Kathmandu's Living Goddess

We got back from Darjeeling in time for the festival of Indra Jatra. Celebrated only in Kathmandu, this festival marks the end of the monsoon season and the beginning of the morning mists, needed for a bountiful growing season and harvest. The festival also honors Kathmandu’s living goddess, Kumari.

            Oh wait, I haven’t mentioned the fact that there’s a living goddess here? Right. She resides in the Kumari Bahal in Durbar Square, the heart of Kathmandu. The Kumari is selected from a group of girls between the ages of 4 and puberty with specific physical and astrological characteristics, and subjected to a series of tests designed to scare and frighten the little girls in order to determine the true Kumari. The one who remains calm throughout the tests is named the new living goddess. Once chosen, the girl, or should I say goddess, moves into the Kumari Bahal and is unable to touch the ground or leave the building except for a few occasions a year. Her reign ends when she reaches puberty and beings her period and the search for the next Kumari begins.

            One such occasion for the Kumari to leave her palace home is Indra Jatra. On this day, the Kumari is escorted throughout the city on a large, colorful and flower-covered chariot (as she is unable to touch the ground). People, including all major government officials (the few that there are in Nepal these days), gather in Durbar Square to see her transported through the square.

            We were granted the day off from classes for Indra Jatra. A group of us met in the early afternoon to head over to Durbar Square to get a glimpse at the celebrations. The streets leading to the square were packed with Nepalis and bideshis (foreigners) alike. It was a mob scene. Once in the square we discovered that besides the areas the police were keeping open for the chariot to pass through, almost all the available standing space was occupied. Our tardiness ended up working out in our favor. The police, armed with large guns, long bamboo sticks, and large plastic shields, walked us over to the stairs of a temple in a good location and made others make room for us – in the front row! We waited patiently, clutching our wallets, cameras, and other valuables, for the arrival of the Kumari along with the throngs of others.

            When the Kumari, aboard her chariot, finally entered the main square, the crowds cheered. She was hardly visible, with the group of men surrounding her on the chariot acting as body-guards and shoving away people who got to close to the procession. Her forehead was painted red with a large gold tika in the center and dramatic black make-up had been applied to her eyes. The chariot did not remain in the square long, and before we knew it, the celebration had completed. All in all, it was kind of bizarre. To think of what it must have been like for the Kumari herself. She looked slightly terrified when she entered the square – and understandably so.

            When I returned home, my little sister greeted me at the door and looked me up and down and then started laughing. I asked what was so funny. “You were on Nepali TV tonight! I just saw you in Durbar Square on the news!” She announced. She described my location and whom I had been sitting next to, and sure enough, she was right. Funny.

            In other news, the 4^th Annual Kathmandu Marathon is next Saturday, the 2^nd of October. There’s also a half marathon and a 5K. I think I have decided to register for the half marathon, despite the fact that I haven’t run in the month I’ve been in Nepal (women don’t really run here and so it’s not totally culturally accepted to go for a jog). The last day of registration is this coming Saturday, so I’ve got some time to think it through. I know I could run the 5K, but I’m kind of in the mood for a challenge. I’m able to understand that this sort of thing will be Type Two Fun. It won’t be Type One, the type of Fun that is really enjoyable while it’s happening. It’s the type of Fun that won’t be fun until a few days later, but in the end I will (hopefully) be able to look back at it as a good accomplishment and indeed, fun. We’ll see.


The Kumari herself:

Some faces in the crowds:

Mountains, Gandalf, Mountains!

(Disclaimer: I wrote this one a few days ago but haven’t had internet access until now, hence the double-entry day today.)

            We didn’t travel aboard the Darjeeling Limited.

