What’s for dinner?
(I wrote this months ago-it somehow failed to load.)
When the kids used to ask me this, the harried full-time attorney soccer mom in me used to reply “dog food.”. Sometimes dinner was a commercial roast chicken, ciabatta and sliced apples. It was particularly difficult in the fall when we got back from soccer practice at 8:30 pm. It was leftovers if I had thought ahead, or something weird (Costco pot stickers and tabouli, anyone?). Rob (and Ian) are in the Far West, in a food scarce area, and I had…palak paneer (not great–my blender refused to blend the spinach although the homemade paneer (fresh cheese) was good, reheated white rice (in the momo –Tibetan dumpling–steamer), heated canned sardines in tomato sauce (omega-3 fatty acids, Rob won’t eat these) and, the piece de resistance, fresh tree tomato chutney!
Tree tomatoes are egg-shaped and look like a pale green passion fruit. They are tart yet fruity, and when combined with garlic, coriander and maybe, lime juice?, they make a divine “achar” that gives a kick to everything you eat it with. Kind of like an Argentinean “chimichurri” sauce. Man oh man–wish you were here to have some.
Serendipity at Bouddha
Up on the stupa
When you live in a foreign country, especially one with such a rich cultural heritage, it is often difficult to know when special festivals occur. Unlike theUS, which primarily uses the historical figures and the Christian calendar to determine national and local holidays,Nepalincorporates holidays from all religious traditions. Here, inNepal, we celebrate Eid, Dashain, Tihar, Christmas, Shiva’s Day, Buddha’s birthday (five of those, I think) and many many more. In particular, theKathmanduValleycelebrates holidays according to the Newari calendar (the indigenous group that is still a majority in the valley) that are not celebrated in the rest ofNepal. In addition are the historical political holidays such as Democracy Day, Prithvi Narayan Shah Day, Indra’s Day—well, the list is almost infinite.
When you add in the special neighborhood and family celebrations (the local gods and goddesses at the corner temple, 80th birthdays, weddings, first rice feeding, head-shaving for boys, weddings to fruits (for young Newari girls)), life in Kathmandu sometimes feels like one long celebration. Even the daily offerings at the Hindu temple add color, smells and sounds – each family’s celebrant makes a morning visit to the temple or shrine to provide a small amount colored powder, rice, flowers and fruit—they also light incense, recite a prayer and ring a bell, vigorously. Then they go home to administer a daily blessing on each family member – a bit of tika powder on their foreheads and they twine flower petals on top of each person’s head. Those morning bells begin at dawn and are a pretty special way to start the day as the first sun’s rays poke over the hills around the valley rim.
The Buddhist residents of the Valley often make similar offerings at their own shrines. And truth be told, many of the Valley’s temples are visited by members of both religions. Buddha, I’ve been told, is the sixth emanation of Vishnu – in addition, say my Nepali friends, all gods are One, aren’t they?
Boudhanath, a huge stupa on the northeast side of the Valley, is one of my favorite sites in the Valley. The stupa, a great white dome topped by a four-sided pointed tower dating to the fourteenth century, is not exactly a temple but a place where Buddhist relics have been deposited. The great dome is surrounded by an inner ring of curio stores, Buddhist item shops, restaurants, cafes, thangka (icon) stores, homes, and hotels. No cars are allowed in the inner ring—it is used as a pedestrian walkway where the devout circle clockwise around the stupa, reciting mantras, chatting, laughing and spinning the prayer wheels that are mounted along the outer wall.
Normally, one can easily join the walkers, taking in the chanting and horn blasts from the monasteries, the tangy smoke from high mountain incense and the constant fluttering of multicolored prayer flags. It is utterly relaxing whether you walk on the ground level or whether you climb up onto the stupa itself. Last Sunday, however, it was a madhouse!
Our longterm friend, Tsering Lama nee Dolkar had invited us to be her guest at her beautiful new boutique hotel, the Hotel Tibet International. http://www.hoteltibetintl.com.np/hotel.php Her hotel is less than a year old with 68 rooms and is really a gracious and welcoming retreat. It also was a terrific place from which to roam around Boudha. It has Tibetan food and beautiful Tibetan-themed decor. The rooms are comfortable and even luxurious. The staff are particularly enthusiastic and friendly.
