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http://www.flickr.com/photos/27597212@N03/
Thursday, September 9, 2010
A Nepali Haircut
Three walls of tilted mirrors enclose a 3 square meter “Hair Cutting Salon for Ladies and Gents”, right on the busy street of New Bazaar market of Kirtipur. Approaching the salon, I have to dodge motorcycles, tractors, busses and trucks at the 3 way intersection, which is lined with small fruit and vegetable stands run by middle aged women, a small food shop run by an old man wearing thick glasses who speaks neither Nepali or English, and an open sewer that’s oozing filthy water. As I walk into the salon for a haircut and shave, a large, hand-painted “Drinking Water” truck chugs up the sloping street, puffing a large cloud of black exhaust into the faces of everyone on the street. As the air clears, I sit down in one of the 3 chairs and notice all of the pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses on the walls and old newspapers plastered on the ceiling, as a the barber throws a hair-clipping-infused sheet over my lap and tucks it into the collar of my t-shirt. I tell him “DaaDi yahaa ra yahaa ‘shave’ garnus” (pointing to my cheeks and neck), “ra kapaal choTo kaaTnus” (touching the top of my head).
The only way I can explain the amazing speed and dexterity of the barber’s hands is Edward Scissor Hands. All cutting is done with scissors and a comb. None of that #2 clipper crap that barbers pull in the US. When he’s done clipping, he slaps some sort of shaving liquid behind my ears and on the back of my neck while he grabs a straight razor (new blade or not, who knows?), and shapes my hairline.
By this point, a small crowd has gathered to see a white guy in the local barber shop and everyone tries to talk to me at once. It’s impossible to understand, though, due to the disorienting slanted mirrors, the loud Hindi music that’s playing, and the bus horns outside, so I just close my eyes and pretend I don't notice.
After rubbing shaving liquid on my cheeks and neck, he straight razors around my beard and then trims it with scissors. After many applications of various creams and aftershaves, he begins the grand finale. A face massage turns into a head and neck massage. Then he leans me forward in the chair and slaps my back, massages my arms and cracks my fingers. Finally, he grabs my head and cracks my neck, twisting it side to side like an assassin.
And the best part of the whole ordeal? He asks for 80 rupees. I give him 100, and tell him to keep the change. In US dollars, that sets me back about a buck-thirty.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Jaubari
Kamal and I made the journey to his village, Jaubari, in Gorkha District. We woke up at 4am, grabbed our bags, and walked in the dark for 45 minutes to the bus stop. There, we caught the 6 hour bus to Gorkha Bazaar. We tied our bags on the roof of the bus, and jammed ourselves into the seat behind the driver. We stopped half an hour later on the side of the road for a pee break. I, of course, didn’t have to pee until right after the bus started up again. We drove on the scary, winding road for another 5 and a half hours. Often times, the road was only wide enough for one bus, so we completely relied on the 8-toned horn of the bus when going around a corner. There was a sheer cliff on almost every turn, and one wrong move would have resulted in certain death.
We reached Gorkha Bazaar, put our bags in the hotel room, and climbed the hill to one of the oldest temples in Nepal. Nearly 500 years ago, Ram Shah built a giant fort-like temple, from which every peak and valley in the area can be seen. He developed Nepal’s first measurement system, and devised a way to tell time with dripping water. After Kamal did his worship, we returned to the hotel to eat daal bhaat and sleep.
At 5am we left the room for our 7 hour walk to Kamal’s village. The path was destroyed in many parts by landslides. Most downhill parts of the trail were made out of the slipperiest red clay that you could possibly imagine. All of the hillsides had been made into amazing step-like terraced rice paddies, complete with irrigation systems. While crossing a run-down suspension bridge strung across a raging river, we saw the white, bloated corpse of a careless pack mule, bobbing down the river.
Immediately after arriving at Kamal’s house, his mother began the daunting 2 hour task of cooking daal bhaat over an open fire in the unvented kitchen. She would poke her head out frequently to catch her breath, as the kitchen was completely filled with smoke. After eating, we chatted in Nepali on the porch until we got too tired, or the bugs became too annoying – I forget which came first. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, while squeezing my legs, Kamal’s uncle would remind me of how strong and fat I was, the whole time not believing that I was only 20 years old. We crawled under our mosquito nets and slept in – until 5:20am.
