Wandering

Yes, I know, I’ve had another hiatus.  And yes, I have another cold, and tummy troubles.  (At this point, just assume I’m sick unless I tell you otherwise, k?)

But I don’t particularly care.  Because I’ve actually been gone wandering.  Guess where?

I saw this:

Lots of tall, narrow houses--and incredibly clean streets

And this:

Rows of brilliant flowers in the middle of the city. Tulips, perchance?

And this:

Yup, that's a bona fide 700-year-old castle.

…All of which, you’re rightfully thinking, is pretty different from Kathmandu.  Or is it…

Nepali of the Day:

havaee jahaz:  airplane

vimaanstahl:  airport

hiDnu:  to walk; also, to set out on a journey

ghumnu:  to wander

waddi-paddi ghumchu:  I wander about at random

sapha:  clean

bheDa:  large

baaTo:  road

saDak:  street

castle:  castle (What?  My students didn’t know it!  Or knight, or tilting, for some reason…)

Raining Words

It's raining, it's pouring...

The monsoon has finally shown up.

And I’m teaching my students about idioms.

Yes, these are related.

I’ve chosen a rain theme, for obvious reasons.  But try teaching the meaning of “I hate to rain on your parade…” to students who you abruptly realize, 20 seconds into the lesson, have no concept of the meaning of the word “parade.”  And then trying to explain–and immediately trying to avoid confusion–by saying, “It’s NOT a bandh.  It’s NOT done to protest the government, or to get money after a car accident.  But it’s when a group of people go into the street and walk down it together.  For fun.  To celebrate a holiday, or a national day…  We have them in the United States on Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July.”

Eight creased foreheads.  And after a moment’s hesitation, a query of, “Bandh?”

“No, not a bandh.  It’s not against the government.  It’s planned, and people go to stand along the side of the street and watch.”

Blinking.  “They close the road?”

“Well, yes, they do.  But people already know–they aren’t mad.  They go to watch.  The people in the parade wear traditional clothes, or play music, or paint cars.  It’s fun to watch.  We like them.”

Rampant confusion.  Which they all try to hide, because they like me, and they really want to be good students and understand.

And I want to be a good teacher, so I drop it after promising, “I’ll bring pictures.  It’s different–I guess there aren’t many here.  I’ll show you.”

Thus, I’ve been combing google images for pictures of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and Louisville’s Pegasus Parade.

When you teach English as a Second Language, you realize it’s shockingly easy to spend an entire hour discussing a single word.

And you also conduct lessons that include articles that point out that, by some counts, the English language now has over one million words.

And then you get a panicked understanding of the other, easier idiom you’re trying to teach:  “When it rains, it pours.”

Then again, this is why I like language.  Do you want a topic that never ends?

Me, curious, to some of my students:  “Why do you only use Nepali with each other?  Don’t you all speak Tamang?”

Students:  “Yes, ma’am.”

“And you all learned Tamang first, as a child?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you learned Nepali later, in school?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, then… in the village, do you speak Nepali?  Or Tamang?”

“Tamang!”

“So…”

And, abruptly, a very confident explanation, with smiling faces and one voice tumbling on another.  “In the village, we speak Tamang.”  “In Kathmandu, Nepali.”  “In the United States, English.”  “In Japan, Japanese!”  “In Korea, Korean!”

I know very well that they’ve never been anywhere other than Kathmandu and their village (at a grueling, but typical for Nepal, journey of one day by bus, followed by two days of walking).  But they’ve quite clearly expressed the concept.  They view Tamang as appropriate while in their village, Nepali appropriate within Kathmandu, and English within the US…   For each place, they view it as perfectly natural and obvious to choose, and use, the most widely-spoken language already used in that place.

It makes perfect sense.  When I studied abroad in Mexico, even, Mexicans were shocked to see me and other Americans speaking with one another in Spanish.  The cousin of one of our Mexican friends even exclaimed, upon meeting us, as we already carried on a side conversation, “You’re all using Spanish!  But… you’re American!  You speak English!”

And we all smiled.  “We’re here to practice Spanish!”

And that was true.  But after that conversation with my students today, I can’t help wondering if we weren’t also grasping at the same concept.  A year earlier, with other friends on an art tour of Spain, we Spanish majors and minors grouped into a separate clique from the art students.  And we decided we should use Spanish with one another.  Because, after all, we were in Spain.

New idiom for next class:  “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

But then again… I’ve had other interesting discussions about language lately.  And with a Nepali professor and member of the Linguistic Society of Nepal, I heard first-hand about a story I’d read in the news, about a woman from a distant village recently brought to a university in Kathmandu in order to have her language recorded…  Because she was its last speaker.

If you keep picking the dominant language in a place… well, the fact of choosing implies that there’s another language that is instead viewed as a minority there.  And the less who use it, the more that minority shrinks.