To our surprise, Sunday was a triply auspicious day in Boudha – the Tibetan Buddha’s birthday, the day Buddha achieved enlightenment, and the day Buddha achieved parinirvana (death). The koraa (walkaround) was jammed with excited and happy celebrants who were planning to walk around the stupa all night long! A clinic/first aid station was in place, free water and Tang were being given out and everyone was in a holiday mood. Up on the stupa itself, preparations were underway for a special prayer ceremony – monks were spreading hundreds of square feet of carpet and literally towers of food offering were stacked in every corner – huge bulk packets of noodles, cookies, burlap bags of fruit, bags of deep fried sugared pastries, piles of flower garlands—they were even putting in standing lights and a sound system.
Down below at street level, merchants were selling plastic tubs of whitewash and of dried marigold petals in water. These would be used to re-paint the huge stupa and one could achieve merit by buying the powder and marigolds and pouring them into huge barrels of painting solution. Strings of brand new multicolored prayer flags were for sale – they could be inscribed with your name, and then strung from the stop of the stupa down to the bottom. As the flags flutter, prayers are automatically said in your name!
Of course, we had to do some of these things, which we did. It is important to remember, however, as one monk friend told me last year, that when Buddhist prayers are said, they are for the benefit of all sentient beings, in particular for all who suffer—as we all do at some time in our lives.
It was truly a serendipitous day – we got to stay at Tsering’s beautiful hotel, and we got to see the festival. The full moon that night was especially beautiful, too.
Posted in Uncategorized
Receiving tika at work
Parting gifts from the NJA – laughing Buddha, flowers and tika!
Here I am looking like the target of a Mafia hit with my tika “blessing” and departure gifts.
When I helped with Peace Corps trainings in the ‘80s, I learned about Nepal’s many special cultural practices – no pointing your feet at people, no left hand eating or serving, no touching the head of people you don’t know, use the correct pronouns for the person’s status, women keep their legs covered, men cover their chests, etc.
But we have our own social practices – don’t display wealth openly, don’t discuss religion and politics socially, cover your mouth when burping, close your mouth when chewing, men don’t hold hands, women sit with their legs together, we change hands when using knife and fork together, etc.
One thing we definitely do is maintain a code of limited physical contact at the office. I know no male boss I have ever had would apply anything to my face – and here I was in front of the entire office (maybe 25 people sitting in a conference room in a circle) having three bosses apply tika powder to my sweaty forehead. It had been a hot day and I was even stickier after having given an impromptu speech in Nepali. Three people had spoken before me, using the traditional flowery vocabulary that is used on momentous occasions- ranging from my closest colleague to my biggest boss – and I was sitting at a fancy separate table at the front of the room with the registrar, executive director and head of the faculty. As usual, first I apologized for not having a very good vocabulary (almost all of my colleagues have advanced degrees and many are senior lawyers, judges and high government officials) then I went on to thank everyone for teaching me so much.
Then the tika ceremony – the big boss first asked “is it all right for you to take tika?” I am not sure if he thought I would object on religious or aesthetic grounds. Possibly he had noticed that, unlike other staff, I had never come to work wearing tika and most of them have a tika almost every morning. Most households have someone who goes to the temple or a shrine every morning with a small tray of offerings, water in a small jug, rice, tika powder and flowers. They say prayers, make the offering and bring home flowers from the god to put on everyone’s head as a blessing for the day.
You may recall from my earlier posting on Bhai Tika, on that day, we received a multicolored tika. On other special days, we are given a tika made of red powder, yogurt and rice. That one, I call it a “blob” tika, tends to dry up and fall grittily into your keyboard later in the day.
As he placed the tika on my forehead, I felt the grainy powder falling on my nose. Everyone clapped. Then my closest boss gave me tika, and even more powder fell. More clapping. I was envisioning a whole layer of red powder on my nose. I started to brush it away and my boss said, “wait until after to brush it off your nose.” Oops – then after the final tika, on our way downstairs to take a group picture, I started brushing it off and felt lots of powder sifting down. Luckily the big boss said “you might want to go to the toilet (yes, that is the term that is commonly used here) and see if you have any powder on your nose.” Utter shock – in the mirror the sweat and red powder combined to make me look like Rudolf in spades! After three nose washes, I was ready to go downstairs and take my place in the group portrait.
