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.