When an American and a Korean get together, in which language do they communicate?

…Nepali, of course!

One of my unexpected friendships in Nepal has been with a young lady from South Korea who currently volunteers at Salvation Worship Ministries—the same organization I did much of my research through two summers ago. She goes by “Jyoti”—the Nepali word for “light”—as her Korean name is a difficult for Nepalis to pronounce. While she is currently learning English, she is more comfortable communicating in Nepali, so that’s the language we use to talk to each other. This amuses our Nepali friends to no end, especially the guys at Salvation with whom I communicate in English.

We began talking at the fellowship SWM hosts on Saturday afternoons, and she mentioned that she wanted to have me over for a meal after all her guests—short-termers staying at her place—left. I received a text from her one Saturday afternoon, asking if I was free to come over after fellowship. I said sure. The evening ended up being one of unexpected sweet fellowship with another sister—all through a language that is “foreign” to both of us!

I was impressed with Jyoti’s soft and malleable heart towards God. She shared—over a meal of spaghetti in a cream sauce, with Coke to drink—a little about how she had come to work in Nepal. She had come on a short-term trip in 2008, and at that time met people from SWM. They were looking for a sound engineer to come and help them out in the newly opened studio. She was a piano major at university, but after going back to Korea, she began praying, and felt that God was leading her toward computer music composition, which involved sound engineering. She changed her major, but then God told her to take a rest from her studies and go to Nepal for two years. She did so, and has ended up doing studio work for SWM.

“I keep asking God ‘why me?’” she confessed. “There are tons of better sound engineers out there, in Korea and in Nepal!” But she has felt privileged to do the work she’s been able to do, and amazed at God’s goodness in working through her.

Does she desire to return to Nepal? Of course, however, she is now engaged to married to a young Korean man—who is also working in Nepal right now, providing IT support in rural areas—who has a desire to go work in Turkey. Jyoti informed me that before he mentioned going to Turkey, God had been steering her heart in that direction as well. His parents have approved of their decision to marry, and it seems that they will go forward with that once they return to Korea.

Jyoti is endeared to all the guys who work at SWM. “I am going to bawl out loud at the airport when you leave,” Solomon told her one day when I visited the institute, “just like this—“ and this 30-year old man began giving a very impressive imitation of a two-year-old temper tantrum.

Raju, a young college student, takes his role of younger brother very seriously. “Jyoti cannot say my name right because she cannot say ‘r,’ ” he announced over tea one day. “So, it comes out as “Laju!”’ He then gave her a sequence of Nepali words where ‘r’ was key to pronunciation—change it to an l and the meaning completely changes. “Oh, can you say ‘rato’? No! No! ‘Lato’ mean “stupid and dumb,” I want you to say ‘rato’ which means 'red'!”

Prakash has been impressed by her consistent temperament. “You know, some people have serious mood swings—really sad, really happy—but Jyoti, she’s consistent. She’s always joyful, always smiling, always pleasant.” He also recollected, “When Jyoti was learning Nepali, we had such a good time with her! She made some pretty funny mistakes, and we gave her a hard time about it.” He ended with “we’re really proud of her Nepali language now.”

In working with a bunch of guys who know how to push buttons, Jyoti’s sweet temperament and un-shy determination to learn a new language has paid off by blessing those around her.

As I took a round-about way back to my place in Dhobighat, I marveled at how wonderful my evening had been. Sweet fellowship with a Korean sister, all through the Nepali language!

"Please, manage your time, and come to my wedding!"

I had walked into a lively meeting about how the music ministry and school was to be run, now that Pankaj was leaving for the States in less than a week to get married. Ask the landlady if a gate to the upstairs can be installed; the office will move up there and the gate will keep things secure. That computer needs a password put on it; right now, just anyone can walk into the room and use it. Now, about those dwindling finances….well, looks like we’ll have to economize and provide no more snacks, just tea. Should we start taking up an offering at fellowship? One guy joked that the fellowship already resembled a church service minus the offering; the offering would make it just like a church service!

And oh, Hari, he’s getting married tomorrow. Who’s coming to the wedding? Its four hours away, as his bride is from another town. Tori, are you coming?

“Is he really getting married?” I asked. They had been teasing Hari about getting married since I had left Nepal two years ago. I half disbelieved them.

Hari pulled a pile of cards out of his backpack, shuffled through them, found one to his satisfaction, and clicked his pen open. “Who’s that for?” someone asked.

“For her,” Hari jerked his head in my direction. Someone else laughed, probably Solomon. “How do you spell her name?”

“T-O-R-I,” Pankaj named the letters, “D-A-Z-E—“

“No, D-A-L-Z,” I corrected him.

Now it was Sunil’s turn to laugh. “Pankaj never gets names right!”

Hari finished writing and handed the invitation to me with both hands. My last name was still missing an “l” at the end. It was the invitation not to his wedding, but to a reception at Patan church on Thursday. “My sister is getting married on that day,” he said, “but the reception is for both of us. Please manage your time, and come.”

This wedding was the third one I had been invited to within the eight months I had been in Nepal. The others had been two Rai siblings, who I also knew through the music ministry. I was on my way to work one day, and a motorcycle pulled up beside me. “This is good luck, I have something to give you!” it was Ashish, and he pulled out a wedding invitation with my name on it. “Bishwas, my older brother, is getting married tomorrow. Can you come?”

Turns out, I did know this older brother—he had been coordinating the Putalisadak English language service the last time I was in Nepal. I figured I should attend his wedding, and my boss kindly gave me the afternoon off so I could do so. There, his sister, Anu, informed me that their eldest sister would be getting married next week, at Putalisadak. “You should come!” she urged. So I had attended that one too.

In attending these weddings, I was able to observe how Nepali Christians conduct these affairs. In American, and I would assume most Western, weddings, much is made of the bride and groom. Here, I noticed, it was very much about two congregations—two families—being joined together. The pastors from each church would give a full on sermon concerning what marriage meant to Christians—a picture of Christ and his church, completing God’s image of man of woman joined together, the need for a husband to love his wife and the wife to respect her husband—but emphasizing too the importance of community, and how these couples fit into the life of the church. More than one story was told of failed “love marriages” where parents and elders were not consulted or the community not involved in the decision.

This emphasis on community was also awkwardly present in the way the ritual aspects of the ceremony were conducted. Much was done to the couple, but not by the couple. Elders from each church would officiate these various aspects—deciding two or three times where and how the couple should stand when exchanging vows, abruptly calling for whoever was giving the bride away and if anyone objected to this union, and overseeing the signing of the marriage license (which, I’m not sure is for congregational record purposes or if this was the piece of paper from the local government office as well), and then leading the collective prayer after all this had been completed. The congregation would participate in a short praise and worship session as well, the songs not necessarily about weddings but always Gospel centered.

At each of these weddings, a song has been sung to the new bride as well. Members of the music ministry have consistently been the ones to sing this song. There have been jokes passed around about being the up-and-coming wedding band, or producing an album of wedding songs. And like any self-respecting musicians, they got paid in wedding food.

Return to Bhaktapur, and madal lessons!

I took the bus to Bhaktapur this morning, the first in two weeks. It hasn’t changed. It was still crowded with people on their way to work, students going to class, and piles of fruits from the wholesale market on their way out to town to be sold. The only thing we were missing in our assembly were chickens or a goat. The price is still 20 rupees one way.

Ravi opened the courtyard door for me—the first student of the day. “Do you always stay here?” I asked him. “No, I’m just on duty today from 6 to 10.” He opened the upstairs studio, unlocking the door and opening the shutters on the windows. “Bhajaunus,” he said as he went back down to the courtyard.

I was a little rusty, not having practiced for two weeks. While I worked on rhythm patterns, I could hear Ravi’s flute in the courtyard below.

Buddhalal shadowed the door at 8:55. “Namaste! Are you well?”

“Yes, I’m well. And you? Are you well?”

“No, I’m not well…I have a cough, my head hurts, and I have a fever.”

“Why didn’t you call me then?” I asked surprised.

“You haven’t been here in a while,” was his reply. “Play!”

After demonstrating that I knew the rhythm of “Basanta” somewhat well, he called Ravi up from the courtyard. “I can’t play flute today, I’ll start coughing,” he said, “so you’ll play with Ravi.”

Ravi came up and seated himself by the door. Buddhalal gave him some instructions in Newar, which amounted to seeing if he could play the correct tune. After some agreement as to who was to start and how many bars I was to leave off before entering, we played through it.