But even then, the big boss felt he had to brush off some tika powder I had missed that was resting on the tops of my eyebrows. I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of kindness emanating from that gesture – again, something no boss has ever sent my way and a very special part of working and living inNepal.
Robin says, and I agree, that it is possible we don’t appreciate fully the meaning behind giving tika. In his office, one of his senior staff is so respected that people come to his house on weekends to receive tika from him. He is not their relative nor is he a priest, he is a respected elder. Our driver, Tika, was clearly delighted to be able to give tika to his newly found sister at her wedding. “This was my first time giving tika,” he joyfully told us as he came over to our seats at the wedding. I believe giving tika expresses an underlying cultural belief about spirituality and the flow of loving kindness that runs through families and through the workplace, too, one which we poorly acknowledge with office Christmas parties and cake in the break room for birthdays.
While Nepal is definitely having its issues politically, spiritually we have much to learn from this place.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tuesday is not the bees’ birthday, thank goodness!
Tika re-breaking the roof wall to remove the honey combs
About 2 kg (4.4 lbs.) this time — and they don’t seem to be angry at all!
In my previous bee-related postings, you may remember that we lost our bees more than once, ostensibly because we had mistakenly taken honey out on a Wednesday, which everyone knows is their birthday and not an appropriate day to take the honey. Also, due to my hesitation about taking their honey, the bees had already eaten most of it, so the takings were meager – about half a kilo, or only one pound after removing the wax.
Despite political unrest, beatings of journalists and destruction of media vehicles, bicycles, massive ethnic group demonstrations, forced store and even bank closures — the bees have kept on doing their complex work. Making wax, honeycombs, gathering pollen, taking care of bee larva and their queen — it is nice to know that nature keeps doing its work even when people do not seem to be able to work together.
Tonight is rotis for dinner – I may try to have bunuelos for dessert with our own honey – yeah!
Posted in Uncategorized
Life is a Circle Not a Line
Once in La Jolla in October 1979, I met this guy with a really old car and went on a date with him. We drove down toSan Diegoto watch “Annie Hall.” The movie finished around 1:00 am and as we got back on to the freeway to go up toLa Jolla, the headlights of the car would not work. It was a quiet clear night, so we decided to make it back to my condo east of UCSD. He thought it was a fixable problem – I knew very little about cars (didn’t even have a driver’s license then) – so we drove on while keeping an eye out for the police. As the car sped through the alternating patches of light and dark, I got more and more nervous. Every single oncoming car flicked its lights across the divider at us. “We know, we know!” I kept saying back to them. I was anxious although not very worried about accidents because traffic was so light.
Ten minutes from home, I saw the multicolored cruiser lights reflecting off the windshield and we pulled over. I was not happy and was wondering how much the ticket was going to cost. To my amazement, my date managed to talk the officer out of a ticket. When we told him the next exit was ours, the officer offered to follow us home to make sure we didn’t get in an accident. As we pulled into our carport, the officer drove off with a cheery wave.
Thirty three years later I found myself with the same guy in another old car, this time a 1996 Maruti Suzuki van, driving through the dark streets ofKathmandu—without headlights, but at least this time our dinky hazard lights were blinking. We ran through three police checkpoints where we had three calm, even humorous discussions, about our broken headlights and how far we had yet to go. I think it helped that I was holding my arm out the left passenger window, shining my little Petzl headlamp dimly onto the potholed roadway and waggling it at oncoming cars. Yes, they did flick their lights at us, but at nine-thirty on a weeknight in Kathmandu’s outlying neighborhoods, traffic was even lighter than on theSan Diegofreeway thirty years ago. The only difficult moments were when we passed into the blackout zones that had been scheduled for that evening. Then it was really dark and the hazard lights and headlamp were very helpful.
I couldn’t believe we were doing the same thing we did thirty yearsago! Life is a circle.
