Nepali countryside
I got back from Boughdeau yesterday. I found a computer which seems to be working well so maybe now I will be able to post my experiences in the Nepali countryside.
I went to B on invitation of Sanjeev Thapa whom I befriended shortly after I came to Kathmandu and whose family lives in B and where he was born and raised. Now he lives in Thamel in Kathmandu and owns a store with his brother. He invited me to his cousin's wedding. I got the proper outfit for the ocassion: a knee-length, emroidered, long-sleeved shirt and narrow-legged pants. It is a traditional Nepali dress for women although the culture is so mixed here (Nepali, Tibetan and Indian) that many women wear sarees and typical Tibetan dresses also. We got to the village three days before the event. To get to the village we took a bus which took us 30 km east and then we got a jeep for the next 30 km since there is really no paved road up the mountains. We then walked the last few km to reach the village, taking a narrow path in the mountains. Another way to B is to walk up and down the hills for about 35 km and we took this path when going back to Kathmandu. The village is high in the mountains and from there one can see the whole Himalayan mountain range. It looks beautiful with the snow-capped mountain tops - very majestic. Nobody in the village could tell me exactly the altitude of the village but I would say it's about 3,000 km above the sea level judging by how I felt when I got there. There's no electricity there, no running water (but there's a nice clear-watered river in the valley and there are a few streams going through the village), no stoves except open fire in the house which people use for cooking and heating in the evening. The days are warm and sunny and the evenings and nights are colder but never more than maybe minus 1 or 2 Celsius. People live in clay and hay houses which are two story high: the ground floor is a room where the family eats and gathers for talks and warming up and the first floor is for sleeping. There's minimal amount of furniture (only beds really) and kitchen utensils. The family sits on mats spread out on earthen floor. The villagers farm the land on tarases and grow mainly wheat, corn, potatoes and beans. They also keep chickens, goats and buffalos - a huge, black, almost hairless cows. The diet is very simple and same most of the time: boiled corn flower, rice, potato cury and beans. There's also buffalo milk, milk curd, and cheese. Very rarely people eat meat. There are four tiny stores in the village (wood shacks) and the asortment of goods for sale is very limited. I mentioned it in one my previous blog entries. The stores also serve as cafes: people (mostly men) gather there in the evenings to drink milk tea (and play something which resembles pool). Life in the village follows rather strict rules. Women work in the house and take care of kids, food preparation, they carry wood to make the fire and water for cooking and cleaning the pots. They also take care of the farm animals. Men work the land. Like in Kathmandu the life of men and women seems to be running separate paths. Even in the evenings men stay together, walking around the village, visiting neighboors, playing pool... Women stay in the houses, during the day they visit each other. There's no close human contact such as kissing or hugging, even between parents and children. Even when the kids live in a city and come to visit their parents they don't hug them or kiss them to greet them or say good bye but only put their forheads to their parents' feet to show respect. Life in the village at first looks simple and peaceful, however... Having travelled a bit now I personally think that people are the same in their core everywhere in the world, that they are very social creatures and crave human touch and contact and that every strict set of cultural rules which forbids that contact have negative effect on them. When we got to the village Sanjeev told me: "Life is so peaceful here. People are so happy." But the more time I spent in the village the more it seemed to me like maybe it is a peaceful place but not so happy. Everyone wears the same clothing, the same jewerly, all women have holes in their left nostrils, the same safety pin attached to their neckleses... Marriages are arranged. Religious holidays and festivals must be obeyed. Everybody belongs to a specific caste. You have to follow a strict rule and all is well if you do. So in the end I thought that people are neither happy nor sad, they just follow the rules. To be happy you have to be able to make choices for yourself or be like the people in the Ecuadorian jungle where there are no rules to follow, no social or caste system. Sanjeev's family is big because his father had seven wives at the time where polygamy was legal. In Boughdeau there are many