My New Hillside Homestay

I'm now in Kirtipur, where I'll be living for the next 9 months. It's in the hills just outside of Kathmandu and I'm enjoying the cleaner air and lofted view around the valley. My host family has been extremely friendly and welcoming, telling me that if I was staying 1 day I would be a guest, but since I'm staying longer I am part of the family. I think I will really enjoy living there. The first floor is rented out to some university students. The second floor is the 3 bedrooms for me and the 5 family members, and a small prayer room. The third floor has a small kitchen and a small sitting room. The bathroom is on the roof. This isn't always ideal when it's pouring rain and you have to go outside to get to it, but it has an actual toilet that flushes, so I'm quite lucky. There is also a separate shower up there and an outdoor sink.

I feel like I'm settling in pretty well here, despite being confused by a great many things happening around me every single day. I'm sure in time I'll get used to the routines and comings and goings, but at the moment it's all very perplexing. For one thing, my host sister is one of 5 sisters all with children of their own. Her father has 3 brothers and 3 sisters. All of these and other somehow related family members are always appearing and staying and eating and sometimes sleeping and leaving and it's hard to keep track of them all. Especially since they don't ever use first names. It's always "Didi" (elder sister), "Bahini" (younger sis), "Daai" (older brother) or "Bhai" (younger brother). These are very loose terms as even cousins and aunts and uncles get called this a lot of the time. One day maybe I'll figure it out.

My first two days here the schools were closed for festivals, so I had a good introduction to some of the funnest parts of the culture. Gaijaatra was on Wednesday and involved people dressed as animals and wearing masks to make performances in the main square as well as children dressed up to make processions down the streets collecting handfuls of rice with maybe a coin or two hidden within from women standing in doorways. We went as a big group to watch all of this and the kids were very excited. Standing in the crowd around the square I think is the most compressed I've ever felt amongst a large mass of strangers. Everyone else seemed quite comfortable all jammed together despite being unable to even raise shoulder. The children in the processions reminded me slightly of halloween, but with some pretty major differences at the same time. We'd been watching from the 2nd floor of one of the relative's houses when my host sister called for us to go. I started to get up, but the other relatives held me back and protested more strongly for me to stay. They had just brought out snacks and were enjoying throwing all kinds of questions at me from "how much do you weigh?" to "do you believe in God?". And that's how I was to find myself drinking cup after cup of homemade rice beer (very sweet and very strong) and sharing some grilled fish and vegetables until finally the uncle and brother-in-law (I think) were satisfied that they knew me well enough for me to go.

Food seems to come at such unexpected times. I haven't yet figured it out and maybe there's no real schedule at all. And we hardly ever eat all at the same time. As a result meals tend to take place over several hours, with one person eating and then 10 minutes later someone else being served a plate of food and then maybe 30 minutes later a couple other people. I've become slightly nervous about entering the kitchen because almost every time I do I'm told to sit and served some tea and a snack or a mound of rice with vegetables and lentils. However, sitting on the floor (there are no chairs) in the other room can be equally as dangerous as food is just as likely to be brought out towards anyone hanging out in there. As you can imagine, "pugyo" (enough) has become one of my most frequently used words as relatives are always trying to see how much 2nd and 3rd helpings they can pile on my plate.

I've been enjoying all the emails and comments! It's great that I can still feel quite connected despite being so far away. Nepal is a full 12 hours ahead of Calgary, give or take 15 minutes, so it really is the opposite side of the world. They also use a completely different calendar here. It's now the year 2067 and about the middle of the 5th month. I'm not sure why they started counting 57 years before we did, but it makes it somewhat difficult to keep track of dates.

I've finally managed to get some photos up, but none yet of Kirtipur. Check them out on the right! They're all from the first 2 week orientation. I'll work on getting some newer ones up too.

