Thanksgiving Adventures in Nepal

Though I sorely missed my family and friends who were celebrating Thanksgiving in Montana and Virginia, I was able to have a Nepali Thanksgiving with my friends here that lasted 3 days!

Day 1 was the program at the Ambassador's house that I mentioned in my previous post. It was nice - a veritable mix of American tourists, workers, researchers, etc. See the "Get Thee to a Nunnery" post for more about the Wednesday program.

Day 2 (actually Thanksgiving) found us going to the Fulbright Nepal director's house for a traditional meal of turkey, stuffing, pie, cranberry sauce. Given the multi-cultural nature of the gathering, Daal Bhat (rice/lentil stew/curried veggies) was also served for those who didn't want (or recognize!) the American dishes. As much as I love daal bhat, I went straight for the traditional foods! The food was good, but I don't think anything can compare to family thanksgiving - the whole 'nobody cooks better than mom and grandma' thing is pretty impossible to overcome.

The company was wonderful and I met so many interesting people. One conversation with a lady from Canada who is deaf and blind, was particularly inspiring. CoCo has been traveling the world for several years making friends around the world and giving speeches motivational speeches. She communicates through tactile American Sign Language, and put up with my trying to remember ASL after a period of Nepali sign only! If you're interested in learning more about CoCo's adventures, she has an awesome blog: http://tactiletheworld.wordpress.com/

Day 3 consisted of an awesome comfort food dinner with Marissa and Swetha. After running some errands and getting things done during the day, we got down to cooking about 5. By 6:30 we had soft pretzels, homemade pizza, mozzarella sticks, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and my grandmother's awesome sweet potato casserole. Before the heart attack comments commence - yes we know how unhealthy it was. I think we were just all needing various tastes of home and comfort. It was wonderful and we had leftovers for days....well, all except the soft pretzels - apparently they were delicious enough for the dogs to get on the counter, get the bag of pretzels down and then eat both the bag and pretzels. Fortunately, other than some odd noises, the dogs seemed to be just fine. I've posted some pictures of the deliciousness below.


Cookie dough...'nough said!


Grandma Hunny's famous sweet potato casserole (the family farm meets Nepal!) and mouthwatering brownies.


Perfect soft pretzels and some of the best homemade pizza I've ever had.

The other part of Thanksgiving worth mentioning was our brush with a crazy cab driver. Coming home from Laurie's dinner, we took a cab back to the house after negotiating a reasonable price with the driver. When we were getting out, he tried to increase the price on us and tell us that we hadn't actually negotiated. We tried telling him that we all knew the negotiated (final) price, and paid him what we had decided on originally. This scene, unfortunately, is fairly common in Kathmandu, and usually ends with the driver driving away in a huff. This time, however, the driver began screaming at us, chased us towards the house and then tried to get into the gate. Fortunately, Marissa realized what was happening and the 2 of us slammed and locked the gate before he could get in. Thank God for automatically locking gates! Though we were terrified, we didn't realize just how scary the situation was until it dawned on us just how rare non-domestic violence against women is. More than likely, the cab driver had false bravado stemming from membership in a gang or something and the situation became about his pride being dented rather than money. SCARY! But we were so fortunate to get away.

Hope everyone had a wonderful, delicious Thanksgiving!

Get Thee to a Nunnery!

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent a few days at a Buddhist nunnery last week working on my schedule and research surveys and spending some time by myself. Not as isolated as I'd planned though - Much to my chagrin the nunnery had WiFi! Sigh. Me being me, I spent some time on it even though I'd planned not to.

I did get to attend several Pujas in the mornings though, and they were very spiritual and fascinating as well. Buddhist pujas are times of worships when nuns and monks (nuns in my case) come to the temple and spend an hour and a half chanting. Some of the chants also included drums, conch shells and long horns. The rhythmic chanting was a surreal experience. Often I felt as though my heartbeat matched the chants - fantastical or not, it was pretty incredible. My first puja, I discovered just how human nuns are. In their dress and especially at task, they often seem almost ethereal. But they're just like us! At the early morning puja (5:30-7), the little nuns (beginning around age 7) were giggling and poking at each other, some of the teens and older nuns dozed off accidentally, and a few just looked bored. I hid a smile - the same thing happens in church at home! The second time I went though, the monk who was in charge at the nunnery attended puja - talk about a different atmosphere! It almost seemed like the temple sighed in relief when the monk left puja a bit early.