            Instead, we departed Kathmandu last Wednesday on Buddha Air flight 954 bound for Bhadrapur, a small city in the south-east corner of Nepal. Bhadrapur is located in the Terai, the plains region of this country, and at a grand ol’ altitude of 300ft. We then loaded into three jeeps to make the four-hour journey to Darjeeling, India, a small city in the foothills of the Himalayas and famous for its chiya (tea) and situated at an elevation of nearly 7000ft. Think about that. We traveled that difference in altitude in a matter of a few hours. Now picture what the road must have looked like. Starting off flat, the road quickly hit the base of hills and our climb commenced. The road switchbacked up the terrain, through lush jungle-like forests and alongside tea plantation after tea plantation. Our driver had decked out his jeep with brown shag carpet covering his dashboard and had an affinity for the sweet tunes of Shakira. Hearing the familiar songs distracted from the nausea-inducing road, which never remained going straight for very long before switching back in the opposite direction with potholes that often spanned the entire width of the road. The road wasn’t very wide to begin with, and when we encountered vehicles heading down the hill, our car, being the one away from the edge, had to pull all the way off the road to allow the other to pass.

            We did eventually make it to Darjeeling. Up until 1816, Darjeeling, and the area of India west of the Teesta River, was a part of Nepal. That year, Nepal’s king signed a treaty with the British government and agreed to grant that sliver of land to India after Nepal lost a brief war with the Brits. But Darjeeling still feels like Nepal to this day. In fact, the language spoken is Nepali (which enabled us to continue to improve our speaking). Darjeeling today is a part of the Indian state of West Bengal, which stretches all the way to Calcutta. Most people in the Darjeeling Hills feel unrepresented in the government because they remain so far away, both physically and culturally, from the political center of their state, located hundreds of miles away. For this reason, there has been an effort (basically since Independence in 1947) to create a separate state, known as Gorkhaland (Gorkha is the name given to Nepali-Indians). All over Darjeeling and surrounding towns, green-white-and-yellow flags fly and “WE WANT GORKHALAND” signs are posted on the sides of buildings. It doesn’t appear like anything will change in the near future.

            Darjeeling is located in very close proximity to the Himalayan peak Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain. Unfortunately, Darjeeling is perpetually in a giant cloud and views of the mountain can only be captured early in the morning, if at all. We figured it would be worth it and arose before the sun one morning and made our way to a lookout to watch the sunrise and cross our fingers that we would be graced with a view of the range. We picked the right morning. It was beautiful. There’s something about big mountains (especially some of the biggest); they have a way of making me realize just how small I really I am in the scheme of things. Check out the pictures.

            It wouldn’t be a visit to Darjeeling with out delving into the tea culture and cultivation. The next time you pour yourself a steamy mug of Darjeeling black tea, think of this region in northeast India with more tea plants than you could ever fathom. I hope I’m not spoiling anyone’s pristine image of this world-famous type of tea by divulging the fact that tea is in fact not native to the area. The British began to settle in the Darjeeling Hills as an escape from the heat in Calcutta and were so taken by the climate that they decided to attempt to grow tea as an export for revenue from the colony. They transplanted plants from a Chinese variety of tea plant, which ended up being perfect for the conditions. And thus started the Darjeeling Tea phenomenon. We visited a tea cooperative and a tea plantation during our weeklong stay. Both were Fair-Trade certified and organic – and available on the international market. The tea cooperative, known as Mineral Springs, consists of a group of individual farmers who grow tea on their property, along with ginger, pineapple (who knew pineapples grow on the ground?), cardamom, and other crops and submit only their tealeaves to the Mineral Springs cooperative for a profit. The tea plantation, Salimbong, is an old-fashioned British colonial estate, spanning hundreds of acres and growing only tea plants. It employs people from the surrounding areas (nearly every woman in town as tea-pickers) and has a factory for the actual drying, crushing, and packaging of the tea. We were able to watch the entire process. The machinery used looked like it should be included in a museum exhibit entitled “19^th-Century Darjeeling Tea Factory” and not actually utilized for the process. But they all seemed to function properly.

            If you’re lucky, I’ll share some of my Darjeeling tea bounty with you when I return.

