Banda, unclean souls, and near-death experiences

Banda, banda, banda
So 'banda' in Nepali means 'shut' or 'closed'. It's often used to describe when streets or stores are closed for various reasons. Well, we've been in the midst of a perfect storm of banda lately. For one thing, the maoist protests have amped up as the April elections draw nearer. On the way out of town Wednesday to visit PA's other children's residence in a nearby village I saw quite a few busses filled with 15 year old boys with lots of red flags, chanting. Everything was blocked, but we finally made it back to Kathmandu pretty late in the day. Another reason for all the banda is the gas shortage. I'm not entirely sure on the cause of, or possible solutions to, this problem. Basically, no one has any gasoline, so no one can go anywhere. This has led to several cars and trucks being abandonned on highways, blocking the routes, and also protests blocking any cars that do have gas. This led to Karen, Ronnie and Rajiv taking a 5 hour trip to Bhaktapur (nearby village) last Monday, which usually takes 45 minutes. Finally, Bhaktapur itself was totally banda Thursday and Friday because there were riots in response to a murder within the town, so Ronnie was trapped there and got tear gassed when he accidentally wandered into the middle of the action. Everyone (mom) calm down, none of this is really dangerous, it's just life here in Nepal.

Bhaktapur police station (on fire)

PA Nepal

Everything's still going well. I managed to do an on-the-fly diagnosis of ringworm for one of the kids last week. I noticed a sore on a girl's neck, e-mailed a photo to Karen at the hospital in Bhaktapur, she passed it on to a doctor, who e-mailed me back a perscription. Bizarre, but efficient.

Me with some of my favourite kids: (left to right) Samir,

Jennie, Robin (being squished by Jennie), Apa, and Sushma.

Sanku

Remember I said we went out to a village? Well, it's another home PA runs for older kids, and they learn village life skills, like farming, handicrafts, brick-making, basically practical stuff they'll need to live in this country. It's really beautiful out there, too, with a waterfall right behind the house where the kids bathe. It was a nice visit, where I got to do a little bit of help with the fields and Rajiv and I took a couple of kids up to this temple nearby. This temple has this bizarre feature: a tiny window. It's said that if you can squeeze through this window, your soul is pure. So I guess skinny people are really pure? One of the boys we were with managed to get through, and then Rajiv tried. Now, Rajiv's pretty skinny, but that window is tiny. He tried bravely for a good 10 minutes as I took pictures and laughed really meanly at him, but no dice. Then the kids wanted me to try, and I had to explain that my soul (or ass) was not nearly teeny enough for me to even try.

Rajiv: not so much with the pure soul

Oh, and check out what grows wild on the hills of Sanku!

Bowling

On Valentine's Day, we went bowling. And Dad, get this: I won the first game! With a 103. Yep. That's pretty much the whole story. Oh, except that Jesi, the country coordinator, finally returned from her massive Christmas holiday, so we have someone else in the house now. She seems pretty cool so far.

Back: DC, Karen. Front: Rajiv, me, Jesi and Brian.

Mountan Biking (subtitle: Neer's a liarface)

Everyone wanted to go mountain biking on Saturday. I told them they should go, but biking up a hill's not really my idea of a good time, thanks anyways. But then Neer tells me that a truck will take us up to the top of this big hill and we'll bike down. That appealed to me much more. So I said cool. We start biking uphill. Alright, I think, the truck stop is somewhere up this hill close by. After the next curve, or the next, or the next. After an hour I made Neer pull over, so that I could (breathlessly, cause: hard!) yell at him "Neer, I show you nothing but love, why the lies?!" And he said the truck has no feul (banda) and it's "just one more hour uphill". So I somehow managed, and the coming back downhill was pretty awesome. Although we were going so fast down such rough terrain that I remember thinking to myself, wow, if I fall right now I'll seriously injure myself. Huh.

DC (front) and me (behind) risking our lives. And that was
before we went off-road.


However, the ride did afford views such as this one. God, this
country's beautiful.

Another great weekend

Wow, updating on recent events is new and exciting for me! So I had another good week/weekend here in K-town (and surrounding areas). Another week of kids screaming and pulling on me, yelling "Aun-tee! Aun-tee!" and of trying to get Indira not to alienate all her donors. That was all much more fun than it sounds. Other things I did:

Patan
Went back for more touring of all the stuff we missed last time. I personally enjoyed the temple to the goddess of power, who demands tons of animal sacrifices and kills demons. My kind of lady. Also, got to listen in on a French tour group, and for once knew what was being said while the guys were totally clueless. Take that, fast-speaking Nepalis!

Child priest at temple.