While at the nunnery I also met a fellow American who had come for a 10 day course with a famous lama. She's been studying Buddhism for the last 20 years, and has lived in India (Dharmasala-where the Dalai Lama lives), for much of the last 10 years. Cyndy invited me to Day 1 of the course after speaking with the organizer and arranging for a seat in front so that I could read the translator's lips. It was a good program, the Lama was extremely likable, but the translator never moved his lips and spoke in an unnatural cadence - he repeated the Lama's words, but aimed to keep the audience more connected with the Lama by speaking fairly monotone and emotionless. Given this, I got very few of the actual words, but gained insight nevertheless. At the end of the class, my friend and fellow Fulbrighter Marissa came up to say hi - turns out she was taking the same class. When we went to lunch, Marissa and Cyndy discovered that they had actually met 3 years ago in Dharmasala when Marissa was doing a study abroad program! It's SUCH a small world...

Thanksgiving Activities in Nepal:

Swetha is housesitting (and dogsitting) for an Embassy family who was generous enough to let several of us stay since they understood how much we missed the amenities of the States. We feel like we're living in luxury! A generator for electricity during loadshedding,a washing machine and dryer, and water we can drink from the tap. WOW. It's amazing how thankful we are for the small things now - I found sweet gherkins at the grocery store yesterday and nearly broke into a happy dance :)

The American Ambassador to Nepal sent an open invitation to Americans in Nepal to come to his house for a Thanksgiving program and (what we thought was dinner, but turned out to be refreshments). Many people showed up, and the mix of tourists, people on business, people doing research, and those working in Nepal was a fascinating one. We got to briefly meet the ambassador who was very friendly and excited about Fulbright's 50th Anniversary next year (50 years in Nepal).

Today we're headed to Laurie's (the director of Fulbright Nepal) house for an actual Thanksgiving dinner. I'm SO excited for stuffing (!!!), mashed potatoes and gravy, pie and even turkey! I think the vegetarian in me now is disappearing for today...tradition's just too strong. It should be a good time with friends and good food, but I will sorely miss my family and the thanksgivings in Virginia and Montana.

Random snapshots of life in Nepal:
Scooters don't start when seriously dirty.

When a shopkeeper can't give you 1 or 2 rupees in change, he/she gives you a piece of hard candy instead.

Loadshedding's up to about 5 or 6 hours a day now. I'm told by February it'll be closer to 18 hours. Ugh.

S'mores are about to be made in Nepal - we even found marshmallows! Of course they're called "American Marshmallows" here.

My trip to Biratnager was postponed until later, but the traveling and serious research commences in 2 or 3 days! My schedule for the next 8 months is pretty ridiculous. I'll try to post it soon!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!Some of the many things I'm so blessed to have: a wonderful family, amazingly supportive friends, the opportunity to work in and experience Nepal, more than enough food, and the health and desire to enjoy it all.

A Longwinded Account of Life in Nepal

I’ve had quite a crazy week, but I’ll do my best to post a rundown of everything.

For those of you who are too busy for the long winded account, here’s the abstract.

In short form:
Last Wednesday I met my new research assistant, Anu, who is FABULOUS. Thursday, I went back to the Kavre Deaf School to apologize for my absence and explain my new research goals. Friday, I met a deaf lady who is friends with my host father and went to my first Rotary meeting. Saturday and Sunday were spent in Kathmandu with friends. Monday, I went back to Banepa and met my research assistant to go to a nearby village and see an adult sign language class. Tuesday, I came back to Kathmandu and got my notes in order and met a fellow researcher who is working in the deaf community. Wednesday, I prepared to go to a Buddhist nunnery to hole away and get lots of scheduling done. Unfortunately, the nunnery guest house was full, and I will continue my hunt for a monastery or nunnery tomorrow.
For those of you who are “very interested” or at least, bored with whatever you’re doing, here’s the rather long-winded account

In long form (by subject):

Research Assistant
I met my new research assistant, Anu, through a Rotary contact who knows Robert Rose, the founder of The Rose International Fund for Children (TRIFC) and my affiliation for Fulbright. Mr. Shrestha, the man who introduced us, was found Anu for me, and let me know that he had a potential research assistant who had great qualifications and speaks wonderful English. After meeting Anu and doing a few short research trips, I’ve discovered that she will be a wonderful asset and I’m thrilled to be working with her. She’ll keep me on my toes for sure – she can’t wait to learn Nepali Sign Language and keeps checking to make sure that I’m getting my research organized, that I’ve prepared questions for interviews, or have begun to schedule trips.

