Sunrise Hike

Last Saturday (Oct 27^th), I went for a little hike.  I have very little to write I think because most the interesting stuff was visual.  I left my house nice and early and got up to the top of the hill nearby where there is a temple around 5:45 which was just in time to watch the sky start to lighten.  THE MOUNTAINS WERE OUT!!!  Big time.  I spent about an hour taking pictures of the mountains and the temple at sunrise.  I hope I can get these to load.  It was absolutely breathtaking, and for some reason it really drove home just how far away from home I am but it was an excited sort of feeling.  I was thinking, “Wow, I am watching the sun rise over the freaking Himalayas!  I am definitely not in Kansas anymore.”  Granted they didn’t look too much different from the distance I was at than you might see in the Rockies, but maybe it was just that I hadn’t seen the sunrise light up snowy mountain slopes in such a long time that it seemed very momentous to me.  At any rate, it was really awesome. (I tried playing with lighting and stuff on the photos so some are black and white because I couldn't get the color to come out well on some of them.  Also, the raw vs. jpeg photos were quite different in low light especially, so that was fun to see and play with.  I am learning a lot about photo taking).

B&W before sunrise

jpg of the pic above

first sun hitting the summit

Mount Jugal (I think)

Some beautiful morning light

getting fancy pantsy.  The barbed wire surounds a water tank.

Sunrise on the temple

I think it is cool that the only color that popped is from the prayer flags

Another ping (from Dasain)

Mountains in the afternoon light

 

After I had my fill (if possible) of looking at all the pretty mountains I headed out on the road.  I walked for about two hours up the road at a pretty good clip.  From the temple I had seen what looked like a ridge that connected the ridge I was on to the big ridge on the other side of the river.  I was skeptical because the river is pretty good size, and has carved out a pretty good valley for itself over the eons.  So, how could there be a ridge across the river?  Well, I got to the connector ridge and lo and behold it did connect.  There was a large waterfall cascading down this ridge that must feed from the top parts of the big ridge I was heading towards as that ridge is almost always locked in the clouds.  (Like I said, it is pretty high).  I also assume that just upstream of where my village is located the river must split into several large tributaries and the big waterfall is one of them.

After two hours I had to turn back because I had a meeting scheduled with one of the trainers at noon and I figured it would take about 2 and half hours to reach town.  I think I was within about an hour’s hike of gaining the high ridge, and from there I could potentially follow it up and up and up.  Or I could just sit on the ridge and look at the mountains on the other side.  I saw a couple just barely poking over the top of that ridge from the temple.  The ridge is high enough, as far as I could tell, rice production stopped which means it is pretty high (maybe 2,500m or so).  This, of course, is not that high as far as Colorado standards go and certainly not for Nepali standards, but it would be sweet all the same.  I might try this coming Saturday, or maybe the next.  My right leg really, really started hurting on the way back and I seem to have strained some of the tendons on the back of my knee.  It’s doing better, but if I’m gonna put in the effort to get there I don’t want to get turned back because my leg starts to hate me.

As usual this got wordy, but I hope the pictures were interesting!

Dasain Celebration

For the past two weeks Nepal has been celebrating Dasain.  This is a festival that celebrates the Goddess Durga’s triumph over the buffalo demon and his army long ago.  At least, that is the traditional reason behind the celebration much like Christmas is technically celebrating the birth of Jesus, but we celebrate by chopping down a tree, eating yummy food, and giving each other presents.  Dasain is actually very, very similar to America’s holiday season.  People eat well, have time off from work and school, and just relax.

Early on they establish a holy vase of sorts in a room in their house, and also plant some seeds in some dirt in the same room. The little place where the seeds are planted is called the Jamara. For the next two weeks following the initial planting there are various ceremonies. One night my family got together and chopped up some vegetables and fruit, and then they spread veggies, fruit, as well as rice, flowers, and water in the Jamara room.

Some night cermony pictures:

My host dad

The Jamara room

Jamara ceremony

After the ceremony (sorry about the low lighting)

 

 A few days later, we killed a goat by chopping its head off.  (The order of these pictures got all messed up).

De-furring the goat

 

The goat covered in Tumeric

collecting blood

pre-death

A Nepali Goat Guillotine

 

Almost two weeks later there is still some goat meat lying around, but I stopped eating it after about the second day because by then we were already down to the gnarly organs and stuff.  On the day we killed the goat I did try some fried goat blood.  It was actually pretty good.  It was fried with onions, garlic, and other spices.  It kind of had the texture of hamburger, but for me it was tough to get around my head which was yelling at me, “You are eating BLOOD.  Stop it!”

Another big thing during Dasain is a swing called a “ping.”  They string up a big swing in the town off of a big branch of a tree.  That was pretty fun as it definitely went higher than the swings we had back in elementary school. 

