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Other entries in Nepal

Educator of the masses!

"It's not until you have had a foot massage from a goat's very rough toungue, having your hair cut on somebodies front porch, whilst the owners are peeling maize infront of you, and you have washed your clothes and had a shower in a mountain spring, with fire flies lighting the backdrop of rocks and bushes and the only light to be had, is that from the forks of lightning from the tropical thunderstorm raging over head, that you think, wow, I'm really travelling! who needs expensive barber shops, (he was only 15 but turned out fairly well, its cost 35 rupees, about 50cents US.) and a Zanussi 3000 XD auto, (they actually  turned out pretty clean, although it took a long time and a lot of elbow grease.)

It was a long and crowded bus ride out to Nuwakot. 75km and 5hrs later we finally made it. Nuwakot is on top of a hill that over looks the Trishuli and Tadi rivers. It was the old capital for this region of Nepal before the reunification 238 years ago by king Prithvi Narayan Shah. Nuwakot is at the end of a 6km road that winds its way to the summit. At the bottom of the hill is Bidur, turn right is Trishuli and left is Batar. All thriving towns, with the seat of local government and the police HQ in Bidur and the local army barracks between there and Batar. In Nuwakot its self there is a Palace and the remains of the Hindu  Temples that have survived very well over the last few centries. Since the Moaist uprising of a few years ago, walking through the Palace and Temples is a bit unnerving, there are armed gaurds everywhere with machine guns aiming at all the entrances. Razor wire covers all of the hill side to foil any attackers attempts to take the summit. The rest of the village is very quite  and peaceful, where everybody knows everybody and stops to chat. It feels like a mouantain village in Europe would have done 50-100 years ago. Electrisity is there most of the time, and no running water. This is still collected from a spring and carried in large pales. There is a shower but the tank at the top of the shower room has to be filled up by hand, it takes a long time. The road has only been here for the last 42 years and a bus service for the last 9years. When the LP (Lonely Planet) says the Sat TV, roads and Tourists in that order have had the biggest influence in remote communities, there'ye not lying. I haven't seen any westerners here yet.The houses are made of mud bricks, mud concrete and mud floors. The toilets are outside and there aren't any windows, just shutters. Far to hot for things like glass.

On arriving at the school, (just as I had wanted to expereience,) it was as if some of the younger children had never seen a white man before, some of them probably haven't, apart from on TV. The school holds 750 pupils from grades 1-10 and 10+2, college age. College starts from 0600-0945 and the rest of the school from 1000-1600, with half an hour break in the middle, 6days a weeks, with saturday off. They only seem to get 2-3 weeks off a year, but there are religious and cultural days off most months. They have an end of school exam SLC, School Leavers Certificate, the same as France and the States I think and they have to pass each year before they are aloud to go onto the next, so the age ranges can be from 10 -17. The class sizes here are between 40-70, I have visited one school where there was a class of 107. The school is basic with some lighting, but no light bulbs, the light comes from opening the shutters, but at least this school does have concrete floor and not mud. Something that doesn't seem to be the norm here is a computer lab (soon with internet) a science lab and a unit for the deaf.

On the first day at school, just as I had feared would happen, they asked me to introduce myself infront of the whole school, all 750 of them, jumping in at the deep end, asit were. I was traditionally welcomed to the community and school by Mr. Shyam Sundar Shrestha, the Principal. This involved being presented with some flowers, an orange, some Tika (red dust placed on the fore head is a blessing, good luck and welcome in the Hindu Culture.) and a Nepali cap. Unfortunately the cap was to small or my head was the wrone shape (not to big, OK) but this gave the whole school great amuzment as it was arranged and then rearranged on my head many times.