Research Overview
About the research, like I mentioned before, I’ve had to change from an in-depth project to an increasingly broad project that will take me all over Nepal. I’m planning a four-part final project with Part 1 being a general overview of deaf education in Nepal including methods of instruction, strengths, weaknesses, etc.; Part 2 will be a list of all the deaf schools (I can find) and basic information; Part 3 will be a list of all the local deaf organizations with basic information; and Part 4 will have a list of NGOs who work specifically with the deaf with basic information. Given the difference in perspectives, such research may not be used in Nepal as I would hope (to make connections between schools, organizations, and NGOs), but the research will hopefully be a good resource and potentially strengthen the deaf education network. One reality that I’ve had to face is that I will likely miss schools (there’s no reliable list of schools available – I’ve already added 10 schools to the list I was given by the Nepal Federation for the Deaf), and that even if I should somehow locate all of the schools and organizations, there’s a good chance I’ll run out of time to visit all of them. I hope to find an NGO or association in Nepal who is willing to help me to add to the research as more information appears after I have to leave. That way, the research will be continually updated and disseminated, and hopefully will remain useful and current for a longer period of time.

Dhulikhel Rotary Club
I attended my first-ever Rotary Club meeting in Dhulikhel (a town near Banepa) last Friday. Mr. Shrestha invited me to come to the meeting and share what I was doing, as well as meet his fellow Rotarians. I was surprised when I arrived to find almost as many western faces as there were Nepali! There was one other American who was doing research in agriculture in Nepal, 3 Australians who work for an NGO that has started an orphanage in Nepal (for children ages 3-18, they hope to help them all the way through school and into post-high school jobs and academics), and another lady from Australia who is actually a member of the Rotary Club in Dhulikhel. I enjoyed the meeting and came away very impressed with all that the club is doing. Also, upon finding out that my dad is also a Rotarian, Mr. Shrestha appointed himself a sort of temporary guardian because I am his friend’s (fellow Rotarian’s) daughter. I am well looked after in Nepal between my host family in Banepa and the numerous other friends I’ve made!

Val, the Rotary club member from Australia, usually comes to Nepal annually for a few months, and spends much of her time in Australia fundraising for various causes she’s heard about in Nepal through Rotary. One project she told me about when I ran into her and Mr.Shrestha on the way back from the village where I did research the other day, was that a group of school children in Australia raised money (by doing chores for their parents) to purchase two goats (a male and female) for a family in the village. I thought that was a wonderful idea for a philanthropy project for children! If anyone’s interested in doing something like that, let me know and I can help facilitate it from the Nepal side. If it could lead to pen-pals and friendship between children here and in America, even better!

Deaf People in Banepa
My host father, Tikaji, has decided to introduce me to all of the deaf people he knows in Banepa, so I have made a good number of contacts through him. First, we met with a woman who he grew up with and who became deaf around age 6 after becoming sick and developing a high fever. Rseea was very nice and communicates largely by Nepali Sign and gestures. She seems to be able to lipread well also. While we were there, Tikaji surprised me by stating that when Rseea was sick as a child, her tongue grew to an abnormally large size causing her to not be able to speak, and asked me if that was why most deaf people in Nepal couldn’t speak. Having been forewarned about this view by the book “Buddhas in Disguise” by Irene Taylor, I was able to conceal my surprise and explain gently that Rseea’s tongue looked normal in size to me, and her speech deficit was likely due simply to the fact that she couldn’t not hear the sounds needed for intelligible speech. I explained that I was fortunate because I could hear pretty well while my speech developed, allowing me to speak pretty intelligibly, but she may not have had training to continue learning how to speak and recognize sounds after she became deaf. Though the view surprised me, it is a logical one to have when a person has no background knowledge in the subject – it’s less logical to assume that something wrong with the ears would affect speech in such a way.

While meeting the deaf members of Banepa, I also found out that Tikaji’s nephew, who lives in the large family house over the shop, is hard of hearing as well. How I went several months without meeting him or anyone mentioning him to me is surprising, but the family may have been making sure I would not judge them for having a deaf member of the family before allowing me in on the well-known “secret”. Tikaji’s nephew can hear some, and has a hearing aid which allows him to communicate primarily through hearing and lipreading. Signing is not an option that has been entertained. I was involved in a family meeting the other day about how to teach the nephew (who is 10 or 11) how to speak more clearly, and how to improve his academics. Apparently he will be starting speech therapy in Kathmandu soon, and opportunity afforded to very few people in Nepal who have hearing loss. I agreed to go with Tikaji to his school next week to give the teachers and principals a few ideas on how to make learning in a hearing classroom easier for him.

