Tihar and Newari New Year Pics

Tihar: Ma Puja (Celebration of "I", of oneself)

Tihar: Deusi Bhailo with 9th Grade

Me with the German volunteer and a few of the teachers at school

Newari New Year Celebrations

My neighbor wanted to take pictures too :)

Some of my sister's friends

On the Festival Season

One of my favorite travel bloggers, pen name Solbeam, recently posted an entry on her blog about the reason why she travels. I definitely suggest checking her work out in its entirety (after you finish reading here of course :) ), solbeam.com. But a quote from this post particularly resonated with me. It is as follows:

“Ah yes. This is why I travel. To do less. Or more. Than just assume and kick aside. To feel the texture. To inhale deeply. To task my imagination. And to question… To wake up wondering.”

Wondering definitely takes up the better part of my days here in Nepal. I generally ask too many questions… I can’t help it. It’s particularly a problem in movie theaters. But my daily question count as of late is off the charts. Sometimes I feel like question asking is all I do. And it’s because everything is absolutely new – from the foods that I am eating, to the language I (am trying to) speak, down to the clothing that I wear. I couldn’t even properly feed myself when I got here. The meal of choice here is daal bhat (rice with sauce made of lentils), eaten by hand (as in without utensils) for breakfast and dinner. And my first Nepali meal was nothing short of a mess. But I’ve been practicing, and my family says my technique is improving. Which actually means that my food is making it to my mouth and I no longer consistently finish eating dead last. It’s a big victory.

So life has been brimming with surprises since I arrived. But of all of the “new” I have experienced in the last couple months, the festival season has provided some of my most new and surprising experiences.

As I have mentioned before, I arrived in Harisiddhi about a week before Dasain. Dasain is a two week festival that marks the beginning of about an approximately month long festival season. A week and a half after Dasain ends, Tihar (known as Diwali, Divali, and Deepavali in India) begins. Tihar is a five day long festival. A little bit about Tihar:

“Two of these days incorporate the Hindu festival Deepvali, where one day is celebrated for goddess Laxmi and the other one is celebrated to worship brothers for their long life. However, all ethnic groups celebrate this festival....The name Tihar means the festival of lights, where many candles are lit both inside and outside the houses to make it bright at night. The five-day festival is considered to be of great importance as it shows reverence to not just the humans and the Gods, but also to the animals like crow, cow and dog, who maintain an intense relationship with the humans.” (Wikipedia)

The month of celebration concluded yesterday, with a holiday primarily celebrated in the Terai. With all of the celebration there has been no shortage of things to do.

Dasain is a festival of family and community, so there were many family members to visit and people to meet. Also, delicious food to eat – like chura (beaten rice), aloo (potatoes), buffalo meat, chunna (chick peas), saag (spinach), and dahi (deliciously delicious yogurt). Animal sacrifice is of great importance this festival. Across Nepal, the sacrifice of goats is common. In my community, it is also tradition to sacrifice buffalos, sheep, and ducks. The entire village gathers to witness the sacrifices… which meant that I would gather, too.

Much to my family’s amusement, I was completely nervous. At the prospect of attending the sacrifices, I promptly realized that I’d never seen an animal killed. Considering that I’ve eaten meat all of my life this seemed a bit inappropriate. But I was also afraid that I would, I don’t know, fall over watching someone cut off a buffalo’s head with a sword for the first time. But I did attend, did not faint, and came to understand the history and tradition of my village a bit better through the experience.

Tihar felt a bit more familiar. As the festival of lights, every house was covered in twinkling strands of Christmas lights. The lights at my home even had an attached musical box (which just so happened to play Jingle Bells and Away in a Manger). I went door to door with my students playing Dheusi Bhailo. It is a lot like Christmas caroling; children go door to door singing and dancing until the owners of the home give them food and money. I was even coerced into doing a bit of dancing, which was a lot of fun. And firecrackers and fire works light the sky for five days. 

As the festival season concludes, I am sure I will settle into a routine. There won't be new food to try, animal sacrificing to witness, or the constant explosion of fireworks across the sky to grab my attention, and to shake up my world view, on a daily basis. But still, I have no doubt that my world view will continue to be challenged, to change, to grow. Every day, there will be more "new" to explore and questions to answer. Every day, I will continue to wake up wondering.

