Kathmandu's Most Endangered Species

It's festival time again in Nepal, which means a time of animal sacrifice and, of course, the eating of meat. The animal of choice for both activities? The goat. Every morning for the past week and a half I have left my house and witnessed the butchering of multiple goats on the ten-minute walk to my bus stop. They're everywhere. Dead goats. Live goats. But when you see the few living ones you know it's just a matter of days before it's their turn. Today is one of the final days of the festival and I've haven't seen any living goats yet. I swear, any goat that had been living in Kathmandu before the start of this festival is no longer alive. Or has just a day or two left at this point.

There are three different Nepali words for goat. Bakraa, the femal goat. Khasi, the male castrated goat. Bokaa, the pure male goat - desired for sacrificial practices.

The name of this festival is Dasain, the most important in the Nepali calender. Depending on who you talk to, it lasts between ten to fifteen days. Think of the excitement level in the US during the month of December and then multiply it by ten or so and you'll only begin to get a sense of the momentousness of Dasain. The first few days are filled with pujaa (prayer/worship) and shopping. This is the time of year when everyone gets fitted for new saris or kurtaas or suits. Children get new clothes and toys. And then everyone wears their new duds for the remainder of the holiday. You can see the shift in attire during Dasain on the streets of the city. A few days later, the pujaa for all mechanical equipment takes place - worship for all cars, generators, motorbikes, guns, you name it. Goats are sacrificed and the blood is sprinkled on whatever tools a family owns and then they are decked out with garlands of flowers and colorful powders. All cars around the city these days have flower wreaths tied to their grill. The purpose of the pujaa is to prevent accidents and offer appreciation for their services.

At the end of the first week, families in Kathmandu begin to leave the city, in their pujaa-ed vehicles, for their gaau (home village) for the real celebrations. The majority of my host family left for the village, approximately ten hours west of Kathmandu by car, last week. My aamaa (Nepali mom) has been quite sick lately - complications from a surgery she had two months ago - and due to the amount of pain she has been in and the lack of medical facilities in close proximity to the gaau, she and my little sister, Garima, remained behind. Needless to say, she was not pleased to miss out on the usual holiday festivities. Instead of swinging on pings (the Nepali word for swing - another part of this festival - the construction of massive swings out of bamboo shoots), flying kites, and celebrating with her entire family in the village, she's stuck back in Kathmandu with her sick aamaa and American didi (big sister). The only thing comparable I could think of was the year we missed Jody and Dan's Millennium New Year's Party because Miles and I had pink eye. But that doesn't begin to convey the disappointment Garima must be feeling. So this weekend I tried to be sympathetic and understanding. Despite the fact that she is a thirteen-year-old girl and thus a part of my least favorite demographic, I've really grown to love Garima over the past month and a half. She's funny, very bright, and extremely helpful. But this weekend my patience was truly tested. Because aamaa is in such pain, we've been housebound with shitty Hindi soap operas and talent shows for entertainment. And a deck of cards. Don't get me wrong, I love playing cards. I'm a big fan of cribbage and hearts and gin. I enjoy a good game of cards. But Garima has an attention span for card games like I've never seen before. When I come downstairs in the morning, she has the deck ready and such convincing doe-eyes that I have no other choice but to smile and join her. As soon as I finish my lunch plate, she has started dealing the next game. It's impressive, her ability to find entertainment in card games after hours, days, of playing. I had to teach her how to play Solitaire so that I could have a break and a chance to do some reading.

My other means of escaping Garima's incessant desire to play cards is to help my aamaa with cooking and cleaning. She's been so uncomfortable due to the pain, so her mobility is quite limited. I sit with her and chop vegetables or roll out dough for roti (mine are never as perfectly circular as hers - though it makes her laugh to see me try, and fail). We've had very simple meals this week, which is fine by me, and I enjoyed trying to ease her load a bit. The typical command of a Nepali aamaa to her guests, children, and husband is "basnus, basnus," which means "sit down, relax," as she goes about the household chores and prepares chiya or a food. I've appreciated the opportunity to take over the dishwashing or the cooking and say to her "basnus, basnus."


Dasain seems to be winding down right now. For a few days, Kathmandu felt truly empty. With everyone out in the gaau, shops were closed and the amount of vehicles on the streets was so drastically less than the usual chaotic bustle of traffic, it was quite jarring. Kathmandu almost felt quiet for a couple days. Today marks the first day in a few that stores and shops are open again and it's clear that people are beginning to return to the city and the normal pace of life. Except for the fact that there are no longer goats on the streets of the city. They're all dead, I'm sure of it.

Just as Kathmandu returns to normal, my program is headed out of town for a couple of weeks. On Wednesday morning we will fly from Kathmandu to Pokhara, a smaller city northwest of here and the gateway for the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. We will stay in Pokhara just one night before we board another plane, a very small one, to Jomsom, in the Mustang region of Nepal. The flight is supposedly just 20 minutes in length but during that time we fly from 2700 ft to 9000 ft and along one of the world's most dramatic gorges, the Kali Gandaki, between the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges. I'm a little nervous.

We then head slightly south to a small village called Tukuche, where we will stay for six nights or so with families. Mainers: This gaau is known for it's coffee brandy. I'll let you know how it compares to Allen's. I have a hunch it will be a little tastier.

