Halloween in Kathmandu

Finally–the American festive season has begun.

Dasaain is definitely unique. Tihar is beautiful. Chhat (sp?), a festival that’s mostly celebrated in Southern Nepal, has been extending some interesting influences lately, with fresh marigold garlands for sale at the chowks, and… well, frankly, it looks like some of my neighbors have put up what looks like a Medieval European corn maiden outside their house (I promise a picture, once I get it off the camera.)

But now, finally, it’s time for the American harvest festivals.

How many autumn decorations can YOU fit on one small coffee table?

I’ve been trying very hard, for over a month, to convince myself that it’s fall. I got out the autumn decorations on the equinox; I picked up a book of ghost stories, and two others that reviewed actual medieval accounts of the witch trials in Europe. We decided it was finally time to watch Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel, so we had a bunch of cavorting vampires and demons and witches.

But… the trees stayed stubbornly green, and only in the past week have we noticed anyone wearing jackets–and then just in the morning, or late evening. And we tend to giggle at them, because while we’ve agreed to wear long sleeves a few days ourselves, our Mid-Western raised bodies aren’t convinced that it’s anywhere near chilly enough to bother with a jacket.

All ye Americans out there, consider our plight: We haven’t passed any jack-o-lanterns, or signs for haunted houses, or billboards advertising “Halloween Super Stores.” We don’t open the newspaper for advertisements to fall out featuring sacks of candy and strange decorations, and there have been no commercials on TV featuring Dracula or mummies or witches. We live in a world without little graphics of dancing skeletons or smiling ghosts or black cats with arched backs. We can’t play flip-the-channel and stumble on Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin or Double Trouble or random horror flicks. No Halloween episodes of our favorite shows, no, not for us. No trick-or-treaters ringing our doorbell tonight.

Unsuspecting Nepalis have no idea I look out at them through a veil of strange decorations.

So, frankly, we get a stark understanding of what it means to live in another culture. Have you ever tried to explain the cultural “significance” of a paper snowflake? I did, while putting up decorations last year, and discovered a whole new awareness of the word “culture.”

So it’s an amazing comfort to continue your own traditions with people who share them, when you live in the midst of a bunch of people who don’t. I think it’s even more fun, in a way; it’s definitely more special.

Suddenly, today, when we walked into our friends’ Halloween party, we were all grins, realizing that, for the first time, it was really Halloween. Cobwebs draped over the typical Kathmandu gate, and demons howled from a remote sensor along the wall. Grinning skulls flickered on a wreath; a foam graveyard sprouted on the front lawn, with a ghost arising; a corner of the driveway was cordoned off with “caution” tape and an outline was drawn in chalk and sprinkled with blood and an abandoned gun. Fog machines thickened the air, dark and spooky songs pounded from the speakers… and everybody laughed and greeted each other with, “Wow, your costume is great!”

Superheroes eased past Little Red Riding Hoods, and Madonna schmoozed with a fairy and a zombie waitress. Vampires and mummies and pregnant nuns stalked around, looking for a cup of beer or coke. The representatives of Hispanic, Japanese, and Arab cultures were not there in the capacity of diplomats at an international gathering; they were hanging out and having fun. I was a queen in the grand European tradition in a nation that outlawed its monarchy three days before I set foot in the country.

We decided all the Nepalis must think we were crazy. The neighbors of my friends must have wondered what on earth was going on, with VERY strangely dressed (even more strangely dressed than normal) Westerners wandering around the streets. When we dropped off one of our friends after the party, and I realized I’d forgotten to wish her a parting, “Happy Halloween!”, I hesitated to roll down the window and shout it to her down the street. It was 11:00; all the lights in the houses were out. But my husband said, “Aw, go ahead. Pay back for Tihar.” During which, of course, we had a full band playing next door at 11:00. But we’re the minority here, and I decided the shout wasn’t worth it.

Since I can't find the traditional squash from home, I make do with what I have. Any clues about the green things? They grow in my yard, but I have no idea what they are.

