The Wonders of Tibetans in Nepal

I've just spent the past nine days working with Tibetans in the Lodrik Settlement in Pokhara Nepal. There's no way to appropriately express my feelings after working at the settlement. A team of seven from Global Citizens Network, a non-profit organization that organizes cross cultural expeditions, worked on replacing a corrugated tin roof with Tibetans for six days. The project is actually the vehicle for an interchange between travelers and locals.

We worked with three Tibetans, and interacted with the homeowners each day. Some spoke English, some did not, but it didn't make much difference. Their smiles, and ours in return were what mattered. We worked hard tearing off the roof, going to the lumber mill and hardware store to get the supplies, putting the new roof on, mixing cement and filling gaps between the supports and the roof. We took time out each morning and each afternoon for milk tea. We chatted, hand gestured, observed and listened to each other. I took time out to watch a man spinning yarn from wool, a woman weaving a Tibetan rug, the fieldworkers hauling rice or straw with straps around their foreheads, and made friends with the owners' dog and cat.

We "went upstairs" to the market daily for our food prepared by two cooks, upstairs meaning across a suspension bridge and up 277 steps. Fresh vegetables made so many different ways, and daal bhaat--so many different kinds of lentils. It's easy to see how one could be a vegetarian here. Tibetans eat meat once a month.

We hiked around rice fields and swung on swings hung from four bamboo stalks put up for 25 days during the Dushain Festival. After that, the swings are taken down for safety reasons. We hiked to the highest hill in the area, the one Tibetans go to in honor of the New Year's celebration at the beginning of April.

The mountains here arise mid morning when the sun finally breaks through the clouds. There's Annapurna and Machupuchare, among the highest peaks in the Himalayas. The snow capped peaks burst through in all their glory and majesty, making us stop in amazement when we take time to look up.

We heard stories from the people at the Lodrik Old People's Home about their escape from Nepal, how in the dark of night the Dalai Lama in the companionship of 35 guerrilla army, dressed as a commoner, left his home and spent 25 days trekking to India. Having some Chinese sympathize with him may have saved his life as their shots rang out around him, but not at him.

We had tears in our eyes as we served tea to the Settlement today, realizing how many of the people we'd crossed paths with this week. We've left our mark here, but more, they have left a permanent mark on our hearts. I know I will come back to share in the beauty of these people.

Now I go on a trek with the Nepalese. They are also beautiful people. I hope to take time to reflect more on my experience here, and be a better person as a result. We can learn so much from these people who enjoy life and each other.

Tashi delak.
Vicki

First Week in Nepal

Becca, my roommate, leaves early Monday morning. I breakfast with Laurel, an avant guard artist from California, Alex from Spain, and Annesofie, who I realize much later is not from the states, but rather from Denmark. I get a call from Keshav that class will start at 1 pm, so join these three on a shopping excursion in Thamel. Thamel is the touristy area an hour’s walk away, but only half that if we take the bus. The bus is a smallish van in which 15 people are squished. The driver’s son shouts out our destination, so we make our way the four feet to the back of the bus and feel the stares of the other passengers. Fifteen bumpy minutes later, the son takes our 10 rupees (about $.15) for the ride. We steer through the local market, stepping on piles of garbage, accosted by a child that walks on stumps where his knees should be, step around mangy sleepy dogs in the middle of the busy sidewalks, and avoid tripping in the absences of the sidewalk. Dust is everywhere and some people wear masks or hold a kerchief over their mouth and nose. I wonder why I haven’t bought one.

The shops are dark and cramped, at most seven square feet. Merchandise is stacked from floor to ceiling and hangs from shutters outside collecting dust. On the street in front are vendors with their wares on short tables or whatever they can find for display. These vendors carry their goods to the market in huge wicker baskets strapped around their foreheads. This is also how huge pieces of furniture are conveyed. Needless to say, the strength of their necks is incredible.