Sign Language Class in Village
I went to a sign language class in a very small village outside of Banepa on Monday to see how it was taught, who was being taught, and get a general idea of the education afforded to deaf people in the villages. Getting to the village included both a bus ride and a fairly long walk and Anu and I met up with Dineshji, a deaf sign language teacher who now goes around to villages near Banepa and teaches sign language to deaf adults who have had very few communication options in the past. This project is part of the Kavre Development Association for the Deaf, and has included three nearby villages since its inception. The villages are chosen by Dineshji who finds places that have a large concentration of deaf adults without sign language, and then when the village is chosen, puts up posters and knocks on doors. Somewhat surprisingly, most of the students in the class seem to be at least minimally educated (in hearing schools or homes) and all demonstrated at least basic literacy skills. Two of the students appeared to have exceptional literacy skills. The day we went, only 4 students came, but as it is during harvesting season, the number is not surprising. The classes in a resource room at a post-secondary school, and 38 students came from all over at the beginning, but the number has since decreased to 16 because so many needed to get back into the potato fields and earn money to feed themselves and their families. Anu, my research assistant/interpreter, was a huge help with the interviews and great company. I think we’ll get along swimmingly!

Random Side Notes
Unfortunately, I had the unpleasant experienced of being harassed on the bus the other day, but have since learned how to best avoid situations like that in the future – sit up front or stand, and as Anu told me, “bring a safety pin with me to poke anyone who bothers me because telling them to stop isn’t going to work”.
A huge shout out to the Idaho State University library for giving me access to the databases so that I can make up for the research lost in my luggage. The access will make my research so much easier!

On Saturday, I went to my friends’ Nepali class and learned exactly how deaf and inept at language learning I am. I now have empathy for class clowns, because my frustrations were vented in a similar manner (lots of joking, trying to find the easy way out) during the class. Had I been this deaf when I learned spoken English, my English would not be nearly as good as it is now. I was fortunate to have the amount of hearing that I did back then.

I am headed to a Buddhist monastery or nunnery for a few days to get my head back on straight, organize my research, set up my schedules, and basically just get mentally healthy so that when I begin my travel-heavy field research I’m on top of my game.

I will likely be headed down to the Terai (in southcentral Nepal) for 15 days at the end of November with Anu and some Rotarians to do some of my field research there.
I’m looking forward to diving headfirst into the research!

Thanksgiving in Nepal will consist of a few American dinners and a comfort food dinner with friends – can’t wait for the traditional Thanksgiving foods!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and safe travels!

Diwali in Pictures!

Rock concert in our yard during Diwali - amps, electric guitars, bass, set of drums, mics, groupies, dancers....


The first group of musicians to stop by. We were so confused about what was happening! I snuck out to take a picture but didn't know I was supposed to be the audience...


Subhaum, Amardeep's son. He's so cute and smiley; I was thrilled to get a picture that did him justice!


Sagaon, Sudip's son. He LOVED Diwali and the fact he got to play with sparklers. Having playmates (me and Swetha) got him even more excited. After deciding the other day that my laptop case was too boring, Sagaon gave me one of his coveted Spiderman stickers. I now have a seriously cool laptop case...


Swetha playing with some of the hardcore firecrackers we had. I think everyone got a bit burned by these - I've never seen anything close in the States.


The fun spinning firecrackers. Once you light these, everyone stands in a circle jumping and kicking the sparkler to others. Definitely one of the more enjoyable firecrackers we had.


This picture was actually supposed to be below the picture of the Shiva statue, but it's here to show just how large the statue was. It was HUGE!


The statue of Shiva. I believe it stands 173 meters? Somewhere around there. It was commissioned by a spa to draw tourists in, and all around the statue there are advertisements for spa services. I think they made the trail extra long and steep so tourists would need spa services by the time they got to the top!


The veiw from the statue of the Kavre area. I love coming to Banepa and seeing the scenery change from smoggy and crowded to green and peaceful.


I think Swetha captioned this one best when she saw it: "The beginning of the worst bus ride of your life..."

Tika Dogs, Traveling Minstrels, Christmas Lights & Firecrackers

We’ve recently had my new favorite holiday of the Nepali calendar (I haven’t seen them all yet, but I can’t see very many topping this one!). Diwali began last Friday and ends tomorrow (Monday). According to Swetha, Diwali – also known as Tihar – is celebrated for many reasons, depending on who you are and where you’re from. In Nepal, it’s typically a celebration of the goddess Laxmi (the goddess of wealth) and the festival is known as the festival of lights. When all the lights are turned on, the towns resemble diamonds – a tribute to Laxmi.