This sign at a sthupa made me laugh out loud. You guys,
leave Buddha alone.

Hyatt

So Friday, after a full morning of volunteering, Karen and I took a taxi out to the Hyatt hotel for some girl-time pampering. 'Cause we can afford to do that in this crazy economy! So we got mani-pedis, had lunch, and relaxed amidst the sweet smell of money. Also, if you're white, they pretty much don't ask questions, so we took advantage of the health club to steal access to the hot tub (me), the steam room (Karen) and showers that stay hot for more than 4 minutes (glorious!).

The pool at the hotel. Too cold to go swimming,

unfortunately.


Me enjoying the only diet coke in Kathmandu (of course
it's at the Hyatt). That's the Buddhist sthupa Bodinath in
the background.

Chulot/Dhori, take 2

Have I mentioned yet that Allan the ass has left us for Thailand? Cause he has!!! Sorry Thailand, he's your problem now. Two new volunteers have arrived: Brian and Ronnie. Brian is another man in his '50s. This caused poor DC and Rajiv to freak out, thinking he would be a repeat of Allan. I had to explain to them that not all Canadian men go through a douche-inator at age 45, and most are perfectly nice, as Brian has turned out to be. Ronnie's 21, and hilarious. It's quite like having a younger brother, actually, as I've already put him in a headlock. So for the end of their orientation week it was a repeat of the Chulot dinner and dancing at the Dhori. We pulled out the saris again and this time Karen and I had to figure out how to put them on ourselves. We managed with the help of google, but at one point at the dhori, I had to have two waitresses help me fix it in the bathroom, because it was kinda falling off on the dance floor. We all had fun, and this time Ronnie was the most popular guy at the Dhori, primarily because he was wearing this:

That's him in the middle, wearing the equivalent of an armani suit.
Brian's on the left there, and Rajiv's on the right.

Rock Climbing

That's right people. I think I've found my inner adventurer. I was talked into going to a climbing wall by Karen and Ronnie, but I actually had fun. So I got all harnessed up (dude, those things leave nothing to the imagination) and made an attempt at the wall. Fell off 1 foot off the ground. Gave it another go. Fell off 9 inches off the ground. So I was all set to give up, but Karen talked me into trying again. Evidently the worst thing you can do while rock climbing is stick your butt out, which I think I was doing, as I tend to put the ass in massive. But with Karen behind me yelling "love the wall! Love iitttttt!" I actually made it up pretty high, like 50 feet or so!

Look at me go!

Fortune Teller

We got a traditional Nepali astrologer/palm reader to come the house Sunday morning. It was pretty fun, actually. He needed to know the precise time and place we were born, and then spent like 45 minutes doing math-y charts for us. He said I'm a good communicator and manager and would do well working for an INGO. Mind you this was after I told him my degree was in political science and that I'm in Nepal volunteering, hmmm.... Also I am very lucky, powerful, and "well-built". And once I'm 27 I'll have a very happy period in life that will last 17 years. Sweet!

The past month or so...

Hello everyone! So I've been extremely lax in updating. Thus, this post is intended to sum up the last month I've spent here. It's been crazy times, but going through my photos, I think I've found the most important bits.

My placement: Prisoners' Assistance Nepal
Ok, everyone: Maddie tells me that some of you are under the impression I'm working inside a prison? That is not in fact the case. I'm working in a home which houses the children of prisoners, who would otherwise live inside the prisons with their parents. I have no pictures from PA yet to show you, but I will take some soon. It's quite good. I go in about 8 in the mornings, help the kids with their homework and to get ready for school, then help out in the office for the rest of the mornings. Sometimes I go back in the afternoons, but it really just depends on Indira's schedule. She's the woman who runs the home. She's amazing, but is very busy, which leaves me with a fair amount of down time. The kids are cute, but crazy. I've learned enough Nepali to use simple commands (come, go, sit, eat) with them, other than that it's basic English and wild gestures. I think they understand more than they let on, but can get away with more if they pretend they don't.

Momo Mania 2008!
How exciting does that sound? Ok guys, momos are the Nepali version of fast food. Except they're actually good. They're these amazing little steamed dumplings filled with meat or veggies and I love them to bits. So last weekend this restaurant in town hosted this big party. We paid about $6 Canadian to get in, and it was all you can eat momos (21 different varieties!), a free beer (but the bottles here are so huge it's like 2), a free pop, live entertainment, and door prizes. There were so many varieties of momos I lost track and dipped the apple momos in the curry sauce, and some chicken momos in chocolate sauce. We ate soooo many momos, and I also won a year's subscripton to "Wave" magazine. I wish I'd won the free flight to Pokhara, or maybe the free stay in a 4 star hotel, but it's better than a kick in the face.