The girls shop while Alex and I people watch and chat. I learn he didn’t speak any English when arriving a month ago, and now we carry on a long conversation in English in which he is very much at ease. How envious I am that he picked it up so quickly. My attempts to learn Spanish serve me well this week in learning some Nepalese. Maybe it’s because I’m being taught in English, rather than the TEFL approach, which means teaching in the foreign language. The sentence structure is easy to learn—Subject + Object + Verb. Sentences and questions are in the same order. To answer a question, you simply replace the question word with the answer.
E.g. Ko naam ke ho?
Mero naam Vicki ho.

Many people in Thamel do speak English, but I have practiced some of my learning—
Namaste means hello and goodbye
Dhanybad means thank you
Chaahidaina means no thank you/I don’t need it
Swaagat chha means you’re welcome
Shuva Bihani means good morning
Shuva Raatri means good night
Hawasta means see you later
Thik chaa means okay
Raamro means good

We didn’t get into verb conjugation as in Spanish, but I think that present and future tense are the same.

I spend three hours in class my first few days in Nepal, but my course is cut short because of the upcoming Dashain festival. Knowing this is coming, I explore when not in class. One morning before dawn, another volunteer and I awaken to go to yoga. What a spiritual sight to see the Kalanki Temple at the top of our street bright with candles, the ritual of the daily worship here. A mere five minutes later the mood is dispelled completely with the raising of a sickle high above an unsuspecting goat. How quickly I turn my head when not wanting to see the inevitable. As the week progresses, we see more and more livestock in Kathmandu.

The Dashain festival is the biggest festival of the year, rather like our Christmas. And rather like our Easter, the date changes every year, occurring sometime in October or November. The festival is in honor of Durga, the Hindu goddess of power, who wards off evil. Hundreds of thousands of goats, cows, chickens, and ducks are brought to Kathmandu for sacrifice, or slaughter, depending upon your viewpoint. Durbar Square in Kathmandu is slaughter-central, though butcher shops around the city are active in the process as well. Goats’ heads are prominently displayed. The bodies of goats are boiled, then the hair is pulled off in clumps. All this is done on the city streets. Much of the slaughter is for the military personnel in Kathmandu and for their families throughout the region. Animal activists are voicing their anger at this mass killing:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/features/article_1591651.php/Nepal-prepares-for-annual-mass-animal-sacrifice-Feature

There is a noticeable decrease in traffic as many people go home to celebrate with their families. Shops in touristy Thamel have remained open today, as would those in the States on Christmas Eve. One shopkeeper said he couldn’t partake in the festivities because his grandmother died this year. Hindu’s have to wait a full year after the death of a loved one to participate in this celebration. I wonder if this means they are more susceptible to evil or accidents if they don’t make a sacrifice to Durga. This is an apt question to ask our hotel manager, who is taking us out to dinner tonight and also unable to partake in the festivities due to a death in the family.

We arrive at our volunteer project in Jampaling, west of Pokhara the main day of Dashain. The people in the Lodrik Settlement have many things planned for our next two weeks. We think we’ll be doing some type of construction project, tomorrow we find out!

Shula Raatri

On the Road Again, In Nepal

After a long hiatus from traveling, six months, it’s good to be on the road again. My travels were limited this year by knee surgery last December. I’m no longer all me. I have another person’s ligament in my body acting as my ACL. So far, my knee is much stronger, and allowed me to teach sailing on a big boat less than three months after surgery when I taught a class in the British Virgin Islands, and then up on Lake Superior this summer. As summer waned, and a partially empty fall loomed, I knew my wanderlust would kick in so in between class time in August I worked my magic. I’d already decided on a land trip to Egypt for the Winter Solstice, and wanted to realize my dreams of diving in the Red Sea. And then there was that prospect of leading volunteer teams to far off destinations. . . .