After waking up and drinking tea, we walked down to an unused field, where Kamal’s uncle was plowing with two bulls. I tried to plow, but obviously didn’t do a good job, because his uncle had to re-plow my section. Apparently the best way to get those stubborn bulls to do what you want them to do is to beat them as hard as you can with a bamboo stick – something I didn’t do very well.
After the field was plowed, we walked to another field at the other side of the village where many people were tilling the soil (by hand) and planting millet. We were bent over all day, sweating with the villagers and thumbing millet shoots into the soft soil. While returning home, I carried a load of grass for the water buffaloes - with a head basket.
We ate daal bhaat, chatted, and went to bed. I woke up in the night to Kamal yelling. Apparently, a giant rat had fallen on his face. We woke up early and walked for 3 hours to catch the 6 hour bus back to Kathmandu with the giant garbage bag full of popcorn that Kamal’s mother had popped for us in the middle of the night – she didn’t want us to be hungry on the bus ride home.
We reached Gorkha Bazaar, put our bags in the hotel room, and climbed the hill to one of the oldest temples in Nepal. Nearly 500 years ago, Ram Shah built a giant fort-like temple, from which every peak and valley in the area can be seen. He developed Nepal’s first measurement system, and devised a way to tell time with dripping water. After Kamal did his worship, we returned to the hotel to eat daal bhaat and sleep.
At 5am we left the room for our 7 hour walk to Kamal’s village. The path was destroyed in many parts by landslides. Most downhill parts of the trail were made out of the slipperiest red clay that you could possibly imagine. All of the hillsides had been made into amazing step-like terraced rice paddies, complete with irrigation systems. While crossing a run-down suspension bridge strung across a raging river, we saw the white, bloated corpse of a careless pack mule, bobbing down the river.
Immediately after arriving at Kamal’s house, his mother began the daunting 2 hour task of cooking daal bhaat over an open fire in the unvented kitchen. She would poke her head out frequently to catch her breath, as the kitchen was completely filled with smoke. After eating, we chatted in Nepali on the porch until we got too tired, or the bugs became too annoying – I forget which came first. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, while squeezing my legs, Kamal’s uncle would remind me of how strong and fat I was, the whole time not believing that I was only 20 years old. We crawled under our mosquito nets and slept in – until 5:20am.
After waking up and drinking tea, we walked down to an unused field, where Kamal’s uncle was plowing with two bulls. I tried to plow, but obviously didn’t do a good job, because his uncle had to re-plow my section. Apparently the best way to get those stubborn bulls to do what you want them to do is to beat them as hard as you can with a bamboo stick – something I didn’t do very well.
After the field was plowed, we walked to another field at the other side of the village where many people were tilling the soil (by hand) and planting millet. We were bent over all day, sweating with the villagers and thumbing millet shoots into the soft soil. While returning home, I carried a load of grass for the water buffaloes - with a head basket.
We ate daal bhaat, chatted, and went to bed. I woke up in the night to Kamal yelling. Apparently, a giant rat had fallen on his face. We woke up early and walked for 3 hours to catch the 6 hour bus back to Kathmandu with the giant garbage bag full of popcorn that Kamal’s mother had popped for us in the middle of the night – she didn’t want us to be hungry on the bus ride home.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Dakshinkali Temple
It was Saturday, the Hindu Holy Day, and the last day of the Nepali month of Ashadh – prime time for a goat sacrifice. It’s about a 45 minute drive from Kirtipur to Dakshinkali, the goat sacrificing temple. We called a taxi. The taxies here are essentially refrigerator boxes on wheels, with barely enough room for 4 average Americans. We fit 8, plus the driver and one goat.
It was raining when our clown car arrived at Dakshinkali, and the mud and blood were flowing like wine. The temple sits in this eerie valley, right near a small stream. The sky was filled with crows, pigeons and doves. The goat sacrificing line was about 3 hours long, and there were hundreds of goats on rope leashes and a few dozen chickens and ducks, held by their wings or feet. There were many Brahmin priests offering blessing and tikas – for a price, of course. One particularly nice old Brahmin lured me in, and gave me a tika for 10 rupees. As our place in line got closer to the temple, I started to see fresh trails of blood and many headless goats being carried by their feet away from the religious slaughter house. The most prominent smell near the temple was that of burning incense and butter lamps. It was quite overpowering, even outside. I didn’t actually see a goat get sacrificed, just the bloody aftermath. The whole time we were there, Hindu prayers were being blasted over a scratchy loudspeaker. After our goat was sacrificed to the goddess Kali, we waited again while it was butchered.