The secretary’s young assistant arrived for work and decided to sit with us a while. Not only did I have an accompanist (the madal is the lead instrument for many of these tunes, I’m discovering), and my instructor, but now, an audience member. In previous weeks, it had been similar. There had been more than one Friday where the secretary decided to visit my lesson while he had his afternoon tea, and comment on my playing or have some chitchat with my instructor in Newari. Not to mention the fact that the windows have no glass or screens, the door is always open, and the sound of the drum can be heard all over the school’s courtyard. If only this kind of thing had happened when I was taking piano lessons in college, maybe I would have gotten over my shyness of playing in front of people more completely.

Then, Buddhalal decided that, since we had a good flute player with us that day, we would play through some of my other tunes. We pulled out Manghal Dhun and Ghatu. I wasn’t about to attempt Holi—I told Buddhalal that was the hardest one and I hadn’t practiced it in a while. “Well, practice that this week, and play it well the next time you come,” he told me. "You're doing well. Now, you just need to play phurtilama." I gave him a puzzled look, so Ravi said in English "with energy."

“Now, for a new tune…which one to teach?” Buddhalal mused a moment. I wanted to say “an easy one, not a complicated one,” but kept my mouth shut. Finally, he said, “Resham Firiri.” I almost rolled my eyes. Of all traditional tunes, that is the one overplayed. But again, what kind of madal player would I be if I didn’t know that tune? And it was definitely easy.

“La, that’s enough for today,” Buddhalal said. “And my tabla student is here.”

“If you’re sick again on Friday, call me,” I told him. He nodded his head as he left the studio and walked down to the courtyard.

Traveling in Nepal never ceases to be interesting...

I’d never flown domestic in Nepal.

The workshop coordinator decided to fly me out to Dhangadhi (he and his team had come a few days before), because it would mean “less wear and tear” as he put it. There’s a definite difference in taking a one-hour plane trip verses a fifteen-hour bus ride. And with the uncertain political situation, that seemed that safest way to get there too.

But the domestic plane trip was still something new.

First of all, the domestic side of Tribhuvan International Airport was filled with very wealthy Nepalis—the kind whose daughters wear chic Western designer outfits and high heeled shoes, and who slip between Nepali and English unawares in the middle of their conversations—most of whom were going to Pokhara on holiday. In contrast were the tourists, with their trekking boots and oversized backpacks; most had unshaven faces or unwashed hair. I was directed by an airport aid to the counter to pay the airport tax of 170 rupees—the posted price is 169.50, but since no one works in paisa anymore, everyone just pays a flat170--and then sat down to wait for my flight to be called.

There were a handful of people going to Dhangadhi, among them some UMN people working at the Doti cluster. They recognized me from the exposure trip to HS-Nepal in Dang at the beginning of my time there. We were put on a transit bus with the other passengers to be taken from the terminal to our airplane at a runway a little further off. Our baggage followed in a cart behind us. “Oh, I wonder how many bags are on top my mine,” the foreign UMN worker commented to me. “I hope my strawberries don’t get squished! Maybe they’ll be jam by the time we arrive!”

The plane seated perhaps 20 people max. I was one of the last people to get on, so took the one seat remaining—the very front one. I could see into the cockpit. Our primary pilot was a woman, donning a nose piercing, manicured nails, and aviator sunglasses. I watched the altitude meter rise to the cruising height of 16,500 feet. The flight was long enough for peanuts and Coke to be passed around.

As we landed on the runway, the dingy “Dhangadhi Airport” terminal was the only building in sight. We walked out on the tarmac and were directed by a policeman to a chain gate where we waited in the shade of a pipal tree for our luggage was brought to us. The foreign UMNer hoped their vehicle won’t be long in coming, or her butter would melt in the Terai heat. The UMN people kindly took me to the main road (there are no taxis or transport available at the airport proper) where I got a bus into Dhangadhi. From the stares I got from the people already on the bus, I must have looked like rifraf with my big black trekking backpack and slightly sunburnt face. From the Dhangadhi bus park, I called Shyam for instructions on what to do next. He advised I get a rickshaw to the hotel at which the workshop was to take place; most rickshaw drivers would know where the Hotel Bidya was located.

Traveling back to Kathmandu was even more interesting. I traveled with Kumar and Shyam this time, and we thought we would be late—adding up the expenses of two workshops took a little longer than expected. We just took a vehicle from the hotel this time. I got the privilege of sitting in front, and watching the driver swerve and maneuver around bicycles, rickshaws, buses, oxcarts, and the occasional goat that decided to try and cross the road. At the airport, members of Nepal’s armed police force searched our bags, then let us into the dingy building. After checking in at the counter, we found a place to conveniently stand while we waited for our flight to be called.

I noticed then that there were two doors in front of me, one marked “men” and one marked “women” with “exit” written between the doors, all in Nepali. I thought this to be a little odd. I soon saw, as passengers to the flight before ours lined up, that these were frisking rooms. Everyone went in, one at a time, to the policeman or policewoman waiting inside, then seemed to disappear, as the policeman or woman would reappear at the door for the next person. When my turn came, it actually wasn’t bad—the policewoman checked my hand luggage, and then lightly ran her hands under my arms, down my legs, and patted my sides and back. I felt more respected as a person than at some Stateside airports I’d been through.

Claiming luggage at the Kathmandu airport felt like being at an auction house. Everyone crowded around the carts that held the luggage, waving their baggage claim tickets and yelling at the luggage handlers as to which bag was theirs. Kumar ended up being closer to the front than I, so I gave him my ticket to claim my bag. We were assailed by five different taxi drivers as we came out into the parking lot. Kumar finally found one who would drop all three of us off at our respective locations for 700 rupees. After the two Nepali men left the vehicle, the driver began freely talking to me in Nepali (he must have heard the three words I spoke to Shyam where we sat in the backseat). He was full of questions—how long had I been in Nepal? Where was I from? I spoke good Nepali; how long had it taken me to learn it? So why did I travel with the two guys that he dropped off before me? And what kind of work were we doing? I answered discreetly that I was involved in language development, and that my office worked closely with the one the others were affiliated with, so we had traveled together.

Traveling in Nepal never ceases to be interesting.

Some of my memorable teaching moments

Memorable Moment #1:

How many beats are in 6/8 time? Answer: two!

Frankly, I wasn't surprised when the majority the students from the "Musicianship 1" course that I had been assigned TA for answered "six" to the above question on one of their homework sheets. As a beginning piano student, I myself had been taught that six-eight time meant "six beats per measure, the eighth note gets one beat." It wasn't till I got to college and joined the choir that I started asking the question "why does the conductor always beat in two when when have a song in six-eight?" Unfortunately, I didn't get the answer till I started teaching music fundamentals at a music school in Kathmandu that all the pieces finally "clicked."

Being compound time, six-eight has two beats per measure, each beat divided into three pulses. The dotted quarter note represents the beat. In simple time, two-four has two beats per measure with each beat divided evenly into two pulses. The quarter note represents the beat. Both are duple meter.

Musicianship 1 is one of those college courses that music majors are required to take but loath. Its basically doing a bunch of nonsense exercises such as sight reading, clapping rhythms, identifying intervals, transcribing melodies, and for non-keyboardists, learning to play scales, arpeggios and chord progressions on a keyboard. Doing such things makes most students feel like children to begin with. Its the TA's job a lot of times just to make things interesting to solicit their participation and make them comfortable doing it. Going over the differences between simple and compound time--an elementary music principle--wasn't going to be easy. For a few of them, who had been musicians all their lives and honestly had way more performance experience than I will ever have, it knew it was going to be a bit of an ego crush.

"No! I'm a bagpiper, and in bagpipe music, each of the six beats REALLY COUNTS!" was the way one of my students reacted. I asked him to sit down and just listen to my other examples. He finally agreed, somewhat, by muttering "ok, I see your point," before leaving class all in a huff. I myself left class a little ticked--why couldn't he get offended over something worth being offended over, like, the Gospel?

Another student acted as though I had just shown him the path to enlightenment. "Wow! That makes SO MUCH sense! Geez, how did I get this far not understanding this? Hey, thanks so much!!!"

Memorable Moment #2:

Anthony was a very active seven-year-old boy, who found it very hard to pay attention for a 30-minute piano lesson. He enjoyed playing a lot--he was always excited to perform for me and demonstrate what he had practiced our lessons--but paying attention was sometimes hard. One class in particular, I noticed that he was squirming more than usual, but at the same time, making an extra effort on his own to focus on what we were doing. Finally, he burst out, "Miss Tori, I really need to go to the bathroom!" I burst out laughing and excused him to run to the restroom. When he came back, I suggested he visit the restroom before he came to class. After that, I would regularly see him make a b-line for the restroom at the music school before appearing at my studio door, ready for his lesson.

