funny character. After chatting for a while one time with Rajan and his two older sisters Sharmilla and Besanti I learned that Rajan was headed for Dubai in two days. Despite this they invited me over for dinner the next day, I would eat there and they would also show me around Shwayambu (an incredible Buddhist Stuppa near their apartment).
That next day Jon and I had plans to go to Kajan Gumpa (another Bhuddhist temple) with a friend who works at the organic store nearby that sells organic, fair trade, and locally produced food and household items. So after going to Kajan Gumpa, seeing a beautiful view of the valley and walking through some of the more agricultural, smaller villages in the Kathmandu Valley, we were met again by the looming city where we took a bus to Swayambu and waited for Rajan to come pick us up. We waited as they instructed by the police station across from the entrance to the temple. But after an hour of confused phone calls and waiting, we learned that there are two entrances and two police stations so we took a cab to the other side of the enormous stuppa were we met Rajan and walked over to his family’s place.
The Lama (last name implying Buddhist monk) family stays in a typical city apartment building/house and just have two small, simple rooms. The rest of the house has other people living in it from their village a couple hours away- so their community stays together. Their family is huge, and at the time I couldn’t quite understand who was who but it don’t think it quite mattered. Informally, the word for cousin and brother / sister are the same (you call strangers brother / sister also). Rajan’s parents had seven children who now have children of their own.
In their apartment in Kathmandu there is a stereo and a TV that was on a lot- mostly showing music videos of American, Hindi and Nepali music. Nepali music videos are quite sappy with shots of people singing and dancing with the backdrop of beautiful terraced Himalayan foothills, others imitate western hip hop with girls ‘bumpin’ and grinding’ and guys in hip hop dressed flashing hand symbols. Hindi music videos are usually scenes of exotic women being admired by men in packed disco clubs.
They sat Jon (my roommate) and I down and offered us tea, roksi (locally made hard liquor), and snacks of cucumber, radish and peanuts while we waited for dinner- usually not eaten at their place until late, 9 or 10pm. There were a few younger boys, both students, one of them the ‘trickster’ who was too shy to showoff at the time, and a younger girl in the eighth grade. This girl spoke the best English of anyone in the family- she studied in a private school and apparently was at the top of her class studying on a scholarship (all free) and hoping to be a doctor I believe. The aamaa (mother of Rajan and grandmother of the younger kids) had just got in from the village and would be staying a few days in the city to see a doctor for her hurting leg. Dressed in traditional Nepali garb, she smoked cigarettes in the sitting room with everyone around and looked on silently as everyone did their thing. So we chatted with everyone, learning about the village and the city life. With their fruit and vegetable shop, very often they have to wake up at four or five in the morning to go to the wholesaler and buy produce before making it to the shop on the other side of town and have it open by seven. Then they work all day until 7 and come home and do it again.
Rajan’s bai (younger brother) is in a Tamang hip hop group (whose album release program I recently attended as a guest of honor!- quite an experience to see these guys rapping and such with an audience ranging from grandmothers in traditional Tibetan attire to every day local Nepalis) and dresses fully decked out with G-Unit brand cloths, a dew rag, baseball cap with the shiny sticker and all. I got to see some of this guy's break-dancing moves which I was quite impressed by. They also had a didi (older sister) who once also in the Nepali pop music industry and who I saw in one music video and a poster they have hanging in one of their rooms.
One of their bais (younger brother) is a Lama, studying as a Buddhist monk as I had been told one day in the shop. While we were snacking, he came through fully garbed in his red monk garb and didn’t really say hello, he had an electronic gadget he was playing with which emanated the sounds of Nintendo Mario Brothers. He was probably 17 years old and I learned is also really into youth Nepali hip hop culture; apparently on some of his free days he will get out of his monk attire, get decked out in some baggy hip hop style clothes and go to the clubs in the city to rap, dance and chill. Another older brother, a bit fat and quite heavy set, speaking a good amount of sloppy English with alcohol reeking breath, is a taxi cab driver and has been one for many years- mostly for tourists he said.
We ate a fabulous meal of dal-bat (rice, lentil soup and veggies) with goat meat as well. Apparently they don’t like goat meat all that much- they would prefer water buffalo or chicken- but I had once said I like goat meat, so they cooked it just for us. Everything was delicious, but the meat was especially flavorful and rich- an incredible curry broth. The only difficulty is that goat meat is ordinarily butchered here with everything intact. Of course the organs and what not are separated out, but the meat is attached to bones, tendons, fat, and fairly thick skin. But this is customary, so I just chewed through it all putting only the bones back on the plate.
After we had finished eating and talking for a bit my roommate Jon was busy learning about Ayruvedic medicine and herbal plants from everyone in the family(who has at least some knowledge about such things). I was just sitting and chatting, greatly entertained by the hosts who were great jokers and laughers full of sass, sarcasm and love for one another. Soon it was 10 pm and time to start getting ready to sleep. It appeared as though it was being assumed we would sleep there that night. Jon said he had some work he needed to do the next morning. One didi said she would be going to Bhatbateni early, so we could just go with her, but Jon insisted it would be easier for him to leave now. But taxis, they said, were not really available at this hour. So they spent the next 20 minutes on the phone finding a friend taxi driver to take Jon home. I figured I would take their invitation and not be in a hurry to get back home. I made sure to ask of course that I was not disturbing anything, especially because Rajan would be leaving for Dubai the next day and maybe wanted family time. They said “what disturbing?” as though there was no such thing.
People started getting in their beds which had acted as couches and benches just minutes before. In the kitchen probably 6 people slept, in the sitting room maybe 7 or 8- four or five on mattresses on the floor, and in the room I was in four slept including myself. There really is no such thing as personal privacy in Nepali culture. No one has ‘their own room’ or hardly even their own bed. The room I is rented by some college students who are not blood relatives, just friends by default of proximity. After playing some music and singing songs in Nepali and English alike (they especially loved hearing me sing the Nepali songs I know and a flamenco rendition of Hotel California- the most infamous American song in Nepal) I undressed to my boxers and said goodnight. Rajan was in the bed with me and two other guys shared the other bed in the room. The fluorescent light was on, one guy was playing a mini electronic keyboard and the other talking loudly. When one of them finally got up to turn off the light 15 minutes later he asked me why I wasn’t asleep, seeming confused.
It took me a while to fall asleep, Rajan was coughing and I was nervous and uncomfortable. I suppose I was not used to sharing a tiny bed with another guy that I hardly know, but to them all of this is completely normal. It really shows how family and community are at the center of life here. The individual is nothing without the family and the group and the way many people live here really embodies this sentiment. “One spit dries quickly, a thousand spits forms a river” a Nepali saying goes.
The next morning I woke up and sat in the sitting room where people were getting ready for the day. One of the didis that works at the produce shop had said she would be leaving at 5 am but it was already 7:30, plans change, things are relaxed- her sister was there so she would go with me and Rajan after we ate dalbat a bit later. I sipped some chia (tea) and then was fed chow-chow (Ramen-like noodles popular for kajaa (non rice meals/snacks)). I watched as all the young students ironed their clothes for the day, they had to be presentable to be allowed in the private school. They studies for their exams that day by repeating monotone phrases they had memorized in an English language hardly decipherable to me, whether or not they actually understood what they were saying is debatable.
Rajan and I left and he showed me around the Swayambu Buddhist stuppa. At the top of 365 steps leading up through the forest is an incredible temple and worship place with a great view of the capital city below as well. The place seems so old, and so well used with hundreds of people coming everyday to worship and tour. We circled around spinning the wheels with ‘om mani paame hum’ inscribed on them which were implanted into the main temple. Rajan explains that he spins the wheel to relieve sadness and tension in the heart, to ask for a life of peace and to make good karma. We saw the monkeys jumping from goddess statue to rooftop and we saw vendors selling incense, and jewelry, beads, ornate miniature statues, singing bowls, and so on to locals and tourists alike. We went inside the monastery where Rajan’s little brother studies and stays and went inside a private prayer room where we made offerings of rupees. Rajan bowed and prayed to a golden Buddhist statue kept encased by glass. Then we paid rupees to light three ghee (clarified butter) candles each in a room radiating heat and light and a pleasant aroma from the hundreds of glowing candles inside.