Addendum to: "Consumer Markets, Ganesh, and Why I Love Elephants"

Hattie isn't a common name anywhere, except maybe in US Southern history. And while I've always liked my name for its old family ties (I am named after my great grandmother) and its uniqueness (there are really never any "Hatties" to confuse me with), it still poses challenges. Introductions, especially, are problematic. In the States I have gotten everything from Patti to Katie to Haiti. In Tamil Nadu no one could figure out why, as a girl, I was given such a masculine name. My pronunciation of Hattie sounded, to them, like Harry. And I have found, like everywhere else, my name causes confusion in Nepal. But here, even anticipating that confusion, I can't help but smile before every introduction. The pronunciation of Hattie is almost identical to the Nepali pronunciation of Hathi, which just happens to mean elephant.

Though I cannot chalk it up to more than a grand coincidence, the fact that I happen to share the name of this awesome animal (the animal that just happens to be my favorite) feels a bit like something else. It feels like a small sign that things do have a funny way of working out. Which, true or not, is a nice feeling to have. 

Still, I have taken to going by "Eliza Miss" in the classroom. I thought that "Elephant Miss" would provide my fifth graders with just too much ammunition.

Wonderful

On my walk home from school today the sky was clear enough that, for the first time, I caught a glimpse of the distant Himalayan crests that tower over my village, over the valley. The icy peaks are breath taking, truly wonderful. I just cannot believe I live here.

Dasain Festivities

Dasain, Nepal's biggest festival, is a 15 day long event that began October 8th and lasted through October 22nd. About the festival: 


"The festival is a blend of Hindu Tantrik and animistic harvest festival traditions. On the first day, called Ghatasthapana, the "Dashain Ghar", or special worship room, is set up—this room is used to worship the Astha-Matrikas (the 8 tantrik Goddesses) as well as the Nava Durgas (the 9 Goddess Durga), to whom the festival is consecrated. Married women will say the mantras for the next fifteen days, and guard the goddesses. Barley is sowed on big earthern pots which have a coating of cow dung. These seeds will sprout in ten days. The sprouts, which symbolize a good harvest, will be decoratively placed on the heads of family members later on in the festival as a blessing." (Thanks wikipedia)


Here are a few pictures from the celebration!

Harisiddhi School decorated for the 9th grade class's Dasain production

My homestay sister, Rajjwala, making flower garlands

My homestay sister, Prajjwala, making traditional Dasain cakes

I helped with the garlands!

Visiting the village temples for puja (worship)

A ping! A giant bamboo swing traditionally built during Dasain for kids to play on.

Accompanying my family for puja

My homestay mom, Sarita Bhauju 

I really like this picture!

The whole family

Puja at home

 For safe travels

Dasain traditions

I have more pictures of events at the village temple in the evening, but they aren't on my computer at the moment. So they will be coming soon!

Month 1 in Kathmandu

It's been a month and two days now since I arrived in Nepal. And I absolutely cannot believe how quickly time has flown, in a lot of ways I feel like I just got here. And yet… a ton has happened. So here’s a quick recap of the past couple weeks in Kathmandu.

           

The first week I lived in an apartment very close to Lazimpot and began intensive Nepali Language classes. And calling it intensive feels like a bit of an understatement. After stumbling around in Nepali for five hours, my grasp on language generally was beginning to slip. But the Nepali teachers, Geetaji and Prabaji (ji is a suffix added to denote respect... similar to "Mr." or "Ms."), are really great. Funny and patient and put up with us ETAs begging for chiyaa chuttiharu (tea breaks). Despite those tea breaks, we  learned a lot of Nepali quite quickly And the hours upon hours of language classes with my fellow ETAs meant we all got to know each other pretty quickly. It’s been a lot of fun to study/work with all of them.

            

That first weekend I also attended Teej, a Hindu festival in which women don their bright red and gold wedding saris and gather at temples to pray for their husband’s long life and success. For more information about Teej, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teej . Below are a few pictures of the festival.

Teej Festivities in Durbar Square

Women in their red wedding saris waiting to visit the temple

Henna from the festival

            

At the end of week one I moved in with my Kathmandu homestay family. Mero Nepali pariwarma amaa, baa, ra tin jaana bahini chha. (I have a mother, father, and three younger sisters in my Nepali family.) They live in Dhumbarai, on the first floor of a bright green house with a big garden out front. They also babysat for a five-year-old neighbor named Manika. She was adorable, and her English was at about the same level as my Nepali, so we bonded over picture books and clapping games.

