I'm alive, makes me feel like I took happy pills and time stands still

I have been wandering through the himals for the last few weeks, but I am safely back in Kathmandu now! It was an absolutely incredible experience. I have been dabbling and babbling trying to determine the best way to express it all in words; to do it some sort of justice. I don’t know if it is possible but I am going to try… I will mostly use photos as a guide (which also won’t ever do it justice, but may come closer?).

Pokara

First, I drove up to Pokara and from there trekked for two days, staying in Guest Houses and Tea Houses and eating none other than daal bhat (per usual) until I reached Tuckuchhe; here I lived with the most incredible family for a little over a week. Tuckuchhe is a small village tucked beautifully in the middle of the Annapurna region. Everything felt right living and experiencing village life. My family was wonderful; I absolutely loved my Baabaa and my Didi and my Bahinis. No one spoke any English so my Nepali improved leaps and bounds throughout my time there. Part of my field work while I was there was conducting an interview on someone’s life story, charting someone’s kinship, drawing a map of the village, and researching something that is pertinent to the village.

For the life’s story I interviewed my Baabaa. He has lived such an incredible life! He used to be the mayor of the village and has 6 children, all of which are dispersed around the world, and in inter-caste marraiges, except for the one… my Didi who is 26 and cringes at the idea of ever getting married (not very typical-Nepali). She is studying to be a teacher in Kathmandu. The Thakali people (the people of Tuckuchhe) are a drinking caste; they have their own language, and their own unique and beautiful culture. In my house they distilled chichi raksi, apple raksi, and oat raksi (raksi is homemade liquor). Every night my Baabaa got so excited about sharing with Libby and I (we lived in the same home) and having us try all of the different raksis.

Libby, Didi, me, Baabaa

I had so much fun with my family, every night we would laugh and talk and sit around the dinner table for hours sharing and hollering with laughter (oftentimes at the miscommunications that were so frequent). When I interviewed my Baabaa for the life story project it became a family affair, everyone joined in to listen! I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard. In fact, one of the things I asked him was to reflect on his happiest moment in life, and he said it is moments like this, where family is together laughing and having fun. Even madam (her and her family live in the house), who never comes out to join in with family activities was laughing and having fun with us, he said he never sees her laugh, and that he would remember this night forever. I became very close to my Tuckuchhe very, very so fast.

From the front of my house

My Didi was also incredible. We had amazing conversation and shared stories about ourselves and things that have helped shape who we are. We talked about how our differences between our cultures’ and created a forum for any questions to arise with the assurance that we would give an honest answer. One day, literally all day, we sorted 100 kilos of beans (black, red, good, and bad) and just talked the entire time. (Hence the improvement in my Nepali.)

Using rocks to grind spices for apple crumble

Tuckuchhe is known for apples, the Mustang region supplies all of the apples to Nepal, and of all the villages, Tuckuchhe has the second most! Literally all but one family there has apple orchards. So, naturally Libby and I thought it would be a good idea to teach our Didi to make apple crumble, slightly more difficult without an oven but totally do-able! She loved it and we climbed up a nearby mountain and had a picnic to eat it!

Also in front of my house

apple crumble

Throughout the home stay I was able to engage in village life and help with chores; I carried 25 kilos of potatoes on my head down a huge mountain—from the farm up top all the way to my home; I sorted all those damn beans; helped garden; etc. etc. etc. I really loved the manual labor and I loved that everything you could possibly need was available in the village, or even likely within a single families’ garden/farm/animals. Everything I ate, my family grew, and the eggs came from the chickens that often sat beside me while I was doing my homework.

Needless to say, a week was not enough time, and I already miss my Tuckuchhe family dearly.

The trek was also really spectacular. We walked for four days after the home stay, making our way back to Pokara once again. We passed through a completely new ecosystem every day, Nepal is so diverse and so magnificent; a single day has not passed that I haven’t fallen asleep completely impressed and awe-struck by this country. Despite all of the diversity— in its people and environments and life, it strives for unity… Which can become sticky, because in an effort to unify it is often the minorities, or the marginalized that are forgotten, but in many regards it achieves unity in this diversity with incredible grace. That is something I need to remember when I start researching how social norms have been created to marginalize certain communities based on the once institutionalized caste system. It will be exhausting at times, I’m sure, but if I can maintain this balance of love for the culture and people and an academic understanding of where progressive change could be made, it will be all the more rewarding!