It was raining when our clown car arrived at Dakshinkali, and the mud and blood were flowing like wine. The temple sits in this eerie valley, right near a small stream. The sky was filled with crows, pigeons and doves. The goat sacrificing line was about 3 hours long, and there were hundreds of goats on rope leashes and a few dozen chickens and ducks, held by their wings or feet. There were many Brahmin priests offering blessing and tikas – for a price, of course. One particularly nice old Brahmin lured me in, and gave me a tika for 10 rupees. As our place in line got closer to the temple, I started to see fresh trails of blood and many headless goats being carried by their feet away from the religious slaughter house. The most prominent smell near the temple was that of burning incense and butter lamps. It was quite overpowering, even outside. I didn’t actually see a goat get sacrificed, just the bloody aftermath. The whole time we were there, Hindu prayers were being blasted over a scratchy loudspeaker. After our goat was sacrificed to the goddess Kali, we waited again while it was butchered.
At the butcher hut, the headless bodies of the goats and chickens were dunked in a giant metal kettle of boiling water, with a fire burning underneath. Some goat heads were roasting in the flames. The bodies were retrieved with sticks, and the hair or feathers were removed. The white, naked carcasses were then cut into smaller pieces – legs, abdomens, chests, necks. The internal organs were removed and cleaned – all parts of the goat are eaten – and the remaining portions (legs, etc.) were placed on a wooden chopping block made from a tree stump. There, they were hacked to pieces by a bloody butcher with a machete. The smell coming from the butcher hut was slightly nauseating – the irony smell of blood, cooking meat and feces, and of course, burning goat hair and chicken feathers. After our goat was handed to us in many small, black, plastic bags, we all crammed back into the refrigerator box – all 8 of us, plus the driver and the goat (now in plastic bags) – and puttered back to Kirtipur, where we feasted.
Planting Rice
We were on the tail-end of a heavy rain that lasted about a day and a half. The rice fields were flooded, and it was time to plant. The Cornell Nepal Study Program (CNSP) has a “small” field in which they grow rice, or dhaan. (Later in the year our group will harvest the rice).
Some of the CNSP staff had already started when Kamal and I arrived. We took off our sandals and stepped into the field. The mud was about mid-calf deep, and the consistency of pudding. Before we started, one of the women came over and put rice shoots behind our ears, and gave us mud tikas. We had to use small hoes that were about two feet long to break up the hard mud into clumps, and then step on them to break them up – rice grows best in very loose mud. We took a break for a snack – potato achaar and Tuborg beer. It was legit beer…cold and carbonated. Kamal didn’t drink beer, because he’s a Hindu Brahmin. After the snack, we returned to the field to plant the rice. A few shoots at a time, the rice is planted by pushing the roots down into the mud. The whole ordeal is really back-breaking work – we were bent over the entire time. I was so exhausted and frustrated towards the end, because there were ants biting my ankles and small beetles burrowing into the mud that was caked on my leg hair.
It’s a very humbling feeling knowing how hard it actually is to plant and grow rice by hand. It’s also a very rewarding feeling knowing that your hard work is going to pay you back with food in a few months. Most importantly, this was one of the few times when I felt like a local – filthy and bent over in a field, alongside Nepali men and women.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Buffalo and the Goats
Kamal is one of the guys that I’m living with this summer. This past week, his mother and aunt stayed at our house. They are both Brahmin Hindus, always wearing saris and tikas. One evening, Kamal’s neighbor, an overweight Newari woman (an ethnic group in Nepal, particularly prominent in Kiritpur), came over. The three women wanted me to take their picture. After I took it, Kamal looked at it and burst into to laughter. I couldn’t figure out what it was about, and finally he said in English, “The Newar is fat, and the Brahmins are thin. It’s a buffalo and two goats!” I laughed nervously, hoping he’d stop, but he went right ahead and told the women in Nepali (none of the women understand English). They all laughed and the Newari woman hit Kamal jokingly.
I found it very interesting that he had no self-restraint in what he was saying about the weight of these women, specifically in relation to their ethnicity. Whether he meant it as a joke and they knew it, I’m not sure, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard a Nepali comment about someone’s weight, appearance, occupation or ethnicity in ways that, for the most part, would be socially unacceptable in the United States.
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