Memorable Moment #3:

"These participatory methods that you're introducing are really new for these people," Keshar told me one evening after we had finished the Tharu songwriting workshop for the day. "All this discussion and activity they're not use to--usually, the teacher just gets up and talks. Its good, but it will take time for them to get use to being active."

During the review and evaluation time at the end of the workshop, Keshar asked everyone what they had enjoyed the most. One young man piped up, quite animated. He spoke entirely in Tharu, so I didn't understand a word. When he had finished, Keshar turned to me. "He really liked the participatory methods. He liked making the charts, discussing the passages, and doing that kind of thing. It was new, but he felt that he learned more being an active learner rather than a passive one." I wanted to fall off my seat. Oh, if only my State-side college students would say as much!

"Thank you for not being fat!"

I'm white, and female, therefore, I get a lot of attention from random people Nepal...especially men. I'm learning how to deal with this is savvy ways.

I was waiting for a friend outside a small teashop (I was early, and had to pass time) on some benches. Two old men came by—one quite portly, the other much thinner—both dressed in the traditional dawa suruwal, vest, and topi. They settled themselves next to me on the bench, and finally asked, “Do you speak Nepali?”

“A little,” I replied.

“Oho! And how long have you been in Nepal?”

“Seven months, this time.”

“You’ve been before?”

“Yes, a few times.”

“Married?”

“No, not yet,”

“Oho! You should marry a Nepali boy, and then, have Nepali babies!” He and his friend laughed. “And where are you from?”

“America.”

“Oho! Americans! They’re so”—the portly one raised his arms above his head to indicate height—“and so”—then stretched his arms around and filled his mouth with air to indicate girth. “But you’re not like that—you’re thin, and small!” He laughed a somewhat toothless grin. His friend nodded in agreement. “So for being thin, and short—thank you!” He continued laughing, then said, “I like thin.”

I froze. All I could think of was my friend Ruth, and how for no logical reason, really old men consistently hit on her in public. Where was my “nice boys only!!!” sticker that she swore was invisibly written across my forehead? Did it not translate across cultures?!

Thankfully, the questions turned to the usual Nepali chitchat.

“Have you had tea?”

“Yes, I’ve already had my tea.”

“And have you eaten?”

“Yes, I ate this morning, at home.”

“You mean at your room, or apartment—your home is America.” He laughed again. “We’ll, we’re going to go drink tea. Sit here, and stay cool!” He and his thin friend left.

Two weeks ago, I went to a congregation across town on a public holiday. Transport from Ratna Park—a big transport hub in the Valley—to Kapan—my destination—was hard to come by. I finally started asking around the blue micros going to a neighboring place, Boudha. “Where can I find a Kapan-going bus?” A group of young men formed. These men all worked as managers on the micros, collecting fares, announcing the bus stops, and arranging people on the vehicle. “Oh you want to go to Kapan? That micro is over there, behind this one!” As I walked to the micro, they called out after me, “Oh, la, we see you speak good Nepali!” Later, as I sit in the bus, waiting for it to fill with passengers and begin its route, they walked by: “Oho, found it?”

Today, I went to spend time with some friends who live behind the airport. This involved taking a micro from Jawalekhel (my area of town) to Sundara (in Kathmandu), then a bus to Gothatar (their village, now a suburb of Kathmandu)—a total of an hour and a half to two hours of transport. Sundara tends to swarm with buses, going all over the Valley. Bus boys trot everywhere, packs of money from bus fares in their hands, announcing where their bus is going to people waiting for transport, packing people onto their bus, and yelling at busses going to their same destination to get a move on—they’ve had their chance; get going! Some of these boys are mere teenagers, probably fourteen or fifteen.

“Excuse me, where-are-you-going?” one boy approaches me, and asks his question in English. His bus was going to Swayambhu.

“Gothatar,” I said.

He walked away, and kept yelling “Kalanki-Swayambhu-KA-LAN-KIIII!”

A bus with “Nepal Yatayat” written in its window, rounded the Martyr’s Memorial and slid in behind the Swayambhu-going bus. “Gothatar” was the first place written in Devanagari on its list of stops on the window.

The Swayambhu bus boy appeared at my elbow. “That bus! That bus is going to Gothatar!”

I let out a laugh. “Yes, I know,” I said in Nepali. “Thank you!” I appreciated his attempt to help. It was more sincere than most.

My Office is Very Normal

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned

Ritter meets with a colorful array of people. His appointment schedule ranges from meeting with local crooks (aka land brokers) to British thangka scholars who bash Italians, to first time (hence confused) visitors to the country. His occasional visits to the US embassy put the security up in arms for parking his jeep in a restricted area. His idea of “documentation” for a visa application is “I am the documentation!” Phone conversations range from “we gave the solar panels to the organization, but the Maoists stole them” to “and what happened to the dog, did they bury it or pitch it over the Bagmati bridge?” He regularly stalks academics researching the ethnic groups with whom we work. “Academics are like plumbers,” he told me, “you have a problem, you hire them to figure it out.” Figure it out, yes, but our office and partner organizations are the ones who “fix” it—for academics, such work is “meddling.”

Prakash recites numbers aloud to himself as he double-checks a budget for the umpteenth time. He is also a bit of a news junkie, so reads portions from the Nepali and English news websites online quietly. “Did you hear about the bridge collapsing in Cambodia?” “Eh, those Maoists, they’re in deadlock again” “Did you hear about the tsunami in Japan?” These have been our conversation starters in the morning. Occasionally he decides to listen to rock music, without headphones, but the volume is still quiet. He yells at Radhe to get the puppies to stop fighting over nothing or chewing his motorcycle’s parts. He Skypes regularly, chatting or calling with people he’s met at various MLE (that’s “multilingual education”) workshops, conferences, and training programs all over South Asia; with office associates in other parts of Nepal; or his brother’s family in the United States. My favorite day was when I returned back from West Nepal and couldn’t remember what the Tharus call that sweet, dense, steamed dough they make, so Prakash calls up Ram, one of the office workers in Dang, over Skype just to ask him “Hey! What’s that sweet, dense, steamed dough made of rice flour that you eat at Maghi called? Dhikiti? Ok thanks! Yeah, that’s it.”

Eva, a former Fulbright scholar, has government ministers stop by just to say “hi” and welcome her back to the country. In reorganizing our library, she has found awesome bilingual children’s books chronicling the adventures of Tommy Tempo in Kathmandu and Chitwan. She has been spreading her ideas concerning democracy in writing a grant concerning the NFE classes we support. Bluntly, she knows that the Nepali government will fail to meet its deadlines or fulfill its promises to the people, and she says so in the grant; hence, we need to look for other ways to build democratic ideals and empower people to participate at the grassroots level in the process. How about teaching marginalized women how to read?

Ritter believes we’re all under Radhe's thumb. Radhe is the half blind and half deaf guardsman who opens the gate in the morning for us all. We’ve all been locked out or locked in, depending on which side of the gate we’re on when he has an errand to run or decides to walk the street. He sweeps and mops the floors of the office in the morning, gives us tea with too much sugar in it, and decides when we’re done drinking said tea. Eva has taken to holding her cup of stone cold tea just so Radhe won’t take it when he thinks she should be done with it. Ritter and Prakash have sent Radhe out to buy everything from tea bags to electrical plugs, and have sent him back out to get the correct item when he’s arrived back with the wrong item. Once, he broke a lamp on the ceiling while cleaning it; both Ritter and Prakash took turns fixing it to their satisfaction.

Daily office activities include double-checking the electricity schedule to make sure the batteries for the inverter are charged or when we can print something, huddling around the gas heater when second winter sets in, and answering the phone with our own greetings. I with “LDC, this it Tori,” Ritter with “Guten morgen!” and Prakash with “Hello?!” We still deal with crashed computers, finicky printers, impending deadlines, and take time to brainstorm ideas—all the usual stuff. If you ask me, our office is very normal.

A Very Normal Day

So, last Tuesday, I bussed between all three cities in the Kathmandu Valley. I left my home at about 7:30AM. First, I went from my place in Patan to Bhaktapur for my madal lesson. The bus fare cost me 20 rupees, and my travel buddies included crates full of melons from the wholesale market, and large, lumpy sacks of something on top of the bus that caught the local policeman's eye. He wanted to know what the heck that stuff was. "Stuff to sell," the bus driver told him, then yelling inside, "whose bags are those anyway?"