Dozens of languages go extinct a year.  Even within a single language, words enter and drop out; yes, with my advanced ESL class we’ve discussed obsolete terms and neologisms.  But I still like all the words, from whatever language.  Let them pour until they flood!

Nepali of the Day:

Paani paryo:  It’s raining

Chatta:  umbrella

Ek:  One

Dui:  Two

Teen:  Three

Chaar:  Four

Tamang of the Day:

Naam zee:  It’s raining.

Chatta:  umbrella

Gee:  One

Nee:  Two

Sahm:  Three

Blee:  Four

In the Clouds

I’m sorry; that’s where my mind is.  Today’s post won’t feature much text.  Then again, any time I make it to the computer lately, I somehow end up writing blocks of text, so I’ll throw in some pictures for a change.

I really am putting together a folder of pictures to show some contrasts and similarities between Nepal and the US.  In the process, I stumbled on a bunch of pretty clouds.

Here they are, in random order, from all around the world:

Kathmandu

Clouds move in to conquer--I mean, cover--Kathmandu

The Pacific Ocean, Near Tokyo

The sky continues glowing over the Pacific Ocean just after sunset.

Somewhere Over Malaysia

Okay, who's setting off an atom bomb now?! Oh... wait. Those are just random pretty clouds...

Chicago

From above it all--including the clouds--patches of Chicago emerge beneath patches of clouds.

Super Bandh Bandh, Super Bandh Bandh, Super Bandh Bandh…

(I’m sorry, it’s stuck in my head, just like that, to the tune of Ricky Martin’s “Shake Your Bon-Bon.”)

Well, so much for my one year anniversary celebration.  That must be put on hold, like everything else in the city.  It was paralyzed today by the largest bandh I’ve seen.

(Yes, Kathmandu, happy anniversary to you, too.)

I’ve already explained this story twice today, but here goes again, for the final time:

We woke up this morning with the streets deserted.  Except, there were more pedestrians than normal.  But cars?  Buses?  Tuk-tuks?  Even bicycles?

I think not.

A massive bandh had been called by the Young Communist League (commonly known as YCL), which is essentially the youth wing of the Maoists.  Other Maoist-affiliated groups supported it.  And that meant that everyone with any sense abruptly closed their business, or abstained from moving their vehicle from wherever it was parked.

For most of the day, I didn’t really understand the reason for the bandh.  I heard that even people on bicycles were being stopped–the bandh called for no use of vehicles, at all.  That struck me as completely ridiculous.  Especially as I heard the news abruptly, as it pulled me out of a dreaming sleep.  I hollered at the air about the absurdity.

I’m very uncomfortable with bandhs.  I strongly believe in the right to protest.  I support the right to form unions and political organizations, and to strike.

But when you use force to compel everyone else to join your protest…  Well, frankly, then you’ve turned the tables in an ugly way.  Assumedly, most protests are directed at what the protesters perceive as a misuse of force.  It seems the height of hypocrisy to then exact force on innocent bystanders to compel them to support your cause, however temporarily.

Though, apparently, the cause this time was pretty bad.  A district committee member of the Maoists apparently died on Thursday under mysterious circumstances–the bandh was to protest that, and to protest that no one was informed of his death until Sunday, despite how he’d been missing for a week and apparently had been taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital for treatment, where he died and was found in their morgue.  Worryingly, the YCL are blaming youth members of the UML party, which is the current party leading the government, and the party of the new Prime Minister.  They claim the death was a murder.

I really could have called this post Nepali Politics 106.

But since I have little to do with the politics, I had a 3-day weekend.  I read books and magazines; I couldn’t teach my English class.  I sadly looked out the window at the moldering garbage by the road and wished that someone somewhere in the world would invent the notion of protesting by ignoring the “establishment” and single-handedly fixing small problems–like trash beside the road.  On the other hand, it was very quiet.  No beeping, or sounds of passing vehicles–they’re never very loud here, anyway, compared to probably every other national capital, but it still managed to be more peaceful with the utter lack of vehicles.  The songs of the birds were very clear and pretty.

I watched my neighbor’s children clustered on a balcony of their house, playing, and shouting down to pedestrians in the road.  Apparently they didn’t have class, either.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, apparently protestors were burning tires and pitching stones, or vandalizing vehicles that defied the bandh.  Apparently police fired tear gas at one crowd pitching rocks at them.

And above all, it’s apparent that Nepal needs some resolution to its political problems.  If the man was murdered, police need to be gathering evidence and interviewing suspects.  Instead they’re kept busy firing tear gas.  If no one trusts the police, then legislators need to be working hard on putting together a new constitution and discussing how to confront corruption–instead of being kept at home, unable to move forward with running the country.  If everyone is on edge right now (as they usually are) because of electricity shortages, water shortages, unclean water, lack of sanitation, and spreading diseases, then people need to be coming together to end all those problems.  Instead they can’t even go shopping, or sit by the side of the road and sell their produce.  Or attend school.  Or do anything else.

