I’m Thankful for… Kathmandu

First of all, I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving from Kathmandu.

Now that’s not something I get to say every day.

This time next year, even, I surely won’t be able to say it.  My days in Kathmandu are numbered.

And I’ve been already feeling that, in silly overly sympathetic ways, like, “Today will be the last day I ever have a Thanksgiving meal with Nepali tea…”

You know.

But I’ve also had two great opportunities within the last week–I’ve visited two different schools here in Kathmandu.  Last week, I was talking about education and globalization in general; today, on the eve, I was talking about the American celebration called “Thanksgiving.”  I’ve explained the holiday to many other ESL students over the past few weeks and years, too.

If you ask me to rank my favorite holidays, I have to put Christmas at the top of the list.  Then Halloween.  And then Thanksgiving, at a respectable third.

But if you ask me my favorite holiday to teach about, I have to lean toward Thanksgiving.

It ties into everything I do in ESL so well.  A couple of years ago, I managed to tell the whole story of Thanksgiving–from “Pilgrims and Native Americans” to the modern feast, to a group of absolute beginner ESL students classified as “pre-literate.”  In a slow, careful lesson, I managed to build on what the students already knew:

“I am from America; You are from Burundi; She is from Burma… They [pointing to the picture of the Pilgrims in the book] are from England…”

And then I dragged my finger over the globe, just as I did for each of them on their first day in class, reviewing “You came from Burundi to America… She came from Burma to America… They came from England to America…”

“I live in America.  I was born in America, I was a baby in America… They [pointing to the picture of the Native Americans in the book] are from America…”

It just seemed to fit the entire theme.  I was teaching refugees who had just arrived in the United States a few weeks or months earlier, and suddenly a holiday arrived that commemorates a meal shared by people fleeing persecution 400 years ago who came to America and were welcomed by a group of Native Americans.  My students nodded soberly when I explained how the Pilgrims were cold, and didn’t have good food or houses, and many were sick.  They smiled and nodded when they saw the Native Americans teaching how to catch fish and plant corn.  They smiled wider when they saw the tall plants and slain ducks and deer, and the table laid out for the feast, and the pale-skinned and dark-skinned people sharing the food.  They were a bit puzzled by the new and difficult-to-say English word “prayer,” but when I folded my hands and solemnly bent my face toward the ground, and then paused before spreading my arms and lifting my fingers and upturned face to the heavens, abruptly lightbulbs went off in the eyes of every student, and the smiles spread again.  And I emphasized the simple English words they already knew, putting them into the context:  “Thanksgiving.  Give [miming how we practiced giving a pen, a paper].  Thanks [looking to different students in turn, with a grateful smile, as we'd practiced polite phrases].  Thank you.  I thank you.  Thank you very much!  Thanksgiving.”

It can be broken down that simply.  And people around the world can understand it.

Here, today, I wasn’t welcoming newcomers to America.  But I could still tell the story, with a new twist of a Nepali man interpreting after every few sentences.  But these students listened for every word even of my so-hard-to-understand English, and their hungry eyes absorbed every picture, whether printed or in a book or torn from a magazine.  Their fingers traced the path of the strange boat from England to America.  They blinked some when I explained my ancestors came from England, too, as well as from France and Germany, and they blinked even more when I pointed to the “Red Indians” in the book and explained I was also descended from them, from a group called the Cherokee.

The students packed the room, filling every bench.  They lined the walls, too, standing, to fill every free space.  They’d rarely seen Americans, and yet here one was, talking to them for an hour about a strange story they’d never heard.  And I’d been told by the Nepalis beforehand–the school was a government school, not rich, and the students came from everyday, working families.  For many of them, affording daily needs could be a struggle; my interpreter explained to me, with sad eyes, that some of the students might be unable to finish all the years of schooling, because their families might need to pull them out to send them to work, and their new boss might not let them continue going to school.

I looked at all those bright-eyed students, hanging on my every word, and as I explained that when Americans told each other what they were thankful for, they’d say “food” and “family” and “friends” and “good health”… and, for students:  “education.”