Marraiges.A funny thing, compared to the west. Not the getting married part, buthow they seem to be conducted. In a Hindu wedding, or maybe its just Nepali Hindus, there are some things very different. There are special wedding seasons, not that thats strange I suppose, in the west we get married in the spring (spring lambs and flowers) and the summer so we don't get wet. Now im not saying that we have it completly right in the west, chatting up the bridesmaids or ushers, drinking way to much so that we can barley remember the event and watching Grandad attempt to dance to R+B, Hip Hop or trance, well that is to say if the brides maids or Ushers are good looking, extra drink probably helps if that is the case, but thats a different story altogether. Here though, the groom is now where to be seen afterwards, and the bride is sat in a house far away from the after party, reciving gifts from the villagers, looking very worried and scared, almost as if 'what have I gotten my self into'  (may be the western brides would be thinking and looking the same except the alchol has taken effect at this point and you can't tell.) The rest of the village decsends on a hall where they are offered food. Once they have eatern they seem to leave, no sociable chit chat, or daft dancing, they just leave. Now I seem to have hit the right month for weddings, March, I have been to two in the first week here.

Hindus follow a different calender and years to us in the west and even SE Asia.Their end of month falls in the middle of ours, and they are in the year 2063. For no particular reason other than that some body decided to start counting 2063 years ago. The year starts in the middle of April, the 14th, I will try not to miss it this time, but it seems to be less of a big deal here than in South East Asia, but I will do my best not to go to bed early for this event.

March, April and May are good months to be here is Nepal and especially Nuwakot. In March there is Holi, water and coloured powder being thrown every where and over everyone. In Nuwakot they have there own set of festivals, that seems to be unique only to here and a few other places. The first one is the 'helping of animals to the pot'. 10goats, 2male buffalos annd 2sheep. It was very quick (the ones I saw) and I can see how the French revoloution was so efficiecnt with it Guilltene. A few days latter chickens, lots of them, even from the bottom of the valley, were bought to the temples to meet the same fate. Im am glad to say that all the meat is destibuted around the village and eaten.

The next big event is the raising of LINGOS. The evening starts with the Priest taking a shower infront of everyone from the village. Then he goes to another house in the village where the traditional clothes, and I guess he, is covred in various coloured Tikas, flowers and water before heading to the site of the Lingos. Lingos are pine trees that are around 42 hands long (about25m) and one fo the two that are to be erected are dragged up to the top of the hill. When the priest is in place, at the bottom of the Lingo, the ropes are tied and one of the priests helpers pours holy water on the tree to bless it. There is also a representative of the King here, If the king had turned up there would be more that goats, sheep and buffalo having the distance between there noses and toes lenthened and separated, as sacrifices to the gods. After all of the fomalities are done and the word is givern, the 200+ people start to pull on the ropes that are attached to the top, whilst some people push eucalyptus and bamboo supports underneath. This is a very slow process. They started at 10pm and by 1am it was vertical. At 01:00:01am, due to some over enthusiastic pulling the Lingo went past vertical and started going over the other way.Bearing in mind the priest is still sat at the bottom of the pole, with the pole now falling to wards him.

Tradition states that hes shouldn't move, but he is allowed to do what he thinks is right, Either he thought right or had his eyes closed, but I don't think he moved. At this point he is wearing a very heavy crown and necklace, so I don't think he could move even if he had wanted to. The people that were pulling on the ropes re-enacted the wilder beast scene where they cross the river of aligators (Animal Planet), running down almost vertical slopes from round the temple where the Lingo was being erected, most of them falling over each other. The temple looks old and hasn't got any holes in the roof so I guess it hasn't gone all the way over.

After every one had come back from where they had run to out of the path of the Lingo, they moved the ropes around to the other side and started to throw rocks at the base to support it, as they got it vertical again. Next a flag was run up the pole and all was done. The priest went from house to house around the village offering blessing to every one that wanted them, before heading off to the next Lingo to be raised. This one only took one and ahalf hours, and they had finished by 4am. 12 years ago, one of the ropes snapped injuring 25 and killing 1. Thats daft and dangerous, I here some of you say. England (well Gloucestershire) has its cheese rolling (rolling a big double Gloucester Cheese down a very steep hill and chasing after it, but they are from near the forest.) Spain has its human pyramid building and Mexico has it bull runs, all of which have many injuries and deaths, and all equally daft and dangerous.