But now I sit here typing and picking out the best pictures of the decorations in our house (actually from last year; I haven’t downloaded from the camera lately.) I was listening to CDs with spooky sound effects. Now I have Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Night Castle” going; on my playlist I’ve had Mannheim Steamroller’s “Harvest Dance” and “Rock and Roll Graveyard” playing right with “Hall of the Mountain King” and “Ride of the Valkyries” and “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”. I’ve had a vampire belting out “Let me rest in peace” from the Buffy musical episode, and Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson all doing their distinctive thing; I’ve let all this background music support writing brutal battles in the war underway in my current novel.

But tomorrow we must lay the ghosts. It’s past midnight; All Saints’ Day has begun, and All Souls’ Day will follow hard on its heels. In fact, I plan to end tonight with my traditional playing of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Carol of the Bells” and a rendition of either “O Holy Night” or “Silent Night”; then all the other Christmas music may begin. Within the next few days, the Nutcracker will be playing, and I’ll be singing Latin hymns like “In natali domine” and “Danielis prophetia”.

We different cultures can glance askance at each other as strange. Yet, I think people who have just finished a ritual slaughter in remembrance of a goddess slaying an evil demon, and then have thanked crows and dogs for their essential duties related to death, and then welcomed the peaceful, kind bringer of good fortune and light into their lives for another year… Well, as different as we may be, are we, really?

Nepali of the Day:
sanskriti: culture
bhoj: party
marnu: to die
mriti: death
raat: night
giit: song
mithai: sweets
lugaa: clothes
sharad: autumn

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.

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

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.

Flashback: DC

Yes, I really do have oodles of Kathmandu pictures and thoughts to post.  We snapped another 100 or more on our walk last weekend, and that’s the latest in a series of walks–not to mention several days’ worth of Pokhara that I never posted, and dramatic and awesome photos of Swayambhunath that I have somehow managed to sit in for almost 3 months.  But with the events of the last week, my mind has been wandering.  Because, as you know, I haven’t always lived in Kathmandu.  In fact, for a few months last year, we lived in Washington, DC.  And it was actually at about this time last year that I arrived in DC, having never visited it before then.

So in the past week, it’s offered me some perspective.  Even though we only listened to President Obama’s Inauguration, I could picture the swamping crowds filling the Mall, and the backdrop of the Capitol… and to the opposite side, stretching far away, the Washington Monument… and finally the Lincoln Memorial itself, in a panorama that is absolutely dramatic.  And, similarly, as I watched footage of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, it really sunk in that I had stood in the exact same spot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  Footage of the crowd from the 1963 March on Washington, and pictures of the crowd that watched the 2009 Inauguration, have blended in my mind, filled out and expanded by my memories of the vast park we call the National Mall.  It’s far bigger than any pictures could capture; it takes several hours to cross it… especially when you factor in the leisurely pace that the place demands, since you need to spend the majority of your time walking down it with your head turning side to side, admiring buildings and monuments and trying to grasp it all.

The U.S. Capitol, as it looks on a typical day, instead of all dolled up for the Inauguration.

Sadly, I’ve never actually had the chance to stand where Obama took the Presidential Oath; that area above the steps you can see in the picture is closed off to the public.  But there’s plenty to see on the outside.  Even if you don’t stand in line for the tour of the interior, just walking around the sidewalks that wrap the Capitol is impressive.

A view of the exact same place, just a bit further back. On that lawn between the road and the Capitol Building, the crowd with the best seats gathered on Tuesday.

You think you have some notion how large this place is.  Unless you’ve actually been there, let me assure you that you have no idea.  I didn’t, when I first arrived.  I thought it would be easy to jaunt from landmark to landmark and take them all in during a single day.  Here, that’s actually doable, within, say, Kathmandu’s Durbar Square.  When we translate the word into English as “square,” we essentially do mean city block.  I won’t deny that the temples in Durbar Square are remarkable, with ornate carvings and great attention to detail.  And the Taleju Temple truly soars.  But…

...and again, the same as above, just even further away. In fact, midway between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

But the planners of the National Mall had astonishing vision.  At the time they designed the place, people must have wondered at the massive empty space left for the Mall.  It allows plenty of space for the monuments/memorials already there, and there’s room to build more, for centuries and centuries.  Easy.

Taken by simply turning around in the exact same position where the picture above was taken. Yes, midway between the Capitol and Washington Monument.