So I sigh, and read about Nepal’s ancient history–birthplace of Gautama Buddha, site of the establishment of awe-inspiring stupas and temples, built in time out of mind.  I read about the modern diversity of the people, with dozens of ethnic groups and over a hundred languages… languages from completely separate language families, Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Austo-Asiatic.  I realize that the ancestors of all those people wandered here from thousands of diverse places, and they decided to stay, carving out a life not only in some of the most awe-inspiring natural beaty in the world, but in some of the most difficult conditions–on the sides of hills that would be classified as mountains and left uninhabited anywhere else on Earth,  or living even higher, on the himals themselves, where people patiently cultivate crops or graze their yaks even above the treeline.  They survive drenching monsoons and baking droughts.

And I read the newspapers, and sigh about the current problems:  murders, impunity, disorder, political fighting instead of compromise…

Maybe it’s sadly appropriate for the country of the Himalayas to have gargantuan problems.  But this isn’t Zimbabwe; this isn’t Somalia.

And if the people of this country can conquer the Himalayas, surely they can conquer anything else in their way, as well.

But in the meantime, I’m afraid, there will be bandhs.

Nepali of the Day:

raajnitik:  national

samasya:  problem

banda garnu:  to close

vidyarthi:  student

pasal:  store

padhnu:  to read, to study

siknu:  to learn

padhaunu:  to teach a subject (literally, to cause to read)

sikaaunu:  to teach a skill (literally, to cause to learn)

kinnu:  to buy

One Year Anniversary!

No, not for the blog.  For my time in Kathmandu.

(Oh, yes, BTW, I know, “long time no see” and all that.  No, for once I haven’t been sick.  Just busy.)

As I’ve mentioned, I actually spent a few weeks back in the United States earlier this year.  But otherwise, in two days, I will have lived here for a year.  And since the flight around the world takes so long, it was actually almost precisely one year ago this minute that I boarded a plane to fly from DC to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok, and Bangkok to Kathmandu.

I’d never been to any of those countries before.  I was anxious and excited and nervous, bouncing up and down.  Yes, I’d seen Canada.  I’d lived in Mexico for six weeks.  I’d visited Spain, and even Morocco… but that was all.

I was fluent in Spanish, and had a glancing knowledge of a handful of other languages, from French through German to Arabic.  But as I sat bouncing on the plane, petting anxious cats from time to time, I was clutching my “Teach Yourself Nepali” book and wondering why on earth the language was proving so hard.  For several months, lacking any other Nepali resources, I’d been studying the writing system from books about Hindi, and naively hoping the smattering of Hindi vocabulary and grammar that I’d picked up would also help with Nepali.

I’d been interested in other cultures for years, and I’d read histories about Anglo-Saxon Britain; Medieval Italy; ancient Judea; post-Incan, newly Hispanic Peru; the Arab world in the 700s AD; the Cherokee nation; the Hittite Empire; the Assyrians… but somehow I’d never really learned much about south-eastern Asia, until the months leading up to the trip, when I tore through the memoirs of Babur and the Dalai Lama; widened my eyes at the Bhagavad-Gita and the Tibetan Book of the Dead; and gazed at pictures of Himalayan Salt Caravans and the bizarre, mysterious sites of this crazy place called Kathmandu.  The type of place that would have been stamped on the outside of a box Garfield had trapped Odie inside of and was about to set out for the mailman.  The place I was going.

I listened to comments like “Kathmandu?  Is that in Tibet?” and “Nepal?  That’s part of India, isn’t it?”  (By all the powers of goodness in this universe, do you have any idea how badly that notion ticks off the Nepalis?)  And I kept bouncing around, semi-patiently explaining that Nepal was its own country in between both places–a fact I’d also been shaky on when I first heard I might be going to Kathmandu.  Mostly I sang the old “Kathmandu, that’s where I’m going to” song and, more and more often, gaped at pictures of an alien land and somewhat wondered if I was literally getting as close to traveling to another inhabited world as I could conceivably get in my lifetime.

I gaped for a long time after I got here, too.  But lately I’ve realized that it’s become passe.  After a mere glance, (and maybe a brief, “That’s a pretty cow,”) I look away after noticing a cow or two or three grazing freely in the neighboring fields.  I accept it as perfectly normal for people to walk down the street with impossible loads (including full-size refrigerators!) strapped to their backs.  I’m unfazed when cars pass me on narrow roads, their tires crunching inches from my toes; I and the driver hardly glance at each other, and that’s enough to judge the distance so that each of us can just marginally get out of the other’s way.  I weave through Thamel with no heed for the hucksters calling, “Ma’am!  You look!  Good price!  Where you from?”  And they actually seem to swirl around me less.  I feel like there must be a difference in my eyes, in my stride, that mark me as different from the tourists who just stepped off the plane.  True, I don’t gape so much anymore.