The Nepali band that played: they were really good!

An extremely un-flattering picture of me with momos and
a bottle of Everest beer.

Patan

Patan is a town that's right up against Kathmandu, just separated by a short bridge (think Ottawa/Gatineau). It's where Rajiv lives, so he took Karen and I on a personal tour the other week. It's beautiful there. And also they were celebrating because it had rained that morning. So we went to some temples to watch farmers praising the rain god. Then we went to Patan's Durbar square and hung out like the locals. Seriously, all the young people here spend their evenings sitting on temple steps or on the stone elephants or whatever. It's pretty fun, actually, to sit and watch the world go by.

Newari women offering candles to the rain god.

The Zoo

This stands out in memory mostly because Nepalis cannot pronounce the letter 'Z'. They pronounce it as a 'J'. So for a whole day Karen and I wondered why the guys were taking us to the Jew.

Jewish tigers (very rare).

Neighbourhood kids

Somehow we have become the party house for all the children in our neighbourhood. They wait for us to open the curtains in the morning and then run into the yard yelling "come, play?" at us. It's fun to a point, but then becomes exhausting. They know lots of games, but I was able to teach them "Stella Ella Olla" and "Simon Says". They don't have the best grasp of English, so they always ask me to play "duck duck duck duck duck". I had to explain about the "goose" part, or we'd be playing all night.

Neighbourhood girls attempting to teach me Nepali dance.
I'm still not very good.

The weekend: mountains, 5 star hotels and trekking

So, after that crazy Friday night, Karen, DC and I managed to drag our tired butts out of bed at 5 am Saturday morning to catch the "moutain flight". This flies next to a really beautiful section of the himalayas. However, I was a little dissapointed that it didn't get closer. I was picturing flying in between peaks! It was beautiful though.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mount freakin' Everest.

(The tallest one, duh)

So then we returned to the house, ate, napped a bit, and Karen and I set off for Nagarkot. This is a five star hotel about 2 hours drive away from Kathmandu, straight up a mountain. Man, were those roads windy. But this hotel is like 25 dollars per night in this crazy economy, and has great food and spa services. The view from our balcony was so amazing that I took a video of it instead of a picture. And now the video won't upload on this connection, so you'll all have to wait. Picture a 180-degree panorama of the himalayas and the kathmandu valley. Now make it twice as beautiful as you were picturing. You're still not close. So I got a massage, which was a bit uncomfortable (and painful - ease up on my calves lady!) and a facial, which was divine. And I was able to - oh glorious joy of joys - take a hot bath in our room! Man did I miss those!

The next day (Sunday) Karen and I trekked to Bhaktapur, a town not far from Kathmandu. One hour uphill (ouch) to a gorgeous lookout, and two more hours downhill. The path was a bit treacherous at some points, but I did very well. And then I wiped out walking across a perfectly flat field, so some local farmers laughed at me.

Karen and I in trekking mode. Don't I look outdoorsy

and tough?

An example of the beautiful views on the trek down. Notice the
stepped fields to allow locals to farm on mountainsides.

So we got to Bhaktapur and our trekking guide also showed us around the Durbar (temple) square there. Then we cabbed it back to good old dirty Kathmandu. We really did this in the wrong order, because I could really have used that hot bath and massage after the hike instead of before, but ke garne?

Friday: crazy random awesomeness

So we've finally reached the end of orientation week, and it seriously went out with a bang. We finished language classes and said goodbye to our awesome teacher Anjala. I can now say several useful words, though still can't really construct an actual sentence. So I end up saying things in restaurants like, "Tea. Milk, isn't it? Don't like much spicy. Little". For those of you really interested, that would sound like so: "Chiyaa. Dut, hoina? Piro manpardina. Aliali".

Anyways, so Friday was the day we finally got to get all dressed up in our saris. Two volunteers returned from trekking to Everest basecamp just in time to join us. Us girls had no clue how to put these saris on, even with much instruction, so our housekeeper kindly did it for us. We looked pretty good, I'd say. And I have never, in all my life, no matter how dressed to the nines, gotten so much male attention. Seriously ladies. Come to South Asia and put on a sari, and prepare to have litterally every male in a 6 mile radius approach you to politely tell you how gorgeous you are, and even offer to die for the sake of your beauty. No, really.

So we went to this traditional Nepali restaurant for a fancy 8 course dinner and various cultural demonstrations. One was a dance wherein the male dancer chased around the female dancer and finally caught her, threw her over his shouler, and carried her out of the room. This represents capturing a wife! And the Nepali guys we were with participated by yelling out things in Nepali, which were later translated for us to mean "Over there, get her!" and "no, no, leave her there, I'll get her!". Ah, cultural differences.