            We returned to Kathmandu after a week of living in a cloud, and drinking delicious chiya. While it was a great escape from the heavily polluted air and congested streets of Kathmandu, I must say I was ready to get back “home.”

A Teej Weekend

A few observations from Kathmandu this weekend:

            A woman drops the three overflowing bags of trash she’s been carrying in the large garbage pile, reeking of rotten and decaying food, on the street next to the temple she then enters to do her daily puja (prayers).

            A group of Buddhist monks, men clad in maroon and orange robes who have renounced all worldly goods and possessions in honor of the dharma, drive away from a monastery in a brand-new Toyota SUV.

            Women celebrate the final, and most important, day of Teej, a festival honoring and celebrating women, by fasting for twenty-four hours in honor of their husbands.

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            Teej represents the devotion of a wife to her husband. According to Hindu tradition, the goddess of Parvati fasted and prayed for days to demonstrate her dedication to her husband, Shiva. Today, the festival spans three days (or longer, depending on the family), and is celebrated by women getting together with the other women in their extended family or friends to dance and sing and pray. As I mentioned above, the final day of Teej is marked by a fast in honor of their husbands, or, for unmarried women, in the hope of finding a good husband.

            This past weekend was Teej here in Nepal. Thursday and Friday were the days of dancing and singing, and Saturday was the day of the fast. Nearly all schools in Nepal had classes cancelled for those days. My program, however, remained on regular schedule with Nepali language classes and lectures on Thursday and Friday. My mother, sister, didi (older sister, but technically my young aunt who lives with us), and younger brother all departed on Thursday for my mother’s family’s house outside of the city to celebrate Teej. I stayed at home with my father and cousin, Bikash, who also lives with us. It felt like living in a bachelor pad. We slept in and watched soccer or cricket matches on the little TV in our living room. We discussed politics and the differences between American and Nepalese culture. We drank raksi (Nepali whisky) in the evening and ate goat meat with our daal bhat (rice and lentils) – the first meat I’ve had since arriving in Kathmandu.

            On Sunday morning after the rain stopped, following a breakfast of, you guessed it, daal bhaat, my father instructed me to grab my rain jacket (just in case) and camera and follow him out the door. He probably also included information about where we were headed, but my limited Nepali prevented me from understanding that part of the dialogue. With no other option, I did as I was told.

            It turned out he wanted to show me the sites of Kathmandu from the eyes of a Nepali, not a Western tourist. Our first stop was the Dharahara Tower in Sundara, an area in central Kathmandu. Originally built in 1832, this tall, white tower is over 200 feet tall and was intended to broadcast messages from the government of the city to the people. From the Dharahara Tower, we walked north to Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, the site of the old palace and home to numerous temples and now a major tourist destination. In order to bypass the 300 rupee fee to enter the square, enforced by men in uniforms carrying large and intimidating guns (a common sight here in Nepal), my father lead me through several “bango-tingo” alleyways to a side entrance without a ticket booth. I will try and post pictures soon because there is really no way to describe it without images. It was really refreshing to be in the company of a Nepali and avoid the constant hassling of local vendors trying to sell various trinkets, saying “please, madam, only 200 rupees.” I could have walked around for hours, but my father ushered me out of the square after only twenty minutes or so.

            Our next destination was not quite as historical as the previous two, but equally as cultural perhaps: The Kathmandu Super Mall. Just as any shopping mall in the US may have a courtyard outside the main entrance, this mall had a large garden surrounding the gateway. Unlike the courtyards outside of American malls, the Kathmandu Mall had plastic deer and dinosaurs (yes, dinosaurs) in the garden as well as a temple with large figures representing Hindu gods and goddesses. Once inside, my father led me up the escalators to the top and fourth floor, and around a few of the floors before he said it was time to leave. The amount of time and attention paid to the Kathmandu Mall was comparable to his tour of Durbar Square and the Dharahara Tower. It was an interesting experience.