            

The family was very kind, welcoming me into their family and making every effort to make sure I was comfortable. I met a lot of their family and friends, did a lot of singing (badly), played a harmonium, enjoyed a lot of tea and ate some delicious Nepali food. Dahi (yogurt) and homemade rice pudding are definitely my new favorites. Learning to live in a Nepali household definitely required a lot of adjusting, though. Independence and privacy are both very highly valued in US culture, and I hadn’t realized until now to what extent I appreciate both of these things. In the very communal culture of Nepal these things aren't considered to be of much importance. With essentially no “alone time” I spent a lot of time talking and a lot of time learning. It was challenging at times, but in the end a very good thing. It would be difficult to develop any sort of real understanding of Nepali culture without insight into the workings of Nepali families and households. So my small glimpse into one very loud, very loving, family was a small step toward better understanding. Plus, it was an opportunity to get to know some great people and I did have a lot of fun. Below are some Thapa/Duplechain family pics.

           

During this week I also attended Indra Jatra festivities. Indra Jatra is a festival to celebrate the living goddess Kumari. The Kumari is a girl who is believed to be a goddess incarnate until her first serious loss of blood. To learn more about Indra Jatra and Kumari see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari . Below are pictures of the festivities in Durbar Square!

The Kumari

Over the course of the two weeks the ETAs began Teacher Training courses and continued Nepali Classes. We also visited a couple schools in the area in order to better understand Nepali teaching traditions and styles. We were really busy, so there wasn’t a lot of time for site seeing. The first Saturday I spent with my family, though, my sister Khusbu took Natalie (an ETA buddy) and I to see Pashupatinath, a temple compound on the sacred Baghmati River. This is complex where funerals and cremations are held. For more information on the Pashupatinath, click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupatinath_Temple . A few pictures are below.

Sunday, September 3 we left our homestays in Kathmandu and moved to our villages. I am living in Harisiddhi, a Newari village about a 45 minute bus ride from central Kathmandu. I really am not far away from the city, but it feels worlds away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. I spent the week observing Harisiddhi School, the government school where I will be teaching, and I have fallen in love with this little town. My homestay family, my school, and my fellow teachers have all been so kind and welcoming. I am really looking forward to the next nine months in this place. But that means I have nine more months to write about Harisiddhi, so more on this later.

I am back in Kathmandu for the next few days for Fulbright meetings. So I’ll update in more detail soon!

Disclaimer: This is going to be long.

Mero naam Hattie ho. Mero ghar America ho. Mero amaa ra ba hununcha. Mero bhai cha. Ma dal bhat khanne.

I’m learning Nepali! Or at least the basics. You all have probably already figured this out, but it means, “My name is Hattie. My home is America. I have a mom and dad. I have younger brothers. I eat dal bhat (rice and lentils).” Impressive right??  I’ll be having my third intensive language course today. The English Teaching Assistants are taking language lessons at the Fulbright Commission. Gita has been working with four of us, me included, and she is great. Despite having only had eight hours of lessons, I feel like I could make a (very small) bit of Nepali small talk without falling on my face. Progress! We’ve started to learn the alphabet as well, which might be my favorite part. The characters are beautiful, much prettier than the Roman alphabet. Of course, a lot more confusing, but… we’ll get there.

I really cannot believe it’s been a week today since I left the states. We were discussing it last night, but time moves so strangely here. In some ways, days seem to fly. It doesn’t feel like it could already Wednesday, the week should just beginning. But, at the same time, it seems like it’s been ages since I left the states.  I’d guess that the days are flying because we’ve been so busy. We’ve been given a lot of free time so far, but there is always something else to fill it with.  And, conversely, the US is just really far away. It took two whole days to get here. So I think that the geographic distance and the cultural distance is being translated as a time difference in my head.

So, what’s actually been happening? The travel to get here was definitely intense. The journey to Kathmandu is not the kind of trip you take on a whim. It takes some serious stamina. I flew from Philly up to EWR and then from EWR to Delhi. The flight was about 14 hours, longest flight of my life, and my television was frozen. This could have been really awful except that I am the worst procrastinator in the entire world and, luckily, I’d only gotten three/four hours of sleep the night before. I slept probably 10 of the 14 hours, so the flight actually flew. After a ten hour layover in Delhi flew to Kathmandu and arrived at about 9:00 AM, so unbelievably confused about what time it should actually be. Jet lag is only really wearing off now, so we’ve been crashing 8:00 PM every night. But that also means that I’ve been awake at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. I end up reading or journaling until the day starts.