Taxis are easier to.  I step up, name my destination, insist “ek sae”  (regardless of destination; I’ve learned that I never travel far enough to justify paying even that much, as far as Nepalis are concerned, and if the driver tries to charge any higher he’s egregiously ripping me off) step in, and off we go.  The drivers hardly try to argue with me anymore.  Instead they nod, and along the way we discuss the route in a blend of Nepali and English, and then I get to practice the same Nepali conversation for the umpteenth time by explaining where I’m from, where I live here, that I teach English, and what my classes are like.

Too, when my husband’s driving our car, and a motorcycle comes up around us when we’re stopped in traffic, and rams into the side of the car, I merely sigh in aggravation as my husband slams on the horn, and the motorcycle keeps going, and I roll down the window and reach out to pop out the side mirror yet again.  And then we return to our conversation.

I do still stare at the hills, though.  They’re awfully pretty.

So.  Back to my earlier comment about recently visiting the US.  Even more recently, I was looking through pictures from the trip, and it struck me as hysterical how I could accept both environments as perfectly normal, in their own ways…  the US just looks like the US, and Kathmandu looks like Kathmandu.  And they have their similarities.  But even in those, they’re wildly different.  Honestly, it’s no wonder I used to gape.

I’ll post some examples, in the coming days, if I can get myself to sit still at the computer and NOT edit novels or write lesson plans or read the entire wikipedia.  And every interesting news article posted in the last minute.  Hmm, looks like the Iranian election results are in…

Nepali of the Day:

ek:  one

sae:  hundred

din:  day

haptaa:  week

barshaa:  year

bhashaa:  language

naya:  new

purano:  old

-ko:  equivalent to ’s; marks the possessive

subakamana:  Congratulations!  Happy… Merry… (used in phrases like our “Merry Christmas!  Happy Birthday!)

Ek bharshaako subakamana!

Ah, Antibiotics!

I do think my bronchitis/swine flu/avian flu/asthma/tuberculosis/little-Peggy-Ann-McKay-disease is FINALLY about gone.  In the meantime Nepal has invented some news (though not too much; they’re still working on the whole rebuilding the government thing) and I’ve considered posting some pictures (though I haven’t taken any new ones, because the camera was missing until an hour ago.)

Coincidentally, I just took my last antibiotic in the latest series.  I do think I’ve taken more medicine, and spent more time sick, in the past 6 months than I had in the previous 6 years.

Part of the problem has to be the simple change in environment.  After all, in 2005 I went to Morocco for 2 days… and was sick for 5 weeks.  (It was still worth it!  If you ever get a chance, go!)  But I didn’t get sick from living for six weeks in Mexico, and I was remarkably healthy for the first 6 months while we were here.

In large part I blame the dry season.  The air even *feels* cleaner during the monsoon.  We’re creeping closer to it–in the past month it has rained multiple times.  Contrast that with the previous months:  it rained THREE TIMES between October and April.  Now, I’ve been told that this year was especially dry; the Kathmandu valley was really suffering a drought, and a few months ago I started hearing rumbles about water shortages and emergency measures to conserve water.

Um, do you see the blank page at the top of the picture? Yeah, you're supposed to see hills there, if not Himalayas...

In the past few weeks, on multiple days, the skies have opened up and poured buckets of water on us.

The first time it happened, back in late April, I ran through the house, peering out every window to get a different view, clapping my hands and chanting in a child’s sing-song, “It’s raining!  It’s pouring!  It’s raining!  It’s pouring!”

(That was back when running up and down the stairs didn’t send me into violent fits of coughing…)

So I have high hopes for the rain to clean out the air and wash icky pathogens down the rivers to India.  (Sorry, India!)  And the Indian Ocean.  (Sorry, Australia!)  At least there they won’t be as concentrated.

In official news about diseases, apparently Kathmandu has had its first case of the dreaded H1N1/swine flu.  But it’s only “apparently,” because the case is in a woman who crossed the border into Chinese-controlled Tibet and got diagnosed there.  Previously she’d spent a few days in a hostel in Kathmandu.

I think I may start wearing a face mask.  Or–heck–just never step outside again.

Except–unfortunately–it is awfully pretty…

Panoramas are our friends. Particulates are not.

Nepali of the Day:

ghar:  house

gharbhitra:  in the house

gharbahira:  outside the house

shahar:  city

ghumnu:  wander around

sutnu:  sleep

Nepali Politics 105

I know, I’ve been gone for an absurdly long time.  If it makes you feel any better to know the reason for my disappearance, let it be known that in the meantime I’ve had various intestinal ailments, multiple migraines, at least two separate colds… and spent about a month wandering around in the US again.

And right now I’m honking with bronchitis.  Yay, bronchitis.

But enough about me.  This post is headlined Nepali Politics for a reason.  I’m not here to write ONLY because I’m wide awake while the rest of the house sleeps, nor because I got the idea just before it got bright enough to read.  (For those of you interested in comparing time zones, note that it’s now, at 5:06 AM, plenty bright enough to sit by the window and read.)