The government in there infinite wisdom, has decided that it is to dangerous for civilians to do by themselves and the army has been givern the job. This has ment that it takes twice as long as when the locals used to do it, as the knowledge was passed from farther to son down the generations. Next in the religious and cultural activities, is a proccesion by the army, police, govermenmt officials, a huge heavy casket that took 30 people to carry it to the top of the hill (alot of chickens also met the maker here) the priest and priestess, these are representatives of the gods and a lot of villagers. When all of these have filed through a very small arch way to the temple area, and more poeple than you though possible packed into an area the size of a tennis court, at least 2 or 300. The priest is covered in red tika (for welcome) yellow (good luck) and black (which is a blessing from the gods.Orange tika is then thrown over everybody and the prossesion moves off to the Palace. The party carries on all night with intresting dancing and music. The next morning, the priest looking very tired and exhausted at this point, a buffalo is sacrificed and the blood spread around the temple and priest as another offereing to the gods.

The Nepaleses, seem to be a very calm and non violent race of people, the same as the Indians I would imagine, both being followers of Hinduism and all.

From all of the religiuos and cultural activites I have seen here in the last few months, it seems as though it is more important to be there, at least with in watching distance to the event rather than paying attention to what is actually happening,.

There are definitely to camps, the first being the older generation, mostly male, and are paying attention to a being involved in the priceidings. The other camp is the young, they seem to be there to chat with friends and take advantage of the offerings of food. The only other religious events I have been envolved with have been Christian. Even if the sermons are really boring (Kent i'm sure yours aren't, I'm sure they are really insighful and entertainning and will make an effort to come and attend next CCDS if I can make it. And not to forget Rachel, I'm sure you are equally insperational in your teachings.) and if the congregation have to hold there eyelids open with match stuicks, they at least look as if they are paying attention. All I can liken it to is a lecture at college or uni and having your back to the board and listening to music, not seeing, hearing or being a part of what is going on. Just my thoughts and opinoins on the differences.

(Or does that happen any way when people are recovering from the night before and leave their tape recorders on the front desk in early morning lectures. Haven't been there so wouldn't know.)

After the Lingos have been put up, 2 people with a drum and symbol and 2people carrying flags have to make 108 laps around the Lingo and cask that have been carried up from the bottom of the hill a few days ealier, every eveing whilst they are in place. (The cask is called the 'rats', pronounced 'rhot',  imagine what posh people in London were carried around in, in the 1700's, or the Pharos, and you are close. A big box on bamboo poles, containing the representatives of the gods, other representatives, not the priest and priestess.)

Teaching, ah yes that what i'm here for. Well its going better than I feared I might have. 6weeks have gone passed and I haven't run out of thngs t say yet. I started off with 35 and have now got 108, I had to split them into two groups. Thankfuly they don't all arrive every time, there are the regular ones and then some that turn up when they want. They aren't compulsory lessons and some of them have at least an hours round walk up steep hills in the stifiling heat. They seem to be enjying it, I have heard good reports from some of the villagers that they like me as a teacher because I make them laugh. So even if I don't manage to teach them anything I will have at least entertained them, may be they will learn by osmosis.

5 English volunteers came out for a few days towards the end of March to help with some English teaching of the older people in the village and some of the 10+2 students at the school, as well as helping the the libary. They were from all of the UK and were in Nepal for 2 weeks doing volentary work for some of it and heading up to Tibet for the rest. They could tell that I hadn't been talking to native English speakers for along time as     I        was       talking very      slowly, it was a nice changed to talk to some people from back home for a few days and to talk at a normal speed and fluency again. Most of the work for the extra English lessons was done by the volunteers but I helped out where I could, mainly singing them songs and making a fool of my self, but it was all good fun, the students seemed to enjoy it and laughed for most of the lessons. A change prehaps from how they are usually taught.

So I am back in Kathmandu for the next 2 weeks, for some white water action and to attempt to extend my visa.

So that was todays mission, extending my visa. Well I found out that I had been here teaching illegally for the last 2 months and wasn't able to teach on the tourist visa that I was applying for. So I have 4 weeks left at the school, before I need to leave the country. Hopefully before the government finds out what I have been doing. Lets hope I don't want to emigrate here in the future.

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