cousins, uncles and aunts and some family lives abroad as well. Sanjeev's father died 13 years ago and his mom now lives with a daughter in law and three kids of another brother who also died some time ago. Saros is 14, Sagar is 9 and Susmita is 10. They are wonderful kids. Since women and men worlds don't mix (in Kathmandu is becomes more popular for men to have women friends and vice versa but it is still impossible in the countryside) Sanjeev was spending time with his childhood male friends and I was spending time mostly with the family and specifically with the kids. We went to the water mill to mill the corn grain, to the river to hunt for stones of various shapes and colors, we walked on the slopes of the mountains with the goats, jumped on the river stones and looked for little fish and all kinds of plants and herbs (we found mint and made mint tea in the evening to everyone's delight). I felt really good in their company. [In general everywhere I go I feel best around kids (and dogs) - they are spontaneous, inventive, creative and know how to enjoy life. Grown-ups are, for the most part, such boring creatures in comparison...] They all speak English because English is compulsory at their village school. Also, when I went there the first time crowds of kids were following me everywhere I went because no tourists get to these regions and many of them didn't see a white person before. It was fun - I felt like a move star - but at times annoying when I wanted to pee (only few villagers have outside toilets so there are virtually no bathrooms or toilets there) and couldn't get rid of them to perform these hm... intimate acts. Peeing in haste is stressful... Because kids never get hugged or kissed here the three Thapa kids got close to me because I just couldn't help it - I had to hug them. I could see how they craved the wormth they never get from their family. Especially Susmita liked when I combed her hair, when we washed hands together holding a jar of water for each other, when I put some cream on her face burned by the sun... When I was leaving the first time I told the kids I would bring them some children's books and some crayons and paper for drawing (there's no libary and no toys of any kind in the village) and that's really why I wanted to go there for the New Year's Eve - to deliver what I promised I would bring them. So I got some books in Nepali and in English, color pencils, coloring books, etc. and we spent the afternoon of January 1st drawing, painting and reading a simplified version of "The Call of the Wild" (one of my favorite childhood books). I dramatized my reading of the book and the kids, along with neighbors' kids who came for the reading, listened with their mouths open about the great dog Buck and his adventures. I got very attached to the Thapa kids and I really hope that they study well and eventually go to high school in Kathmandu and have adventurous lives. I also had my "personal assistant" named Sunil, a boy of 8 years, who followed me everywhere and always wanted to carry my bag with toiletries when I went to take a bath in the river, who picked fruit for me, and wanted to be of service whenever his family didn't need him to do some farm work. For him I also got some paper and coloring materials and I think that a present made him believe in good witches who use some magic and bring presents to kids. It feels good to be a good witch... I was told Sunil skips school sometimes so I told him to attend it everyday and he promised he would.
I greeted the New Year with Saros, Sanjeev, his two friends Razan and Esbi (the rest of the family went to bed early since they don't celebrate the western New Year's Eve) and we toasted with milk tea to our dreams for 2006 to come true under the very dark sky with billions of stars in it. Esbi, being a good singer, sang some Nepali songs for us. We then got into the family room and talked until 1 am, sitting around the campfire. It was very nice. One of Sanjeev's uncles is a famous Shaman (his father and his grandfather and his grandfather were also Tibetan Shamans) and he did the future fortelling ceremony for me and said that my future is bright for 2006 so I welcomed the New Year especially warmly...
While in the village I also practiced reiki. Sanjeev's mom has arthritis in her hand and I did reiki for her (I also got some Ayurvedic oil for massage and aromatherapy) and she said it made her feel much better. I also treated a few other patients and one of them, an older uncle, whom I reikied in the morning came back in the evening saying he felt so good (he had pain in his shoulder from a fall) he wanted to be reikied again! It made me feel so good knowing my reiki power is growing! I am not ready yet to go to the second level of reiki - I need to reiki more patients - but I can feel myself that the healing energy is flowing.