We walked under hundreds of Tibetan prayer flags hung from temple tops to tree branches. Each flag hung as a prayer for a family member or for peaceful dwelling. The flags swayed gently in the wind, the whole place emanated a rare sense of calm and peace. We came to the other side of the hilltop where there were monks chanting and playing their drums and blasting their horns and konk shells in a way that, although sounds chaotic, loud, screechy and very strange, is actually quite enjoyable and mesmerizing.
We walked down through the forest and saw monkeys picking out little bugs from each other's fur with lightning speed. We passed students walking on their way to school and Rajan told me this was a popular place for college sweethearts to meet. Down at the bottom again, we circled around the entire base of the stuppa, spinning the hundreds of prayer wheels embedded in a wall the whole way around. On the path we walked by people living in nearby shacks of plastic and sticks begging for money and we passed by people castrating themselves by bowing all the way down to the ground, laying belly down, and then pushing and standing back up over and over again countless times in worship. We talked about karma, bhuddism, and his life.
Rajan began telling me parts of his life story, which is becoming more full and clear to me each day. He has been through a lot and yet still remains incredibly positive and joyful. I hope to share a lot of that story here but it may take some time. Rajan is the most educated person in his entire family history having studying one year in college and then having to quit for work and money. Of his peers in his home village, he is one of three to be educated past what is available locally and he says most of his friends are married with children. He is 22, like me, and says that marriage at 15 or 16 is not uncommon in rural areas. While walking around the stuppa spinning the prayer wheels I remember him communicating some of his troubles, how his family has the produce shop but it is not enough for a modern life of buying food, paying for gas, water, clothes, books, hospital trips and so on. Rajan and his family struggle living a poor, hard life and Rajan often carries with him the stress and tension that this life induced upon him he says. So Rajan is on his way to Dubai to make money, travel and see other parts of the world and then what he cant say. He hopes for more education and the ability to bring greater opportunity to his family and fellow Nepalis.
We got back to the flat and had a meal of dal bat- incredibly delicious once more. Rajan had some work to do near the produce shop in Bhaatbhateni for his plane ticket, one of the other sisters was sick and thinking about going to the hospital, so the four of us needed a bus or taxi to get across town.
After walking a block from the apartment we hopped over a long pit being dug in the road- some kind of plumbing work maybe. Next we walked passed a plume of black smoke, the hot day was hotter next to a burning tire in the middle of the road. Continuing along, a few young men walked by dragging large smoldering logs behind them which left a smeared, charred black sooty trail behind. At the next intersection was a thick bamboo pole across the whole width of the road, a couple large pieces of cement had been placed there as well. This is how we found the city for the next 45 minutes as we walked toward Bhatbhateni- where their shop is and my flat.
That day there was a baanda, and so it would not be possible to take a taxi or bus. But walking through the city that day, I felt as though I experienced what it was like here thirty years ago, before the streets were overflowing with constantly honking, swerving, exhaust blowing automobiles. It was a nice walk and the city was quiet for once. The only other time you don’t hear traffic is early in the morning or late at night.
We walked through Asan- a very old part of the city where there is a huge busy bazaar- street vendors and shops selling all sorts of household goods and foods- almost everything what shut down. As we had walked I saw people posting up signs written in Sanskrit, I can’t read that too well yet (I still have to slowly sound it out like a first grader) but I got the jist from talking to people.
The baanda that day came from the Newaris. They have a certain festival they have been celebrating annually for thousands of years and it involves animal sacrifice, dancing, feasting, singing and so on. In the recent budget proposal from the Maoist government they felt their minority group was not well enough represented because their ancient festival was not getting enough funding. So most of the city was shut down, the next day the budget was reappraised and the Newaris got their funding.
When we got to a more open part of the city I was up on a pedestrian bridge when I saw a group of several dozen people marching down the street screaming “haamro sanskriti, haamro desh!”- “our culture, our country!” and some other things I didn’t understand. Just beneath where I was, I saw a mob of people form around an army officer on a motorcycle. They surrounded him and started throwing rocks and hitting him for no apparent reason that I could notice. Then a nearby group of police fully dressed with riot shields and batons broke up the mob and they continued down the street. Then the police seemed to say that the crowd couldn’t go the way they wanted so for a few minutes they negotiated and the crowd got their way and they marched along chanting “our culture, our country”, the riot police marched along side the crowd.
Not too far away we were able to catch a bus and we crammed into an impossibly tight squeeze. We made it to the produce shop and they fed me bananas, papaya and carrots as usual. Rajan met his other sister at the office for his travel business, and I found out later in the day that Rajan would not be leaving for Dubai for another month. Rajan was supposed to be leaving with a group of 10 other Nepalis, but with their big Nepali festival of Dossain coming up and the current festival of Ramadan in the Middle East, the journey had been postponed. “No big deal, just a month, plans change, things are relaxed.”
Spending time with the Lama family has given me an up close and personal experience from which I have learned so much about not only the intricacies of their family’s situation, but the general shared experience of Nepalis. They have opened up to me in ways I would have never imagined and treated me like family. I would like to share some of my experiences with them and their story that they have shared with me. This story has given me such a great insight into a sliver of contemporary Nepal. I say ‘a sliver’ because this is only one family of one ethnic group of a richly heterogeneous country. However going deeply into one story I think sheds light on thousands of others which have mismatching and overlapping shared experiences in this country and abroad.
After buying fruit from the shop a few more times, they started inviting me to sit and chat each time I cam by. One of the brothers, Rajan Lama Tamang, who is also in the family and works there is a very energetic, friendly guy who is also quite effeminate and a funny character. After chatting for a while one time with Rajan and his two older sisters Sharmilla and Besanti I learned that Rajan was headed for Dubai in two days. Despite this they invited me over for dinner the next day, I would eat there and they would also show me around Shwayambu (an incredible Buddhist Stuppa near their apartment).
That next day Jon and I had plans to go to Kajan Gumpa (another Bhuddhist temple) with a friend who works at the organic store nearby that sells organic, fair trade, and locally produced food and household items. So after going to Kajan Gumpa, seeing a beautiful view of the valley and walking through some of the more agricultural, smaller villages in the Kathmandu Valley, we were met again by the looming city where we took a bus to Swayambu and waited for Rajan to come pick us up. We waited as they instructed by the police station across from the entrance to the temple. But after an hour of confused phone calls and waiting, we learned that there are two entrances and two police stations so we took a cab to the other side of the enormous stuppa were we met Rajan and walked over to his family’s place.
The Lama (last name implying Buddhist monk) family stays in a typical city apartment building/house and just have two small, simple rooms. The rest of the house has other people living in it from their village a couple hours away- so their community stays together. Their family is huge, and at the time I couldn’t quite understand who was who but it don’t think it quite mattered. Informally, the word for cousin and brother / sister are the same (you call strangers brother / sister also). Rajan’s parents had seven children who now have children of their own.
In their apartment in Kathmandu there is a stereo and a TV that was on a lot- mostly showing music videos of American, Hindi and Nepali music. Nepali music videos are quite sappy with shots of people singing and dancing with the backdrop of beautiful terraced Himalayan foothills, others imitate western hip hop with girls ‘bumpin’ and grinding’ and guys in hip hop dressed flashing hand symbols. Hindi music videos are usually scenes of exotic women being admired by men in packed disco clubs.
They sat Jon (my roommate) and I down and offered us tea, roksi (locally made hard liquor), and snacks of cucumber, radish and peanuts while we waited for dinner- usually not eaten at their place until late, 9 or 10pm. There were a few younger boys, both students, one of them the ‘trickster’ who was too shy to showoff at the time, and a younger girl in the eighth grade. This girl spoke the best English of anyone in the family- she studied in a private school and apparently was at the top of her class studying on a scholarship (all free) and hoping to be a doctor I believe. The aamaa (mother of Rajan and grandmother of the younger kids) had just got in from the village and would be staying a few days in the city to see a doctor for her hurting leg. Dressed in traditional Nepali garb, she smoked cigarettes in the sitting room with everyone around and looked on silently as everyone did their thing. So we chatted with everyone, learning about the village and the city life. With their fruit and vegetable shop, very often they have to wake up at four or five in the morning to go to the wholesaler and buy produce before making it to the shop on the other side of town and have it open by seven. Then they work all day until 7 and come home and do it again.