            Just as I thought I was avoiding Teej celebrations all together, the next stop on my father’s tour was his own family’s celebration just outside of the city. We walked inside the house and saw about twenty-five women, all clad in beautiful and elaborate red saris and forearms covered in bangles, sitting cross-legged in a large circle. On the outside of the circle sat a Hindu priest, reading some sort of Hindu prayer. With each line he read, the women would toss various items into the center of the circle: everything from holy water, to rice, to flowers, to rupees, to bananas or apples, to color powders. Only the married women in the family gathered for the puja. A large mound of colorful debris accumulated in the center. Soon after we arrived, the puja finished and the women got up and went around to each other, giving each other tikas (a red smudge of the colored power, sometimes mixed with a little bit of water and uncooked rice, applied to the center of the forehead). I too received a tika. After all of the puja remnants had been cleared away (the rupees, whole fruit, and uncooked rice went to the priest), the women gathered for a meal before the dancing commenced. It was getting late in the afternoon at this point and I had a paper to finish and print so my father and I departed soon after.

            When we arrived back home in Samakushi, the rest of my family had returned from the weekend of Teej-ing. As much as I liked the bachelor pad set up, I was grateful to see my mother and sisters back again. By the time I went to sleep last night, I had had daal bhaat three times, a record thus far. I intend to try and limit my daal bhaat consumption to just once today.

            I’ll try to post some more pictures soon. We leave on Wednesday for a weeklong excursion to Darjeeling, India, where we’ll be visiting tea cooperatives and learning about the Gorkhaland movement in that area of West Bengal. I’ll write again after!

Take care,

Leti.

A Few Snapshots

I haven't taken a many pictures in Kathmandu yet, but here are some from the village in which we had orientation, the view from my rooftop room, and the Buddhist stupa in Boudha, a Tibetan area outside of Kathmandu.

View on a monsoon morning from my room

My room

Buddhist Stupa in Boudha, Kathmandu

Bango-Tingo

            A week ago today I moved in with my Nepali family here in Kathmandu. It feels like I’ve been living in Samakushi, the name of my neighborhood here, for much much longer. I have become to feel more at home with my family, and as my Nepali improves, my comfort level increases. Each day I learn more and more vocabulary and verb conjugations during our two and a half hours of Nepali class, and each dinner consists of longer conversations in Nepali with family members. Having started from scratch with Nepali a little over a week ago, progress seems to be happening at exponential rates these days.

            There’s a Nepali term for zig-zagging, orderless, and chaotic streets in Kathmandu: “Bango-tingo.” If you were to look at a street map of the city (I always keep mine in my bag, easily accessible – though it is rarely all that helpful), it would not resemble the grid-like structure of most cities in the U.S. There is one large road that encircles the majority of city, called the Ring Road. The entire Ring Road is approximately 25km. My house is located just outside the Ring Road to the North. With the exception of perhaps five major city streets, the majority of roads within the Ring Road do not go North-South or East-West. A road will begin heading north but by the time you’ve reached its end, you’re more than likely to be back to where you started. Not to mention that many of the streets dead-end, which always keeps things interesting. The key to navigating the bango-tingo streets of Kathmandu is to keep in mind the direction in which you’re headed and take smaller, side roads to maintain that direction. It really would be easier if I had a compass. But alas, I neglected to pack one and thus will continue to bush-wack my way through Kathmandu for the next three months.

            I have walked from central Kathmandu out to my house in Samakushi several times over the past week. Each time, without trying, I have taken different routes home. Each time, I am always quite positive I’m following the same route I’ve taken before. But without fail, I either make one wrong turn or walk past the road on which I’m supposed to turn right. And sooner or later, I discover that I’ve made my way to Thamel Marg or Gholupakha, back in central Kathmandu instead of Samakushi, which is to the north of central Kathmandu. It is always quite the adventure, but never a bad one. I imagine that soon I will get the hang of it and discover (and remember) a good, efficient route to and from my house, but in the meantime, I enjoy walking around the city and seeing new parts of it on foot. I have been told that it should take me about an hour to walk from my house to the Program House in Naxal (located nearer to the center of the city). My best time so far has been 1.25 hours. My worst, over 2 hours. I will keep you posted on my progress.