And I told them, honestly, that this year, one thing I was thankful for was the chance to come to Nepal.  I explained that most Americans never can.  And at the end of the talk, one girl asked in innocent curiosity, “Why do few Americans come to Nepal?”

And I was explaining how far away it is, a two-day trip even by plane.  And their eyes were wide again, contemplating the size of the world, and from how very far away their visitor had come.

So…tomorrow there’s the turkey, and the green beans, and the corn, and the stuffing, and the pumpkin pie.  There are friends and the only family I have here, and thoughts of friends and family far away.

But I still have that image in front of my eyes, of the thinking eyes of students, listening deeply to the old familiar story all Americans know, and pondering deeply, as they contemplate two different groups helping each other, and then giving thanks, even four hundred years later.

 

Nepali of the Day:

dhanyabaad:  thank you

dherai-dherai dhanyabaad:  thank you very much

dinu:  to give

dinchu:  I give

dinuhuncha:  you give

khaanaa:  food

pariwar:  family

satthi (haru):  friend (s)

paDnu:  to study

iskul:  school

makai:  corn

hariyo simi:  green beans

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

No explosions tonight.  The snap and crackle of fireworks is gone.

I did hear a few this morning, but they were sporadic, lonely and sort of sad.

Several of my neighbors have taken down their electric lights.  The few that are still gleaming seem an oddity, in the dark.  And there are no candles.

No singing or dancing, either, other than the headphones in my ears and my fingers on the keyboard.

So Tihar has come and gone.  It makes me nostalgic, to think we probably won’t be here to see it again next year.  It’s such a pretty festival.

But life goes on, here in the Nepal Sambat year of 1130.

The eternal summer of Nepal continues.  While I was talking to people back in Indiana on Sunday, who reported a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit, here it remains cheerfully in the 70s.  Note all the green, along the path for our Sunday walk:

The greenery gracing the edge of the trail we hiked at Shivapuri National Park.

But, with some work, I managed to find one tree that was losing its leaves.  Granted, maybe that had nothing to do with the season.  Maybe it was a sick or dying tree, for all I know.  But it did make the path nicely, temporarily, dry leaf-strewn.

Dry leaves scattered along the path in the park.

Speaking of eternal summers, go check out the latest play discovered to have some likely input from Shakespeare.

Nepali of the Day:

kal:  era

yug:  era

sambat:  era

paksha:  fortnight

aunsi:  new moon

purnima:  full moon

barsaat:  rainy season

sharad:  autumn

shuru garnu:  to start

pachi:  after

Barsaat pachi, sharad shuru garcha.

Tihar Comes But Once a Year…

…but when it does, it brings good cheer!

After 16 months here, I’ve decided, definitively, that Tihar is the closest analogue, in spirit, to Christmas in America.

It’s not just the lights, scintillating everywhere, draping from every house and business.

It’s not just the stores, brimful of excited shoppers, hunting through the latest selection of the typical goods of the season.

It’s not just the streets, choked with traffic–of the car, bus, van, motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian variety–as all those shoppers hurry home.

It’s not just the candles, casting cheery lights from window panes.

It’s not just the children, wandering from house to house to sing traditional songs.

It’s not just the family gatherings.

It’s not just the ready smiles–Nepalis feature those daily, as part of their normal culture.

It’s… the entire spirit of the holiday.  There is such a palpable aura of joy in the air that it seems like it ought to get its own color named after it.

It’s beautiful.

Of course, there are differences.  Around me now, firecrackers snap and pop and sizzle for brief seconds in the night sky.  Today, people must have celebrated Kahg Tihar by setting out food for the crows.  Tomorrow, many people will be flagging down the local street dog to offer it a special treat and then rub vermillion powder on its forehead as a special puja.  Households will soon feature trails of red powder from their gate to their front door, to welcome the goddess Laxmi to bring good fortune into their homes for the coming year.

