An Afternoon in Bhaktapur

I spent my day off this week in the city of Bhaktapur. Bhaktapur is located just east of Kathmandu proper along an old highway that is being expanded to accommodate four lanes. The town is full of Newari temples, pallaces, and an endless amount of small alleyways. In one of the outlaying squares I stumbled upon a family roasting two pigs for sale to a hotel in Kathmandu.

Bhaktapur (~15 km east of Kathmandu). An classic Newari city of about 60,000 people.

A team of men loading massive 40 foot logs into a truck for transport.

It's a family affair.

Two family members prod, poke, and fan the fire.

Moving around the grasses that were used to cook the pig.

Washing the charred skin off of the pig.

Waste disposal. The majority of the innards were thrown into the river flowing just out of view.

The finished products.

The pigs are loaded for transport to a hotel and restaurant in Kathmandu.

Indra Jatra

Kumari, the living Nepali goddess, is paraded around a square in Southern Kathmandu during the Indra Jatra festival. This festival marks the end of the monsoon season, although it did rain that night...

Hundreds of people gathered to see the Kumari.

Orientation

The five other ETA’s (English Teaching Assistants) and I have spent the last two weeks at the United States Educational Foundation-Nepal (USEF-Nepal). USEF offers free counseling and information (‘accurate, reliable, and unbiased’ information) about gaining admission to schools in the United States. Our mornings have been full of lessons on Nepali classroom etiquette, what it’s like to teach in the Nepali government system, and how to properly drink tea at all hours of the day. Afternoons have been packed with intensive Nepali language sessions. Some other highlights include visits to classrooms crowded with 60 students and a safety briefing at the US Embassy where we found condoms in the bathroom that were ‘From the American People.’ We have been working hard in our classes but we have focusing most of our energy on getting into sync with Nepali ways and getting usedto living in Nepali homes with Nepali families.

USEF-Nepal, Gyaneshwor, Kathmandu

Nepali culture dictates, like many in other South East Asian countries, that one eats food with only their right hand. The forfeit of my fork and concentration on my right hand is something I am only slowly getting used to. Although my fingernails (and sometimes forearms) are coated with small food particles and grease after my attempts to politely shovel dahl bhaht (rice and lentils) into my mouth it seems that because of the use of the hand, Nepalis are very conscience of the cleanliness of their hands both before and after eating a meal. I am constantly being told to wash my hands. My homestay mom’s belief, instilled by her grandfather, is that food cooked from the heart is the only food that tastes good. As an extension, food eaten with hands is the only food that is truly enjoyed. And the food has been superb!

I am staying with a family of Thakali descent who hail from the mountainous Mustang district, which is about 100km Northwest of Kathmandu near the border with Tibet. The Thakali are known for their cuisine, specifically their many varieties of dahl and the extensive use of beans. My particular family’s relatives operate an apple orchard in the hills and produce apple brandy (I have yet to try it but if the brandy is anywhere near the deliciousness of the apples themselves I am in for a treat). In Kathmandu, my family owns and operates an exceptional Thakali inspired restaurant.

Some of the many varieties of lentil.

My parents (Mana and Nirjhar) met through an arranged marriage 23 years ago and have two sons. The younger of the two children attends the English language boarding school, St. Xavier’s, on the other side of Kathmandu (where both Nirjhar and the eldest son, Arohan, attended) so I have yet to meet him. Arohan, my younger brother, who is 20 years old, is starting his undergraduate studies in hotel management this week. He made the interesting decision of staying in Nepal to study (versus going to India, Europe, or the US) because outside of Nepal he would have had to work alongside his studies. The next few years of his life would be better in Nepal. As a result of his education at St. Xavier’s, Arohan’s English language skills significantly outweigh his Nepali language abilities. So, you have a 20 year old who can only count to 27 in Nepali but speaks nearly flawless English. This trend among the more well off Nepalese (those that can afford private English language-based education) explains why Nepal sent more than 10,000 students to American universities last year (the 9^th largest sending country).

Juxtaposed with an English speaking Nepali family is Jay. Jay is the boy who works for the family preparing food and cleaning the home. He was orphaned at a young age and through family connections my homestay mom now feeds, clothes, puts a roof over his head, and sends him to school in exchange for his work. He works very hard around the house but also puts an impressive amount of energy into struggling through his difficult grade 7 English textbook. We worked together last night on his exercises. The two of us sat on the floor of my room under the fluorescent light provided by a back up battery. Every evening between about 6 and 10 there are two or so hours where the government rations the electricity. The length of power cuts varies throughout the year being the most extreme (about 16 hours per day without power) in early spring when reservoirs are low. Days when the power cuts are short, my homestay mom jokes that the technician in charge of the area must have forgotten to shut off the power earlier and is now just trying to get back onto schedule. While sitting on the floor with Joy it didn’t take much imagination to think how amazingly challenging it must be for low income families to cope with life without electricity.

Jay working on science homework during a power cut.

Nepal is heavily reliant on hydropower and as a result of under investment over the past two decades due to the civil war there are severe shortages of electricity supply. Nepalis joke (only half heartedly) under candlelight during electricity cuts that the Indians have taken their electricity. They are only half wrong. Due to tariff discrepancies and demand economics, Nepali hydropower producers can sometimes make more money by exporting power to Northern Indian rather than putting it into the domestic grid.