Diwali consists of crazy colored lights all around town, general decorations, Nepali sweets stands in the market, lots of food and raksi, traveling minstrels and firecrackers. Essentially, it’s Christmas, Halloween, and the 4th of July all rolled into one! Unlike Dashain, which is celebrated mainly in the home, this festival is clearly public and a sense of festivity has been in the air for days. Women buy new clothes, the marketplaces are packed – not today though, EVERYTHING was closed! – and even the stray dogs are given puja (blessings) and tika-ed with red marks on their foreheads and collars made of flowers. The dog puja is not the only thing – apparently cows and dogs both have a day when they are honored with puja and tikas. I guess I missed the cow day…

During the holiday, Swetha came with me to Banepa where we celebrated with my host family. On Friday the celebration was less pronounced, but we were given foods that are typically only seen on holidays – su-ra (flat, dry rice), achar (nasty pickled stuff that’s very popular here), and some kind of fried Nepali sweet/donut thing.
On Saturday, the festivities began when we went shopping for new clothes. Like some of our holidays at home, new clothes are purchased during Diwali. Honestly though, we just wanted to go shopping! One of my maamaas (my host mother’s brothers) has a large kurta shop that has gorgeous materials of all kinds. We decided to go there. In hind sight, that was either a really good decision or a really bad one – both Swetha and I ended up with quite a few new fabrics! I did get a few warmer fabrics for winter though, so it was both a fun and practical shopping trip. Those who know me will be shocked to hear that my new winter kurta is pink and purple (seriously mom – they’ll match the running shoes you were so scared I’d hate!).

After our successful shopping trip, we went to see “The Largest Shiva Statue in the World”. On the way to Banepa, there’s a HUGE statue of lord Shiva on the top of a hill that you can’t miss. It’s incredible. It looks like it’s made out of copper, but according to my host brothers, it’s just painted copper-colored. Swetha tells me that not only is the size impressive (146 feet!), but Shiva is rarely seen or worshipped in his human form. The short story is that he ticked off a few other gods who decided that from then on he would only be worshipped in symbolic form. Despite the fact the statue was built as a tourist trap by a spa, it was pretty incredible and the view from the top of the hill was beautiful.

Saturday night it was time for raksi and fireworks. I was a bit nervous that with the raksi in our system we’d burst into flame around firecrackers, but fortunately we weren’t seeped in raksi! The reason behind this fear was that during the Dashain holiday, my dai (older brother) demonstrated the serious alcohol content of raksi by having me dip my finger in the raksi and then have it lit on fire. My finger went up in flames for a few seconds! Needless to say, raksi and firecrackers didn’t seem like the smartest combination. All was well and Swetha, Amardeep (my oldest dai), Amardeep’s precious 6 month-old son Subhaum, and Sudip’s (youngest dai) 8 year old son Sagaon set out to play with firecrackers. It was a lot of fun to set off rockets from the roof, jump over the spinning firecrackers, and play with sparklers. Don’t worry though – Subhaum was kept far away from the action!

Sunday, we headed back to Kathmandu (me to retrieve my luggage which has FINALLY, after 2 months exactly, arrived in Nepal). It was amazing to see everything closed in Nepal – even Bhat Bhateni (Nepal’s answer to Walmart and Macy’s) which is never closed, was closed today! When we finally arrived in Kathmandu – it took 2 hours due to a HUGE traffic jam – we figured that the majority of the excitement was over. We were wrong. Over the course of the day, at least 4 groups of singers or people with instruments came to our door. These included kids, teenagers, and adults. The most impressive group showed up about 9pm with amps, electric guitars, bass, drums, dancers and groupies! We had a full-blown concert rocking out in our yard for a good 30 minutes. Our landlady’s family explained what was happening – traveling minstrels come knocking, play a few songs, and are given puja and money. Not just scraps either – serious money! The grandfather who lives above us tried to get me to join with my guitar so I would get money too  I politely declined and played photographer instead.

While I love learning about the holidays in Nepal, I’m looking forward to the end of school and business closings so that the bulk of my research can get underway. I have to get started – I have at least 23 schools to go to, plus however many organizations I come across!

Lots to do, so little time to do it…

Post Script:

The luggage returned, but was missing all of my research, my hard drive, batteries and my Under Armor shirt. I was not happy. I was reimbursed for the missing items, but received nothing for the 2 months the bag was missing. The moral of this story? I will be Fed Ex-ing my bag home.