Still, all of this is slightly disrupting my month-long celebration of Halloween.  I’m not so interested in reading scary stories or designing a costume with so much… well… Christmas spirit around.  I’m really very tempted to jump forward 2 weeks, and start my personal, annual, 2 month-long celebration of all things Christmas-Yule-Winter.

Then again, autumn began less than a month ago, and all the trees here continue to be happily, stubbornly green.

Living abroad can be such a strange mixture of experiences…

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

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!

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

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.

Stupas are Stupendous

So, to review, when we last left off in the stupa saga, my husband and I had stumbled on this stupa just south of Thamel:

Note the smaller shrines around the large stupa.

Or, to be more exact, I was telling the story of the first time we saw the stupa, along with the photos from the second time we saw the stupa.  The day of the pictures was a day of many sights; I had my camera with me because I’d just been shooting pictures in Kathmandu Durbar Square.  Many of the best of those pictures I also STILL haven’t posted–even though, as the looming clouds in the pictures bear witness, these pictures were taken way back in monsoon season.  Apparently on October 5th, or thereabouts.

I miss the monsoon.  It was warmer then.  And, too, barely an hour after taking these stupa pictures, I caught the double rainbow over the old royal palace.  That day, I came very close to capturing an equally momentous sight at the stupa itself.  Not that this close up of the Buddha eyes on the stupa is bad:

Apparently this is only done in Nepal, but all the stupas here have eyes painted on all 4 sides. The curled nose is shaped like the Nepali numeral "1" which looks like the Western "9."

…But every time I see it, I remember that I came *this close* to catching a lightning bolt rending its background.  To my shock, I saw it with my naked eye in the same moment I snapped the photo, but the camera didn’t catch it.  At the moment, my only relationship with electricity is with the generator making some for our house, and with the static kind that is often making my hair actually crackle when a metal necklace over my head.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some rain.  Aside from the sprinkles on Christmas (closer to a White Christmas than I could have realistically expected), and the 15-minute hard rain on December 26th, we’ve had no rain whatsoever since the monsoon ended back in October.

Still, we visited the stupa on a good day.  As I pointed out in my last post, a pair of men were diligently repainting the entire area with brilliant paint.

A man adding fresh paint to the shrines around the stupa.

A pause in the painting.

The paint wasn’t just for the large stupa–it’s common for many smaller Buddhist shrines to surround an impressive stupa.  With the fresh paint, on that day, the entire place looked like a mythical land.

With everything so brilliant under such a leaden sky, I felt like I was no longer even on earth. Judging by its design, I think the building in the background is a monastery attached to the stupa.

I promise, I really will look up the name of this place soon!

Nepali/Tibetan/Sanskrit of the Day:

stupa:  round shrine over a Buddhist saint’s relics

gomba:  monastery (also written gompa or gumpa)

dharma:  religion

Buddha dharma:  Bhuddism

Hindu dharma:  Hinduism

mannu:  to believe

kaam garnu:  to work

dekhnu:  to see (by chance)

uniharu:  they

haami:  we

Uniharu kaam garnubhayo.  — They worked.

Uniharu Buddha dharma mannuhunchan?  –  Do they believe in Buddhism?

Haami stupa-le dekhyau.  –  We saw the stupa.

21st Century Inauguration

I just finished listening to the Inauguration of President Barack Obama.  Yes–LISTENING.

When we first moved here, and tried calling the main cable provider in Kathmandu, we discovered that we lived too far out of the main part of the city for access.  They politely explained that their cable lines just didn’t go as far as our neighborhood.

It still looks like we’re in the city.  The houses are dense, the road always busy, with cars and people and cows–like the rest of Kathmandu.

On the other hand, over the weekend, we took an easy, meandering walk down some of the side roads that led away from our neighborhood… and in only an hour, our eyes were very wide, and we were trying not to gawk, as we stared at very traditional Nepali homes that looked like they were centuries old.  It did look like electric lines stretched that far–but by no means did the lines branch off for every house.  And in the language spoken around us, suddenly, I wasn’t picking out a single word.  This, in spite of my nascent ability to understand Nepali–usually, on a typical walk, I now hear words I recognize amidst the snatches of conversation, from the ever-present “Hajur” to the repeated “Keena?”, both just as common as they are in English.  But in the old village–complete with giant banyan tree, the looming type under which Buddha attained enlightenment, and under which Shiva sits in some forms–I noticed that I didn’t understand a single word spoken around me… and the rhythm of the conversations sounded different, too.  Likely the people were speaking Newari instead of Nepali.