And the Washington Monument itself marks the midpoint between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.  And from the Washington Monument, if you’re walking from the U.S. Capitol, it requires a pronounced hike off to the right in order to get a decent view of the landmark EVERYBODY wants to see.

The home office that Barack Obama now lives and works in. Fairly fancy.

But in order to glimpse the White House, as I said, you have to take a slight detour from the straight line that runs from the Capitol, through the Washington Monument, and to the Lincoln Memorial.  Only, in the past decade, a new landmark has been erected right along that straight line, so you stumble into it on the way to see Lincoln.  Honestly, I’m embarrassed but honest enough to admit that when we first came upon it, in the dark, on a cold January evening almost exactly one year ago, I didn’t even understand what it was until I found a sign to scrutinize in the darkness.  And then I was impressed.

It's hard to capture this one and do it justice. But of 80 or so pictures in which we tried, this was the best.

…and while you’re wandering around staring at the World War II Memorial, reading quotes and studying engravings that capture the experience of the war, you realize that you’re very tired indeed, and very far from the nearest Metro terminal.  And you still haven’t even seen the Lincoln Memorial.

Actually, I did all this in reverse:  at our first chance after entering DC, I caught a shuttle to the nearest Metro terminal and waited eagerly for the nearest stop, then sprinted straight for the Lincoln Memorial.  Only in the following days did I get a chance to approach the Washington Monument, White House, and Capitol.  (Often with a pronounced sense of “Is that…  That looks like… is that honestly…”)

But even a photo journey can eventually make you tired.  Especially when it’s very late at night.  More later!

Nepali of the Day:

din:  day

raat:  night

bihanna:  morning

diuso:  during the day (ie, afternoon)

belukaa:  evening

ek barsha aghi:  one year ago

ahile:  now

-maa:  in

basnu:  to live

ma baschu:  I live

Ek barsha aghi, ma Washington DC-maa baschu.

Ahile, ma Kathmandu-maa baschu.

Free Rice!

An addictive little website that I discovered through someone else’s blog–after I stumbled on it, I realized that I’d heard of it before, but I’d never managed to actually visit it.  Now, I’ve added it to my Care-to-do-Something page, and I encourage anyone who stumbles on it through this blog to go visit it, too:

Free Rice

The best part of the addictive little game on this site is that, as the name says, you actually fund donations as you play the game.  The English teacher/activist in me REALLY loves it.  A vocabulary game where, with every correct response, you donate 20 grains of rice?  Where you can test and improve your vocabulary, get addicted to a new online game (I’m already on level 44–think you can beat me?)… and donate to a good cause.  What could be better?

Well, maybe if it had other subjects… and lo and behold, it does.  If English vocabulary doesn’t keep you interested, you can go test/review/learn basic words in Spanish, French, German, or Italian.  Or perhaps you prefer math?  Or chemistry?  Or geography?  Or art, and identifying famous paintings?  And then, there’s the English grammar section…

I discovered the site about 20 minutes ago, and in part of that time, I’ve been reading other reviews of it, and posting here.  And still, without hardly noticing it, I’ve racked up a donation of over 2000 grains of rice.  When you consider how small a grain of rice is, maybe it doesn’t seem so impressive.  But the effect of hundreds of thousands of people playing the little games adds up.

The donations are handled through the UN World Food Programme, which has stated that 1 billion grains of rice is enough to feed 50,000 people for one day.  And the latest monthly count posted on Wikipedia shows a grand total of over 3.5 billion grains of rice from December 2008 alone.   As of yesterday they’re up to a donation of 57 billion grains of rice, total.  You do the math–I think I’ll stick to the languages section!

So… play, learn, and give!

The rice field across the street from our house, when it was ready for harvest in mid-September.

Nepali of the Day:

chimaal:  uncooked rice

bhaat:  rice (ready to eat)

daal:  lentil sauce

daal-bhaat:  the most common food here–so the phrase itself means “food”

khanaa:  the more generic term for “food”

khannu:  to eat

dinu:  to give

Ma bhaat khanchu.  — I eat cooked rice.

Malaai bhaat manparcha.  — I like cooked rice.