Rajan’s bai (younger brother) is in a Tamang hip hop group (whose album release program I recently attended as a guest of honor!- quite an experience to see these guys rapping and such with an audience ranging from grandmothers in traditional Tibetan attire to every day local Nepalis) and dresses fully decked out with G-Unit brand cloths, a dew rag, baseball cap with the shiny sticker and all. I got to see some of this guy's break-dancing moves which I was quite impressed by. They also had a didi (older sister) who once also in the Nepali pop music industry and who I saw in one music video and a poster they have hanging in one of their rooms.
One of their bais (younger brother) is a Lama, studying as a Buddhist monk as I had been told one day in the shop. While we were snacking, he came through fully garbed in his red monk garb and didn’t really say hello, he had an electronic gadget he was playing with which emanated the sounds of Nintendo Mario Brothers. He was probably 17 years old and I learned is also really into youth Nepali hip hop culture; apparently on some of his free days he will get out of his monk attire, get decked out in some baggy hip hop style clothes and go to the clubs in the city to rap, dance and chill. Another older brother, a bit fat and quite heavy set, speaking a good amount of sloppy English with alcohol reeking breath, is a taxi cab driver and has been one for many years- mostly for tourists he said.
We ate a fabulous meal of dal-bat (rice, lentil soup and veggies) with goat meat as well. Apparently they don’t like goat meat all that much- they would prefer water buffalo or chicken- but I had once said I like goat meat, so they cooked it just for us. Everything was delicious, but the meat was especially flavorful and rich- an incredible curry broth. The only difficulty is that goat meat is ordinarily butchered here with everything intact. Of course the organs and what not are separated out, but the meat is attached to bones, tendons, fat, and fairly thick skin. But this is customary, so I just chewed through it all putting only the bones back on the plate.
After we had finished eating and talking for a bit my roommate Jon was busy learning about Ayruvedic medicine and herbal plants from everyone in the family(who has at least some knowledge about such things). I was just sitting and chatting, greatly entertained by the hosts who were great jokers and laughers full of sass, sarcasm and love for one another. Soon it was 10 pm and time to start getting ready to sleep. It appeared as though it was being assumed we would sleep there that night. Jon said he had some work he needed to do the next morning. One didi said she would be going to Bhatbateni early, so we could just go with her, but Jon insisted it would be easier for him to leave now. But taxis, they said, were not really available at this hour. So they spent the next 20 minutes on the phone finding a friend taxi driver to take Jon home. I figured I would take their invitation and not be in a hurry to get back home. I made sure to ask of course that I was not disturbing anything, especially because Rajan would be leaving for Dubai the next day and maybe wanted family time. They said “what disturbing?” as though there was no such thing.
People started getting in their beds which had acted as couches and benches just minutes before. In the kitchen probably 6 people slept, in the sitting room maybe 7 or 8- four or five on mattresses on the floor, and in the room I was in four slept including myself. There really is no such thing as personal privacy in Nepali culture. No one has ‘their own room’ or hardly even their own bed. The room I is rented by some college students who are not blood relatives, just friends by default of proximity. After playing some music and singing songs in Nepali and English alike (they especially loved hearing me sing the Nepali songs I know and a flamenco rendition of Hotel California- the most infamous American song in Nepal) I undressed to my boxers and said goodnight. Rajan was in the bed with me and two other guys shared the other bed in the room. The fluorescent light was on, one guy was playing a mini electronic keyboard and the other talking loudly. When one of them finally got up to turn off the light 15 minutes later he asked me why I wasn’t asleep, seeming confused.
It took me a while to fall asleep, Rajan was coughing and I was nervous and uncomfortable. I suppose I was not used to sharing a tiny bed with another guy that I hardly know, but to them all of this is completely normal. It really shows how family and community are at the center of life here. The individual is nothing without the family and the group and the way many people live here really embodies this sentiment. “One spit dries quickly, a thousand spits forms a river” a Nepali saying goes.
The next morning I woke up and sat in the sitting room where people were getting ready for the day. One of the didis that works at the produce shop had said she would be leaving at 5 am but it was already 7:30, plans change, things are relaxed- her sister was there so she would go with me and Rajan after we ate dalbat a bit later. I sipped some chia (tea) and then was fed chow-chow (Ramen-like noodles popular for kajaa (non rice meals/snacks)). I watched as all the young students ironed their clothes for the day, they had to be presentable to be allowed in the private school. They studies for their exams that day by repeating monotone phrases they had memorized in an English language hardly decipherable to me, whether or not they actually understood what they were saying is debatable.
Rajan and I left and he showed me around the Swayambu Buddhist stuppa. At the top of 365 steps leading up through the forest is an incredible temple and worship place with a great view of the capital city below as well. The place seems so old, and so well used with hundreds of people coming everyday to worship and tour. We circled around spinning the wheels with ‘om mani paame hum’ inscribed on them which were implanted into the main temple. Rajan explains that he spins the wheel to relieve sadness and tension in the heart, to ask for a life of peace and to make good karma. We saw the monkeys jumping from goddess statue to rooftop and we saw vendors selling incense, and jewelry, beads, ornate miniature statues, singing bowls, and so on to locals and tourists alike. We went inside the monastery where Rajan’s little brother studies and stays and went inside a private prayer room where we made offerings of rupees. Rajan bowed and prayed to a golden Buddhist statue kept encased by glass. Then we paid rupees to light three ghee (clarified butter) candles each in a room radiating heat and light and a pleasant aroma from the hundreds of glowing candles inside.
We walked under hundreds of Tibetan prayer flags hung from temple tops to tree branches. Each flag hung as a prayer for a family member or for peaceful dwelling. The flags swayed gently in the wind, the whole place emanated a rare sense of calm and peace. We came to the other side of the hilltop where there were monks chanting and playing their drums and blasting their horns and konk shells in a way that, although sounds chaotic, loud, screechy and very strange, is actually quite enjoyable and mesmerizing.
We walked down through the forest and saw monkeys picking out little bugs from each other's fur with lightning speed. We passed students walking on their way to school and Rajan told me this was a popular place for college sweethearts to meet. Down at the bottom again, we circled around the entire base of the stuppa, spinning the hundreds of prayer wheels embedded in a wall the whole way around. On the path we walked by people living in nearby shacks of plastic and sticks begging for money and we passed by people castrating themselves by bowing all the way down to the ground, laying belly down, and then pushing and standing back up over and over again countless times in worship. We talked about karma, bhuddism, and his life.
Rajan began telling me parts of his life story, which is becoming more full and clear to me each day. He has been through a lot and yet still remains incredibly positive and joyful. I hope to share a lot of that story here but it may take some time. Rajan is the most educated person in his entire family history having studying one year in college and then having to quit for work and money. Of his peers in his home village, he is one of three to be educated past what is available locally and he says most of his friends are married with children. He is 22, like me, and says that marriage at 15 or 16 is not uncommon in rural areas. While walking around the stuppa spinning the prayer wheels I remember him communicating some of his troubles, how his family has the produce shop but it is not enough for a modern life of buying food, paying for gas, water, clothes, books, hospital trips and so on. Rajan and his family struggle living a poor, hard life and Rajan often carries with him the stress and tension that this life induced upon him he says. So Rajan is on his way to Dubai to make money, travel and see other parts of the world and then what he cant say. He hopes for more education and the ability to bring greater opportunity to his family and fellow Nepalis.
We got back to the flat and had a meal of dal bat- incredibly delicious once more. Rajan had some work to do near the produce shop in Bhaatbhateni for his plane ticket, one of the other sisters was sick and thinking about going to the hospital, so the four of us needed a bus or taxi to get across town.
After walking a block from the apartment we hopped over a long pit being dug in the road- some kind of plumbing work maybe. Next we walked passed a plume of black smoke, the hot day was hotter next to a burning tire in the middle of the road. Continuing along, a few young men walked by dragging large smoldering logs behind them which left a smeared, charred black sooty trail behind. At the next intersection was a thick bamboo pole across the whole width of the road, a couple large pieces of cement had been placed there as well. This is how we found the city for the next 45 minutes as we walked toward Bhatbhateni- where their shop is and my flat.
That day there was a baanda, and so it would not be possible to take a taxi or bus. But walking through the city that day, I felt as though I experienced what it was like here thirty years ago, before the streets were overflowing with constantly honking, swerving, exhaust blowing automobiles. It was a nice walk and the city was quiet for once. The only other time you don’t hear traffic is early in the morning or late at night.