About the Buddhist wedding. Buddhist and Hindu religions and traditions are mixed in the Himalaya mountains. The villages around B are of mixed population: Tibetan and Nepali. There are many mixed marriages (Sanjeev's mom is Tibetan and father was Nepali). Some weddings are Hindu and some are Buddhist. The Buddhist wedding of Sanjeev's cousin seemed to me a rather solemn affair in comparison to our Eastern European weddings where people eat and drink all night, and dance until they drop. The bride's family lives about 10 km away from B so we walked there early in the morning. We got there around 8 am and were given breakfast. The groom was sitting in front of the house, dressed in white, and there was some holy food displayed in front of him. The bride joined him, dressed in heavily embroidered red saree-type dress, around 11 am and then a Shaman performed all kinds of witchcraft to ensure their happy marriage. Then the family and friends wishes the couple all best and put sticky rice on their forheads. About 100 people, family and neighbors, were sitting in front of the house eating and talking, not really mingling with each other but sitting in small circles. Around 2 pm some of the people got on jeeps to be driven part of the way to B, to the groom's village and the rest of the people walked the 10 km. We walked because the jeeps were so overcrowded that I prefered to walk. When everyone got to B the whole ceremony was repeated. And after that everyone went back to the village of the bride and then came back again to B. Phew! Lots of walking instead of dancing! There was no music of any type during all the celebrations. It was interesting for me to see but I am so used to weddings with dancing and much enjoyment that I missed that part.
In the meantime, between my two visits to B, I found a great Tibetan woman who is practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her name is Fatima and I was told she is about 80 years old but looks as if she was 50. I am taking acupuncture and it is different than the acupuncture I got in NY. She is so skillfull that it seems she puts all needles in half a minute. Amazing. It hurts a bit when she puts them but then, when I lie down with needles stuck in me and lamp above me, I am floating in some other world... The needles are put on my front and in the back I get the low current massage and afterwards the nurse massages my back with some nice-smelling oil. It's heaven. Especially after the treckking to and from B. To be as skilfull as Fatima one must have a lot a lot of experience.
In my next entry I will write about the political situation in Nepal.
I went to B on invitation of Sanjeev Thapa whom I befriended shortly after I came to Kathmandu and whose family lives in B and where he was born and raised. Now he lives in Thamel in Kathmandu and owns a store with his brother. He invited me to his cousin's wedding. I got the proper outfit for the ocassion: a knee-length, emroidered, long-sleeved shirt and narrow-legged pants. It is a traditional Nepali dress for women although the culture is so mixed here (Nepali, Tibetan and Indian) that many women wear sarees and typical Tibetan dresses also. We got to the village three days before the event. To get to the village we took a bus which took us 30 km east and then we got a jeep for the next 30 km since there is really no paved road up the mountains. We then walked the last few km to reach the village, taking a narrow path in the mountains. Another way to B is to walk up and down the hills for about 35 km and we took this path when going back to Kathmandu. The village is high in the mountains and from there one can see the whole Himalayan mountain range. It looks beautiful with the snow-capped mountain tops - very majestic. Nobody in the village could tell me exactly the altitude of the village but I would say it's about 3,000 km above the sea level judging by how I felt when I got there. There's no electricity there, no running water (but there's a nice clear-watered river in the valley and there are a few streams going through the village), no stoves except open fire in the house which people use for cooking and heating in the evening. The days are warm and sunny and the evenings and nights are colder but never more than maybe minus 1 or 2 Celsius. People live in clay and hay houses which are two story high: the ground floor is a room where the family eats and gathers for talks and warming up and the first floor is for sleeping. There's minimal amount of furniture (only beds really) and kitchen utensils. The family sits on mats spread out on earthen floor. The villagers farm the land on tarases and grow mainly wheat, corn, potatoes and beans. They also keep chickens, goats and buffalos - a huge, black, almost hairless cows. The diet is very simple and same most of the time: boiled corn flower, rice, potato cury and beans. There's also buffalo milk, milk curd, and cheese. Very rarely people eat meat. There are four tiny stores in the village (wood shacks) and the asortment of goods for sale is very limited. I mentioned it in one my previous blog entries. The stores also serve as cafes: people (mostly men) gather there in the evenings to drink milk tea (and play something which resembles pool). Life in the village follows rather strict rules. Women work in the house and take care of kids, food preparation, they carry wood to make the fire and water