NAMASTE !!!

Hi,

It’s been 3-4 weeks since we “talked” and since then, we have not stopped, especially because we have been studying Nepali almost full time for the past 2 weeks: 5 hours a day at school and almost as many at home, trying to memorize vocabulary and get used the language structure, grammar and script. But, it is actually quite fun.

Besides that, VSO as an organization and “old VSO volunteers” (the ones that have arrived in Kathmandu before us), have made a great effort to ensure we get used to the city / country, and to make us feel part of a big family. They have organized a dinner and a treasure hunt, they have invited us in all parties or events that any of them organized… we almost wish we could be away to enjoy a quieter time!!!

VSO, through our language school and for 6 weeks, introduces us to the country’s culture – it’s what they call, the “in country training”. Besides teaching us the language, they also tell us about the do’s and don’ts, how to behave when invited in someone’s house, how to eat with our hands, how the “local toilets” should be used, how the caste system is still much alive in Nepal even though it has not been legal for many years now… it is all quite interesting.

Through the different presentations and through the language training itself, we realise that the different treatment between people from different castes can also be found between gender and disabled people or people living with HIV & AIDS. And it all starts within the households where women speak to their husbands in the polite form (like “vous” in French) while men talk to their wives in the less polite way (“tu” in French). Women must also do the cooking, the cleaning, the washing… tough life for them!!! Most of the marriages are arranged between the parents (husband’s family requests the daughter of another family) and if lucky, the couple meet each other for a few days before the actual marriage. Marriage ceremony can last for several days and a marriage with 300 guests is considered a small one. After marriage, women go to live with the groom’s family and I am still not too sure how much she sees her parents any longer but I am afraid, not much.

The school has also taken us to a Hindu temple by the Bagmati river where they cremate the bodies of the dead people. We had been there when we came to Nepal 5 years ago, but it’s always an impacting place, at least for the western people, not used to this way of “saying the final goodbye” to the loved ones. The corpse is laid on top of a fire “pire” and the youngest son sets fire to it by placing a flame into his/her mouth, the purest part of the body. They then place more wood and wet straw on top to help burn and to make as much smoke as possible – it burns for 3-4 hours and then the ashes are swept into the river.

And we will have new neighbours! The building where we live has a ground floor flat (ours), another one on the 1st floor that is about to be ready and a top floor will be built some time in the future when the owners have the budget for it. Well, we showed our flat to the new volunteers that have arrived 3 weeks ago, and an English couple has taken the 1st floor and they would move in shortly.

For the past 2 weeks the owners had people working hard to finish the flat on the 1st floor and the staircase going up to it, and with it, they have stained with white paint the garden tiles, our windows… and everything within 2 meters reach!!! And the landlord doesn’t seem to care 
I hope that by next week all building activity will finish and the owner starts thinking on cleaning up the garden and put some green, plants…

On the house front, we also had no water for 2 days because the well pump stopped working and I also think because they ran out of water… although the landlord has never admitted it. But the fact is that they bought a huge tank of water and they are building a well right by our house: they dug 60 feet deep within 1 day using just mechanical devices, finding water mixed with sand at about 30 feet and clearer water at 90 feet. They will now test the quality of the water… and if OK, we should then have no more problems with water… although we are now waiting to see how he sets the area around the well since at the moment, it’s just a mud area which will attract plenty of mosquitoes.

We have been in Kathmandu for 2 months and sometimes it feels we have been here for much longer: we feel very much settled and even though we still see the dirt and the poverty on the streets, we hear the dogs barking and the traffic chaos with cars, motorbikes and buses beeping all the time, we smell the strong smells (we need to go by a rubbish dump to get to the language school)… it all feels like part of the right picture of the city.

We have not done much tourism yet but we have tried to venture out once a week for this past month.

We enjoyed a nice afternoon getting lost through the little alleys of Patan and being marvelled by its magnificent wood carved windows, little temples and life in general. Its mains square (Durbar square) is packed with temples and holds a nice restored museum and a tranquil garden to rest from the bustling life of just outside.

We have also been in a couple of villages at the S.W. of Kathmandu near Kirtipur, one of the old capitals of the country, a bit up the hills, where you can breath a bit cleaner air – it is amazing how, from there, you see the cloud of pollution hanging over Kathmandu. Chhobar has a small temple and a French B&B in a restored old house: again, a little oasis of tranquillity to relax from the noise and pollution of Kathmandu.

Both in Patan and in these little villages, we can see so many little temples and nice architecture, but many of them are neglected and dirty - I think it is not only because of the lack of money and the culture of keeping things clean, but also because the people don’t see it as a monument but as part of their daily life where they play, wash… But maintaining all these wonders must cost a fortune… money that they don’t have or they also have other priorities.

North of Kathmandu, and not so far from where we live (+/- 12 km), Budhanilkantha is a little village where there is one of the most important (if not the most) Vishnu shrines of the country –Vishnu God being the origin of life. In this temple, a stone image of Vishnu, 5m long, lies in a pond, and a stream of Hindu people come here to pray and to offer some goods to the God: impressive. A bit further N. and in a steep climb, we reach the entrance of a National Park where we hope to go in the coming days but yesterday, the weather was thunder threatening, so we didn’t venture it.

Nepal is approaching some uncertain months as the National elections that were supposed to be held in June, they are now delayed and with no real new date being fixed. The country will suffer some strikes and hopefully, not much more than that.

Currently, Nepal has an interim government with leaders from the 8 main political parties, including the Maoist, but this “unity” is in jeopardy because of the elections delay. Following the announcement of this delay, the Maoists are threatening to leave the interim government unless they either declare the country as a republic or propose a referendum asking the citizens whether they want a monarchy or a republic. Nobody really knows what will happen in the near future and everybody is afraid that the political parties are more interested in their own interests than taking advantage of the current situation (kind of unity) to set the country into the right direction.
Nepal is a country very much centralized in Kathmandu but with huge diversity of people (different origin, caste, wealth, education…) of resources availability (rural vs. few big cities)… which makes it very difficult to have all groups contented. Even though the cast system has been abolished for many years, people from the higher casts (better educated) have a greater % representation in the government and they don’t want to let go their influence / power to other groups. In the meantime, the less favoured groups are demanding their rights not only through politics but also through “force” - strikes that prevent supplies from reaching Kathmandu, a bit of violence around the country mainly in the South and in the rural areas (Maoist)… This violence never targets foreigners because they realize that this would impact too much to the tourism industry, key to the country’s economy. However, the country’s unsettlement in the past 10 years has really impacted the tourism industry.

Best regards to all of you, Laura