Staying in Kathmandu

My time in Nepal is sadly nearing an end. I’ve made some new friends among the Tibetans and Nepalese, and as I listen to them, it seems I may return yet again. I’ve returned to my writing, thanks to the Photojournalism project I’ve entered into in Kathmandu through www.InternshipNepal.com. Several of the photojournalism interns and I meet with Ram every morning. He is a delightful man who has gone out of his way to facilitate our way around Kathmandu. Of course, the festival days directed him to have us take pictures of crows, dogs, and cows and other “new year” celebrations. Having a focus has made us see things we might have overlooked, this is especially relevant to my interest and chosen subject of water. This country has many celebrations, holidays and festivals. With a dozen or so calendars in use here, it can sometimes be confusing for the locals, so you can imagine how confusing it is for the tourists, especially when one person says it’s the day of the crow and another says it’s the day of the dog. The brothers and sisters day is on one day for the Nepali and a day later for the Newari, another caste in Nepal.

The Pandey’s included us the celebrations with fireworks at night. Ram taught us a song one morning in which, luckily, we only had to sing a one word reframe “deusire“. That afternoon we came home to a dozen or so people setting up their speakers and boom box to sing that same song and other to us, while dancing. It’s tradition to give them money for such entertainment. When this was presented to them, they continued to sing and dance. When we heard the familiar tune we’d learned from Ram, that’s when we knew the show was closing. Later that night, we sang to our house, not up and down the street, like our caroling. When we were coaxed into dancing, Ram dashed off to get his car, and 10 minutes later, we were dancing to tunes bursting forth from a speaker in his trunk. In between songs, Nesib lit fire rockets and spiral sparklers.

On Brothers and Sisters day, we were invited into the Pandey’s living room by Shila, our house mother who is young enough to be my daughter, to partake in the ceremony in which the sister puts a tika on the brothers—her brother, Nesib, and the male interns, Simon and Cornelius. Nesib then gave Muskan, his sister a gift while the female interns watched. The tradition is for the sisters to cook a festive meal for the brothers, who return the favor with gifts. Muskan is too young to cook, but we dined on Shila’s wonderful cooking. She’s yet to give us a cooking lesson.

It’s calm now that the festival season is over. It’s rather like the lull after the Thanksgiving to New Year holiday season in the US. Things have settled down, but the horn honking has resumed. The traffic here is so congested that there are barely inches between the bikes, motor cycles, cars, vans, trucks and the odd huge tourist buses. My home away from home is a few blocks off a main street, and by a huge grocery/department store and bus stop. The gold bus takes us north and south from here. Getting into touristy part of Kathmandu requires a 10 to 15 minute taxi ride, which we generally negotiate for Rs 100 or 200, or maybe Rs300 in the evening. That translates to a few dollars at most.

No matter where we go, there is dust. People wear masks. The locals are used to it, but they too wear masks. The air pollution is a medical problem. The advantage for being here in the dry season is that we mainly breathe dust. In the rainy season, people breathe in the stench from the trash. I don’t know what is worse.

In between traveling to take pictures relating to water, I write about it. Yesterday I was told that my feature story on water will be published on www.nepalnews.com in a week or so. That motivated me to start a new piece. Now I need to go take more pictures. Such is life as a photojournalist intern