On the trek, we were able to reach Poon Hill, which is in Ghorepani, and overlooks the Annapurna range. Our entire group hiked up the hill at 5am in order to catch the sunrise. It was completely worth it. Watching the sunrise has come to be one of my absolute favorite things, and the experience was completely surreal. The Himalayas appeared to be floating above the clouds, and we were right there with them. Directly in front of me was Annapurna I, to the right Annapurna South, and to the left Dhaulagiri (the 7^th tallest mountain on earth). The trek to that point the day before was the most difficult walk I have ever experienced. We inclined 1 mile vertically in 7 hours! The entire trek was uphill, and we were carrying all of our belongings on our backs! The hardest part is that when you are walking, there is no way to take a break unless you are stopping… I am used to being able to walk if I exhaust from running, but there was no way to reboot when you have to walk up hill for that long. However, it was amazing and even in the difficult times it was so much fun and so rewarding and I was around really great people. Everyone in the group made it within 8 or so hours! So awesome!

After our trek we flew from Pokara to Kathmandu. The view from the plane was outstanding; we passed over huge himals! Driving to pokara takes about 8 or 9 hours, but the flight is only 25 minutes… which just goes to show how terrible the roads are here and how mountainous it is. When we returned to Kathmandu our wonderful teachers were waiting for us (they trekked the way there, but came home early). I cannot say enough about how amazing our teachers are, they have played a pivotal role in my happiness throughout the program. Anyways, when we returned all of our teachers were there and they were cooking up a Thanksgiving meal for us!! We had pumpkin pie, and mashed potatoes, and turkey (I don’t know how they pulled that one off), and so many delicious sides. Such a warm, and thoughtful welcome back to Kathmandu.

Since then, I have been spending a lot of time at home. We finished up all of our finals last week and this weekend/ so far this week has been Tihar, another festival. Each day we do puja and worship something different, Day 1: Crow Day 2: Dog (all of the street dogs were wearing flowers and tikka!) Day 3: Laxmi puja Day 4: Ox puja Day 5: Bhai tikka (little brother). On Laxmi puja I spent the whole day helping clean (to invite laxmi in, who is the goddess of wealth and good fortune), playing cards, and making so many sweets! They dressed me up in a kurta too, which was really special because it was my Didi’s kurta that was given to her by her fiance’s mom the first time they met. Today, bhai tikka, we had coffee in the morning, then all got dressed up in saris (you can tell the importance of the day by what we are dressed in), and worshiped our bhais. It was actually so much fun! My baabaa is pretty relgious but no one else takes the tikka and puja too seriously. My aamaa for example, started yelling to my baabaa, “Hurry up laxmi puja is today not tomorrow and Manisha is getting tired!” because it was already midnight on Laxmi puja and he hadn’t finished his initial worshiping. Once, we all got around to it, we laughed for most of it and joked about how our baabaa was putting tikka on my camera and other material things. Today, for bhai tikka we got to wear rangichangi (colorful) tikkas. Me, and my three sisters all tried to work together to put the tikka on my brothers and it was a mess but really fun! Then, they put tikka on all of us and did the same worshiping thing. After that we all ate our weight in dried fruit and nuts and spent the entire afternoon on the roof playing cards. I loved every minute of it and I am really sad to move out tomorrow. I have really bonded with my family and I feel very close to them now.

Tomorrow morning I am moving to an apartment in Boudha where I will live for the next month while I conduct my research. It is a really awesome opportunity to be on my own for an entire month, on my own schedule, researching what I am interested in! I am really sad to leave my family, but I plan on coming back either for dinners or at the end if I can finish my research early. I am excited to live in Boudha though! I will get to cook for myself (which is good and bad, I will miss my aamaa’s cooking!) and I will have direct access to all of the Buddhism I want! I plan on continuing my meditation course and auditing other courses with Maria at the monastery.

apple orchards

Didi and our bahinis dressed us up! Libby is wearing traditional Thakali clothing, and I am wearing Sherpa clothing (both outfits were used for weddings)

Sunrise

Rhododendron forrest

Thanksgiving lunch