Despite the less than adequate job the Nepali government has done to reduce poverty and bring reliable services to its people, the Nepalese are a superbly cheerful and fun group of people. My homestay mom had a good rice-spewing laugh today when I complimented her great ability to cook dog (an easy mix up with chicken being kukhurah and dog being kukhur). After two weeks of Nepali class I am bumbling my way through the language (bhahsah) but find motivation in the excited surprise that exudes from people when I try to speak. I’ll keep trying…

First Week

Kathmandu (3 photos stitched together).

Some of the thousands of prayer flags at one of the complexes at Swayambhunath in Kathmandu.

Prayer flags leading up to Swayambhunath in Kathmandu.

Prayer wheels in motion at Swayambhunath in Kathmandu.

Kathmandu from ground level. Although there is trash collection, garbage accumulates in and around the rivers. Older residents speak about how 30 years ago they used to drink straight from these now polluted rivers.

Kathmandu from above.

Two men find a dry place to huddle away from the rain for a few minutes near Durbar Square.

The start to rush hour traffic. Roads become gridlocked with cars, vans, trucks, safa tempos, and cows for a few hours in the mornings and afternoons.

Kathmandu by Night

Some nights scenes from Kathmandu.

A fruit shop in Thamel.

Lazimpat Road.

Unleashing Nepal

Unleashing Nepal by Sujeev Shakya is a quick read with a brief history of Nepal. There are lots of personal anecdotes from influential people around the private sector and government in addition to many fascinating figures about the economy.

http://www.unleashingnepal.com/

Kathmandu

Here is a set of images from the Tij festival in Kathmandu on Saturday. The day is in essence dedicated to women praying for the wellbeing of their husbands. Women fast for the day, wear red saris, and gather around temples.

Mumbai!

Some of the many taxis. It is commonplace to see drivers napping inside their cars during the day and night.

Clothe washing area. Many small hotels and households send their laundry here. Even though some more middle class homes now have washing machines, there is a belief providing jobs for other if at all possible so many families still send their laundry here.

I spent a week touring and exploring Mumbai on my way to Nepal. This journey being my first splash into India my mind was flooded with images of crowded trains, dirty streets, beggars fighting abject poverty, and delicious flavors and foods meant to exercise your digestive tract. After arriving and settling in some, although the city does have all these things, I was more than pleasantly surprised by Mumbai. The city is a bustling metropolis complete extremes ranging from 19^th-century British mansions and 60-story buildings built for a single person to shops barely the size of bathtubs and million-people slums built on only a few square kilometers. It’s a curious city.

The streets of Mumbai are busy always but there is an invisible order and respect that pervades the lanes of trucks, cars, taxis, rickshaws, and people that crisscross each other in all parts of the city. Although it is a stretch to say drivers follow the official rules of the road there is an understanding as to whom has right of way when and the meaning of the many different types of horn usage (automobile horns never stop honking) is understood by both drivers and pedestrians.

There are over 40,000 black and yellow Fiat built taxis trawling the streets of Mumbai. This figure excludes the additional thousands of auto rickshaws (ie-‘shaws’) that frequently ferry some of the 16 million Mumbaikars on shorter jaunts. From the use (or lack thereof) of headlights after dark to the stealthily placed ‘for hire’ paddles that adorn the ancient meters of both shaws and taxis, hailing a ride on one of these iconic vessels is far from easy. Although law states that all drivers must pick up passengers regardless of his or her desired destination, it is common to see people of all ages being turned down on a street corner by a half dozen or more passing by seemingly available taxis. A Facebook group has been started by the City to report complaints. Somehow it seems that the emotions of an old woman sneering at a cab in the pouring monsoon rains won’t be well captured in a Facebook post.

In addition to being turned down by taxis there were two occasions where my taxi driver stopped the car, exited the vehicle, and left me alone with only a vague idea of what was possibly going on. The first happened during my first hour in India at the international airport (affectionately called the Chhatrapati Shivaji airport after being renamed in the 90’s by nationalist politicians removing British influence. Other causalities included ‘Bombay’ and ‘Victoria Terminus’, one of the main train terminals). I pre paid for a taxi and found my driver. My bags were put into the trunk of the taxi next to an oblong rusted metal tank positioned directly behind the rear seat (my seat). This tank contained compressed natural gas (CNG) and looked less than safe (in the event of an accident or not). The taxis and many of the buses and vans in Mumbai run on government subsidized CNG in place of gasoline or diesel. As a result, air pollution in the city is better than in comparable cities and allows for a ~30km taxi ride to cost only a few dollars. These thoughts were all running through my mind as I was sitting on top of this bomb when my driver unexpectedly stopped in a dark alley next to a pre-historic bus not more than a few hundred meters from the airport exit, shut off the engine, and quickly exited the car. This was interesting. He reemerged a few minutes later with a stamped piece of paper. On we went into the Mumbai night.

Mumbai is full of activity but organized, dirty but romantic, and confusing but endearing. In short, the ‘Manhattan of India’ is one of social and economic extremes centered at the heart of India’s impressive growth.