We walked through Asan- a very old part of the city where there is a huge busy bazaar- street vendors and shops selling all sorts of household goods and foods- almost everything what shut down. As we had walked I saw people posting up signs written in Sanskrit, I can’t read that too well yet (I still have to slowly sound it out like a first grader) but I got the jist from talking to people.
The baanda that day came from the Newaris. They have a certain festival they have been celebrating annually for thousands of years and it involves animal sacrifice, dancing, feasting, singing and so on. In the recent budget proposal from the Maoist government they felt their minority group was not well enough represented because their ancient festival was not getting enough funding. So most of the city was shut down, the next day the budget was reappraised and the Newaris got their funding.
When we got to a more open part of the city I was up on a pedestrian bridge when I saw a group of several dozen people marching down the street screaming “haamro sanskriti, haamro desh!”- “our culture, our country!” and some other things I didn’t understand. Just beneath where I was, I saw a mob of people form around an army officer on a motorcycle. They surrounded him and started throwing rocks and hitting him for no apparent reason that I could notice. Then a nearby group of police fully dressed with riot shields and batons broke up the mob and they continued down the street. Then the police seemed to say that the crowd couldn’t go the way they wanted so for a few minutes they negotiated and the crowd got their way and they marched along chanting “our culture, our country”, the riot police marched along side the crowd.
Not too far away we were able to catch a bus and we crammed into an impossibly tight squeeze. We made it to the produce shop and they fed me bananas, papaya and carrots as usual. Rajan met his other sister at the office for his travel business, and I found out later in the day that Rajan would not be leaving for Dubai for another month. Rajan was supposed to be leaving with a group of 10 other Nepalis, but with their big Nepali festival of Dossain coming up and the current festival of Ramadan in the Middle East, the journey had been postponed. “No big deal, just a month, plans change, things are relaxed.”
Sunday, September 28, 2008
A few reflections on my relatively naïve holistic understanding of today's Nepal
Arriving in Kathmandu, Nepal on September 15th, after my 11 days in Kalimpong, India, I took a taxi from the airport to the Fulbright office. On the way to the office we encountered an enormous traffic jam. The traffic is bad enough as it is in the city as a constant chaotic swarm of buses, vans, motorcycles, goats, pedestrians, bicycles, dogs, and cars, but this was different- we hadn’t gone anywhere in minutes and it was jammed up as far as I could see.
I asked the driver what the problem was and he said “baanda chha”- chha means ‘there is’ and baanda literally means ‘closed’. Baanda is one of the words used for one form of political strike / protest which is quite often now in the city. Over the past several years, and especially more recently, at any given time- from one day to the next without any notice at all- any part of the city or its entirety can be completely closed down to automobile traffic. By blocking specific and major intersections the city becomes closed. And many businesses will also close down in protest.
I asked the driver why there was a baanda today. He explained that recently the government had instated a curfew by which all shops, restaurants and bars had to be closed by 11pm. Tamel, considered the tourist district and party / club / bar / discotec center for Nepali Youth, is home to many businesses that would prefer to be open until the early morning hours. The workers of these businesses- waitresses, bar tenders, etc.- protested that day by closing down a few major intersections, what would happen to their jobs, their money, their livelihood with such a curfew which is to date heavily instated every night by a swarm of armed police who are not afraid to used their bats so I hear.
The taxicab driver explained that the government believes that a lot of crime emanates from these late-night alcohol serving establishments, and so the curfew. When I talked briefly with another Fulbrighter about the curfew, he also seemed to think it was a good idea. His notion came from the fact that he and his girlfriend didn’t like to see such westernization in Nepal- he still is searching for “the real Nepal” that he has not been able to find over the last two weeks in this bustling, rapidly modernizing yet simultaneously ancient city.
“The Real Nepal”- Buddhists and Everest and ancient ‘sustainable’ traditions. And where are the authentic Nepalis anyways? Why do they all watch TV and wear jeans and drive cars? “I came here to get away from all of that” I heard another westerner say. So what is “the real America”? Wallstreet and Hollywood, ritz and intellect, sex, power, whiteness and beauty? I don’t feel like a very ‘authentic’ American, although I fit the mold in many ways. Dreaming of authenticity is very dangerous and we must recognize our desires, try to trace their roots. Considering the circumstances, denying people ‘development’ can also be considered a form of oppression. To assume we should have access to observe or engage in an “authentic traditional” culture is another symptom of privilege with various roots and repercussions. But there is no denying the wisdom of ancient ways of life and the proliferation of western hegemony is definitely a source of their demise.
This issue of modernization is such a tricky one to be thinking about here in Nepal. After being here only 10 days I don’t feel especially educated about all of the recent history of the country, something I hope to change very quickly, but I can certainly say that right now I feel as though the situation is a tangled ball of yarn with dozens of different colored strings sprawling out from the congested center.
Kathmandu itself is the melting pot of Nepal. The Newari people are indigenous to the Kathmandu Valley and are the people who originally built the ancient cities and kingdoms of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur- now the major cities in the valley. In the late 1700s the Kathmandu Valley was conquered (or “unified” as the euphemism goes) by the Gorkha Army and from there a Hindu Kingdom prevailed with overlapping caste systems in place (Newari and Hindu/Gorkha). Slowly people from all over the area began to settle in the Valley and today you find people of many different ethnic backgrounds residing in the Valley- Tamang, Rai, Tapa, Gurung, Sherpa, just to name a few. The ways in which these people were integrated into the hierarchical social order is fascinating and complex. Because they were neither priests (Brahmins), warriors (Chetris), merchants (Vishia), untouchables, nor Newaris they were jammed into the lower rungs of complexities oversimplified by the classical Hindu caste system theory. Modern Nepal still struggles with issues inclusiveness concerning the caste system, and class of course is another whole issue. Someone can be rich, but because they are of a low caste, be looked down upon. My foreign eyes are not tuned to notice the subtleties of caste discrimination and oppression but I am sure with time and education I will start seeing things more clearly. Even in the US one needs a certain focus in their vision to see the multiple ways in which race, economics, culture, and law interact and weave together as our grandly unequal and unjust social fabric.
So ethnicity, caste and class. There is one string of yarn.
The major issue in Nepal right now of course if development. Many people claim that people in the cities and in remote rural villages alike need more electricity, better education, better roads, better hospitals, better jobs, more economic power so that Nepal as a nation can prosper and become more powerful within the international community. For decades politicians have promised development programs, but nothing ever seems to happen with these policies. The people lost faith in their parliamentary / Monarchical bureaucracy which just seemed to gobble up money from home and abroad, keeping the rich and the poor poor but without the development and progress many people felt needed. For 15 some years a Maoist lead military force spread inspirational revolutionary rhetoric and anti Royal Army violence throughout the country. Thousands were killed, acres of land seized, hundreds of protests, strikes and other political maneuvers were taken, and eventually the King was ejected. Democratic elections took place about a year ago electing the Maoist to power. Today a constitution is being drafted and yet somehow the faith in government seems to be small. The recent national budget proposal calls for twice as much money as previous ones and includes monumentous goals like dam projects leading to electricity exports to India. Today the Nepal’s capital city loses power 36 hours per week. Many people don’t trust the Maoist either and expect more of the same from the new politicians, big ideas, little action.
So civil war, transition from monarchy to democracy, government, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and development projects is another thread of yarn.
Education. In such a relatively economically poor, developing 3rd world country the education system is lacking. I have yet to see school in rural areas but I have heard they are usually little more than small shacks with small classrooms jamming in dozens of students for one teacher. In a town in the hills there is a 12 year old boy in the seventh grade who is at the top of his class. In the same grade are 15 and 16 year old kids. If this young boy was given a scholarship to study in a good school in Kathmandu he would be placed in the second grade. I recently met a women from Holland who is working with the Nepal Ministry of Education. Currently there is absolutely no teacher training necessary to become a government-school teacher. Graduating from high school is the only qualification. Of course there are certain text books and exams for certain grades. With this system people make up their own lessons and material that can be far from truth or actual reality; unified teacher training, pedagogy, and curriculum are far from sight. She said that they have created great models for putting such programs in place, but Brahmin men make all of the decisions at the end of the day she says. The bureaucracy seemed intolerable to her. From my experience the education system is also very traditional in the sense of not questioning the ‘guru’ who knows all, and memorization without true understanding is very common, especially for younger children. Another thing which shocked me is the Euro-American centrism that, from my limited experience talking with people here, seems to pervade the school system (not too surprising considering dominant forms of ‘development, progress and democracy- all hot topics in Nepal – arose from the West.