Nepal made the international news this week.  And I’m unfortunately aware that that isn’t altogether common, so I wanted to give my take on the news.

Really, I’ve been surprised by the international coverage I’ve seen.  The problem seems to be that the media wants to simplify the problem, so that it will fit in a news bite, but the problem isn’t simple at all.  Actually, that’s WHY it’s a problem.

The breaking point happened Monday.  As I’ve noted, I’m sick, and have been all week; I canceled all my classes, and yesterday, when I finally tried to work again, I sent myself into an annoying relapse.  So on Monday, in between multiple naps, I heard on the radio, “Due to the resignation of the Prime Minister…”

Hold up.

Due to the WHAT?

I hauled myself out of bed, weaving and coughing and sneezing all the while, to come to the computer and check the online news.  And, yes, the Prime Minister, who I wrote about in Nepali Politics 103, back in late August, as only then being appointed, had indeed submitted his resignation following his speech at 3 pm on Monday afternoon.

The question with the long answer is WHY.  I’ll try to simplify it, in a way that even the BBC itself shocked me by being too lazy to do.

EXHIBIT A:  Nepal just ended a civil war.

You must start there, to explain this.  In 2006, the peace accords were signed to end a two-year civil war between the national army and the forces of a Maoist/Marxist/communist uprising that had swept the country.

EXHIBIT B:  At the end of the war, thousands* of soldiers of the former rebel forces were left in “cantonments.”

*(Thousands deserves an asterisk because of other news this week that merits a post of its own.)

Think of the end of the American Civil War, when pockets of Confederate soldiers dotted the country.  Except, then, most of those Confederates melted back into the general society from which they came.  Here in Nepal, as part of the peace accords, the United Nations rounded up the former Maoist combatants and penned them into various camps called “cantonments” around the country.

EXHIBIT C:  Many of the former rebels now expect to be eventually integrated into the national army.

Personally, I have a bit of trouble understanding this one.  But apparently many of the Maoist soldiers don’t want to return to their homes and families; they’ve been trained, and had experience, as soldiers.  The peace accords were signed with the expectation that, while some of the former rebel soldiers could turn to civilian society, many would join the national military or police forces.

EXHIBIT D:  A few months ago, news broke that the national army was recruiting.

Late last fall, this made the headlines here in Kathmandu in multiple forms, for multiple reasons.  First, it outraged many people–especialy the Maoists–and earned censure from the United Nations itself, because a point in the peace accords was that neither side that fought the civil war would recruit to increase their numbers following the outbreak of peace.  Now, we’re getting close to the reason for the current political snarl.  Because, you see, the national army defended itself by protesting that they weren’t recruiting with the goal of a net increase in their numbers; no, they were just trying to fill some of the places that had opened up due to normal changes following the war, retirements and resignations and such.

Curiously, what no one seemed to actively protest, but what no doubt many people were thinking, was the real nut of the problem:  if the national army had open spots, why didn’t they seize on those as an opportunity to begin the integration of the armies, by recruiting from the cantonments?

EXHIBIT E:  In retaliation, the Maoist forces announced that they wanted to start recruiting, too.

In the age-old wisdom of “THEY’re doing it; why can’t WE?’ headlines blared with prominent words from various Maoists, stating (with a contemptous sniff, one could imagine) that they, too, wanted to begin recruiting to fill the positions that had opened up in their own army following the war.

EXHIBIT F:  The government told everybody to stop recruiting.

I’m unclear as to whether or not the Maoists actually did.  But the national army dithered for a while, as the controversy loomed and both sides argued back and forth, even involving the courts, until the leaders of the national army could smugly reply that they’d completed their recruiting and the first batch of new recruits were already in training.

By this point it was February.

EXHIBIT G:  Following elections last year (April of 2008), the political party with the largest component in government was actually the Maoist party.

International observers dubbed those elections largely free and fair.  And nearly everyone was surprised by the strong showing of the Maoist (actually, officially UML-Maoist, or “United Marxist Leninist-Maoist”) party.  They were, after all, the former rebels, a scant two years before.  Picture an alternate reality where, following the American Civil War, the new “Confederate” party rose to national acclaim as the most prominent political party, nation-wide, and you’ll have some idea of the change.

Apparently many people did connect with the platform of the Maoist party.  But, too, Nepal has multiple political parties, dozens more than the squabbling pair that demand all attention in the United States.  Here, three parties are admittedly the most prominent (Nepali Congress, UML-Maoist, and “regular” UML, [ie, UML-non-Maoist]), but various small parties also claimed seats in the elections last year that chose representatives to write a new national constitution and govern the country in the interim.  All of which leads to…

EXHIBIT H:  Though the Maoists won a plurality, they didn’t have a majority.

That is, though UML-Maoist garnered more seats in the election than any other party, they didn’t win more than 50% of the seats.  This meant that the negotiations last summer to simply form a government were highly complicated.  Compare the situation with what just happened in Israel, if you have that as a reference.  Since Israel also has multiple parties and a parliamentary system set up to accomodate them, the leaders of their parties also have to bargain with one another in order to form a working coalition to actually govern the country.