Our group seated at the chulot (dinner) on the floor,

as always.

This was one of the demonstrations. This guy brought out this

giant peacock puppet who started to peck at everyone. Then

Neer (right of the pic) was like "he's looking for money". Oh, of course.

Karen and I in our saris. How cute are we?


Our group at the chulot. Alan's on the far right in the back.
He's dressed in the traditional men's outfit.

Then we decided to just keep our saris on for the evening, since they took so long to put on in the first place, and plus we looked quite pretty. So the guys took us to a Dhori, which is a combination dance hall/concert. Basically, it's like a call and answer performance between young women and men, something about love or marriage or something. So we walked in, and we were the only women in there that weren't on stage! And the men went nuts! I'm not bragging here, people, I want you to get a feel for what went on. So one grabs my hands and starts spinning me around on the dance floor, but I have no idea how to do this dance, so it's awkward, right? So the guys started trying to show us how to do these dances, but I think we were pretty bad.

Rajiv attempting to teach me to dance. I was just following him,
so maybe I was doing the guys part? That's DC bustin' a move
on the right, and the performers in the background.

So then more men start talking loudly to Karen about how beautiful she is and Rajiv got really nervous and was like "We must leave now. These men are drunk, and you are in saris. Come." So yeah, we left after like 15 minutes there. Fun though. So then we went to Tom and Jerry's pub, still in the saris, to play pool for awhile.

Karen getting the most wear possible out of her sari.

So then (yes, the night went on) Neer tells us about the club, Cube, where all the cool locals go. It's prohibitively expensive to get in, so only the Kathmandu elite can go. But Neer, being the connected young man he is, says he knows the guy who's planned the party there and he can sneak us in. I ask, "what's the party for?" He looks at me slightly confused and answers, "...Friday." Of course. So we're waiting outside of this warehouse type building, freezing in our saris, and they open a chain link gate to let us in, but all these people start pushing me to get in, and I almost get left outside. And Neer's yelling in Nepali and pointing and me, and it's all crazy! So I get in, and we go inside, and it's this amazing fancy club, like any great club in Montreal! Definetly well hidden. So we danced until really late and had an amazing time. All in all, a freakin' awesome evening!

Karen, Rajiv, me, and Neer at Cube. Seriously, how white do
I look between those two?

Wednesday, Thursday...things start getting a little bit murky...

So it's been quite awhile since the days I'm posting about, and I'm starting to forget what went down exactly! Luckily I have my pics to remind me. So we went to pashiputinah, which is essentially temples built around a river. Who can guess what the river's for? Anyone? That's right, cremation! And yeah, we visited on a funeral day. Lots of people, Nepalis and tourists alike, were watching these people walk around the body, crying and screaming "Aamaa!" (mother) over and over. Evidently it is polite to watch this in Hindu society, but it made me extremely uncomfortable, as you can imagine. I insisted that we leave before they lit the fire. The area around the temples was beautiful as always though:

Several shrines all in a row

Isn't this tree awesome? It's said to contain souls, so no one

will cut it down.

Buddhist art...don't ask me to explain it.


This is at a different temple...a buddhist sthupa. This is
my attempt at an arty under-the-prayer-flags shot.

Child monks (bottom), and others, walking around the sthupa.

In other news, I've had what's known as the Kathmandu cough since I got here. All foreigners get it due to the crap air quality. Also, new foods I've tried: Yak cheese, buff (buffalo meat) and wild boar. All of these are better than you might expect.

Tuesday: language and not too much else

So, tuesday we had language class for a few hours and then a free afternoon. I don't remember what we did. We probably just hung out or walked around Thamel. So I thought I'd use this post to discuss something about Kathmandu. It's cold. Obviously it's not nearly as cold as Canada is right now, but it does get down to near zero at night and in the mornings and evenings it's quite chilly. Here's why this is a problem for us hearty Canadians: Nepalis don't actually heat their homes. So if it's zero outside, it's zero inside. They've adapted by using scary gas flame space heaters and wonderful, wonderful yak shawls. Seriously, yaks must be warm all the time you guys. They've lent me this ugly orange sripey shawl and I often greet it in the morning by purring "hello lover" at it. Must get one for next Ottawa winter.

Once you go yak, you never go back

Also, here's a pic of Karen's from Tom & Jerry's bar. Clockwise from top left: Me (duh), Rajiv, Neer, DC, Karen. Soo much fun!