So.  Pictures of our walk later.  The point right now is that just before 10:15 this evening (AKA noon EST), I was trolling all the news sites and trying to find a live stream with Inauguration coverage.  I found the link on CBS without much trouble–but then I did have pronounced trouble, because of our relatively low bandwidth here.  Listen to music, yes; in fact, I can even view video on YouTube, if I start it playing and then pause it for 15 or 30 minutes while I let it cache (or download?  what’s the right word here?).  But watch live streaming video… that, I realized, sadly, I cannot.  In a few lucky seconds, I caught flashes of people walking, or speaking, all for scarce seconds before the image froze again.

My husband couldn’t think of a way to improve the connection, either.  But just as I realized that the BBC was maybe broadcasting Inauguration coverage, (which it was–103.1, 24-hr English news in Kathmandu!) he decided to try live streaming of C-SPAN radio.  And lo and behold, immediately, we were listening to live American coverage of the Presidential Inauguration the old-fashioned way:  over the radio… instantaneously streamed through the Internet to the other side of the world, to a house less than an hour’s walk from a village that looks like it wandered out of the Middle Ages.

Bewildering.  But magnificent!

Nepali of the Day:

hajur:  Most commonly, “yes” … but it has many uses, from “Could you repeat that?” to the politest form of address, since it’s the highest version of “you”

keena:  why?

gau:  village

shahar:  city

sansar:  world

loktantra:  democracy (formed, just like the Greek word we use, from the basic words for “people rule”)

The Night the Lights Went Out in Kathmandu

Do you ever sing a song to yourself, and then wonder if anyone else has ever sung that song in Kathmandu before?  I do.  I mean, honestly, how many Nepalis have ever heard the Irish/Appalachian “Siuil a Ruin?”  Or the French “Noel Nouvelet?”  Or all 8 verses of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen?”

But “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” has at least a slightly higher chance of getting coverage.  Especially since it just happens, as a regular occurrence, in Kathmandu.

The electricity supply has been erratic ever since we arrived.  Our generator has kicked off and on as the electricity rises and falls; it’s just a normal part of life, aggravating to me because I hate it when the giant, noisy, polluting, diesel guzzling thing roars to machine life.  The disappearance of electricity can only bother me in the evening in any case, since that’s the only time I use the computer or watch TV or do any involved cooking.  For as long as it’s light, I read or clean the house–and I’m perfectly happy to delay loads of the laundry if the electricity really wants to disappear.

But we arrived in the monsoon season.  And the monsoon season ended several months ago.  And that, for Nepal, is drastic.

Nepal has maybe the greatest hydroelectric potential of any country in the world.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of rivers drain the highest mountains in the world, racing down slopes with great potential for turning turbines.  Global warming paradoxically offers potential help, in more rapidly melting the glaciers on the Himalayas.  But, too, from June to October, the monsoon clouds rise up from the south and drench the country before slamming into the Himalayas and dropping whatever rain they have left.

All this means that Tibetans live in a massive rain shadow–most of the country is essentially a cold, elevated desert.  Nepal, on the other hand, ranges from Mt. Everest through a dizzying drop of mountains and hills and valleys down to malaria-ridden jungle, full of tigers and elephants… all within an area roughly similar to Tennessee.  Multiple studies indicate that Nepal is capable of producing surplus power to export to the rest of Asia.

Unfortunately, Nepal only just emerged from a civil war two years ago.  And even aside from that, many areas of the country remain breath-takingly remote; it’s not unusual to meet someone here in Kathmandu, and listen to them explain that they’re originally from a village “two days by bus, then 6 days of walking” from the capital.  And most Nepalis walk a heck of a lot faster than we lazy Western folk.