My madal lesson included an information session on Holi--the holiday coming up--which includes boys throwing water and colored powder at girls. While I knew about this, I was told that the festivities (should) only happen after a certain puja (worship ritual) is conducted at the Kathmandu Durbar Marg. After that, the song whose rhythm I am now learning on the madal, can be played. And its played all over, just for fun and merry making. There's some book, written in English by a French guy, in the department's library on the subject; I can contact the librarian if I'd like to see it. Only be aware that there are many mistakes in the notation of the various melodies; the guy who wrote the book apparently talked to people who didn't know their music very well, in my instructor's opinion. I could leave my lesson early today--my instructor's niece was getting married, and he needed to be at the ceremony.

Next, I went to the very north end of Kathmandu. From the road that goes by the music department, I got the Chabahill-Maharajgang-Chakrapat bus, not the Chabahill-Boudha bus. I had to double check this with the bus boy. This trip cost me 25 rupees, and my travel buddies included two tobacco-chewing men who commented that too many people have to leave the country now for work as we passed by the international airport. I took the bus as far as Narayan Gopal Chowk, where I was picked up by motorbike by a friend. This short trip cost me 200 rupees, since my friend had left his wallet at home accidentally and didn't realize this until we were at the petrol pump.

The afternoon was spent at a rock concert that took place in a church, which also happened to have an old people's rest home on the ground floor. As a result, there were several very old men and women who attended the concert, toothlessly smiling at all the young people wildly jumping and clapping about. They served us all tea afterwards.

I then took a tempo and micro home, respectively. My travel buddies here included a few-month-old baby who wanted to grab and hold my nose, fingers, and ears, and whose mother got her to say "hi" and "namaste" to me respectively. This ride to Ratna Park cost me 14 rupees. I then got a micro to Jawalekhel, which cost me 13 rupees--the fare had gone up by a rupee since I last rode on the route. But, instead of asking "since when [has it been 13 rupees]" I asked "how long [will it be 13 rupees]"--I still make elementary language mistakes at the drop of a hat.

I arrived back home at around 7:30PM. After a filling supper of cauliflower soup, garlic bread and hummus, and a much needed shower, I went to bed, and slept very soundly.

A few thoughts on sojourning

“And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.”” Genesis 47:8,9 ESV

I had to move, yet again. Not for any fault of mine—the family I house sat for and with whom I expected to stay until my leave date unexpectedly had some relatives coming from India for an extended visit. When they would leave, no one was sure. I had two weeks to find a new place to stay. I was welcome to move into their guesthouse should I choose, but since it was a little farther away from my locus of activity, I thought it best to look elsewhere.

An American family, working at an international school and living not far from my office, kindly offered me a place in their home. Only, I would be on the couch for about a week—they had a secondary student staying in their guestroom whose parents were at a conference abroad. So, my books and I have taken up temporary residence in their TV room, complete with a VHS player (that unfortunately doesn’t work), a sewing machine and various crafty/scrapbooking supplies piled along the walls.

Wide-awake at 3AM, with no electricity, all I could do was stare at the dark above and ask God “Why? You know how much moving stresses me out! It should be a lifestyle by now, but no, I actually rather like staying in one place.”

I couldn’t help but think again about pilgrimages and sojourning. And God has kindly brought this subject up in my quiet times. When I think about it, the subject is all over the Bible—Abraham being told to go to a land that he did not know; Jacob fleeing Esau and working fourteen years at his uncle’s place before returning to Canaan and then moving to Egypt to escape famine; Joseph being sold to his brothers and going to Egypt, not to mention all the ups and downs he had in Egypt; Israel sojourning in Egypt for generations; Moses fleeing Pharaoh then coming back to Egypt; the great Exodus, and wandering in the desert for 40 years; David fleeing Saul; Daniel and the exile to Babylon; Nehemiah and Ezra and the Israelites coming back to the Promise Land. The list could go on. Exile, sojourning and a hope for a better place are still written in the history of the Jewish people.

And the reference in Hebrews 11:13-16: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland, if they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”

“So, Tori, where is home for you?” Pankaj asked me one evening as he took me home from his place after watching the TV airing of the Sprite Band Challenge (a rock band competition that a band from the music school I worked at two summers ago was competing in). He had asked me whether I felt more “at home” in Nepal or the States, and I truthfully answered that neither place was completely “home.”

“Heaven of course!” was my answer.

Lessons in Madal Tuning

I brought my madal to my music lesson today—carted it with me on the bus from Ektantakuna in my canvas Hollins bag—as Buddhalal had instructed me to bring it two weeks after I received it, so it could be tuned. As usual, I arrived early—Nepalis usually have the problem of arriving late (dhilo) I have the opposite problem of always arriving too early (chaaDho). I sat on a bench on one of the covered porticos, and listened to the tabla class above me and the dhimay class across the courtyard, and the one guy practicing various rhythms on an oversized madal in between them while I waited for my class to begin.

“You brought your madal today,” Buddhalal stated when he saw my canvas bag.

“Yes, for tuning,” I replied.

He took the madal from me and resounded the smaller head. His faced screwed up at the sound. “Oho,” he exclaimed, “heterika! [a Nepali expression equivalent to “wow” “geez” “dang” etc in English]” He resounded the larger head as well. “Sound is so small,” he commented.

He told me to watch as he tuned the instrument. He found the end of the rawhide lace that helped bind the two heads to the wood body, undid it, and began to tighten it like a shoelace. He braced the drum between his bare feet, and tugged on the rawhide until he reached the other end. He now had a longer tail than at the beginning.

“I need water,” he said, and went to the window and began calling names. He came back to wait for the water to be brought. A young man soon appeared, but without water; he rather carried a pair of pliers. Buddhalal began using the grip to tug the rawhide lace to make it as tight as possible. In the end though, part of the rawhide ended up breaking off.

“La!” he exclaimed. “What a problem! How to bind it again?”

After fiddling around with it, he exclaimed, “where is that water? I guess I’ll go get and bring it myself!” He left the room and came back shortly with a bowl of water and a rag. “This is to soften the rawhide,” he told me in answer to my question, “to make it more pliable and easier to work with.” He began soaking the broken end of the lace in the water. He was able to bind the broken piece to this end, giving him enough lace to tie the ends back together. “There!” he was pleased with himself. “Just like it was before!”

He then took the small metal hammer that he used to tune his tabla, and began banging on each of the heads. The pitch of the head rose with each stroke. Soon, it was to his liking, or at least satisfactory. “You’ll have to bring it back in two weeks to be tuned again,” he informed me.

“Ha, I’m always so tired after tuning,” he stated. I was not surprised; tightening the rawhide had taken quite a bit of energy.

I wonder if he’ll let me tune it myself the next time around?

Overcoming Timidity

“Bhajaunus,” Buddhalal—my madal instructor—told me as he removed his shoes at the door. As he grabbed a cushion from the stack in the corner and a madal for himself off the top shelf, he listened to me play the “Tamang Selo” rhythm he had given me. “There are lots of these selos, this is just one,” he had told me. After listening for a bit, he asked me, “are you ready for me to play the flute with you?”

“I’ll try,” was all I could say. Buddhalal called out the open door into the courtyard to one of the staff sitting in the sun—he spoke in Newar, but I assumed he was asking for a flute. A flute was passed up to him soon after that. “Oh, look at this! Some student must have bitten it with their teeth!” he showed me the chew marks on the instrument. Earlier, he had complained that all the covers for the tabla drums were missing. Students—they were so naughty. “Ok, here’s the melody.” He played it once for me on the flute at my request. Then, I began to accompany him.

“Not enough, not enough,” he stopped playing and shook his head. “You got ahead of me. I wasn’t there yet.”

“That’s a little too much,” he stopped again. “You lost count of the repetitions. Here, let me play it for you again.”

“Here, just play the rhythm for me…Oh, yes, see, you know it, you just don’t know the melody. You need to put that in your memory. Here, let me play it again for you….with practice, you’ll sound great.” He smiled broadly. Then, he said, “You need to clean up your sound, and have more precise rhythm. And, play louder.”

Producing volume has been the bane of my musical existence. “You have wonderful finger work, and you shade things so well,” my piano instructor in college would tell me, “but—I’m at the back of the concert hall. I can’t hear all that detail because you don’t play LOUD enough!”