Education, another strand.
Media. Walking down the streets of Kathmandu today, media is everywhere. Advertisements mostly come from cosmetics (shampoo, etc) idolizing glowing fair skin as the symbol of beauty, alcohol companies boasting excitement, sex and prestige as the characteristics of these increasingly popular beverages considered entirely risqué to many less than a generation ago, motorcycles which “set millions of hearts aflame”, cell phones which seem to be just about everyone’s access to a personalized modern experience, and packaged food so that life can be fast.
Television of course is incredibly enchanting, addicting, and popular. Almost every Nepali family’s home I have been in boasts a TV on for several hours day and night. Here the glamour of the Western World is displayed in all of its undisputed fabulous glory and in comparison Nepal is oh so poor. Hindi and Nepali TV programs range from sitcoms, to music videos to the nightly news and often times have good local programming. I have spoke to many that say the aspirations and desires of the youth are planted by the media. A huge percentage of young Nepali men are abroad to make money.
Media, another pervasive strand.
Tradition. Hindu and Buddhist dharma are firmly rooted as the pillars of this society. The culture, the language, the daily practices, dress, religious ceremony and philosophies all interwoven as one. The balance that is kept by people entering the middle and upper classes between tradition and modernity is quite unique, many might consider themselves ‘suitably modern’.
Here in the city, it seems that a good proportion of people have their own gardens, they grow various vegetables seasonally to supplement having to buy. Just a couple blocks away from my apartment in the middle of the city is a rice patty in someone’s front yard. Squash vines are common ornaments to nearly every house, climbing on roofs, trees and power lines. The further one gets away the more agricultural land there is. In just a twenty minute bus ride I can be in the hills where the rice patties extend for acres and corn, potatoes, radish and mustard greens grow lusciously as a combination of food for the house and food to be sold for income. In this setting many families have their own cow or water buffalo to provide manure (fertilizer) and dairy for consumption or sale. It is not uncommon to see a 70 year old women or a 8 year old girl carrying a large bamboo basket overflowing with grass and shrubs- a portion of their cow’s daily feed- all of its weight strapped onto their head and draped on their back which leans forward up the steep hills and paved or dirt roads. Others carry loads of brick, dirt or absolutely anything you can imagine in these load carrying baskets.
Just an hour bus ride (10 miles) I can be in a completely rural setting. From the top of tall hills ones sees terraced hillsides interlaced with subtropical forest and green valleys as the foreground to the Himalayan mountains. These terraced hills have provided the sustenance of life to god-knows how many generations who lived in with these hills. Of course things have never been perfect, but the country-side can be very idyllic for someone passionate about healthy food, healthy environments and healthy people. The entire food chain is visible here as well as the incredible agro-ecosystem which people have induced for life. Eating a meals of rice, lentils, vegetables, fruits, wild plants, herbs and spices, fresh dairy and meat products- all from your direct vicinity is quite remarkable to me, not only to think about it, but to feel its pleasure and its nourishment.
But of course these traditions are suitably slipping away. In many villages young men are endangered- they have left to make money. Speaking to young men about these issues, it seems many would rather have money, ride a motorcycle and have the freedom to stay out at a bar past 11pm than to live in the footsteps of their forefathers. As my other Fulbright Fellow friend, studying democratization in Nepal, said yesterday “who wants to live in a mud shack after you have seen modernity?” In many cases, as a byproduct of overpopulation and socially unjust land distribution, the food that can be grown on a family’s land is not enough, as such they have to make money. So you can work for a dollar a day doing manual labor, or 4,000 rupees (65ruppees=$1, so about $60) a month in an office if you are lucky, or be 1 of 11 getting 3,000 rupees/month collecting eggs from a factory of 15,000 chicken (as I recently saw). But the young men will tell you that none of this is enough for the lives that they want.
Once, where rice could not be grown, millet, wheat, buckwheat and drought resistant rice where grown. Today corn, potatoes and other veggies fill the terraced fields that also now taste cheaply produced chemical fertilizers which give higher yield but devitalize and deplete the soil in the long term. A cash oriented system slowly replaces the old value system and as a result people no longer eat the old foods that used to fill their bellies in such good ways, one older Nepali man told me. The same old man, when I asked him why he thought so many young men leave their homes, families, and friends for work and money abroad, said that so many of them watch the television and it shows them the life of wealth- a fabricated illusion. But they think this illusion is a reality, he says, and so they leave to try to make it so. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Agriculture, development, desires, the changing food system, illusions and reality- another long, long yarn of thread.
Of course there are too many threads to be sorted but I am trying to get a holistic understanding of the situation before I choose one area to concentrate on. So far to me the notion of desire is very intriguing to me. It is tragic that so many young men leave the country now for work, and in my next entry, I will tell a story of a recent interaction I had with some young men not too much older than myself.
I asked the driver what the problem was and he said “baanda chha”- chha means ‘there is’ and baanda literally means ‘closed’. Baanda is one of the words used for one form of political strike / protest which is quite often now in the city. Over the past several years, and especially more recently, at any given time- from one day to the next without any notice at all- any part of the city or its entirety can be completely closed down to automobile traffic. By blocking specific and major intersections the city becomes closed. And many businesses will also close down in protest.
I asked the driver why there was a baanda today. He explained that recently the government had instated a curfew by which all shops, restaurants and bars had to be closed by 11pm. Tamel, considered the tourist district and party / club / bar / discotec center for Nepali Youth, is home to many businesses that would prefer to be open until the early morning hours. The workers of these businesses- waitresses, bar tenders, etc.- protested that day by closing down a few major intersections, what would happen to their jobs, their money, their livelihood with such a curfew which is to date heavily instated every night by a swarm of armed police who are not afraid to used their bats so I hear.
The taxicab driver explained that the government believes that a lot of crime emanates from these late-night alcohol serving establishments, and so the curfew. When I talked briefly with another Fulbrighter about the curfew, he also seemed to think it was a good idea. His notion came from the fact that he and his girlfriend didn’t like to see such westernization in Nepal- he still is searching for “the real Nepal” that he has not been able to find over the last two weeks in this bustling, rapidly modernizing yet simultaneously ancient city.
“The Real Nepal”- Buddhists and Everest and ancient ‘sustainable’ traditions. And where are the authentic Nepalis anyways? Why do they all watch TV and wear jeans and drive cars? “I came here to get away from all of that” I heard another westerner say. So what is “the real America”? Wallstreet and Hollywood, ritz and intellect, sex, power, whiteness and beauty? I don’t feel like a very ‘authentic’ American, although I fit the mold in many ways. Dreaming of authenticity is very dangerous and we must recognize our desires, try to trace their roots. Considering the circumstances, denying people ‘development’ can also be considered a form of oppression. To assume we should have access to observe or engage in an “authentic traditional” culture is another symptom of privilege with various roots and repercussions. But there is no denying the wisdom of ancient ways of life and the proliferation of western hegemony is definitely a source of their demise.
This issue of modernization is such a tricky one to be thinking about here in Nepal. After being here only 10 days I don’t feel especially educated about all of the recent history of the country, something I hope to change very quickly, but I can certainly say that right now I feel as though the situation is a tangled ball of yarn with dozens of different colored strings sprawling out from the congested center.
Kathmandu itself is the melting pot of Nepal. The Newari people are indigenous to the Kathmandu Valley and are the people who originally built the ancient cities and kingdoms of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur- now the major cities in the valley. In the late 1700s the Kathmandu Valley was conquered (or “unified” as the euphemism goes) by the Gorkha Army and from there a Hindu Kingdom prevailed with overlapping caste systems in place (Newari and Hindu/Gorkha). Slowly people from all over the area began to settle in the Valley and today you find people of many different ethnic backgrounds residing in the Valley- Tamang, Rai, Tapa, Gurung, Sherpa, just to name a few. The ways in which these people were integrated into the hierarchical social order is fascinating and complex. Because they were neither priests (Brahmins), warriors (Chetris), merchants (Vishia), untouchables, nor Newaris they were jammed into the lower rungs of complexities oversimplified by the classical Hindu caste system theory. Modern Nepal still struggles with issues inclusiveness concerning the caste system, and class of course is another whole issue. Someone can be rich, but because they are of a low caste, be looked down upon. My foreign eyes are not tuned to notice the subtleties of caste discrimination and oppression but I am sure with time and education I will start seeing things more clearly. Even in the US one needs a certain focus in their vision to see the multiple ways in which race, economics, culture, and law interact and weave together as our grandly unequal and unjust social fabric.