Ma chimaal khandina. — I don’t eat uncooked rice.

Dherai manchelaai bhaat manparcha.  — Lots of people like rice.

Dherai-dherai bhaat dinus! — Give lots of rice!

Puppy Update

Our parvo positive puppy seems, overall, to feel better today.  She’s had no more seizures since the one yesterday morning.  Her appetite stayed up all yesterday evening, she remained fairly active while we were up, and then she slept through the night pretty well, only awakening at midnight and 6 am to ask to go out–which isn’t far out of her normal range for sleeping through the night.

She continues to willingly take her antibiotic.  But she worried us some this morning when, after taking her antibiotic, she didn’t remain in the kitchen to look for breakfast–instead she headed for the living room and asked to be allowed on the couch.  She’s still so little, and sick, that we both often let her curl up in our laps to nap while we’re watching TV.  And I realized she was indeed aiming for a nap–when instead of sitting down on the couch, I squatted on the floor and tried to interest her in playing with her tennis ball (her usual morning game) she glanced at me like, “You’ve got to be kidding.” and promptly curled up on the corner of a blanket trailing off the couch.

Well, I didn’t exactly want to be up at 6 am anyway.  It’s still dark here then–dawn begins at about that time, but it’s not bright enough to see inside the house without a light.  Our alarm wouldn’t go off for half an hour, and then I usually stay in bed and read until about 7:15.  And, indeed, when I headed for the stairs, the puppy was ahead of me, stopping only beside the bed to beg to be allowed on it.

She’s supposed to sleep in her crate/kennel/cage/bed–call it what you will, her pet carrier that we’re using for a safe and comfortable place for her to sleep while we’re house-training her.  But on Saturday night, when she was so sick and scared and suffering a seizure every few hours, we wrapped her in a towel and let her sleep with us.  On Sunday, she went to sleep in bed with us–but when I let her out at midnight, she’d trotted back upstairs by herself, and when I indicated her crate to her, she willingly entered and lay down.  She’d slept there until 6 am… but now in the early morning she asked very politely to be put in bed again, and there she indeed curled up and slept while I read.

She stayed there through both our showers, too, sleeping in the bed by herself–normally she doesn’t do that.  Usually she wakes up the moment we leave her, and cries to be helped down so she can follow us around and again curl up somewhere near us.  But by 7:50, she still slept deeply… and I really needed to convince her to eat before we left.

And she didn’t want to eat.  Even in the kitchen, with the food under her nose, she’d just pull back, then retreat somewhere where she could curl into a ball and try to sleep again.

We finally left with her curled on the couch, our didi having nodded soberly to careful instructions about what to do if the puppy continued to refuse food, or if she went into another seizure.

[Didi review:  "Didi" is the word here for a maid, and it's linguistically interesting because while the English word "maid" literally means a young girl, the Nepali word "didi" actually means older sister.  So it's extra-odd that I know I'm a year older than our didi.  She's a wonderful young woman, and actually used to work as a nanny.  Though she hasn't quite bonded with the pets like we have, she seems to be adjusting to the idea of treating them like children, and she'll help out with them in any way we ask, staying very patient even while learning how to mix special food for the puppy.]

And by noon our didi called to say the puppy still hadn’t eaten–she just kept sleeping.  She would go outside, and do her business, but once she was inside she’d immediately curl up and sleep again.

I returned at 3.  And when I opened the door, the puppy dashed into my arms, tail wagging furiously.  And our didi followed her with a smile.  “Ma’am, puppy ate food.  5 minute.”

“Just now?  Five minutes ago?”

“Yes.”

“What did she eat, all of her food, or just…”

“Just liver.”

Still, it was a start.  And when I immediately offered our puppy some more minced chicken/minced chicken liver, made soupy with the water we’d used to boil the chicken in, she eagerly gobbled it all up.

So for the rest of this afternoon and evening, she has kept eating.  Not a lot at a time–and she refuses puppy food, or rice–but she’s indeed staving off dehydration and keeping some nourishing food in her belly.  She continues sleeping a lot–she’s been on my lap throughout my entire time writing this post, and for much of it she had her head slightly tilted up so she could rest her chin in the crook of my elbow, despite how my arm bounced with the typing.  She’s currently in her third patch of REM sleep of the post–and I think, poor baby, all her dreams have been nightmares, because she tenses and seems uncomfortable.  But when I pet her and talk to her softly, she settles, even in her sleep, evidently to more pleasant dreams.