One of my fellow volunteers on the ping

Towards the end of Dasain we had a big Tika giving ceremony.  A tika is a red rice compound that is stuck on your forehead and usually comes with some sort of blessing.  This day they also cut the little plants that have grown out of the Jamara and put them in your hair in some fashion or another.  It is customary to give girls who are younger than you money, but my family also gave me money I guess because I am their guest. 

My host mom

My host father

My volunteer "cousin" (her host dad is my host dad's brother)

Getting a tika

Post tika

Host younger brother with the jamara grass

My host great uncle getting money

Host cousin

Host niece

 

After the ceremony in our home we went to the other relatives’ houses and got a Tika from them as well as some money or a snack.  This was sort of like Halloween minus the costumes, and included lots of blessings from my older relatives.  I thought was really, really cool.  For the entire two weeks extended family comes from all over the country and gets Tikas, stays the night or sometimes longer and then heads back out.

Also during this time all the men get together, gamble, and drink…A LOT.  They become really serious pushers.  I don’t like the local wine too much so I’ll usually just have a little glass and then try to avoid drinking more because it is not that yummy.  But during Dasain that is really not an option.  They keep trying to fill my glass, and the drunker they get the more excited about me getting drunk with them they get.  Luckily, I’ve been through the DARE program and have figured out how to deal with peer pressure pretty well.  One evening though, they broke out the whiskey which wasn’t the best whiskey I’ve ever had, but better than the local wine (called Raksi).  So I partook, and had a nice time sitting in this smoky room with a bunch of drunken Nepalese.

Overall, the festival was really fun, and I had a good time.

A Field TRIP!!!

On the 15^th we got to go to Bhaktapur for a field trip.  Bhaktapur is an old royal city just outside of Kathmandu.  After careful consideration I managed to forget my camera, so all the pictures (assuming they load) are from my friend’s camera.  Anyways, we left nice and early on a chartered bus and three hours later we made it to Bhaktapur.  The first thing we did was eat at a pre-arranged nice-ish restaurant.  I had pizza which aside from being tiny was really, really delicious.  It contained real cheese and real tomato sauce.  I ate and paid quickly and then headed out to grab some street food.  I got a samosa, some tea, and a little biscotti type thing.

The streets of Bhaktapur

 Then we all headed into the tourist area. Peace Corps had arranged guides, so we took a nice guided tour of the city, and saw many of the different temples and squares. Most were built between the 14^thand 17^th centuries. One of everybody’s favorites was the one with all the inappropriate and extremely intricate carvings on it. It must have been made before Nepali culture got quite so conservative concerning sex and whatnot; at any rate it produced some good giggles from us.

Sculptures

It's sideways, but you get the idea

Very intricate snake heads.  Forbidden entrance for all non-Hindus

Snake pool, some of the sculptures were damaged in an earthquake in 1934.

Again, sideways and re-uploading would be a hassle, but it's a cool snake sculpture.

 

 Once again I found some pretty good food.  The area is known for its yogurt which I quickly found and sampled.  It was pretty yummy.  I also sampled some street ice cream which was sold by a guy with a wooden “cooler” on the back of his bike which contained some mostly frozen, extremely creamy, and highly delicious ice cream that when paired with a cone was way good.  Ice cream bars were also available in some of the stores for 50 NR (Nepali Rupees), but the street ice cream was only 5 NR.  Later in the day I found a place that sold sausage which was probably my favorite snack of the day because I spent most of the day eating pretty much solely sugar foods and was fairly nauseous at that point.  The water buffalo sausage really hit the spot and settled things down for the long bus ride home.

The area was super touristy.  There were the expected beggars and every other person you saw approached and said they were a tour guide and would give you a good price if you wanted a tour.  Also, there were a lot of artsy things and really pretty pashmina scarves.  Man those are super-duper soft.  One of the squares was the pottery square where you could watch some potters spin these huge pottery wheels and shape various potteries.  It was mesmerizing watching these guys work because you really couldn’t see what they were doing with their hands.  They would just sort of twitch a little and the cup they had on the wheel would magically turn into a vase of sorts.  I’ve always thought pottery was neat, but this was really something else. 

One of the potters, pretty sweet stuff

 

Pottery square with me looking off in the distance...probably at street ice cream

We also stopped into a painting school, and watched some of the students paint.  They had an ample supply of finished paintings for sale of course, but it was crazy to hear how long some people worked on the paintings.  The bigger paintings averaged about 49 months of work.  They usually had some sort of Buddhist or Hindu meaning behind them; I just thought they were really neat.

 A painter

49 months of work

More art

 

It was very nice to get away from our little village and town area for a day and see a bit of the country, try some interesting food, and experience some of the cultural heritage of Nepal.

The tallest temple in the city.

Another square in the city with an old palace thingy in the background.