As much as I hate having the blunt either-or choice that elections in the United States usually present voters with (Republican or Democratic platform?), you have to acknoweledge that when there are multiple strongly competing parties, all with their own competing platforms… well, trying to streamline them and make them coincide, is more than difficult.  It’s a bit of a mess.

EXHIBIT G:  Following those elections, finally, it was decided that the Prime Minister would be from the Maoist, and the President from the Nepali Congress, party.

Again, with the comparisons:  like France, Nepal has it set up, (in their interim constitution, at least) that they have both a Prime Minister and a President.  The Prime Minister fulfills the role of leading the Constituent Assembly/legislative body, in a way a bit similar to the Senate Majority Leader in the United States, though with far more power.  Essentially, the Prime Minister is expected to lead in governing and in deciding internal issues.  The President fills the role of head of state–a bit like the role of the Queen of England, or the role of the former King here in Nepal.  The office of President is therefore set up to be a fairly honorary position–though with some role in governing, as well.

EXHIBIT H:  The Maoists and Nepali Congress don’t get along very well.

The Nepali Congress party is recognized as the grand-daddy of democracy in Nepal.  The party formed in the ’50s, and was the first to loudly push for democratic reforms to the monarchy that then governed Nepal.  For a long time, they were the strongest political party here.  Too, they’re widely viewed as drawing their inspiration from India (just to the south of here) and the United States.

The UML-Maoist party formed from the leaders of the Maoist uprising that just conquered much of the countryside in the civil war.  As the reference to Marx, Lenin, and Mao in their name ought to loudly indicate, they’re avowedly communist in orientation.  They earn their most common designation of “Maoist” from their focus on Mao’s idea of mobilizing the rural peasantry.  Like China a century ago, in Nepal even a decade ago (even now!) there wasn’t much of an urban proletariat to organize.  Instead, across the country the vast majority of people are subsistence farmers.  So… though their party loudly denounces foreign intervention, they’re viewed as looking to China (just to the north of here) for inspiration.

Note bene, of the two strongest political parties here, one is democratic/capitalist, and one is communist.  Do you begin to see a possible problem?

EXHIBIT I:  In March, a new political controversy emerged, when the government refused to renew the terms of 8 ministers in the army.

Their positions were set up to require renewal every four years.  Historically, those positions received automatic renewal in a kind of rubber stamp.  But nothing legally required their renewal.  Just, when the Prime Minister declared that he wouldn’t renew them in their posts this time, people were shocked by the flouting of tradition.  The move was viewed as a slap in the face of the Chief of Army, in retaliation for his refusal to end the earlier recruiting drive in the national army until it was already complete.

EXHIBIT J:  The Chief of Army staff announced that the army ministers would continue in their posts.

Thus, the controversy started to whirlpool.  The ministers kept going to work, sitting in their offices and conducting business as normal.  The Chief of Army staff defended them, even as cases were filed and headlines blared with public comments, and rumored comments, from each side.  The subtext was very obviously a power struggle between the Prime Minister and the Cheif of Army staff, with a background in the earlier row over the recruiting drive.

Did I mention that, despite their repeated statements of political neutrality, the soldiers in the national army, and especially their leaders, are widely viewed as being close to the Nepali Congress party?

EXHIBIT K:  Last week, rumors started to swirl that the Prime Minister intended to fire the Chief of Army.

The rumors featured multiple theories about exactly how this would take place.  The man exactly subordinate to the Chief of Army, after all, is due to retire in June.  So some rumors stated that both the Chief of Army, and the man directly below him, would both be fired.  Of course, this led to shocked statements from the man directly below him, along the lines of, “I haven’t done anything–why do they plan to fire me?”  Against this was argued the impracticality of firing one man to open the way for another that would be replaced in barely a month.  Judging by the previous glacial slide of politics here, I fully expected the debate to drag out beyond that second man’s retirement in June.

EXHIBIT L:  On Sunday, the Prime Minister fired the Chief of Army.

The moment the news leaked out, groups of protesters started to congeal around Kathmandu, blocking intersections and standing outside government buildings.  All of us expatriates were strongly encouraged to stay inside, and out of the chaos.  “Luckily” I had come down with a new digestive ailment at 4:30 am on Sunday, so I had no intention of going anywhere anyway. I took the maximum dose of pepto that one can take in a day, and I was still sick.

EXHIBIT M:  On Monday, the President intervened.  He canceled the fire order, and told the Chief of Army to stay in place.

