The Village

November 31st

Most of these entries were written sitting at night after dinner upon the roof of the grandparent’s ‘home” which is a raised straw thatched hut used as their a place to store their food, cook, sleep and everything in between. You can climb from the open window to this roof. My computer is left to charge in the chief’s house during the day so I can use it in the evening to write entries. I just learned that I am Northeast of Kathmandu. To upload this I took a bus with the chief's eldest son to the nearest city called about 30 minutes away from our village in the same District.

I awoke this morning to a goat walking across my sleeping bag and his friend, The Pig, ruffling about my pillow. Awakening from my sleep scared them off and beside me with the village chief’s wife blowing through a metal pipe into the clay pit fire. I was so sleepy from staying up last night exchanging Nepali an English with the chief’s sons, Nakul and Paresh. Although I knew I would be unable to all back asleep I rested for a big longer until the rooster crowed. It wasn’t even five am.


Searching around for water, Nakul says, “I shall take you.” Nakul is Nirja’s cousin, the chief’s son. Nakul led me down the side of the mountain and with every turn he used his whole arm to signal for me where to go without using one finger to point he would use his whole hand. “Shall you like to see our temple?” Before we got to the water pump next to the river we took a turn and stopped. “Where is the temple?” I asked him. He used his whole arm once again to point to the rocks by our feet which were covered with flowers. More like a shrine than a temple the rocks had some kind of pink and red paint on them. “You can demand something from the gods here.”

“Oh, wow. That is wonderful. Do all the villages come here?”

“Yes, this is our temple.”

“Please, demand something then,” Nakul said.

So I agreed to demand something from the gods. After walking down the past and seeing a grandmother carrying a baby smoking into his face and black plastic bags beginning to make their way into this village I said the first thing that came to my mind,”

“I demand from the gods to bring health to these villagers by lessoning the amount of trash and cigaretts that enter it.”

And with that, Nakul pushed his thumb into the paint on the rock and then placed his thumb on my forehead. “Tiki,”Nakul remarked.

I few minutes later we were at the water pump. The water pump was difficult at first to get used to but then the general flow came easy. Nakul was behind the pump looking at something and then turned to open his hands and show me some kind of seed. “asdsadsfd”, he said. “You eat.” To me it looked like a chestnut and once popped into my mouth tasted like a chestnut. “Now I know where to find protein when I might need it” I said to him knowing he wouldn’t understand.

Nakul asked if I would like to see more of the mountain so we took a detour from the path leading back to the village. He stopped every few feet to show me something. “Bas” “We use this to build our homes.” After a while he took a stone and threw it to the branches of the tree just beyond us. Hopping over a few shrubs he picked up the fruit he was aiming for. “Only found in Nepal. Tasty. You shall try this.” So, without any change to refuse I tried this strange looking fruit that actually tasted just like a guava I once tried in Costa Rica. Picking up again another plant he said, “Tree of oil.” And opened up the pods of the mustard flower to show me the oil that seeps out. In the other hand he held a corn stalk. “And tree of corn.” He then took what I thought was plain straw and slammed it onto the earth letting the small dried pods fall to the ground. Opening up the tiny pod he place one rice into my hands. “Our food we eat every day,” He said. I then realized why the rice tasted extra delicious the night before.

“How come you are not in school today?”
“I shall not go to school today because you are here. In Nepal a guest is a god.” Once again I really didn’t know what to say to this. It didn’t feel very good at all to know this boy wasn’t going to school because of me. “My father said I should learn from you.”

As we made our way up the mountain Nakul stopped and looked up. “This is the tree of the god. It is sacred tree called “Swambi”” We continued up and he then asked me to sit down. So I sat. “Why did you come here?” he asked. What a question. A question that has had me confused all day. I came here to check out Nepali culture, plan my curriculum for the Spring VIS semester, see the beauty and volunteer for a bit in the schools. This boy was waiting for some big answer. “I am here to learn from you and to tell you about what I know. What I have learned from my own culture and if you want I can try my best to help you with your English.

“We are backwards and poor so the village will listen to you.”

While he was saying this I cringed. Looking around at the beauty of this place and at the families who were together working in their fields that sustained their lives. How can they see this as poor. With that I told him that in America, to own a mountain with endless fields and a view of the great mountains would only happen through wealth

“You are not backwards but rich. Rich in things most people back from my country lack. You are rich in fields of flowers. You are rich in family and the love you have for all of your family. You are rich in fruitful food.”
With that we left and while passing bas, Nakul remarked “We are rich in bamboo! And it is green like the money.”

“Yes”, I said “you are rich in this.”
Back in the village Nirja was ready to bring me to the stream to wash myself. We were to go to a stream that was far away from the village to wash our whole bodies, not the stream just adjacent to the village.
“Shall you wear a petticoat to wash or no clothes?”

I told her I would like to wash my whole body because it had been quite a few days now. We gave to a waterfall fed stream with a rock dividing the water into two water channels. I was about to wash my hair in the stream to my left but no sooner to Nirja warn me not to touch that stream with my body or hands but to use the pot sitting next to the rock to catch the water from the left stream to pour it over my hands and head into the right stream. “The gods will not be in your favor if you pollute this side of the stream.” And so I just went with it hoping she might leave so I could bathe easier using the stream that was closest to me.
When we arrived back to the village I offered Nakul a hand with fetching water for the animals. While we were filling up the water I noticed all the women of the village were on their hands and knees picking up not only the plastic bags but the natural dirt and straw.

“They have cancelled their plans to go into the field and pick up everything on the floor.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because they saw you picking up used bags from the ground and I told them it makes you sad as you demanded this from the gods.”

Oh, I was about to run away from the village at hearing this. I began feeling my presence was just disrupting their daily lives. I had the women stop by asking Nakul to relay my request them. I then spent the latter part of the day contemplating my presence in their lives.