So ethnicity, caste and class. There is one string of yarn.
The major issue in Nepal right now of course if development. Many people claim that people in the cities and in remote rural villages alike need more electricity, better education, better roads, better hospitals, better jobs, more economic power so that Nepal as a nation can prosper and become more powerful within the international community. For decades politicians have promised development programs, but nothing ever seems to happen with these policies. The people lost faith in their parliamentary / Monarchical bureaucracy which just seemed to gobble up money from home and abroad, keeping the rich and the poor poor but without the development and progress many people felt needed. For 15 some years a Maoist lead military force spread inspirational revolutionary rhetoric and anti Royal Army violence throughout the country. Thousands were killed, acres of land seized, hundreds of protests, strikes and other political maneuvers were taken, and eventually the King was ejected. Democratic elections took place about a year ago electing the Maoist to power. Today a constitution is being drafted and yet somehow the faith in government seems to be small. The recent national budget proposal calls for twice as much money as previous ones and includes monumentous goals like dam projects leading to electricity exports to India. Today the Nepal’s capital city loses power 36 hours per week. Many people don’t trust the Maoist either and expect more of the same from the new politicians, big ideas, little action.
So civil war, transition from monarchy to democracy, government, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and development projects is another thread of yarn.
Education. In such a relatively economically poor, developing 3rd world country the education system is lacking. I have yet to see school in rural areas but I have heard they are usually little more than small shacks with small classrooms jamming in dozens of students for one teacher. In a town in the hills there is a 12 year old boy in the seventh grade who is at the top of his class. In the same grade are 15 and 16 year old kids. If this young boy was given a scholarship to study in a good school in Kathmandu he would be placed in the second grade. I recently met a women from Holland who is working with the Nepal Ministry of Education. Currently there is absolutely no teacher training necessary to become a government-school teacher. Graduating from high school is the only qualification. Of course there are certain text books and exams for certain grades. With this system people make up their own lessons and material that can be far from truth or actual reality; unified teacher training, pedagogy, and curriculum are far from sight. She said that they have created great models for putting such programs in place, but Brahmin men make all of the decisions at the end of the day she says. The bureaucracy seemed intolerable to her. From my experience the education system is also very traditional in the sense of not questioning the ‘guru’ who knows all, and memorization without true understanding is very common, especially for younger children. Another thing which shocked me is the Euro-American centrism that, from my limited experience talking with people here, seems to pervade the school system (not too surprising considering dominant forms of ‘development, progress and democracy- all hot topics in Nepal – arose from the West.
Education, another strand.
Media. Walking down the streets of Kathmandu today, media is everywhere. Advertisements mostly come from cosmetics (shampoo, etc) idolizing glowing fair skin as the symbol of beauty, alcohol companies boasting excitement, sex and prestige as the characteristics of these increasingly popular beverages considered entirely risqué to many less than a generation ago, motorcycles which “set millions of hearts aflame”, cell phones which seem to be just about everyone’s access to a personalized modern experience, and packaged food so that life can be fast.
Television of course is incredibly enchanting, addicting, and popular. Almost every Nepali family’s home I have been in boasts a TV on for several hours day and night. Here the glamour of the Western World is displayed in all of its undisputed fabulous glory and in comparison Nepal is oh so poor. Hindi and Nepali TV programs range from sitcoms, to music videos to the nightly news and often times have good local programming. I have spoke to many that say the aspirations and desires of the youth are planted by the media. A huge percentage of young Nepali men are abroad to make money.
Media, another pervasive strand.
Tradition. Hindu and Buddhist dharma are firmly rooted as the pillars of this society. The culture, the language, the daily practices, dress, religious ceremony and philosophies all interwoven as one. The balance that is kept by people entering the middle and upper classes between tradition and modernity is quite unique, many might consider themselves ‘suitably modern’.
Here in the city, it seems that a good proportion of people have their own gardens, they grow various vegetables seasonally to supplement having to buy. Just a couple blocks away from my apartment in the middle of the city is a rice patty in someone’s front yard. Squash vines are common ornaments to nearly every house, climbing on roofs, trees and power lines. The further one gets away the more agricultural land there is. In just a twenty minute bus ride I can be in the hills where the rice patties extend for acres and corn, potatoes, radish and mustard greens grow lusciously as a combination of food for the house and food to be sold for income. In this setting many families have their own cow or water buffalo to provide manure (fertilizer) and dairy for consumption or sale. It is not uncommon to see a 70 year old women or a 8 year old girl carrying a large bamboo basket overflowing with grass and shrubs- a portion of their cow’s daily feed- all of its weight strapped onto their head and draped on their back which leans forward up the steep hills and paved or dirt roads. Others carry loads of brick, dirt or absolutely anything you can imagine in these load carrying baskets.
Just an hour bus ride (10 miles) I can be in a completely rural setting. From the top of tall hills ones sees terraced hillsides interlaced with subtropical forest and green valleys as the foreground to the Himalayan mountains. These terraced hills have provided the sustenance of life to god-knows how many generations who lived in with these hills. Of course things have never been perfect, but the country-side can be very idyllic for someone passionate about healthy food, healthy environments and healthy people. The entire food chain is visible here as well as the incredible agro-ecosystem which people have induced for life. Eating a meals of rice, lentils, vegetables, fruits, wild plants, herbs and spices, fresh dairy and meat products- all from your direct vicinity is quite remarkable to me, not only to think about it, but to feel its pleasure and its nourishment.
But of course these traditions are suitably slipping away. In many villages young men are endangered- they have left to make money. Speaking to young men about these issues, it seems many would rather have money, ride a motorcycle and have the freedom to stay out at a bar past 11pm than to live in the footsteps of their forefathers. As my other Fulbright Fellow friend, studying democratization in Nepal, said yesterday “who wants to live in a mud shack after you have seen modernity?” In many cases, as a byproduct of overpopulation and socially unjust land distribution, the food that can be grown on a family’s land is not enough, as such they have to make money. So you can work for a dollar a day doing manual labor, or 4,000 rupees (65ruppees=$1, so about $60) a month in an office if you are lucky, or be 1 of 11 getting 3,000 rupees/month collecting eggs from a factory of 15,000 chicken (as I recently saw). But the young men will tell you that none of this is enough for the lives that they want.
Once, where rice could not be grown, millet, wheat, buckwheat and drought resistant rice where grown. Today corn, potatoes and other veggies fill the terraced fields that also now taste cheaply produced chemical fertilizers which give higher yield but devitalize and deplete the soil in the long term. A cash oriented system slowly replaces the old value system and as a result people no longer eat the old foods that used to fill their bellies in such good ways, one older Nepali man told me. The same old man, when I asked him why he thought so many young men leave their homes, families, and friends for work and money abroad, said that so many of them watch the television and it shows them the life of wealth- a fabricated illusion. But they think this illusion is a reality, he says, and so they leave to try to make it so. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Agriculture, development, desires, the changing food system, illusions and reality- another long, long yarn of thread.
Of course there are too many threads to be sorted but I am trying to get a holistic understanding of the situation before I choose one area to concentrate on. So far to me the notion of desire is very intriguing to me. It is tragic that so many young men leave the country now for work, and in my next entry, I will tell a story of a recent interaction I had with some young men not too much older than myself.
Monday, September 22, 2008
20 Minutes Around the neighborhood
BLOG ENTRY 1 9/22/08 11am
There is nothing like a stream of cold water pouring down your back to bathe and wake yourself up in the beginning of the day. When I first got to my flat here in Bhat Bhateni, Kathmandu, Nepal one week ago the miniature hot-water-heater above the toilet was broken. Since then it has been fixed but I have yet to use it. I rather like the chilly water and the hot-water-heater takes twenty minutes to get ready anyways.
This morning I woke up and did some yoga and stretching in my bedroom, then I walked up stairs and greeted to sun on my flat’s rooftop. The view from the roof is not spectacular but one definitely gets the feeling that they are right in the middle of a big city, and that is where I am. Kathmandu with a quickly growing population of 1 million is one of three bigger cities in the Kathmandu Valley. A couple days ago I had hung up some laundry after washing it by hand under the same faucet that I bathe with (the showerhead is useless) and forget to bring it in before it rained last night- typical evening and nights showers for the end of the monsoon- but I was surprised that by 9am the powerful sun had already dried most everything.