for cooking and cleaning the pots. They also take care of the farm animals. Men work the land. Like in Kathmandu the life of men and women seems to be running separate paths. Even in the evenings men stay together, walking around the village, visiting neighboors, playing pool... Women stay in the houses, during the day they visit each other. There's no close human contact such as kissing or hugging, even between parents and children. Even when the kids live in a city and come to visit their parents they don't hug them or kiss them to greet them or say good bye but only put their forheads to their parents' feet to show respect. Life in the village at first looks simple and peaceful, however... Having travelled a bit now I personally think that people are the same in their core everywhere in the world, that they are very social creatures and crave human touch and contact and that every strict set of cultural rules which forbids that contact have negative effect on them. When we got to the village Sanjeev told me: "Life is so peaceful here. People are so happy." But the more time I spent in the village the more it seemed to me like maybe it is a peaceful place but not so happy. Everyone wears the same clothing, the same jewerly, all women have holes in their left nostrils, the same safety pin attached to their neckleses... Marriages are arranged. Religious holidays and festivals must be obeyed. Everybody belongs to a specific caste. You have to follow a strict rule and all is well if you do. So in the end I thought that people are neither happy nor sad, they just follow the rules. To be happy you have to be able to make choices for yourself or be like the people in the Ecuadorian jungle where there are no rules to follow, no social or caste system. Sanjeev's family is big because his father had seven wives at the time where polygamy was legal. In Boughdeau there are many cousins, uncles and aunts and some family lives abroad as well. Sanjeev's father died 13 years ago and his mom now lives with a daughter in law and three kids of another brother who also died some time ago. Saros is 14, Sagar is 9 and Susmita is 10. They are wonderful kids. Since women and men worlds don't mix (in Kathmandu is becomes more popular for men to have women friends and vice versa but it is still impossible in the countryside) Sanjeev was spending time with his childhood male friends and I was spending time mostly with the family and specifically with the kids. We went to the water mill to mill the corn grain, to the river to hunt for stones of various shapes and colors, we walked on the slopes of the mountains with the goats, jumped on the river stones and looked for little fish and all kinds of plants and herbs (we found mint and made mint tea in the evening to everyone's delight). I felt really good in their company. [In general everywhere I go I feel best around kids (and dogs) - they are spontaneous, inventive, creative and know how to enjoy life. Grown-ups are, for the most part, such boring creatures in comparison...] They all speak English because English is compulsory at their village school. Also, when I went there the first time crowds of kids were following me everywhere I went because no tourists get to these regions and many of them didn't see a white person before. It was fun - I felt like a move star - but at times annoying when I wanted to pee (only few villagers have outside toilets so there are virtually no bathrooms or toilets there) and couldn't get rid of them to perform these hm... intimate acts. Peeing in haste is stressful... Because kids never get hugged or kissed here the three Thapa kids got close to me because I just couldn't help it - I had to hug them. I could see how they craved the wormth they never get from their family. Especially Susmita liked when I combed her hair, when we washed hands together holding a jar of water for each other, when I put some cream on her face burned by the sun... When I was leaving the first time I told the kids I would bring them some children's books and some crayons and paper for drawing (there's no libary and no toys of any kind in the village) and that's really why I wanted to go there for the New Year's Eve - to deliver what I promised I would bring them. So I got some books in Nepali and in English, color pencils, coloring books, etc. and we spent the afternoon of January 1st drawing, painting and reading a simplified version of "The Call of the Wild" (one of my favorite childhood books). I dramatized my reading of the book and the kids, along with neighbors' kids who came for the reading, listened with their mouths open about the great dog Buck and his adventures. I got very attached to the Thapa kids and I really hope that they study well and eventually go to high school in Kathmandu and have adventurous lives. I also had my "personal assistant" named Sunil, a boy of 8 years, who followed me everywhere and always wanted to carry my bag with toiletries when I went to take a bath in the river, who picked fruit for me, and wanted to be of service whenever his family didn't need him to do some farm work. For him I also got some paper and coloring materials and I think that a present made him believe in good witches who use some magic and bring presents to kids. It feels good to be a good witch... I was told Sunil skips school sometimes so I told him to attend it everyday and he promised he would.