The Real Nepal

We've just returned back to our hostel in Kalanki after 2 nights in the village of Lamatar, where they sent us to experience "real Nepali culture" outside Kathmandu. Since real Nepali culture seems to involve fresh air and friendly people, I've decided I like it quite a lot. We stayed with a farmer named Sulav way up in the hills South of the capital who, along his 10 family members, has 4 cows, 7 goats, an orange tree, papayas, tomotoes, a small rice field, an abundant vegatable patch and a pear tree. Basically everything they need to live very happily day to day. Our first 24 hours there included a village walk along skinny dirt tracks past rice fields and duck ponds, a visit to the orphanage and plenty of time spent with the children, and a 4 hour hike up 1000m higher to enjoy noodles at the top and what would be phenomenal views of all of Kathmandu valley as well as the himalayas far to the north if it weren't for all the mist, fog and rain clouds all around (still it was very beautiful just looking at the tops of the green mountains). I really enjoyed the hike despite the leeches. Markos, from Finland, was my hero that day as he always was quickest with the matches to burn the blood-suckers off when needed. I made a point of walking close to him all day. The coolest part was the odd temple we'd come across hidden away in the hills somewhere. I think the idea is that the harder you have to work to get to a place for worshipping, the more appreciative the God will be and therefore more likely to hear your prayers.

On our second night, a group of girls and a couple of the women performed some Nepali dances for us. They were very spirited and entertaining and we enjoyed the glimpse further into their culture. It ended in a large dance party, where we managed to wow them with how pathetically awful our dancing was and they continued to bounce and spin in perfect rhythm and well-coordinated movements. They were quite taken aback when Ben (Ohio) busted out his "robot" moves. The looks on their faces made it clear they weren't sure whether they should jump in and help show this guy (again) how dancing is supposed to look or whether they should run for the nearest doctor, preferably one trained in dealing with seizures. Luckily, they stuck around long enough to see that he wasn't having any sort of weird medical fit and the dancing continued. It all amounted to a great deal of fun and laughter.

When we awoke this morning we were taught how to make the traditional dish, daal bhat, which is always a heaping mound of rice, always lentil soup, and then usually some small dish of vegetables and a small either spicy or sour clump of "achar" (meaning pickle, but possibly containing almost anything). Speaking of the food here, it seems the goal each day is to make us believe we will never eat a full meal again by starting us off with just a cup of tea then 20 minutes later maybe giving us a piece of bread, and then perhaps after climbing uphill for 2+ hours serving up a bowl of noodles that might equate to 1/4 of a packet of Ramen or Ichiban back home. Then for the rest of the day they force so much food upon you that you start to think it would be good if maybe you never did eat again. For example, yesterday I was happily munching on a pear around 2pm and content to not have anything else again before dinner when all of a sudden massive plates of daal bhat started emerging from inside the house. And then of course seconds were heaped on top of that before I'd even hardly made a dent in the first serving. I tell you, it's difficult eating this much delicious food at all kinds of unexpected times.

There was a Nepal-wide "banda" (strike) on Sunday, the day before we were to go to the village, so for a brief moment we weren't sure we'd still be able to get there. Bandas usually are politically-driven ploys, quite famously common in Nepal, where all the shops are forced to close, no traffic is allowed on the roads, and schools, hotels, restaurants etc. aren't allowed to let anyone in. It is announced beforehand whether it will be for a defined period (often just one day) or unlimited (will not end until certain terms or conditions are met). Luckily for us, Sunday's was just a one day strike, and anyway wasn't much of a serious one at that. It was put on by some of the smaller political parties in Nepal rather than the Maoists, so people didn't feel it was quite as risky to be found disregarding it. By noon shops were open, 2pm there were motorcycles on the road and even taxis could be found if needed. It appears anybody can call a strike almost any time they feel like it, and now that a prime minister has failed to have been named after at least 4 or 5 elections the instability may be causing some anxiety amongst some of the people or parties.

I've got some great pictures that I'm dying to share, but they'll have to wait at least until next week when I've arrived at my host family's and can dig the computer cable out of the very furthest depth of my backpack. I'm concerned if I tried it now there'd be no hope of fitting it all back in again and I'd rather not arrive on the doorstep with overflowing plastic bags containing all my bits of miscellaneous gear.