Waking up at 8:30am like I did this morning is rather late for these parts and by the time I was done with some exercises on the roof John, another Fulbright Fellow who is my roommate for the time being while he finds a flat to make his own, was already cooking some breakfast. Ducking under a grapefruit tree hanging low with heavy green fruit I walked out of my typical little gated complex of five or so apartment buildings to my small neighborhood street. Directly across the way are two small shops that seem to do the same thing- sell kaajaa (food that does not include rice) and chia (chai / tea). They are tiny little shacks with a cozy atmosphere. Walking another 45 seconds down the street I pass two tailors working with old fashioned sewing machines with foot power capability (the city looses power about 36 hours/week) and a little general store selling packaged candies, drinks, soaps and other small goodies. The little corner store had people crowded around a small table drinking tea and chatting. I took a short cut down a small alley way hardly wide enough for a bicycle passing another tailor, a little western style bakery (muffins and shitty white bread) on the left and a small Indian restaurant on the left.
This alley takes me to the main street of Bhat Bhateni where I took a left next to a huge tree on a rock stoop, the base of the tree stained red from people doing puja (Hindu / Bhuddist religious worhip ceremony). Past the tree on the right hand side of the road is one of the most expensive restaurants in Kathmandu. The Roadside Cafe sells wood-fired pizza, hummus, and some Nepali snacks (I had the pasta pesto there which really wasn’t any good, but the pizza I tasted was excellent). Just across the street from The Roadside Café is a daadaa, a public water tap. Any time of the morning, day or evening you walk by there will be men, women and children bathing, washing there clothes, and filling up water jugs in stone open room fixed below the road where sometimes creepy men stand above and overlook the women bathing with a towel around them.
This busy street is loaded with traffic and movement. At any given time on any street there can be any or all of the following: pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, huge buses, small minivans, cars, took-tooks (small three wheeled automobile used for public trans), dogs, goats, cows, chickens, and of course trash. Its hectic, loud and scary at times with large plumes of black diesel fumes clouding the streets from the old vehicles in a country with next to no emission standards. There is no real order to the madness. For the most part people drive on the left side of the road but there is a constant battle for position on the streets and it is a constant colorful swirl of all forms of human transportation. It is incredible how many people fit into the public transportation vehicles. A small mini-van I road in the other day somehow crammed in over 30 people packed like sardines standing and leaning over each other, even hanging outside the side door. 12 rupees to go just about anywhere (70 some Nepali rupees to the dollar).
I walked past the couch mender, more tailors, an internet café, small shops a couple schools and many piles of trash to get to a small shop that I knew had the veggies I wanted to buy just a minute or two down the road. This shop like most others are small and open air with an array of goods sprawled out on the ground or behind the counter. I picked up two bitter gourds (I doubt you have ever seen this really bitter squash in the US unless you go to a south-asian market), two large cucumbers and a few tomatoes for 30 rupees (about 40 cents) and walked the other way back home.
I walked by another Fulbright friend named Eli who was on his way to the office, he gave me a fresh muffin from that bakery and said we might see each other tonight. Eli is studying the transition from Monarchy to Democracy currently taking place now in Nepal and thinks that drafting a constitution here will be no easy or small task, but more on that later. Again I walked past the water tap, but passed the alley this time to stay on the main road. Less that a minute walk from small alley a more major intersection. Standing at this intersection, before you is a large mall where things have fixed prices (so there is no bartering and haggling which is otherwise the sometimes fun and entertaining norm) and you can find just about anything under one roof. Its not a mall or even a huge department store by western standards but it is a very new and big shopping experience for Nepalis and the whole complex was started by one Gurung (ethnic group) woman as a small shop like any other but developing over the last 25 years to now have escalators and four stories of clothes, household goods, electronics and foods.
There are a few billboards at the intersections advertising antidandruff shampoo and White Mischief Vodka- “A little mischief, a lot of fun!”. Across from the mall and the billboards is the main mandir (Hindu temple) of the Bhat Bhateni neighborhood. There are a few ornate buildings and intricately carved and colored statues of gods with people handing out, doing puja, praying or just walking by. This is a medium-small mandir, but walking along the street, one frequently encounters mandirs stained red and other colors with people maybe doing puja, they range from a small statue the size of your hand built into the side of a wall or building, to a small brick room with a ganesh statue in it built under a gnarled pipal tree which looks hundreds of years old (like a mandir just down another street), to a huge temples considered word heritage sites.
I turn right at this intersection and stop briefly at a shop that sells fruits and vegetables. I have become friends with the family that owns the place. Every time I walk by they have a friend or customer sitting down and chatting. Whenever I walk by they invite me to sit down. Usually they will feed me fresh papaya, bananas of various assortments, pomegranates, carrots, and apples at the shop while we chat (they even had me over for dinner the other night- but that is a whole other story), but this time I just sat down a minute or two and then left telling them that I was cooking breakfast. I walked away with some cilantro they gave me for free- they have given me so much, they are so friendly, its incredible!
Walking away from their produce shop I am soothed by smell of incense burning at the mandir across the street. Within seconds the calming cent of incense is replaced by a thick, pungent aromas and a noisy machine rattling as it grinds spices of turmeric, coriander and cumin in a tiny shop with three women dressed in red saaris, squatting as they wait to by their share. My apartment is just a minute or two walk from the produce shop and along the way I poked my head through a open air curtain into a small restaurant I have been going to for khaanaa (food that includes rice) to say hello to the super friendly short and stout didi with a traditional nose ring (didi meaning older sister- everyone is either your younger or older brother or sister). Here they serve dal baat, the traditional Nepali meal of rice, lentil soup and vegetables eaten with the hands, of course food is not really considered food culturally and linguistically unless there is a mountain of rice on your plate. It’s a great place to eat as much as you want (they serve you as many times as you please) for 50 rupees (65 cents), and meet local people. The didi gave me a huge smile and asked when I was coming next as she washed saag (vegetable greens) under a faded poster of Avril Lavigne on the wall behind her and a funky feathered chicken scurrying at her feet.
Just around the corner some people said hello to me as I walked by. The two guys were standing in front of the neighborhood barbershop, one of them had shaved my beard the other day and they recognized me and asked how I was, have you had tea this morning, have you eaten yet? No I said, I was about to cook. I asked if they had, no they had had tea and kaajaa, but no food; they would soon go to the room they share nearby and cook and eat dal bhaat. At their barber shop a beard save is available for 30 rupees I got this combined a good face wash /message and mediocre back, head, arm massage- 45 minutes 100 rupees. Around the next corner I turned left into my gate shuffling by the white dog that is always hanging around at the foot of our gate. There are stray dogs everywhere sticking to their own territory and they are most active at night.
By the time I got back to the flat not more than 20 or so minutes had passed since I left to buy the vegetables, and I could have made it back in less. But what is the hurry? its nice having things close and friendly people all around. No one ever seems to be in a rush here and I am trying to get on that wave length- so different from the busy nature of American life.
John was adding beans, peas, tomatoes, and potatoes to the pressure cooker, later adding freshly stoned ground garlic-ginger-hot pepper paste and turmeric fried in pungent mustard oil. The 25lbs stone I bought for $3.50 is a great thing to have to grind spices and fist size rocks of pink Himalayan crystal salt sold in the bazaar. I cooked the bitter gourd with fenugreek, onion, and turmeric, cut up the cucumber and we made an acchar- a freshly made condiment also called chutney; although we think of chutney as a pickle here the two words are synonymous and can mean either. The acchar was of freshly ground coconut (I drank its water yesterday), lime juice, cilantro and salt. We ate the delicious meal with churri, a crunchy pre-cooked, flattened and dried rice popular for kaaja. I don’t know if I will ever be able to make food taste like the Nepalis do. I know how they cook, but there is just something they have, the right touch, the experience of cooking dal bhat their entire lives, that makes there food such as incredible experience to eat.
There is nothing like a stream of cold water pouring down your back to bathe and wake yourself up in the beginning of the day. When I first got to my flat here in Bhat Bhateni, Kathmandu, Nepal one week ago the miniature hot-water-heater above the toilet was broken. Since then it has been fixed but I have yet to use it. I rather like the chilly water and the hot-water-heater takes twenty minutes to get ready anyways.
