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Published: January 5th 2008
This “load shedding” kills me. Thank goodness I have a computer battery that lasts 4-5 hours and can get work done, catch up on emails (that won’t send until the power comes back on), or write. What else can you do for 3 hours with no electricity? Sometimes I read with a headlamp. Tonight I spent some time packing by the light of my battery-powered lamp for our trip to Pokhara. But by the beginning of the third hour, I start to run out of options.
Today I was invited to a BBQ with the Colonel and all of his friends. This was the first time he and Sangeeta asked me to spend time with them, so it was a big honor. About 8 of his friends from the army were there, as well as their wives and some of their kids. Sita’s husband (whose name I still do not know) was grilling chicken on skewers while wearing a topi hat and a big smile. A basket of popcorn and one of Pringles hung from a small tree. There was also a full bar set up outside under the Colonel’s pull-up bar. Sita was inside helping to set up and cook, and Ram Kumar (Sangeeta and the Colonel’s cook) was busy preparing all sorts of dishes—delicious kabobs of paneer, mushrooms, and green peppers, cauliflower, special rice, dhal, a pumpkin puree, and various achars (pickled veggie dishes). All of the food was excellent, except for this “sweet” that Sangeeta was passing out after the meal—it was a mixture of sugar, cloves, anise, cherries, and who knows what else wrapped in a dried leaf. It’s supposed to sweeten your breath, but it made me want to vomit. I swallowed about half of it, spit another quarter into a napkin, and left the other quarter wedged between my teeth and cheek until I could sneak back to my flat and spit it out!
I finally got a tour of the inside of the Colonel’s house. It wasn’t as extravagant as I was expecting, but certainly a house for a wealthy Nepali. His mother, who has a bad knee, has her room on the bottom floor next to the kitchen. I was jealous when I saw they had a microwave in there! So rare in Nepali houses! Lining the mint-colored wall along the first staircase were photographs of the Colonel and portraits of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, all of whom served in the Nepali army. At the top of the steps was a large aquarium with only a few fish. That’s the newest thing for wealthy Nepali families to buy—aquariums. There are actually 2 aquarium stores in Kathmandu now .
On the next floor was his office, bedroom, and a bedroom for each of his sons, who are both in China (and he is encouraging them to stay there, since things are not so good in Nepal). We then went onto the roof, where they have dozens of pots of herbs and vegetables—everything from celery to cauliflower, to tomatoes. The dogs were all being kept up there for the party, and the Colonel said they were on a hunger strike in protest because they hadn’t touched their rice cooked in chicken fat. There is a flight of stairs to the second level of the roof, where there was a swinging bench and the solar panels that provide me with my wonderful hot water.
The people at the party, although I only talked to a few, seemed to be very interesting. They are all well educated and speak English fluently. Several years ago, 9 men were chosen from the army to represent Nepal in various countries—China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the UK, and the U.S. That’s how the Colonel came to spend 3 years in Shanghai. I spent a long time talking to the wife of the guy who got to go to the U.S. She lived there with him right outside of D.C. She clearly misses it. She told me how it was so hard to come back—how it’s so easy to get medical care there, you don’t have to wait on long lines for everything like cooking gas and petrol, there are appliances to make your housework easier, etc. She explained to me that life for Nepali women is so difficult—they get married (most times through an arrangement made by their parents), they have to move in with their husband’s family, learn to get along with their new in-laws in addition to their husband, and spend several hours a day just washing, cooking, and taking care of the house. Even if you have house help, she said it is a very difficult life. She said, “Even if a Nepali woman living in the U.S. works full-time outside of the home and comes home and does domestic chores, it’s easy compared to here!” (Tell that to all of the feminists who fight against the “double-shift”.) She’s hoping to send her son to college in the U.S. in a couple of years, and after that she’ll use him as a way to live there permanently.
Her husband is now on his way to Sierra Leone for the next year, doing something with the UN. All of these men (except for the Colonel) are now working for the UN or the IMF or are professors in Kathmandu. They all showed up in their own cars, wearing some of the nicest clothes I’ve seen on Nepalis so far, bearing bottles of wine. It actually felt like a typical American BBQ, except for the curry and Nepali banter. The men even shook my hands to introduce themselves and when saying goodbye—men and women in Nepal never shake hands, it’s a big taboo. But for a foreigner, they know it’s standard etiquette. The guy who spent 3 years in the U.S. said to me on his way out, “I bet you miss the central heating system in the U.S.!”
Buddy, you have no idea!
It hasn’t bothered me as much the past few days though. Maybe I’m getting used to it, or perhaps my uplifted mood makes me better equipped to handle it. Mary and I spent a long time talking about depression and isolation/loneliness here. She actually said I should try to occupy a lot of my time by meeting with other people—lunches, teas, etc.—so this invitation to the BBQ came at a perfect time. She also completely understands (having lived here) that this is just such a challenging experience. Life is hard, and even though I’m living a much easier life here than 95% of the Nepali population, it’s still really hard compared to my life back in the U.S. (We joked about how we want the heat in our houses turned up when we go home, bubble baths, and veggies not soaked in iodine.) And then because you know that most of the people around you do not even have what you have in your tiny rented flat, you feel guilty for things like running your heater all day or leaving a light on too long when there’s not enough water to run power in all parts of the city for all hours of the week! And let’s not forget the stomach troubles, chest infections (which I have avoided so far), being on the other side of the world from your friends and family, pollution, and dust. Who wouldn’t hit a wall eventually?! Mary said, “Sometimes, you just see one pile too many of turds on the road, and you lose it!”
I laughed out loud thinking about this in the shower the other night, but it’s so incredibly true. And it’s hard to understand unless you know Kathmandu, but that’s probably the best way to describe it. (For the record, I counted 4 piles just along our short little stone road this morning).
Anyway, Mary and I came up with strategies for me to continue coping—keeping busier, making plans with more people, soaking veggies in iodine even if they will be cooked, boiling the crap out of my supposedly safe mineral water. And maybe the few days ahead in Pokhara will help with the 2 weeks after that before I head back home for a month. And maybe being home for a month will reinvigorate me to finish out my time here. Somehow I made it to the three month mark. As Ken said to me in an email the other day, this experience is my Everest.
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Bethany
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Great entry!
As far as your coping = Good for you! Also, your entries help paint such vivid pictures of the nuances of cultural/geographical differences, it's really interesting to read.