We've got 4 days in the jungle starting tomorrow, which according to other volunteers is a whole lot of fun, and then our time as tourists will come to an end and we settle into our separate projects on Monday.

Namaste!

First Days in Kathmandu

I've been here 3 days now, but it feels like much longer. I am loving it and am already starting to feel at home in some ways! Because I arrived after dark on Saturday night I wasn't able to gather much of a first impression, but when I climbed up on the roof of our hostel the next morning I was exhilarated to find myself in the midst of so much action! The houses are all jammed together and all the neighbours were out and about washing clothes, sitting on balconies and walking down the street selling fruit or offering repairs of some kind or another. The hostel where we're staying this first week is in Kalanki, a quiet neighbourhood (only after having ventured up to the main street and elsewhere in Kathmandu have I come to think of it that way) in the west part of the city.

The main street running through Kalanki is louder and more bustling than any place I have ever been. I could've used about 10 more eyes to take it all in when Lison (a volunteer from France) and I first went to explore on day 1 here. On top of all the cars and buses rushing everywhere in sheer chaos, the sides of the street are packed with shop after shop, side by side, each taking up only about 6 ft x 6 ft of space, but overflowing with items looking to be sold. Each of these shops specializes in usually just one thing, so we'd walk past raw meat sitting on a counter then see a wall full of shoes and the next second barrels of fruit. It goes like this past carpets, medicine, seeds, purses, vegetables, spices & powders, jewelry, fish and on and on. All the while as you walk you're dodging aside for motorcycles and taxis trying to squeeze around each other, tripping over stray dogs and ducking under overhanging items or umbrellas. That first day was a lot of fun. It still is, but at least now I know what to expect when I step outside.

There are 9 of us that started in-country training together on Monday and we'll be at the volunteer hostel for one week before going to the village of Lamatar for 2 night and then Royal Chitwan National Park for a few days in the second week. After that we each go to our own projects with our separate host families. There are also a number of short-term volunteers that are in and around the hostel coming and going at different stages in their projects. This first week we are doing language lessons 4 hours a day and have most of the afternoon free to explore around Kathmandu wherever we want. It's been surprisingly easy to get around either by local bus (with no schedule and only the guy hanging out the window calling out the name of its destination to use for a guess if it's the one you want) or by taxi (20 times more expensive to get to Thamel at 200 rupia if you bargain right, but as that translates to just $3 for 5 of us to cram into it still feels well worthwhile). Either way, given the apparent absence of any sort of traffic rules and excess of speed / carelessness about the proximity of other vehicles, I'm tempted to feel like I'm taking my life in my hands each time we do this. However, these drivers are professionals and I'm sure if they thought it to be unsafe in any way they would've installed seatbelts. So, with that in mind, I'm able to sit there calmly as we careen full speed on the right-hand (wrong) side of the road toward an oncoming bus and swerve only at the last possible instant between the cow and the barefooted guy on the bicycle.

In just 3 days here, I've already been able to see a million different parts of this city! Everywhere we walk is an adventure, and moments of clear skies have given way to great views of all the surrounding tall, steep, green hills. After having seen the same forecast on my BBC Nepal homepage every single day for the last 2+ months, I was expecting life here to feel just as dark and drenched as those images (below) appear:But the monsoon so far hasn't been quite as relentless as that picture suggests. Sure, there have been heavy downpours every single day, but there can be long patches of relief between them and, until today, they had all conveniently coincided with the times we were planning to be outside anyway.

Today, however, was a very different story. After enjoying sunshine and blue sky for a couple hours in Thamel, the rains abruptly started in full forced and we darted into the first restaurant we could find, soaked to the bone within seconds. We tried to wait it out a bit thinking it would lighten up and were in some ways successful as the rain was a bit lighter half an hour later. But when we emerged it was to find the street replaced with a river and waded through knee-deep water for about 20 minutes before managing to catch one of the suddenly very much in demand taxis. We saw once guy unknowingly step into an uncovered drainage hole and sink past his waist. We happily paid 300 rupia for that ride back.