“If you play louder,” Buddhalal told me, “then people will feel joyful when they hear it. If you play small and timid, they can’t enjoy it. And, you’ll enjoy it more, if you play louder. Try again—GHE…kha, ga, GHE…kha ga, GHE…” he began repeating the syllables to go along with the strokes, emphasizing first beat of each measure with a loud resounding beat on the larger drum head.

He wisely decided to give me a few rhythm patters in triple meter that made use of these loud, emphatic strokes.

“This tal (rhythm) goes well with mangal dhun,” he told me. “This melody is one for good, auspicious beginnings. It’s played at weddings, when the new bride and groom hold hands for the first time, and have their parents’ hands around theirs. It’s played when the first brick of a new building is laid. Learn the rhythm and I’ll play that on the flute next time. You just need to play with confidence!”

If banging around on drum heads doesn’t make me confident, I don’t know what will.

Adventures at the music department

“Oho, so you’re studying at Kathmandu University’s music department?” The immigration official asked me as he glanced over my paperwork.

I was one of many foreigners crowded around the desk in “room 106,” why, I’m not entirely sure. But apparently we needed this guy to dribble red ink all over our application forms as evidence of his approval so we could get our visas.

“Hajur,” I replied the affirmative.

“What will you be learning?”

“Madal.”

“Oh, that’s easy! You just play ‘dang, dang’!” He dribbled red ink under the photo on my application and handed the stack of papers back to me. I managed a half smile and went back to the desk outside, crowded today mainly with foreign men who had apparently married Nepali women and were looking to get marriage visas.

I have discovered that playing madal involves more than ‘dang, dang.’ There’s lots of ‘na,’ ‘ti,’ ‘ga,’ and combinations thereof—‘ghe’ (ge and na combined), ‘tin’ (kha and ti combined). It involves sitting for long periods of time cross-legged on the floor with this double-headed drum across your lap. It can mean waiting for over an hour for your teacher to show up, because he lost his appointment book and forgot that your lesson at 9 was the first of his day, not the tabla class for undergrad students at 10. It can also include hearing stories concerning other foreign students. Such as “Miriam” from South Africa, who has been learning the same madal exercise for the past four months and still hasn’t mastered it. This is confusing for my teacher, for, she is from Africa; shouldn’t she have an innate sense of rhythm? “Its ok, she’s not sitting for exams,” my teacher said, “but, I get really bored after a while.”

So far, he’s given me a different exercise every time we’ve met. “So, what instruments do you play?” he asked on our first meeting. “Piano,” was my reply. “Oh, good, that means you know about music and can use both hands at the same time,” he said. “You’ll master the madal in four months or so. You can even play it in sangati,” he added, when he found out I was a Christian. He began singing the melody of “king of kings and lord of lords” to “la” and playing a rhythm to go with it—one that was a little more complicated than the one I was used to hearing accompany the song. “Just like that,” he smiled when done.

“Oh, if you go buy a madal, they’ll see your white face and charge you double,” he said when I inquired about where to buy a madal for practice purposes. “And, even if they gave you a fair price, you wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s a good or bad instrument. And you can’t just buy a ready-made madal—those are for tourists. You have to order one, a good one, and it will last you your lifetime. I’ll talk to a maker in Bhaktapur that I know, and order one for you. It will take about a week, and will probably cost around 2000 rupees.” A week later, I carted home a drum on my shoulder that cost me 1400 rupees, with instructions to bring it back in two weeks so he could tune it again. “The skins are new; they have to set, then be tuned again,” he told me. Not too different than having a new piano, I guess, which requires three or four tunings its first year as it accommodates to its new environment and parts. “So, bring it back in two weeks and we’ll do that.”

On being a bridge

“Tori, do you ever find yourself being judgmental of the church in the West, since you’ve grown up here?”

This question was posed to me by a fellow TCK—Third Culture Kid—who I was able to meet up with again over Christmas, as he was visiting his family still working in Nepal.

His question, posed directly, had a sting to it that also brought a balm of relief. The sting because it was so blunt, the balm because it was good to know someone else had similar thoughts and was brazen enough to voice them.

The short answer: yes. The long answer: still yes.

The problem with being a TCK is that you are in fact a mixture of two cultures, quite literally, and you can’t always tell where one begins and the other ends (I won’t go into detail about how this can complicate the process of “reflexivity” for the purposes of ethnographic writing). It’s just your reality (in my own opinion, TCKs are a prime community for an ethnographic case study on culture and how porous the concept really is. Takers anyone? It would make an awesome doctoral dissertation!) And you happen to think it’s everyone’s reality because all the other kids you grow up around who have American passports (in my case) have similar experiences. So when you return to the States (in my case) and discover that golden calves on pedestals, taking diversity for granted, a rice diet, being able to speak two languages, among other things, is not everyone’s reality, it’s a bit of a culture shock. (And to your American peers, you act like you just emerged from ancient Israel. Thinking back, I probably have more in common with an ancient Israelite than I thought). Its also hard not to become arrogant when things like poverty, other religions, the supernatural, etc, are all seen as rather exotic when in fact these are part of your everyday experience too. And it’s hard to not be judgmental of a church where people don’t want to take risks in their faith, when you have friends overseas who have risked (and often lost) all for that faith. Its hard not to become jaded when congregation members at “home” have a problem with people of other skin colors attending their place of worship, yet praise your family for going to a foreign country to share the Gospel.

In my own experience, I’ve found there to be two choices: you either take the way of arrogance, or, you become a bridge. In the way of arrogance, its “Duh, buddy, (insert: Scripture is supposed to change the way you think/ your culture is not the only way things are done/ not everyone grows up wearing designer jeans, and they’re overpriced anyway). Have you been living under a rock all (fifteen/fourteen/thirteen) years of your life?!” This was, unfortunately, the way that I chose for much of high school.

Being a bridge is a little more involved. It takes a lot of humility, as it requires you to meet someone where they may be—be it “whatever, I don’t care what someone thinks, I’ll just share the Gospel with them” or “what woman wouldn’t wear bangles and eye liner and have long hair?”—and allow God to use your experience to expand the other person’s way of thinking. If the person doesn’t change their thought as soon as you think they should, or refuses to see a different way at all, it takes a lot of forgiveness, and in my case temper control, and faith to keep loving that person. It also means making yourself vulnerable to criticism (good and bad), or misunderstanding. Plus, it just takes a lot more energy.

It also means you have to step out there. Like, volunteer for a missions committee (scary!), and say something in response to the comment “drum kits have no place in church!” (proper response to that one: “Handel’s Messiah has no place in church!”). Being a bridge goes the opposite way too. I had a conversation with a Nepali brother right before Christmas where he commented that many people in Nepal don’t know the true meaning of Christmas, even though it is a national public holiday. For many, it’s just a day when you get together with friends and family, go on a picnic, and have a nice time off. He was shocked when I told him the same concept ruled in the States and many other Western countries.

Has God been working on my judgmental sieve? Of course. Over the years, He’s shown me time and time again how many logs I carry around in my own eyes. And Christ’s promise of rest grows ever more appealing when you work cross culturally and become heavy laden and weary from interacting with two cultures who oftentimes don’t seem to “get” each other.

Secrets that aren’t secrets about Nepal

“Tori, what is the thing about Nepal that most tourists don’t seem to get?” Carly asked me this when she, LeAnna and I visited the Swayambunath stupa--a Tibetan Buddhist temple complex overlooking the Kathmandu Valley--over Christmas break.

“That Nepal is characterized by violence,” I said.

It’s partly Nepal’s fault. They advertise themselves as a Shangri-la, where numerous religions coexist in harmony. But much of this coexistence has caused religious and political friction, which at times has erupted in blood-letting violence. The history of the Shah royal family and the Ranas is one story. While the Kot Massacre of 1846 and the most recent royal massacre in 2001 are perhaps highlighted, the interactions of the families are consistently riddled with intrigue, murder, madness and getting rid of rivals. The recent Maoist civil war, which officially lasted from 1996 to 2006, was another incident. Politically, the country has had constant instability, especially since 1990, which has erupted in riots and fights that have included more than a few injuries and deaths (the Hithrik Roshan riots in early 2001 being perhaps the most bizarre).

But interactions between ethnic groups have also contained a fair amount of friction. The relationship between the Tharu—especially the Dangaura Tharu—and the Parbatiya, or hill-folk who rule the country, is one example. Its one example of internal colonization, where much like in the United States, land was the issue. Once malaria was eradicated in the 1950s and 60s, people from the hills moved in and registered lands formerly inhabited by the Tharu in their own names, making these people their tenants or bonded laborers. Incidents like this culminated in the Tharu—who span the Terai—forming their own ethnic identity, despite the fact that they are a very diverse people, both in language and culture, often not having anything in common other than living in the Terai and becoming bonded laborers.