Saturday we went to Durbar Square, probably the biggest collection of temples in Kathmandu, for Teej. Teej is a woman’s festival. Women gather at temples, dressed in their wedding saris of red and gold, to pray for their husbands and celebrate marriage. The festival involves fasting and praying and dancing. We got henna and made a few friends, it was a lot of fun.

Sunday was relaxing. Didn’t do too much except go to a Tea Tasting at a French restaurant in the tourist district. I’d always been curious about tea, but I didn’t know much. The tea making process seems about as complex as the beer brewing or wine making process, and I had no idea. I also learned that all the different types of tea come from the same kind of plant. Who knew?

Monday and Tuesday have been spent mostly in language class. We also had a security briefing yesterday, to learn about all the horrible things that could possibly happen while we’re in Nepal. But otherwise, uneventful. Nothing else earth shattering to report.

This post feels kind of long and rambling, so I’m going to try to stay away from the “things I did today” sort of lists. I felt like I needed to do a quick summary of everything that’s happened so far before I move on to anything else. We begin our home stays in the city on Saturday, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to share soon.

Consumer Markets, Ganesh, and Why I Love Elephants

I love elephants; I have for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I wasn’t one who begged for a cat and I was terrified of dogs. Instead, a baby elephant seemed to be a friendlier and much more exciting choice of pet. My parents didn’t take to my proposals of keeping one in the back yard, though, and a stuffed elephant named Charlotte had to suffice.

Still, my fascination with this beautiful animal never really subsided. The first time I happened to cross paths with an elephant in India, when I was coming home from work, I had a hard time not jumping up and down.  The locals, who see elephants all the time, thought I was crazy. But I couldn’t help myself. And so I also couldn’t help but get excited as I prepared to leave for Nepal, when I seemed to be finding elephants seemed to be everywhere – from Wikipedia articles and youtube videos to pajama pants at department stores and calendars at the local printing shop. Although these coincidences probably have more to do with things like the current consumer market and advertising campaigns, I still enjoyed pretending that all of the elephant sightings were a good sign.

But the funny thing is, upon my arrival into Kathmandu, the elephant sightings haven’t stopped. In fact, depictions of the animals are everywhere. Beautiful scarves and purses covered in elephant motifs line the streets and elephants decorate the 1000 rupee bills here. Their silhouettes are spray painted on the sides of buildings and depictions of Ganesh cover some of the most ancient temples. 

Ganesh, one of the most popular gods here in Nepal, is often shown with the head and torso of an elephant and the legs of a man. He is worshipped as the god of auspicious beginnings and the remover of obstacles, both of which I can appreciate on my third day here in Nepal. My arrival two days ago marked the beginning of my year here, and I am quickly realizing that I really cannot fathom what it will bring. I do know that there will be obstacles, but Ganesh and the many other elephants I am seeing are becoming happy reminders that this is part of the reason I am here; to deal with the challenges and to learn. So I can even get excited at the prospect of frustration, the prospect that I might spend ten months without indoor plumbing.

These past couple days have been great. I’ve really loved exploring this vibrant, diverse city. Looking forward to what will come next. And I’ll be posting lots of pictures and stories, about elephants and everything else, soon!

In Kathmandu!

Made it to Nepal in one piece. Luggage and all! After 16 or so hours of flight time, and 12 or so hours of lay over, I'm pretty worn out. I'll actually write once my brain has bounced back from jet lag.

But I will say that I am so, unbelievably excited to be here!

The First Lines

So, this is my first foray into the blogging world. But it isn’t for lack of good intentions. More than a couple blogs are floating around the blogosphere, titled and formatted, decorated and redecorated, quite ready to be filled with words. I just kept waiting on that first line, on a way to begin, and never quite managed to put any words in type.

What's changed? Well nothing much yet, but a lot is about to. In 26 days (not counting down or anything) I'll be hopping on a plane in Philadelphia to arrive, something like 48 hours later, in Kathmandu. With that I will begin my ten-month stay in Nepal to teach English. This adventure begins whether or not my blog does, so I figured it’s about time I jump in.

The blog is meant to be what the title promises – a place to chronicle my wanderings, put down my experiences in words. And hopefully, it will also be a way to keep in touch with all of you who I won't be seeing for a while!

So here are my first lines. Here begins what I believe will be my thrilled, anxious, curious, silly, confused, serious, bubbly, exhausted, elated, fanciful, sad, happy, frustrated, calm, humbled words as I wander and explore and learn and teach in Nepal.

Hattie