I greeted the New Year with Saros, Sanjeev, his two friends Razan and Esbi (the rest of the family went to bed early since they don't celebrate the western New Year's Eve) and we toasted with milk tea to our dreams for 2006 to come true under the very dark sky with billions of stars in it. Esbi, being a good singer, sang some Nepali songs for us. We then got into the family room and talked until 1 am, sitting around the campfire. It was very nice. One of Sanjeev's uncles is a famous Shaman (his father and his grandfather and his grandfather were also Tibetan Shamans) and he did the future fortelling ceremony for me and said that my future is bright for 2006 so I welcomed the New Year especially warmly...
While in the village I also practiced reiki. Sanjeev's mom has arthritis in her hand and I did reiki for her (I also got some Ayurvedic oil for massage and aromatherapy) and she said it made her feel much better. I also treated a few other patients and one of them, an older uncle, whom I reikied in the morning came back in the evening saying he felt so good (he had pain in his shoulder from a fall) he wanted to be reikied again! It made me feel so good knowing my reiki power is growing! I am not ready yet to go to the second level of reiki - I need to reiki more patients - but I can feel myself that the healing energy is flowing.
About the Buddhist wedding. Buddhist and Hindu religions and traditions are mixed in the Himalaya mountains. The villages around B are of mixed population: Tibetan and Nepali. There are many mixed marriages (Sanjeev's mom is Tibetan and father was Nepali). Some weddings are Hindu and some are Buddhist. The Buddhist wedding of Sanjeev's cousin seemed to me a rather solemn affair in comparison to our Eastern European weddings where people eat and drink all night, and dance until they drop. The bride's family lives about 10 km away from B so we walked there early in the morning. We got there around 8 am and were given breakfast. The groom was sitting in front of the house, dressed in white, and there was some holy food displayed in front of him. The bride joined him, dressed in heavily embroidered red saree-type dress, around 11 am and then a Shaman performed all kinds of witchcraft to ensure their happy marriage. Then the family and friends wishes the couple all best and put sticky rice on their forheads. About 100 people, family and neighbors, were sitting in front of the house eating and talking, not really mingling with each other but sitting in small circles. Around 2 pm some of the people got on jeeps to be driven part of the way to B, to the groom's village and the rest of the people walked the 10 km. We walked because the jeeps were so overcrowded that I prefered to walk. When everyone got to B the whole ceremony was repeated. And after that everyone went back to the village of the bride and then came back again to B. Phew! Lots of walking instead of dancing! There was no music of any type during all the celebrations. It was interesting for me to see but I am so used to weddings with dancing and much enjoyment that I missed that part.
In the meantime, between my two visits to B, I found a great Tibetan woman who is practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her name is Fatima and I was told she is about 80 years old but looks as if she was 50. I am taking acupuncture and it is different than the acupuncture I got in NY. She is so skillfull that it seems she puts all needles in half a minute. Amazing. It hurts a bit when she puts them but then, when I lie down with needles stuck in me and lamp above me, I am floating in some other world... The needles are put on my front and in the back I get the low current massage and afterwards the nurse massages my back with some nice-smelling oil. It's heaven. Especially after the treckking to and from B. To be as skilfull as Fatima one must have a lot a lot of experience.
In my next entry I will write about the political situation in Nepal.
posted by Asia Kabat at 10:53 PM
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