Incidentally, we were returning from dinner that night with our very dear friends, Bill and Leslie Pigott who were in town for the CIWEC Clinic 30th Anniversary conference. We met Bill and Leslie, an Australian and a Canadian, respectively, in 1981 on our first trip toNepal. They very generously invited a young American couple to stay with them and their three little boys – the woman had been quite ill with GI problems and despite taking medicine and a diet consisting solely of Coke and bananas, she was still losing weight. We ended up staying with them a second time when we moved to Nepal, a third time inGeneva and a fourth time when we returned to Nepal with our two children in 1998! We are embarrassingly in debt to Bill and Leslie for their kindness and care, and for introducing us to family life in Nepal – it is largely due to them that we had the confidence to begin our own family here in 1985.
Yep, it’s a circle, not a line.
Posted in Uncategorized
What is in your purse?
First, current status: Somehow things got simultaneously busy and non-busy at the same time, and I haven’t been able to post much. Rob and Ian are off to the Far West for some combined work and play. We are still waiting to find out his work status – USAID should be providing some information any day now.
When I do not have a daily office routine, I tend to lose track of pending tasks and appointments, so yesterday totally forgot a promised visit to a government school which is a proposed beneficiary of my women’s group. Luckily our treasurer called my house, after having both SMS’d and called my mobile (which was in the pocket of my jacket upstairs) and reminded me. We had a fascinating visit with a committed educationist and it looks like we are going to fund some teacher training for his pre-school and KG-First Grade teachers.
The post:
What things do I carry in Nepal that I did not carry in the US? In my beautiful bag made of hemp and leather made by workers from Nepal’s Leprosy Foundation. a gift from my hubby and chosen by Kie, I carry things I never used to carry.
A silicone Totobobo face mask with replaceable filters – to try to protect my lungs from dust, smog that seems to promote those nasty infections
A hankie – in a place where people use their left hand and no TP, and where the plumbing is easily clogged, I used it to wipe my hands dry after washing with soap. The towel in the ladies room at my office can be too grubby to use.
Hand sanitizer – For use before eating if no soap was available in the above situation. To be fair, hygiene and sanitation in Nepal are much much better than in the 80s, but I just try to be careful. I had a bad weekend mostly in bed with a tummy bug about a week ago and I hate that! I generally pooh pooh that smelly gel in the US but here, even our trekking guide carried it.
Copy of my passport and visa – if the ATM at the bank is not working, you must provide them with this document to take money out of your own account. (Aside – if you have a US dollar account and a rupees account, as we do, you are not allowed to withdraw your own dollars unless you have an air ticket showing you need it for travel. We needed to reimburse a friend who was visiting, and no, he did not want thousands of Nepali rupees, and I had to go through tons of bureaucracy to give him dollars!) The document will also allow you to visit many of the tourist sites in the valley without paying the fee. I always say I am a resident, in Nepali, and no one has asked to see it yet.
Umbrella – for shade, not for rain, yet. It is the pre-monsoon hot and dusty season and it is much nicer to carry your own shade with you.
A Japanese folding fan – see the above. The electric fans are just being taken out of storage for the offices and people’s homes, and, with the inevitable load-shedding, and for women of a certain age, a fan is great!
Filled water bottle – when even the commercially bottled water is unsafe, as it is here, I feel better bringing my own.
Something to read- If I am running errands, I often have some dead time and like to have something to read so I don’t feel impatient. It is often a junk novel but I have some work stuff on a Kindle that I carry too.
A fine wool shawl – At work, even though it is much warmer now during the day, my office in the basement has a constant breeze (all doors are open) and I get chilly. If we have an evening event, the shawl will be needed once the sun goes down. Sometimes my ears get cold. I have been known to wrap it around my head, and toss the end over my shoulder. Robin says, “My Muslim wife.”
IPod Touch – I really love this 2010 Christmas gift from Rob! I have my Nepali flash cards on it, a good dictionary for my editing work, Dropbox and Evernote to share documents with colleagues, and of course, email if I am in a wireless place. And for real time wasting, Angry Birds and Cut the Rope.
Headlamp-Petzl company I love you! Street lighting is not great, even without load shedding. Street conditions can be extremely hazardous (huge holes with no warning other than a few bricks or a tree branch stuck in sand). Some people have a flashlight on their mobiles.. I don’t and couldn’t get a Flashlight app to work on iPod Touch. I even tote my headlamp around my house in the evening during the worst load shedding.
What I don’t have in my purse – any keys at all or my checkbook (I use cash here withdrawn from my bank’s ATM only, no fees!!).
Posted in Uncategorized
dal bhat doodle 