In between the deep sleeping, she remains active.  She doesn’t quite play with her toys again.  But she “dances” up to greet us, tail wagging and prancing, her front legs sometimes held out straight like a Lippizaner stallion performing, as she bounces from foot to foot.  She’s done that when she’s happy ever since we adopted her; she seems to think it’s fun.  Outside she doesn’t quite run, but she trots quickly around the yard and house, investigating anything that catches her interest, hunting bugs, sniffing at the grass.

We may take her by the vet again tomorrow–lack of appetite is a common symptom of parvovirus, after all.  But not one she’d displayed earlier, and as long as she keeps eating occasional small amounts, and playing some, and remaining clearly interested in her surroundings… I assume her exhaustion is only to be expected, from fighting off two diseases and a worm infestation, and then suffering a spate of seizures to boot.  I really think/hope/pray she is continuing to get better.

And the update for the update:  She woke up just as I was finishing this, and wanted to go out.  And eat again.  And play!  I offered her a treat for going outside, and though she didn’t try eating it, she proudly carried it around, then dropped it on the floor on purpose and hunted it for a while, occasionally playing with some of her other toys again.  It’s good to see her so happy!

I know, again with the no pictures.  But I’m too exhausted myself to try uploading them.  Maybe, if she keeps getting better, tomorrow?

Flashback: Bangkok

With the current protests and riots in Bangkok, I can’t help thinking back to when we passed through Thailand’s capital.  It was, after all, only two and a half months ago.  At the time, everything seemed very peaceful and organized there.

True, we were only in the country about ten hours… and sleeping through half of that… and most of the other half was spent in the airport…

Still, we managed to get some decent pictures of the city from our hotel window.

Looking at them now, I shake my head.  How can people build towers that big?  Here, five stories is massive.  And wide has a completely different meaning, too.  Why, in the space some of those Bangkok buildings take up you could squeeze in thirty or forty typical Kathmandu stores.

I can’t imagine what my perspective will be like when I return to the United States.  I mean, Wal-Mart is going to seem gigantic.  Cavernous.  Scary.

And that’s for an original Wal-Mart.  Super Wal-Mart?  (shudder)

Bhat Bhateni honestly has five floors, and expands over its own little block.  I’m capable of losing my husband in it, for a few minutes.  But all together, I doubt it has as much floor space as a typical Wal-Mart… at least, I have dim memories of walking and walking and peering down endless aisles for my husband (or my sister or my parents or whoever I was with) for much more time than I’ve ever needed here.

Whatever did we do in malls?

Seriously, I hope the political troubles in Bangkok are resolved peacefully, and soon.  As soon as they are, the city city can return to the neat, organized, smiling appearance I remember — and which I assume the citizens themselves prefer.

Nepali of the day:

-maa:  inside of

gharmaa:  inside the house

Kathmandumaa:  inside Kathmandu

bahg: tiger

yeuta:  one (thing)

duita:  two (things)

basnu:  to sit in, to stay, to remain, to live in

basdaina:  to NOT sit in, NOT stay, NOT remain, NOT live in

Mes baschu:  I sit in the chair.

Mes basdaina:  I don’t sit in the chair.

Dui mehina Kathmandumaa baschu:  I’ve been living in Kathmandu for two months

“Duita bahg yeuta khormaa basdaina.” –  “Two tigers can’t live together in one cage.” (a maxim)

Happy One Month Anniversary!

This blog is now one month (and one week) — and 689 views — old.

Thank you for reading! I hope you’re enjoying finding out about Nepal!

Sean’s Blog

This just in:  Sean has been inspired to set up his own Nepal blog.  It has a distinctly Sean focus, though — post number one is about the trials and tribulations of Internet service here.  Hooray!

When I learn how to make a blogroll, or links page, I’ll add him there.  In the meantime, here’s the link:

http://mrzaius.com/blog/