I’m momentarily in India--maybe I should say, after a fifteen hour plane ride over Europe. I have now spent what seems like an eternity in the Delhi airport. On this 15-hour layover I am sequestered by the airlines in the barren space with bathrooms, a drinking fountain (dare I drink the water?) and only cashing consuming pop machines for facilities. I am awaiting American Airlines’ release of my checked bag to Jet Airways before being able to move to an area with amenities. Twelve hours later, when the morning staff arrives, I am able to have breakfast. Upon takeoff, my view from the window persuades me I do want to return. The intriguing sight is like no other—masses of what I presume are deceptively clean looking light grey multi-story concrete buildings as far as the eye can see.

From Delhi, it’s just a short 1.5 hour flight to Kathmandu. This is my second visit to Nepal, the first being in 2003, which had me trekking to the 18,200’ high base camp of Mount Everest in the Himalayas in the eastern half of the country. Having read The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathiessen, I’ve been drawn to see the hilly Annapurna mountain region in the western half of the country, these hills rising up to a mere 16,000 to 17,000 feet.

Nepal came about in a roundabout way. I endeavored upon a Leadership Training retreat through a non-profit organization called Global Citizens Network (GCN) with the idea that I may want to be a trip leader for the organization. Leading a tour would allow me to take advantage of my travel experience and share this passion with others. I could now do so more affordably, knowing that some of my costs would be covered since I’d actually be “working”. Yes, I know those of you working in your full-time careers may be snickering, but this allows me to do more of what I love doing. The leadership training focused on the organization’s purpose of providing “individuals the opportunity to interact locally and internationally with people of diverse cultures who share common global values, in order to develop creative and effective solutions to global problems.” The projects bring people together, the emphasis is on the cultural immersion between the locals and the visiting participants. This means I can relax about the work to be done, and enjoy the cultural exchange. Being the task-oriented person I am, this is a welcome change for me. I would have known this had I taken the prerequisite trip before attending the leadership training program, but I was allowed to attend by signing up for a trip to Nepal starting two weeks after the retreat.

Meanwhile, I am attending a weeklong “Language and Culture” program coordinated through another organization, Global Crossroad. Global Crossroad arranged for me to write a marketing plan for a non-profit on Argentina. Since I felt they had some more unique opportunities for Argentina, I thought that might yield something again, and it did. I’m spending two weeks with a photojournalist after my GCN experience, and to help my understanding of the language for this work, Global Crossroad recommended the Language and Culture program. Hmmm. Now time was becoming an issue—how could I spend as much time with the photojournalist, and still get in a Red Sea dive trip in Egypt (and Sudan) before the chill of mid-winter set in? Ohh, and you thought the life a traveler was so simple. I was glad for having already nixed the fleeting idea of including India on this trip. That would be too many cultures in one trip.

The dilemmas of a traveler are numerous. Where to go. What to do. Where and how to find opportunities and then coordinate all the activities. How to schedule the air transportation as economically as possible. And still enjoy the administrative tasks of doing it. Well, I cause myself chaos when I find too many interesting opportunities, but once I agonize over all the options, things do fall in place. In this case, it happened when I made the decision to separate the trips. Believe it or not, it was more expensive to combine the trips. As it stands, I have 48 hours at home to change out my bags—exchange the sleeping bag, mat and hiking shoes for scuba gear—before getting back on a plane for an umpteen hour trip over Europe again to Egypt.

Arriving in Kathmandu, even having been here previously, is still a culture shock. The dark, red brick airport in which you wait in line to pay for a visa before being released into the chaos is familiar,. I have a 30-day visa for my 33-day stay. That cost $40. I could have spent $100 for a ninety day visa, but I’ll either get an extension for 15 days for $15, or hope that there will only be a minor penalty of $15 for my three day illegal status. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll find out the hard way it is worth the hassle to extend it.

The van carrying me to my hostel is tiny, and I’m appreciating that as the traffic is as congested as Beijing. There are no stripes on the roads, they twist and turn, are of uneven width, there are no visible cross walks so people are everywhere, motorcycles and bikes cut in from every angle and horns are blasting every second. Everything stirs up dust making face masks are a necessity. Such is life in Kathmandu.