This morning I woke up and did some yoga and stretching in my bedroom, then I walked up stairs and greeted to sun on my flat’s rooftop. The view from the roof is not spectacular but one definitely gets the feeling that they are right in the middle of a big city, and that is where I am. Kathmandu with a quickly growing population of 1 million is one of three bigger cities in the Kathmandu Valley. A couple days ago I had hung up some laundry after washing it by hand under the same faucet that I bathe with (the showerhead is useless) and forget to bring it in before it rained last night- typical evening and nights showers for the end of the monsoon- but I was surprised that by 9am the powerful sun had already dried most everything.
Waking up at 8:30am like I did this morning is rather late for these parts and by the time I was done with some exercises on the roof John, another Fulbright Fellow who is my roommate for the time being while he finds a flat to make his own, was already cooking some breakfast. Ducking under a grapefruit tree hanging low with heavy green fruit I walked out of my typical little gated complex of five or so apartment buildings to my small neighborhood street. Directly across the way are two small shops that seem to do the same thing- sell kaajaa (food that does not include rice) and chia (chai / tea). They are tiny little shacks with a cozy atmosphere. Walking another 45 seconds down the street I pass two tailors working with old fashioned sewing machines with foot power capability (the city looses power about 36 hours/week) and a little general store selling packaged candies, drinks, soaps and other small goodies. The little corner store had people crowded around a small table drinking tea and chatting. I took a short cut down a small alley way hardly wide enough for a bicycle passing another tailor, a little western style bakery (muffins and shitty white bread) on the left and a small Indian restaurant on the left.
This alley takes me to the main street of Bhat Bhateni where I took a left next to a huge tree on a rock stoop, the base of the tree stained red from people doing puja (Hindu / Bhuddist religious worhip ceremony). Past the tree on the right hand side of the road is one of the most expensive restaurants in Kathmandu. The Roadside Cafe sells wood-fired pizza, hummus, and some Nepali snacks (I had the pasta pesto there which really wasn’t any good, but the pizza I tasted was excellent). Just across the street from The Roadside Café is a daadaa, a public water tap. Any time of the morning, day or evening you walk by there will be men, women and children bathing, washing there clothes, and filling up water jugs in stone open room fixed below the road where sometimes creepy men stand above and overlook the women bathing with a towel around them.
This busy street is loaded with traffic and movement. At any given time on any street there can be any or all of the following: pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, huge buses, small minivans, cars, took-tooks (small three wheeled automobile used for public trans), dogs, goats, cows, chickens, and of course trash. Its hectic, loud and scary at times with large plumes of black diesel fumes clouding the streets from the old vehicles in a country with next to no emission standards. There is no real order to the madness. For the most part people drive on the left side of the road but there is a constant battle for position on the streets and it is a constant colorful swirl of all forms of human transportation. It is incredible how many people fit into the public transportation vehicles. A small mini-van I road in the other day somehow crammed in over 30 people packed like sardines standing and leaning over each other, even hanging outside the side door. 12 rupees to go just about anywhere (70 some Nepali rupees to the dollar).
I walked past the couch mender, more tailors, an internet café, small shops a couple schools and many piles of trash to get to a small shop that I knew had the veggies I wanted to buy just a minute or two down the road. This shop like most others are small and open air with an array of goods sprawled out on the ground or behind the counter. I picked up two bitter gourds (I doubt you have ever seen this really bitter squash in the US unless you go to a south-asian market), two large cucumbers and a few tomatoes for 30 rupees (about 40 cents) and walked the other way back home.
I walked by another Fulbright friend named Eli who was on his way to the office, he gave me a fresh muffin from that bakery and said we might see each other tonight. Eli is studying the transition from Monarchy to Democracy currently taking place now in Nepal and thinks that drafting a constitution here will be no easy or small task, but more on that later. Again I walked past the water tap, but passed the alley this time to stay on the main road. Less that a minute walk from small alley a more major intersection. Standing at this intersection, before you is a large mall where things have fixed prices (so there is no bartering and haggling which is otherwise the sometimes fun and entertaining norm) and you can find just about anything under one roof. Its not a mall or even a huge department store by western standards but it is a very new and big shopping experience for Nepalis and the whole complex was started by one Gurung (ethnic group) woman as a small shop like any other but developing over the last 25 years to now have escalators and four stories of clothes, household goods, electronics and foods.
There are a few billboards at the intersections advertising antidandruff shampoo and White Mischief Vodka- “A little mischief, a lot of fun!”. Across from the mall and the billboards is the main mandir (Hindu temple) of the Bhat Bhateni neighborhood. There are a few ornate buildings and intricately carved and colored statues of gods with people handing out, doing puja, praying or just walking by. This is a medium-small mandir, but walking along the street, one frequently encounters mandirs stained red and other colors with people maybe doing puja, they range from a small statue the size of your hand built into the side of a wall or building, to a small brick room with a ganesh statue in it built under a gnarled pipal tree which looks hundreds of years old (like a mandir just down another street), to a huge temples considered word heritage sites.
I turn right at this intersection and stop briefly at a shop that sells fruits and vegetables. I have become friends with the family that owns the place. Every time I walk by they have a friend or customer sitting down and chatting. Whenever I walk by they invite me to sit down. Usually they will feed me fresh papaya, bananas of various assortments, pomegranates, carrots, and apples at the shop while we chat (they even had me over for dinner the other night- but that is a whole other story), but this time I just sat down a minute or two and then left telling them that I was cooking breakfast. I walked away with some cilantro they gave me for free- they have given me so much, they are so friendly, its incredible!
Walking away from their produce shop I am soothed by smell of incense burning at the mandir across the street. Within seconds the calming cent of incense is replaced by a thick, pungent aromas and a noisy machine rattling as it grinds spices of turmeric, coriander and cumin in a tiny shop with three women dressed in red saaris, squatting as they wait to by their share. My apartment is just a minute or two walk from the produce shop and along the way I poked my head through a open air curtain into a small restaurant I have been going to for khaanaa (food that includes rice) to say hello to the super friendly short and stout didi with a traditional nose ring (didi meaning older sister- everyone is either your younger or older brother or sister). Here they serve dal baat, the traditional Nepali meal of rice, lentil soup and vegetables eaten with the hands, of course food is not really considered food culturally and linguistically unless there is a mountain of rice on your plate. It’s a great place to eat as much as you want (they serve you as many times as you please) for 50 rupees (65 cents), and meet local people. The didi gave me a huge smile and asked when I was coming next as she washed saag (vegetable greens) under a faded poster of Avril Lavigne on the wall behind her and a funky feathered chicken scurrying at her feet.
Just around the corner some people said hello to me as I walked by. The two guys were standing in front of the neighborhood barbershop, one of them had shaved my beard the other day and they recognized me and asked how I was, have you had tea this morning, have you eaten yet? No I said, I was about to cook. I asked if they had, no they had had tea and kaajaa, but no food; they would soon go to the room they share nearby and cook and eat dal bhaat. At their barber shop a beard save is available for 30 rupees I got this combined a good face wash /message and mediocre back, head, arm massage- 45 minutes 100 rupees. Around the next corner I turned left into my gate shuffling by the white dog that is always hanging around at the foot of our gate. There are stray dogs everywhere sticking to their own territory and they are most active at night.
By the time I got back to the flat not more than 20 or so minutes had passed since I left to buy the vegetables, and I could have made it back in less. But what is the hurry? its nice having things close and friendly people all around. No one ever seems to be in a rush here and I am trying to get on that wave length- so different from the busy nature of American life.
John was adding beans, peas, tomatoes, and potatoes to the pressure cooker, later adding freshly stoned ground garlic-ginger-hot pepper paste and turmeric fried in pungent mustard oil. The 25lbs stone I bought for $3.50 is a great thing to have to grind spices and fist size rocks of pink Himalayan crystal salt sold in the bazaar. I cooked the bitter gourd with fenugreek, onion, and turmeric, cut up the cucumber and we made an acchar- a freshly made condiment also called chutney; although we think of chutney as a pickle here the two words are synonymous and can mean either. The acchar was of freshly ground coconut (I drank its water yesterday), lime juice, cilantro and salt. We ate the delicious meal with churri, a crunchy pre-cooked, flattened and dried rice popular for kaaja. I don’t know if I will ever be able to make food taste like the Nepalis do. I know how they cook, but there is just something they have, the right touch, the experience of cooking dal bhat their entire lives, that makes there food such as incredible experience to eat.
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