            Because of the inconsistency of the amount of time it takes me to walk between Samakushi and Naxal (and the fact it is still monsoon season and the rains come during the night and linger into the morning), I have resorted to taking the bus most mornings. In order to reach the Program House at 7:45am, I leave my house after a quick breakfast of toast and tea at 7am and walk 5 minutes to the Ring Road to catch the first of two buses. There is a small bazaar located on the Ring Road near the bus stop, with vendors selling all sorts of vegetables and fruit, as well as everything from bangles and combs to exotic birds. As I said before, the monsoon season continues (as I write this there is a major thunderstorm happening), which makes for very muddy streets. Avoiding large puddles and splashes of mud from passing motorbikes and automobiles, I wait for the red and white bus that will take me around the Ring Road to Maharangunj, where I get off and wait for my next bus that takes me into the city to Naxal. The first bus from Samakushi is always crowded. I can hardly make my way onto the bus and have yet to find a seat. The bus is packed with men heading to work for the day. Occasionally there will be women on the bus, but I have yet to see other Westerners. There’s another great Nepali term that means both “crowded” and “full” and can apply to a crowded bus or street or a full stomach: “uukos muukos.” That first bus is always uukos muukos. But fortunately, I am not on it for more than 10 minutes. The second bus is often less crowded and I normally can find a seat. On that portion of the ride, the bus passes by several embassies, including the Chinese, Mexican, and Danish ones. We also go along side the Police Headquarters, which spans several blocks and is also my queue to tell the driver to slow down for my stop. 

Life in Kathmandu is always exciting.

I hope all is well,

Leti.

            

Settling in

Greetings from Kathmandu! After a four-day group orientation in a small town 22km outside of the capital called Pharping, we arrived in Kathmandu yesterday morning. While Pharping was beautiful, quiet, and free of tons of traffic and other Westerners, it was really nice to drive into Kathmandu and know that we were settling into the city where we're living for the next two and a half months. Our program center is located in an area of the city called Naxal, just east of the Royal Palace (once the home of the royal family but since they were ousted within the last five years, it now functions as a museum). We were given a tour of the neighborhood and then were almost immediately picked up by our families. After only three days of Nepali classes, our communication skills were quite limited. All of the other students in my group live in clusters near one another but for some reason, I found out I was placed with a family all alone and about an hour walk from Naxal - or a 30 minute bus ride - the farthest away of all of the group.

It turned out to be just fine. My cousin-uncle (a Nepali term for male cousin) Bikresh (who lives with my family) and my two siblings, Gaurab (15 year old boy) and Gamina (13 year old girl) came to the program center to pick me up. We took a taxi to our neighborhood, Samakhushi. The streets are extremely narrow and cars are constantly playing games of chicken - waiting until the last minute for one to pull off and allow the other to pass. We finally made it to the house in which I'll be living until November. It is very nice, by both Nepali and American standards. My host mother, Padma, and aunt, Sarita, were home to greet us. My father, Gopi, is away in Bangladesh on business. He apparently owns a company called Mega Medicals and travels a lot. We have a yellow lab named Ricky. My bahini (Nepali for "little sister") is very talkative and speaks English very well. My bhaai (younger brother) and uncle-cousin also speak English but are more shy. We spent the afternoon sitting in the living room, looking through photographs and exchanging English and Nepali words and expressions. Our dinner consisted of daal bhat (a staple of the Nepali diet), vegetables, and curd. It was delicious. I can't wait to improve my Nepali and be able to communicate more effectively. I will try to upload photos soon.

That's all for now. Hope this finds you all well.
-Leti.