Jiyan, my driver, looking studious and conservative in stylish glasses and neatly pressed white collared shirt and kacky pants, is friendly, yet to talk with him while driving I feel is dangerous, so I stare out the window wondering how people can live like this. The dirt and poverty I see remind me so much of Cambodia, and this is even before I walk through the market to see the deformed beggars trying to make their way in this world by begging insistently on the filthy streets. Jemal steers precisely in his little van to within inches of other vehicles, and somehow avoids the myriad motorcycles and bikes, some with up to three people. The law limits two people per bike, but I must assume that doesn’t count children as I’ve seen many young ones sitting in front of the driver or mother. When Jiyan turns in front of a temple, I think I’m being let off there, but no, we head down a steep grade of a narrow alleyway, make a sharp turn into a narrower alley and once he opens the metal gate, parks the van beside a four story stucco house. This is “home” for four days, before I move to a hotel in Thamel, the tourist section of Kathmandu, where I’ll meet up with my GCN group.

A tiled porch leads to the main part of the house, which is adorned with marble floors, a solid dark wood banister, and solid dark wood doors throughout. Numerous windows provide much light and a nice breeze. The thick walls are of plaster. A schoolroom, two bedrooms, bathroom and large kitchen are on the first floor. The second floor has four bedrooms with balconies, and two bathrooms for volunteers. The two rooms on the third floor seem to be for local workers. The fourth floor is actually the roof, and provides an outside area used by children, and up a spiral staircase to a small platform, there’s an area to hang laundry with a water tank off to the side. A second water tank sits atop another landing up final short flight of steps. Other roofs support solar panels to heat the water. Ours does not. Another house displays a Hindu plaque and what one might mistake as a swastika, but it’s the symbol of Krishna.

Inside, the rugs are without padding. Rooms that have linoleum show cement. The walls are brown with dirt. Wires protrude through the walls and ceiling. Naked light bulbs hang from the ceiling. Sliding bolts are used to lock the doors. The mismatched window coverings droop. The mattresses are sleeping pads thinner than those porters carried for us on our way to the Everest Base Camp, and are dressed in a single sheet with pillows as hard as rocks. I learn the locals don’t even have the bed pads. They sleep in the classroom, on top of the desk or on the floor.

Stench lets you know you’re near a bathroom. A sink, toilet, shower head and faucet for a non-existent tub are unadorned. A shower curtain is non-existent as there is no place to hang it. Because of an eternal water shortage, flushing the toilet is kept to a minimum. It is black from long term use and lack of cleaning. Toilet paper is the responsibility of the user and is to be deposited in the trash can that never seems to be emptied. I wonder when it was last cleaned. Electric surges are frequent, and it is shut off each evening for two hours. That’s when the house takes on a pleasant aura because we can’t see the filth.

My plan includes three meals a day. Two of them are daal bhaat, lentil soup and rice with vegetables. It’s seasoned well so I enjoy it, for now. Breakfast varies--wheat porridge, corn flakes with warm milk, crepes, all with bananas, and black or milk tea. Nepalese don’t eat breakfast. They’ll have a piece of toast around 7 am, daal bhaat at 9 am, work from 10 to 4 (Sunday through Thursday, from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturday), and have daal bhaat again at 7pm. The goat I hear nearby is to be picnic food for the workers, not for the volunteers.

My Sunday afternoon arrival finds me massively jet-lagged. While I normally try to stay awake to speed past this, I can’t—30 hours without sleep is too much. I meet the other volunteers, but don’t remember their names. I have a short briefing for my Language and Culture program, walk up the steep hill to the main road to check out my surroundings, get cash at the ATM and buy toilet paper. The internet cafes are closing down due to lack of electricity, so I return to the hostel for a nap before daal bhaat, and go to bed early, only to awaken at 2 am local time, 3:15 pm Minnesota time.