In Nepal...

Falgun 29, 2071 and March 13, 2015

Nepali Fare

Biruwa is an 8-minute stroll from my house alongside the rice paddies and main dirt road. As I enter the bazaar, if “Namaste” (I bow to you) or “Namaskar” (I bow to you, sir) is followed by “Bosnus” (Sit and hang out), then I most always oblige. Going to town usually turns into an event, even if I’m just getting some coconut biscuits. I catch up on how and what people are doing, what crops are being sown, and ask about new objects seen or sold. Recently, I shared the experience of seeing my first horse in the village. There are also spells of silence. I often stop at a samosa and tea stand where men gather. I take a seat and get laughed at with most things I say. I’m very funny even when I ask about road conditions. The samosa chef once offered me marriage to his daughter, a stranger at the time who quietly listened behind the counter. The samosas here are really wonderful and a flavorful diversion from dal bhat (lentil rice) and a second-hand marriage proposal. 

I’m grateful to have dal bhat and even beginning to look forward to it (more the dal and veggies than the bhat, which I still see as an edible food sponge). First comes a plate full of rice, so full of rice that I doubt I can eat it all. Luckily outside waiting I have my Nepali best friend, Kukur, who also subsists on dal bhat. It’s served with a sidecar of lentil soup and another of heavily curried vegetables (usually cauliflower, potato, and spinach). I just mix it all together and make little food balls with my right hand. Dal bhat is a powerful sedative and happens twice a day, usually around 10 and 7, but all times are very approximate in Nepal. In between is snack time known as khaja. There are four khaja options if I feel like going to town, although I mostly stay close to home and have a hard-boiled egg. In addition to the fried dough encased curry chickpea-potato combo known as the samosa, steamed momos are available. These are tasty bites of buffalo, chicken, or vegetables served with a spicy pepper sauce. Chowmein and chunks of pig round out the khaja options. Chunks of pig are served with a toothpick, often pure fat, and totally delicious. As for other meats, most families occasionally eat mutton (not sheep but goat), chicken, tiny fish, and depending on the caste or preference, pig. The Badahur's serve mostly a little mutton about twice a week.

Sick, Pokhara

I watch the drips form and drop in my i.v. and on the wild poinsettias outside. When this bag of stomach pain medicine is through, I leave the hospital and stroll out dazed into the deep puddled streets of tourist Pokhara. The fresh air and natural light are intoxicating, or probably the medicine is. For the last week I’ve been mostly in my bed or the hospital’s with occasional fevers, diarrhea, and vomiting. It’s the third such illness in 3 months but with an added evil bonus of stomach pain waves.  That’s why I was told to charter a jeep from my village to this small trekker’s hospital with western facilities. This time the doctor has figured it out. Nepali bacteria have become fairly resistant to a commonly used drug, so this different medicine with a y and z should be my key to wellness. If you’re traveling to Nepal, you might consider bringing Azithromycin. I’m happy to learn that there is no parasite inside of me. A symbiosis of sorts would be fine, but with parasites I get nothing out of the relationship. Anyhow, Pokhara is a fine place to leave a hospital. Many cuisines are available, the variety I crave when confined to either food eaten when sick or a twice-daily dose of dal bhat. There is a lake here called Phewa Tal. Tal is the Nepali word for lake, and pokhari is the name for pond, but despite this city’s name, grand Phewa is no pond. Pokhara is a city of around 250,000, but mostly I hang around touristy Lakeside for the beauty and food. Some of my favorite things here are the friendly, dusty soccer games by the lake, a 3-legged roaming cow, and butterscotch ice cream. I was just here for two weeks of trainings on drip irrigation systems, plastic house construction, fruit and nut tree grafting, mushroom growing, etc, so after a good meal of India-imported beef (no cattle slaughter in Nepal, a crime punishable by many years in prison), I’m eager to get back to Biruwa and my village duties.

Village Duties

A partial list of activities I now call work:

Build plastic nursery bed and germinate cucumber and vitamin-rich bitter gourd for off-season seedling production. Plant seedlings with mix of soil and compost; construct a trellis for upward growth. Integrate duck-duck-goose and red-rover-red-rover into variety of games with neighborhood children. Build two compost piles, one with a liquid solution called Effective Microorganisms (EM) and one without. Build a permagarden with and for community with one row of EM-compost and one without. Compare health of rows. Install drip irrigation system. Hang out, have tea, and represent the USA. Experiment with free, homemade liquid manures. Hike and visit/work with farmers. Plant oyster mushrooms in plastic bags with straw via a quick, less sanitary village method. Plant oyster mushrooms with a cleaner, longer, more scientific method. Compare yields of two methods. Remember to smile more and exhibit strong mental health. Ideas for the near future: Plant trees to combat deforestation and erosion. Give nutrition and hand-washing trainings. Germinate coffee from seed and offer seedlings to orange farmers for inter-cropping. Air layer orange tree branches and plant nut trees in the valley. Make mead from abundant honey. Gauge farmers’ interest in a collection center for crops to market. Figure out what to do with all the trash.

Holi-day

I’ve been looking forward to a day known as Holi since I heard it is a holiday when bright powdered colors are thrown at everyone. I thought that it would be sort of like a mud or snowball fight from childhood but more colorful and much less painful (Sorry about that Grandfather Mountain iceball Andrew, and yes I realize that I was 21, and it was a close range shot.) So Holi came and went in Biruwa, and the festival passed much as others here had. Some kids shot me with water pistols, and some hot pink powder was politely applied to a specific part of my forehead, but most of the organized fun again involved paying an entrance fee and listening to an orator via a maxed-out loudspeaker (the Nepali seem to have no problem with max volume at any time) read the names of dignitaries and donators and how much money they paid. Bill Clinton got a shout out. I was pulled by the arm to the stage and publicly asked to formally donate a soccer ball I had brought to play with the kids. This is a volleyball-only town, but I’ll continue attempting to change that once I get another ball.  There was music and dancing too, but it feels forced when people grab me by the arm (lots of arm-pulling here), lead me into the middle of a human outlined circle, and then watch with mostly stern faces as I dance alone. I got down on it. During one of these dances, I realized that I needed to be the one to start the color madness, but I had no water or powder. Next time I’ll bring the colors, and this village will come away looking like hippy children. Or whatever makes them happy actually. The fair also had ample volleyball, balloons, and ice cream. Despite or maybe because of the lack of a great colorful mess, everyone seemed to enjoy the festival, and at night the Badahur’s watched it again on local cable.