During, and following, the ten years of fighting, many people from rural villages traveled to Kathmandu for work.  And the city really hasn’t had the infrastructure developments to handle the influx; as near as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be much planned development at all.  Simply put, the existing power plants can’t even generate half the  power to meet the city’s demand.

As much as possible, Nepal is importing energy from India to make up for its shortfall.  But massive flooding during the monsoon this year–aside from creating a humanitarian disaster–also knocked out a power station and some of the main power lines coming up from India.

So the government has imposed load shedding, with a neat schedule reprinted every few weeks in the newspapers, to let people in each district of the city know the hours in the day when they can expect to have their electricity shut off.  By December, they’d reached 12 hours of load shedding a day.  This weekend, they’re upping it to 16.

So, essentially, we can only expect 8 hours of electricity a day.  Our yucky generator can give us extra time; still, I’m trying to get by with as little electricity as possible.  I do plug in my laptop, and it charges; then I run it off its battery until I have to plug it in again.  I’ve long been turning off the heaters in rooms no one is currently in (we have separate heaters/air conditioners for the main rooms, instead of central heating or air); now, I’m even trying to get by with them off as much as possible even while I’m in a room.  It’s currently 58 degrees Fahrenheit in here; I’m wearing long sleeves and a sweater and am wrapped up in the amazing shawl our didi gave me as a Christmas present.  The shawl could be made of artificial fibers; it’s possible.  But it really feels like the yak wool shawls I’ve seen in Thamel, and it’s incredibly warm, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what it is.  When I pause from typing to hide my hands under the shawl again, they’re immediately and comfortably warm.

Still, I CAN turn on the heater.  In a little while, I’ll probably cave and do so.  I definitely had it on for Alaska, when she returned from the vet this morning–she was just spayed, so she’s already uncomfortable from that.  And she’s a very pitiful little puppy, who seems to lack the undercoat I’m familiar with from German Shepherds/Labs, so she shivers when she’s cold.

The cats have just decided I’m nuts.  Except they cuddle more–to enjoy nice warm laps.

Our neighbors, though, are sitting right now in very cold and dark houses.  Some light fires in their yards, and huddle around them; I can see the occasional candle, too.  In fact, earlier, my neighbor’s evening ritual was even more interesting than usual.  You see, for the first few months we were here, early in the morning or late in the evening, I’d often start glancing from side to side, wondering why I heard the tinny sound of bells.  Then I got better at finding the source before it stopped, and I discovered that in several of the houses around us, someone–usually a young woman–goes out on the roof in the morning and/or evening and rapidly rings a bell for a minute or two, while maneuvering the bell through ritual gestures, probably for a puja or prayer.  Earlier this evening, with everything outside the window dark, it was shocking to suddenly glimpse a leaping flame–I peered out the window into the window of one of our neighbor’s houses, to catch sight of two moving hands, one holding a brilliant candle and the other frantically ringing the bell.  I watched the woman put the candle down on the window sill for a moment, then retrieve it and disappear back behind the walls of her house.

Out another window, a bit later, I could see a full moon rising–again, more impressive because of the power outage.  I tried taking pictures of it, but none of them were quite as good as a similar full moon I caught earlier this year.

The full moon rises over the hills north of Kathmandu.

That was before the constant load shedding, back when we all could have electricity.  Sigh!

Nepali of the Day:

didi:  literally, “older sister;” also the word equivalent to the English “maid”

ujyaalo:  light

undaroh:  dark

jaaDo:  cold (weather)

garmi:  hot (weather)

chiso:  cold (to the touch)

taaTo:  hot (to the touch)

ekdam:  very

ahile:  now

pani:  also

chha:  is

laagyo:  feel

-laai:  added to a noun to make it an object, like the reflexive pronouns in French and Spanish

Ahile ekdam jaaDo chha.

Malaai chiso laagyo.  (lit, “to me cold is felt”)

Mero biraalolaai pani chiso laagyo.