This week has featured a fair bit of discussion about exactly WHY he did this.  As far as the headlines were concerned, up to Monday, the President wasn’t involved in the situation at all.  But multiple ideas have emerged.  One focuses on Nepal’s perennial fear of foreign meddling in their affairs; people darkly speak of “foreign intervention” in the matter, with an unstated implication that India somehow directed the move.  But the more plausible set of theories focus on the President’s origin in the Nepali Congress party–though, in his position he’s supposed to be mystically beyond politics, and though, as the very nature of a modern army, the soldiers are also supposed to be apolitical…  Well, public sentiment casts both the President and Chief of Army as fellow supporters of the Nepali Congress party.

EXHIBIT N:  On Monday afternoon, at 3:00, the Prime Minister addressed the nation.  And presented his resignation letter to the President.

He cast the issue as one of the supremacy of the civilian government over the military.  You have to admit the point–in most modern governments, that principle is enshrined.  And the Prime Minister was the head of the civilian government, and the Chief of Army was the head of the military.  The head of the government is supposed to deliver orders to the head of the military, and the head of the military is supposed to obey.

But… you also have to admit the complications in the case.  The Prime Minister, Prachanda, is the former leader of the Maoist army that just fought a civil war against the national army, headed by the Army Chief.  He’s an avowed communist, and the Army Chief is said to have democratic leanings.  Peace accords or not, elections or not, principles or not… well, because of those other underlying principles, those are NOT easy differences to bridge.

Too, there’s a raging debate about whether or not the President had any legal authority for his move.  Did the interim constitution grant the President the power to veto a move by the Prime Minister?  Obviously the President thinks yes.  Just as obviously, the Prime Minister thinks no.

EXHIBIT OH-NO:  This week the Maoists completely withdrew from the government.  Instead, every day, in different ways, they protest in the streets.

Following the lead of the Prime Minister, who is, after all, the head of their party (and former army…) the other Maoists withdrew from the government also.  On Tuesday, as I lay in misery, coughing and sneezing and choking up icky brown stuff, I listened to reports of “two thousand Maoists have gathered in Ratna Park… three thousand Maoists are marching through the Thamel junction in the direction of Durbar Square…”  On Wednesday evening, they held a “torchlight rally” throughout the valley, though I was too tired and sick to care.  I didn’t even try peering out the window to see them come down our street; I checked the news only briefly, while eating chicken noodle soup, before going back to sleep.  On Thursday they did more stuff that I was too tired and sick to really care about–yesterday morning the nurse (who is also one of my friends–strange how small the expatriate community is here) had confirmed that my “cold” had migrated into bronchitis and the beginning of an ear infection.  (Apparently the digestive issue early this week had exhausted my immune system just as the cold arrived, so that it was too weakened to properly fight off the cold.)  I sat in bed, reading, too strangely wired by my medicine to sleep, listening to “however many Maoists are in whatever place doing whatever thing”  YOU KNOW WHAT?  I DON’T CARE!  I JUST WANT TO STOP COUGHING!

Yesterday morning, Friday, I felt considerably better.  I wasn’t coughing as much, I wasn’t as tired, and, as I said, I even managed to work for a while.  I read that a group of Maoists were standing outside the President’s residence.  “…the speaker is finishing, and now they are reading a poem.  Please don’t go into this area.”  Why?  Because they’ll read a poem at me?  Maybe I’ll recite Macbeth Act XX Scene i at them!  Or would Richard II Act IV Scene i lines 2150 to 2310 be more appropriate?

But by the afternoon I was coughing incessantly, and for the first time all week (in fact, for the first time in more than a year; I hardly ever get them) I had a fever.  So I lay back in the car as my husband drove me home, feverish and coughing, as I peered out the window at a group of thirty starting to congeal in one of the intersections, with several people proudly holding up communist flags.

With all my extra time to read this week, I finished a biography of Stalin, and started on Krushchev’s memoirs.  I’ve been reading about Tibet under Mao, and I’m about to start on a book labeled Mao’s China and After.  And I read about how many millions of their own people they killed in the pursuit of their goals, and I’m not shivering because I have chills.

Though I am looking forward to today’s promised “Cartoon Protest.”  My husband is eagerly expecting the Maoists to go out and protest the existence of cartoons, or else send all their cartoonist members into the streets.  I’m hoping for some original political cartoons.  After all, they say laughter is the best medicine.

Nepali of the Day:

khoki laagyo:  I have a cough.

ruga laagyo:  I have a cold.

tapaailaai kasto chha:  how are you?

Malaai naraamro chha:  I don’t feel well.

Malaai biraami chha:  I’m sick.

sarkari samasya:  government problem

March Comes in Like a Lion

I know, I’ve been doing another poor job of posting consistently. Is it any consolation that in the past 3 days I’ve been to Patan’s Durbar Square, Pashupatinath Temple (for the second time in a week), Bhaktapar (again), Thamel… and spent a day curled up in bed, fasting, with yet another stomach problem?

If we expand out to within the space of two weeks:  we’ve also wandered around on the side of The Pretty Mountain Hill (Shivapuri) and are planning outings to Boudinath and/or Swayambhunath this weekend.