That’s the other thing short term visitors don’t always see: how complicated and diverse the Nepali people are. There is no one “Nepali” ethnic group. When I go to the Shahi house, I only understand about half the conversations the family has; that’s because half their conversation is in Newari, and half of it is in Nepali. They are Newar both culturally and linguistically, but Nepali has been an integral part of their entire lives as the national language, used everyday in the government, economic, and educational spheres. There’s a family of Tamangs in my congregation; the ladies will often wear their traditional dress to special functions like Christmas or the anniversary celebration. More than once, people in my congregation have greeted me or started conversations with me in their own mother-tongues, just to see me smile and shake my head. I’ve been a part of two songwriting workshops for (culturally) Tibetan congregations. Within them, the languages of Lhomi, Kagate, Sherpa, Lowa, Hyolmo and Tibetan have been used. We will sing songs from each of these groups, but then will usually bookend them with popular Nepali choruses. Interacting with the Tharu on my most recent trip I ate new kinds of food, listened to a new language, and made me feel like I’d arrived back at square one when it came to learning about Nepali culture.

I’m still learning about this wonderfully complicated place called “Nepal”…

“Tenzing, you need your own bideshi!”

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned

My work at the office varies from day to day. Mostly, it involves editing English documents—annual reports, drafts of grants, my Nepali boss’s articles, various forms that are supposed to amount to ‘accountability’ for foreign donor agencies—but I’ve also re-done bulletin boards, made photocopies, collected/edited material for the website, phoned liasons at embassies, mingled with linguists/politicians, made two trips to Dang, and numerous trips across town to various partner agencies that are based in the Kathmandu Valley. The most recent project my British boss has given me involves creating a template of a cultural calendar for Upper Mustang in the form of a Tibetan thangka painting. My job is to create a platform and provide the needed text from which a thangka artist could then actually create the work of art. The idea is that this calendar will generate income for the NGO with whom we partner in conducting literacy classes in that area, as well as be good PR for the work they do.

While I was working on this, the director of the NGO that works in Upper Mustang dropped by. “Oho, Tori, jaimashee and tashi deley!” he greeted me. I returned the greeting. As I drew big circles on the sheet of butcher paper I had taped/nailed down to a desk, the director commented to my British boss, “There are three bideshis [foreigners] in this office now. I think you should—sshht” he motioned with his hand out the door, “send one of them to my office.” He laughed to indicate that he was joking.

“Tenzing, you need your own bideshi,” my boss commented, in a more serious manner. “I’ll talk to a few people and see what can be done.”

Bideshis—useful creatures they are. They are self-supported, so you don’t have to pay them; they’re committed and have a good work ethic; usually, they can be full of good ideas; if you have one working for you, your credibility with Western donors goes up, and the prestige of your organization in the eyes of other Nepalis often rises too. They offer amusement on the side, everything from language and cultural fo-paus to continually getting certain sicknesses that usually manifest themselves in diharrea. Of course, the latter can curb their work productivity.

As a woman, I’m finding that there are other ideas concerning foreign women as well, and most of them very unflattering. Foreign women are loose, free, both in dress and speech and action. Isn’t this how they’re portrayed in films, and represented by celebrities? Vulnerable in a new culture, they can easily be taken advantage of for everything from financial to sexual favors. The pretence of guiding them through the culture can be an easy in for these favors. But at the same time, if they’re single, they’re just dangerous anyway, all that unbridled sexual energy, and no one to keep them accountable. Their parents must have been unable to find them a husband in their own country; that’s why they’ve come to Nepal, to get a husband, and heck, why shouldn’t that be me/my son/my brother? Why shouldn’t I/he be the recipient of a green card, foreign passport, and foreign financial backing? And think, then, the rest of the family can leave this undeveloped Nepal too and go to other lands with more opportunity!

What’s a girl to do in the face of all this? Express your femininity in ways familiar to them. Wear kurtas and scarves, and even appropriate jewelry. Sometimes, a nose piercing does help, depending on the people group you’re working with. Speak Nepali when at all possible, but then again, with discretion—sometimes, it’s a good idea if they don’t know you speak Nepali. Don’t be rude, but let them know your attention is elsewhere: on public transportation, wear a face mask (it keeps dirt out, covers your white face, and inhibits conversation) wear earbuds (even if you’re not listening to music), or read a book. Don’t be afraid to let your boundaries be known. If conversation with a male friend gets weird, ask how their mother or sister is. It’s also ok to tell them you’re busy and need to be home by a certain time and (politely) decline additional offers for food/ tea/ hang out time. Just hang up the phone on the weird guy who dialed the wrong number and tries to flatter you with “Truly? You’re not Nepali? You sound just like one! I live in Thapatali—“ It helps to have discretionary and wise male bosses as well, who trust your cultural savviness but recognize the challenges that accompany being a young, single, white woman, and act on your behalf to lessen possible dangers or awkwardness. Giving introductions, even if through phone calls, on your behalf can be extremely helpful. And last but not least, seek the company of Nepali women, be it relationships at church or sharing a seat with them on a bus.

Sometimes though, you can’t control what comes to other’s minds when the see your single, white and female status. In those cases, you just pray like crazy for discretion and that nothing will happen to risk your well being or honor, or the integrity of the work you’ve come to do.

I’m all for being some office’s token bideshi if my skills set fills a need in their organization. But I’d rather not unnecessarily risk my personal honor and dignity, or the organization’s integrity.

Adventures in House Sitting

The dog refused to eat for two days. Actually, she agreed to only eat pancakes—the last thing her “mother” had made her before leaving for a winter vacation in India. Thankfully, she began eating “normal” Nepali dog food—bread and milk, rice, and whatever leftovers I had for her to finish—and I didn’t have to become an expert at making pancakes.

We are now down to about six hours of electricity during the day. It comes on for about six hours and then leaves for six hours. Unfortunately, the inverter is only good for about five hours of electricity, if that. And because the electricity is on a different schedule daily, there is often only three hours between electrical cuts, which doesn’t give the inverter enough time to fully charge. When the thing starts beeping, I begin by unhooking by computer, then flicking off lights one by one. There has been more than one time where I have been down to candles.

The wireless router is attached to a separate inverter, which doesn’t have as long a battery life as the one that powers the rest of the house. Unfortunately, the router and inverter are locked in the home office, so when the inverter runs out of juice, I can’t turn it off to stop its continually beeping. It doesn’t help that the office is across the hall from my room. After a while, it just becomes white noise, but my ears do hurt if I listen too long, so I try to leave the house, or if its at night, my iPod is a welcome distraction.

The family has their drinking water delivered to them. I don’t know how the dude in the company office figures out where I live—I just tell him I need water and live behind Roadhouse Café. Last time I called for water, a tanker showed up. Thankfully, that one wasn’t for me—it was for the house two doors down—but my guys came at the same time. They carried the huge, 50+lb water bottles on their shoulders to my place.

The family I am house sitting for has been very generous with their resources. I got a phone call from a friend of theirs—on my mobile—who had left her red bike in their care; she was back in town now and wanted to know when I was home so she could pick it up? Another friend came knocking on the gate one night, returning a large frying pan and several wine glasses she had borrowed. Their house help comes to work three days a week—to clean the house, do any laundry I may have, and feed the dog if I happen to be out of town for the day—the rest of the week, she works at the guest house the family runs. A random family friend showed up today from out of town; I informed him that they were on vacation and would be back this coming weekend. I would let them know he came calling. My job has become to coordinate all this in addition to just keeping the house.

The house has a well for its main water supply. There is an electric pump that shoots the water up to the holding tank on the roof. This pump is supposed to be run daily, for 5 to 10 minutes. With the erratic electricity schedule, I have to remind myself constantly when to run it. If it isn’t run for more than 48 hours, it tends to sound sick for a while, and not work as well.

The family does have a car—a very old jeep. It would be fun to drive, especially since driving on roads in Kathmandu is like going off-road. Except I refuse to drive in Kathmandu; my defensive driving capabilities are not that strong. Instead, I content myself and run/warm the car twice a week to keep the battery from dying. It’s not nearly as exciting.

The dog decided to run away one morning when I went to church. Thankfully, the neighbors saw her and brought her into their place. She has now spent more time in her little house on the side yard than she would probably like. She now tries to escape under the gate when I’m home as well. Stupid dog. Thankfully, her family is coming back in four days.