After the village homestay we will first head north to visit Mukinath, a religious pilgrimage site, and then embark on a trek from south of Tukuche down to Pokhara.

In sum, I'll be out of contact until the beginning of November. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward feeling the mountain air and having Himalayan views for the next two weeks.

A few photos from the past few weeks:

A Dasain swing, or ping, constructed from bamboo shoots

tito-miTho

            It’s been a little while since I’ve written. It’s not that I’ve been super preoccupied, just busy getting into a real fluid rhythm here.

            Let me give a re-cap of the Kathmandu Half Marathon. It took place two Saturdays ago – October 2^nd. After much deliberation (perhaps not enough), I decided to register for it. My family didn’t quite understand the idea of paying to run in a race – “They should pay you!” – and they found the idea of me running 21 kms very entertaining. As I mentioned before, there are very few women who run in Nepal, or exercise at all.

            During the week leading up to the race I began to reconsider whether or not it was actually a good idea and how realistic it was that I’d survive the distance, not having run in over a month and not having run more than six miles at a time during the summer. But Friday night came around and I decided I was still committed and thus set my alarm for 4:45am and hit the hay early.            

            There were universal forces working against me however. I woke on my own in the morning and pushed the indigo light on my alarm clock. It was 5:23am! My alarm had not gone off. I was supposed to be at the national stadium before 6:00am! I scrambled out of bed, pulled on my shorts and t-shirt, grabbed my race number bibs (534) and some cab money, and ran downstairs just as my host father was coming up the stairs to my room to wake me. As I laced up my footwear for the race, a pair of barely worn Teva hiking trail shoes, I again wondered if this was a foolish endeavor and if the fact that my alarm had malfunctioned was a sign that I should go back to sleep and forget about the run.

            But, no. I was awake and was going to at least try to get to the start before the races commenced. My host father and I started the ten-minute walk from our house to the chowk (the intersection of my road and the major Ring Road). He was more awake than I and thus more concerned about getting me to the stadium on time so began to pick up the pace to a slow jog. As we approached the chowk, my father hailed the first microbus (more like a minivan) he saw and gave specific directions to the driver. A petite woman sitting by the door glanced up and held up her sneakers (real running shoes) and said she was running as well. My father told me to stick with her just as the door slide closed at the engine started.

            If the alarm failure was a bad omen, happening upon a bus with a woman running in the race was definitely a good sign. She was Nepali (up until that point I didn’t know that Nepali women runners existed) and running the full marathon – her third. As we ate our granola bars, she babbled on in Nepali about running. I think she was as excited as I was to discover a fellow runner on route to the race. I caught parts of it and was actually able to converse a little. She asked me how long I had been training. I said I hadn’t trained. I asked her, she said she had been training for a month. I wasn’t sure if that should make me feel better or worse.

            I was lucky to have found her due to the fact that we had to switch microbuses at one point and then encountered a traffic jam near the stadium and had to disembark and jog the rest of the way. When we arrived at the start, we discovered we had arrived in plenty of time. The run wouldn’t begin for another half hour. I tracked down the other kids from my group running the 5k and wished my new friend good luck in the marathon as I went over to meet up with them. As we did minimal stretching, I checked out my competition. There weren’t nearly as many runners for the half and full marathon as I had been expecting. There seemed to be an even mix of bideshis (foreigners) and Nepalis, but only about seventy people total.

            The time came to begin to congregate behind the starting line. I was finally feeling awake as I waited for the race to begin, as Bideshis were turning on their iPods, and Nepalis tightening the laces of their shoes. It was strange to be so close to the starting line. Unlike the Boston Marathon, where we shuffled along surrounded by throngs of people for twenty minutes before crossing the starting point and turning on our stop watches, I crossed the start of the Kathmandu Half/Full Marathon approximately fifteen seconds after the bell sounded.

            And off we went. Although they did not close the roads completely, the race was fairly well organized by Nepali standards. They had water stations every mile after starting after mile three and had police officers and race officials stationed to direct traffic and point runners in the right direction. The euphoria of running for the first time in over a month set in and kept me from stressing about the amount of miles I had to cover – at least for a little while.

            Running through the streets of Kathmandu was completely different than anything I’ve ever experienced before. The massive amounts of air pollution, as well as the 4000+ ft elevation – on top of the lack of training – made it also one of the most challenging runs I’ve ever done. But that’s what I had been looking for. As I said before, the amount of runners was quite small, and the group thinned out fairly quickly. For the majority of the thirteen miles I was running on my own, with only a few runners in sight. It essentially felt as though I had personal police escorts for a private run through the city. At mile four I passed a goat sacrifice at a local mandir (temple), I dodged bushels of bananas being tossed off the top of a bus at mile six, and I narrowly escaped an attack from some mangy looking street dogs at mile ten.

            I won’t lie and tell you that it was an easy feat to accomplish and that it was pain-free by any stretch of the imagination. I began to develop blisters at mile five, was ready to quit after an hour, and pulled a muscle in my foot at sometime after mile nine. But I made up my mind that I would continue to move my feet until I no longer could. And so I did finish, and did so without walking, and in a time I felt good about. In English, we would call it a bittersweet experience. The Nepali term for it is tito-miTho.