I just downloaded 750 new pictures into my computer. But I really do intend to return to the stupa theme first, if I can stay well and un-busy and un-exhausted enough to do so over the next few days.  (And if the computer/internet behaves better than it has done today and has been doing lately.)

In the meantime, here’s a token pair of lions from Patan so that I can say I posted something today:

A pair of lions in Patan Durbar Square

Nepali of the Day:
simha: lion
chituwa: leopard
bagh: tiger
duita: two (of something)

yeuta:  one (of something)

thulo: big

basnu:  to sit

aaunu:  to come

-maa:  in

-dai chan:  they are VERBing

Patanmaa, duita Thulo simha basdai-chan.

Marchmaa, yeuta simha audai-cha.

Stupa Stoop

I apologize for ending the last post a tad abruptly–the internet decided to enter a flaky mood, so I figured it was best to get the post up when I had the chance, as soon as the connection appeared again.  Yay, non-broadband.  Brings back memories of 1997.

And I’ll warn that my husband and I are apparently getting sick yet again.  Yay, dysentery.  Or other random bug, or bad food, or…

We were much better back at the end of the monsoon season, happily ascending Swayambhunath for some sight-seeing and pleasant exercise.  As I said yesterday, the entire hill is one continuous shrine.  From the bottom up, there’s more to look at than you can take in.  I keep studying my own photos and discovering new things in them all.

A pair of carved pillars flank one entrance to the hill.

A painted arch marks another entrance. (You're looking back down at the world outside.)

Note the kneeling deer in the picture above, and keep an eye out for them.  They’re a common symbol of Buddhism, commemorating the deer park where Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) delivered his first public sermon on Buddhism, an event that appears in artwork as commonly as the Sermon on the Mount in Christianity.  The wheel (or “chakra”) between the deer is another common symbol of Buddhism, and represents the teachings that lead to Englightenment.

Statues adorn the hillside, too.  I have numerous pictures of intricately carved stone, weathered by centuries.  But the three largest statues demand your attention as you start to ascend from the archway above.

A trio of Buddhas on the slope of the hill, each forming a different mudra (gesture of blessing and protection.)

A close-up of one of the Buddhas.

…And this is all still just the beginning.  I call it the “stoop” because, well, in case you haven’t noticed by now, I like word play.  But, too, this really is only the “porch” of the hill, the entrance, the introduction.  You may be wondering, “Where’s the stupa?”

If all goes well, tomorrow we’ll climb the steps.

Nepali of the Day:

meerga:  deer

teen:  3

paTak:  time; instance; occurrence

biraami:  sick

chu:  I am

mehina:  month

malaai ___ laagyo:  I feel ____

waak-waak:  nausea

chiso:  cold

taato:  hot

TeenpaTak, ek mahina-maa, ma biraami chu!

Malaai waak-waak lagyo.

Mero shrimaan-laai chiso laagyo.

Malaai TaaTo laagyo.

We’re Off to See the Stupa!

So, have you had enough of the stupa south of Thamel?  Good.  Time to feature our next stupa.

This one ties for “breath-taking” with stupa #3, which should also appear later this month.  In fact, this pair are two of the top tourism destinations in all of Nepal; many of the guidebooks feature one or the other of them on the cover.  We visited Swayambhunath first, and it has a solid claim for notoriety.

Do you remember the story from Nepali Politics 101, about the legend of the boddhisatva that meditated atop a hill and then cleaved a gap in the surrounding hills to drain the primordial lake that once filled the Kathmandu Valley?  Swayambhunath marks the spot where the boddhisatva is said to have meditated.

Honestly, the stupa is so old that no one seems to be quite able to tell exactly when it was built, or by who, or why.  Guidebooks and tourist sites like to throw around words like “ancient” and “mysterious.”  But an old chronicle, and a damaged stone inscription, and archaelogists’ best guess, all agree that the stupa is approximately 1500 years old.  No, not built in 1500–I mean, it is likely at least one thousand, five hundred years old.  Tradition says that there was a previous structure in the same place even earlier than that, and I don’t disregard the tradition.  People do like to rebuild things.  And if I were a prehistoric person wandering around the Kathmandu Valley, I think I would have naturally been drawn to the hill.  Anyone would.

Can you find the stupa? Review what you've learned about stupas, and look carefully... Oh, all right, it's hard to miss.

The entire area is important to the history and culture of the Kathmandu Valley.  The base of the hill itself is chockful of smaller monuments–and stretching from the base to the top, simply endless streams of prayer flags.

Even as you drive around the small ring road at the base of the hill, prayer flags wave over your head.

Really, the entire hill is a shrine. And the prayer flags continue, and the waves of monuments grow more complex, as you ascend.

Nepali of the Day:

pahaD:  hill

upateka:  valley

paani:  water

tol:  lake

chaDnu:  to climb

ko: of (possessive)

Haami Swayambhunathko pahaD chaDyau.  –  We climbed Swayambhunath hill.

Dherai bharsha aghi — Many years ago