I wonder if house sitting in the States is this involved. I’m sure it depends on whom you sit for.

Excellent and Praiseworthy

Names have been changed for the privacy of those mentioned.

Apart from coming away from West Nepal with more typical Nepali experiences under my belt, and too much to think about concerning struggles with sin and my status as a single women (not that they’re related, but between all the Nepali men talking to me on the buses and listening to no less than five sermons back-to-back on the subject of sin, it was easy to conflate the two prior to hitting the sack late Thursday night upon my return to Kathmandu), this trip profoundly increased my admiration for the work that the Tharu translation team, leaders, and musicians are doing to benefit Tharu congregations.

I guess I never thought before about what it takes to create a Scripture translation. While waiting for the jeep to show up to take us to his village, Shyam patiently answered my questions concerning the translation work he is currently doing. He estimated that it could take between twelve and twenty years to complete the Daugara Tharu translation of the Scripture. One reason is because they are short of manpower—there are three people working on it—and they do a lot of things other than straight translation. As I learned on this trip, Tharu is only just becoming a written language; people speak Tharu but don’t necessarily read and write in it. Not that Tharu has never been a written language—Devanagari, the same alphabet used to write Nepali, Hindi and Sanskrit, is used—people just don’t have a habit of reading and writing in it. The default is to use Nepali. They’ve therefore had to create materials for reading and writing, such as a Tharu grammar and dictionary. For the dictionary, they conducted word collection workshops, where they collected words and wrote down definitions—tedious work, according to Shyam, but necessary. They’ve also had to find ways to promote the use of the Scripture portions they’ve translated. This means creating a simple study for the Gospel of Luke, making recordings of them reading the Scripture for people to listen to as they read along, or simply holding meetings where they read the Scripture aloud, with everyone taking a turn to read a paragraph.

Ram Kumar currently works with a reputed ministry that provides children’s Scripture curriculum and teaching training support all over Nepal. His position requires a lot of travel, which he uses to self promote his songs as a musician as well. Not that he’s full of himself—with Nepali being the dominant language for congregation life, doing it in Tharu is fairly new endeavor and there aren’t that many songs in their own language for fellowships or worship. So he sings and teaches his songs to people as he travels for work, and they in turn teach these to others and use them in fellowships.

A friend of Sunil’s was putting together a Tharu radio program, and needed appropriate songs, but, there were none in existence. So, Sunil borrowed old, traditional tunes from their Tharu culture—festival melodies, ones used for communicating while working in the forest—and wrote lyrics that declared the Good News. These became well received. It put the Gospel “in local clothes,” so to speak. That way, their fellow Tharu would see that they did not follow a foreign God, desiring to advance economically by catering to foreigner’s desires. God is in fact near to them; He speaks their language too.

Ramesh spear-headed a project in his congregation where they decided to studio record a few of the songs members had been writing. These all declared the Gospel to non-believers. They took up offerings to cover expenses, and though they were unable to distribute the recordings on CDs or cassettes, the MP3s have made their rounds. They arrived at Ram Kumar’s congregation, where the youth have used them for “special” songs in fellowship, for Christmas caroling, or to dance to. Doing a studio recording was a considerable learning curve for those involved. They were all from a village and knew nothing about how such a recording was made. The studio personnel were patient with them, and Ramesh had several amusing stories to tell about their experiences. The studio personnel were also flexible with payments; there were several months after the recording work was done where they were still paying the studio for services. Talk about walking by faith and leaving your comfort zone.

“Before I answer you question, I need to give a little history first…” Kumar prefaced his comments with this phrase regularly. The guy was a minefield of information concerning how they began doing fellowship in the Tharu language in the first place and what challenges Tharu believers have faced in regards to their walk. He spoke quietly but had a robust laugh. Re-listening to the recordings I made, my ears get blasted every time he erupts in laughter; the contrast is so stark. First of all, they never prayed or worshiped through song before becoming believers; these were things they had to learn through practice and teaching. Second, because Tharu heard the Gospel first in Nepali, and not their own language, Nepali became a “holy language” for them—they prayed, read scripture, sang, all in Nepali. It was a concept that had to be broken when transitioning to using their own Tharu language. It was hard especially for Tharu leaders to at first realize the importance of using their mother tongue. Kumar related a funny experience when showing the Jesus Film dubbed in Tharu: viewers wanted to know how a Jewish man had come to speak Tharu!

After this trip, I thought of Phillipians 4:8—“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” The heart that these men have to see both their fellow brothers and sisters grow in their faith and for more of their people to come to a saving knowledge of grace is truly admirable.

The (best ?) places to stay in Nepal...

I stayed at the best place in Tulsipur, according to my boss. The Munal Guest House includes a private room with an adjoining bathroom. Mine had two toilets—a Western one, that looked like it had been broken for months on end, and a Nepali one, which was not clogged so usable. The showerhead was rusty, and the spicket produced very cold water once a day. There was a basket of used toothbrushes over the sink, which made me think they had given me the staff room for a minute. The cobwebs over them told a different story.

In the village of Belganar, I slept in a semi-empty storeroom. The lady of the house had laid down a straw mat, a few blankets and a surac, and provided a pillow for my comfort. I shared my room with two small mice that night. Thankfully, they were interested more in whatever was in the bucket in the corner of the room than me, or my bags. Food included Tharu festival specialties, such as dhikiri (a roll of dough made from rice flour and steamed), boiled and spiced green leafy vegetables, and fish relish (which consisted of minnows, prawns and crawfish that had been caught in the stream that morning, boiled and spiced, and eaten whole. I bit off all the fish heads; those I could not eat). I passed on the pork meat, and was not offered any rat (yes, Tharu do eat rat. That was one of the advertised delicacies available at the Maghi festival in Kathmandu).

Traveller’s Village in Nepalgunj was heaven. My room was heated, the bathroom was clean, and the place had WiFi. I took three hot showers during my two days there. With one day of rest, where I had no one to meet or interview, I felt like I was on vacation. I was ordering food from the kitchen that I would never eat in the States. Suddenly, chicken cheeseburgers, French fries, macaroni and cheese and other fattening food sounded really good. I figured I was making up lost calories from all the rice and vegetables off which I had been living at the other places. The staff consistently addressed me as “madam,” and were perplexed when I didn’t want my room made up each day.

Park Inn Hotel in Dhangadi was probably at one time a nice place. There were ruins to testify to its former glory, such as the broken and unhooked electric water heater in the bathroom. I chose to sleep on the bed with fewer yellow stains on the sheets. Iodine drops went into the hot water I was brought around 8PM. Why Nepalis want to drink hot water before going to bed I’m not sure, but I was brought a thermos of it, and later, the boy came back with a glass as an afterthought. In the morning, the unexpected knock at my door revealed the same boy delivering me a greasy omelet and cup of black tea that I hadn’t asked for. Complimentary room service? In the afternoon, as I downloaded interviews from my recorder to my computer, a mouse ran out from under the bed, saw me, and ran back under it. I saw a shrew in the reception hall, running from the office door to a crack in the floor. When I left the place at 4:30AM two days later, my fellow traveler told the manager, “we had a very nice stay; we’ll probably come again.” I could see the manager beam in the moonlight.

Going on a Bus Trip...

According to the travel agent, he got me the best seat on the micro. And, the micro would go straight from Kathmandu to Tulsipur—no stops.

My seat—number 3—should actually have been number 4. With all the people going down to Dang for the Maghi festival, the micro company decided to accommodate the demand by overstuffing their vehicles. My seat was also right in front of the cheap seats—the bench behind the driver where people who were just going from one village to the next sat. I ended up sharing my bench with three young men on their way home to celebrate the festival, and all the men who hopped onto our micro, used the cheap seats, and hopped out. The conductor decided that mine was an easy place to sit as any. He motioned for me to make room for him to sit when he wasn’t shuffling people on and off the micro. Make that five people on one bench.

The ride from Tulsipur to Nepalgunj was the quickest, and easiest. Me and another foreigner shared a jeep. Our ride was only interrupted twice by Tharu men and women blocking the road and singing and dancing until we paid the festival toll—twenty rupees at one point, and ten rupees at another.

I was put on a bus going to Dhangadi by the hotel staff from the place I stayed in Nepalgunj. Very kind of them. The bus was a video coach—meaning, there was a TV up front that played Nepali and Hindi music videos. Culturally very informative, and engaging to the village woman and her toddler who sat next to me. An hour into our trip, the driver learned that the road out of Nepalgunj was closed till noon. Some local political unrest had caused the road to be shut down. So, our driver pulled over at a convenient place—rows of teashops—where we could disperse and feed ourselves while we waited for the road to open. Once it did, the ride was slow going. We went through a national forest, where we were stopped at each army outpost. A soldier was sent on board to look around, examine the contents of our bags, and question the driver about where the bus had come from and where it was going. Some of these soldiers were quite intimidating in stature—Nepali men aren’t that big, but these sure were—and others looked like mere boys, with their fatigues hanging off their shoulders and their khukheri knives appearing oversized on their belts.

Once we were past the checkpoints and over the Karnali Bridge, the bus stopped at every village and hamlet the let people on and off. Soon, I was seated next to a Tharu girl, with a complete stranger’s grandson seated on her lap. The aisle was filled with standing passengers.

“How far is it to Dhangadi?” I asked the Tharu girl in Nepali. We had been on the road at least two hours by then, and I had been told the trip was 3 and a half hours, maybe 4.

“Oh, its VERY far!” she told me. “I don’t know how far, but VERY far. Several hours at least.” I should have known her perception of what was near or far was different than mine.

Then, people began to get sick, including the girl next to me. I quickly switched seats with her so she could be near the window, and put the grandson on my lap. The conductor was yelling at the girl, “ho, bahini, don’t put your head out the window! Use this plastic bag!” and stopped the bus to pick up two clods of dirt to cover the vomit in the aisle. “Next time, just tell us you’re not feeling well, bahini,” the grandfather said. He then turned to me. “Is hajur going to Dhangadi too?” he politely asked. I answered the affirmative. “oh, well then, my grandson can just sit with you.” The boy was indifferent to whoever’s lap he sat on. He was possibly five or six years old, and made himself comfortable on me, fitting his head in the space between my neck and collarbone and proceeding to doze.

When we got to an area with cell service, I had three missed calls from my contact in Dhangadi.

“Where are you?!” he asked when I called him back.

“Um, still on the bus. We just arrived in…” I looked out the window and read the location on one of the store signs and told him the name.

“Oh, that’s 30 kilometers out. Maybe you have an hour left.”

It took two.

My bus from Dhangadi to Kathmandu left at 4:45AM. My travel buddies included Rick Holland, Steve Lawson, John Piper, John MacArthur, CJ Mahaney and Milton Vincent. The 15+ hour bus trip was as good as any to catch up on sermons I had downloaded and not listened to, in between mentally processing what I had learned on my trip and praying. Earbuds would also provide a welcome barrier to the guy next to me attempting to converse with me. While I never get attention from strange men in the States, it seems that all the ones I had sat near on these buses wanted to engage me in conversation—something they would never do with a Nepali girl. These conversations would take place in English. I decided to hide the fact that I spoke Nepali from them. Then our conversation would just be limited to their English vocabulary, which would usually run out within five minutes. If they found out I spoke Nepali, the questions would never end.

Finding a taxi from Kalanki to Pulchowk was easy: there were half a dozen drivers waiting outside the bus, harassing passengers about where they were going next. I bartered my driver from 350 rupees down to 300—no one would use the meter at this time of night, and during the day, it would cost about 250 anyway. He didn’t know where St. Mary’s School was, which was surprising to me as its one of the oldest and largest schools in Patan. I guided him through alleys and unpaved roads—“go left,” “now turn right,” “yes, go toward Jhamsikel,” “ok, stop right here.”

Home. 8:45PM. Almost exactly a week after I'd left it.

Can I thrive? Or just survive?

This question is one I've been asking for a while now. In some ways, I'm looking for that one thing that "tips me over the edge," that says "Whoa! I can't live here! I'm not made for this!"

Shopping is one of those things. Normally, shopping stresses me out in the States, be it grocery, clothings, or gifts, or anything. I know I'm not the only one who finds it stressful, so it's not really a temperature marker I guess, but, I find that shopping in Nepal is the opposite for me. It can be relaxing, so much so in fact that I need to exert more self control when it comes to buying things. I think its more enjoyable because I usually have more interaction with the shopkeepers than I would in the States. Some of it has to do with how things are done, namely, you bargain. But because I try and speak Nepali, people become curious too, and usually ask about my work, and share bits about their lives as well. For example, I was looking for a replacement pair of earrings for my broken silver pair. I carried the non-broken one with me, but none of the gold-and-silversmith stores I went into had a design similar to the one I had. I found that the price of silver had nearly doubled--I had paid 70 rupees for my pair last year, but within the past three months, because of petrol and transport costs, the price of the metal had risen. Now, my pair of earrings would cost 150 or 200 rupees! One metalsmith however insisted that he could make me a pair. "It won't be exactly the same," he said, "just similar. Come back around 4PM, and they'll be ready."

That worked for me. With the prospect of going to the Terai for a week, I needed to go to Thamel for some items, so that would give me time to go there and come back. I went to Shona's, a trekking store run by an Australian couple, which according to the long term expat community is the best trekking resource around. The directions are simple: in Thamel, go past Kilroy's (another long-term establishment, a bistro and bar), and look for an electric pole leaning into the road. Shona's is right behind it. I needed a backpack--I told the guy that I was going to the Terai for about a week, and needed something to hold my stuff and that wasn't too big for me to carry. He showed me a backpack he had designed after traveling in warm climates. It had a large compartment, supported backpack straps that could be hidden with a flap, and a strap on the outside so that it could be carried as a bag as well. "My wife and I have used it as our carry-on for airplanes as well," he said. "We've taken it to Bali, Singapore, Malaysia...it has zippers instead of a drawstring, so you can lock it as well, to make it safer for public transport. Its comfortable to carry if you need to walk twelve kilometers (about 7.5 miles) in case you miss a bus." That last part is what I needed to hear. The only thing it didn't have was an extra compartment for my computer. I had thought to buy a backpack with a Camelback compartment; that way, I could just take out the water pack and slip my computer case into it. But all the backpacks that had those were too small. "It wouldn't fit all you needed for a week of travel," he said. "Just pad the computer with the rest of your belongings, and it should be fine." The cost? "2200 rupees," or the equivalent of 30 USD. I was stoked! I had been expecting to pay more around 5000 rupees, or about 70 USD, which was about what such backpacks ran on the Internet and the States. "Its fully guaranteed, so if you have any problems with it, by all means, bring it back," the guy said as I left the store.

I was also buying a small bottle of iodine solution, to purify drinking water, from Shona's, but the guy had misplaced the droppers. "Could you pop back in maybe 15 minutes?" the guy politely asked in his Australian accent. Sure, I was going to go to one more store anyway. I had decided that a yak wool shawl was in order, as I had been bundling up in sweatshirts, coats, socks and hats and was still not warm. And I was surrounded by women on the street and at church in nothing more than a sweatshirt and shawl, and perhaps socks with their sandals. Something must be said for their wear. There are pashmina places galore in Thamel, but I have been purchasing all my scarves and shawls from one place--Friendly Pashmina, introduced to me by another expat. Actually, I had never purchased a scarf or shawl for myself; all the ones I had purchased last year had been for friends or family. Today, the guy at the store sold me two yak wool shawls for 350 rupees each--a little less than $5, which I knew to be the wholesale price. "You come here often," he said when I asked if that was all he was going to charge me. Plus, I had brought friends more than once. The memory that stands out to me is last year, when I had purchased all my gifts, I had taken so long picking ones out that the guy ordered tea, and we had a conversation about American insurance policies.

Back in Mangal Bazaar, I waited a few minutes while the silversmith finished making the earrings. Sitting in the store, I had a chance to look at his other goods. I seriously thought about purchasing a pair of silver anklets, and another nose ring--I have been considering one that loops around--as the guy had several beautiful designs. But I contented myself with the earring pair he had made, and made a mental note to return closer to the end of my time here, when I would have a better idea of what I could spend. He had melted the sample earring I brought and used it to make a new pair. The new charms didn't have as much detail as the original, but they were small. As his assistant polished them, he asked about my work, and where I was from, and whether I was studying Nepali language now or not. He too had traveled outside Nepal. He had worked on some gas lines in Dubai, repairing them. He had made good money, but the work was hard. He had also been to Malaysia, and Singapore, for work. Were the earrings for my little girl (pucchi)? he wanted to know. No, they were actually for me, I said somewhat sheepishly. I liked wearing silver.

Random little interactions like these encourage me that yes, indeed, I can thrive in Nepal, not just survive. The most recent test however has been house sitting for a family...I'll write more on that later.