Culture Shock II

So today, I went with Tessa and Nick, who live in my home stay with me, and have been here for three weeks now, to the United States Independence Day Celebration that was held at a compound in Kathmandu which is owned by the USA. We went in hesitantly and expecting it to be utterly ridiculous. Especially after the very serious email invitation that had a strict RSVP by June 26th rule, and encouraged everyone to arrive promptly, (how very American... especially in Nepal.) On top of that US citizens only, plus Nepalis who work for some specific place, and their immediate family, passports required for entry.

I have to start with, I think all three of us faced culture shock II. Culture shock is what you know, culture shock II is the much more fascinating, and for me depressing, version of culture shock that you usually experience upon going home after a long trip. Re-adjusting to a culture that is in so many ways your own is much more difficult than having the excuse of "this place is new for me" that you get to use when experiencing typical culture shock.

Here is a descent link which can probably explain it better. http://kultureshock.wikispaces.com/DEFINING+CULTURE+SHOCK

So we went in prepared for it to be darn hysterical. And it was. We went through security and had to show our passports multiple times. It was funny. It really was. All of it was humorous. I mean just the idea that US citizens all in Nepal were invited pretty much to a big barbecue, it really is a funny concept. However within the first two minutes... we all just got pretty quiet. Why is this happening? Why does this place exist? I even mentioned as we stopped and stared at first that it really felt like a twilight zone to which both Tessa and Nick eagerly agreed. Were we in America? Were we in Nepal? There were mountains in the background, but red white and blue balloons and flags and tents serving beef burgers (Nepalis don't consume beef since Hinduism is a primary religion here). There was a blow up bouncy slide, and a dunk tank and a cotton candy stand. There was a watermelon eating contest and loud speakers blaring "Born in the USA". It felt like home. Which was nice. I love home. Don't get me wrong on that fact. But it just felt so wrong. SO wrong. There were Marines in uniform with their families in red and blue sundresses. Women wore tank tops and khaki shorts. Even typing this right now I'm just so confused by that. Like, we were still in Nepal. But really where were we?

I had a barbecue veggie burger, which was delicious beyond belief, and french fries with ketchup. We were really happy with our food. But we just sat there and stared. It was really hard not to.

It was this in between world of white people in clothes from home and Nepali women in saaris eating cotton candy. It was Marines with their blonde wives and blonde daughters in their little kid tank tops, sitting around a table under a tent eating hot dogs and drinking beer. But the air smelled like Kathmandu and just beyond the big walls of the compound were women leaned up against those same walls begging for food for their children, crouched over with more wrinkles than you could ever count. If I've ever been thrown into a really strange situation it was definitely today at the 4th of July, Independence Day Celebration held on June 28th in the middle of Kathmandu, Nepal.

Can you just tell how scattered this post is? I promised to blog but quite honestly its hard when the whole thing completely felt like a dream.

Okay, so to save you the time, since I know most of you are busy North Americans who value productivity; we walked out of the gate and back into the crazy city of Kathmandu and we all pretty much took a deep breath. Like it honestly felt good to be back. It was a sense of a relief to be removed from the culture shock. I'm not even kidding. We were happy to have left. The streets of Kathmandu felt so much more "right" to my system. I was more than happy to walk around Thamel through the muddy sidewalks with power cords hanging over my head.

I'm not sure I'm even ready to make this blog post about comparing the two cultures, or pointing out the faults in each system. I can't even make any educated statement quite honestly. What I can say is, if I got culture shock II today, I'm really in for it during my seven hour lay over in Philadelphia before reaching Detroit six weeks from now...

Patan Museum and beyond!

Today I went to the Patan Museum with one of my housemates Tessa. I learned so much about Hinduism and Buddhism and saw some really amazing and super old stuff, like really old, really beautiful stuff. We had a great lunch in the gardens of the museum which were beyond beautiful, and actually quiet.

We got home and cleaned a bit, since, well... it really needed to be done. We then headed down to Thamel for some shopping. Monsoon season started quite literally on our walk there. So we stopped in Himalayan Java to try to escape. We then realized it was unavoidable and pretty much swam through the streets of Thamel to do a little shopping. We took a taxi home, ate dinner, changed into dry clothes and crashed.

We have plans to head out to Swayambanath Stupa for this thing that happens everyday at 6 am and 6 pm. I can't remember the name of what it is called but it is pretty much just a giant circling of the stupa.

Thennnnn, tomorrow we, (me, Tessa, and Nick) two of my housemates, who are US citizens, have the United States Independence Day Celebration. Don't worry. An entire blog post devoteddddd to this event will be written and posted as soon as possible. In short- many a joke have already been prepared and we have been nearly counting down the days to go hang out with a bunch of Americans and celebrate the 4th of July on June 28th. Oh man. It is going to be good. Entertainment at its prime. Anyway you can look forward to that, while I sleep! Suva Ratri!

How I Came to Love the Kathmandu Bus System

Okay so, I know I used to hate it. Trust me, I've been taken to all the wrong places in the darkness of night thanks to these same busses. Kirtipur instead of Kantipur, I'll never get over that, (for those of you haven't looked that up, its the further than the distance from Novi the Southfield, for those of you who don't know Novi or Southfield, wow that really sucks that you aren't from the lovely state of Michigan, I guess you'll have to do some Googling). 

Anywho- Yesterday I took a bus to work, as soon as a seat freed up- get this- a man, who was closer, offered it to me. When I go to work I have to carry my camera, all of its pieces and spare pieces including other lenses, my laptop, hard drive, card reader, on top of waterproof bags for it all, a wallet, a raincoat, a water bottle... it weighs a lot okay? So getting a seat on a bus is prime, especially when a foreigner is trying to protect her zippers from pick pocketers and trying to hold onto the bar on the ceiling that is nearly too high to reach. I was so shocked at this chivalry that I'd yet to experience in Nepal. I sat there so happily my whole way to work.

Today I took a bus to work and slowly got pushed to the back as it became packed during rush hour. Struggling to stand two girls motioned to me to sit next to them, (I was the sixth person to squeeze into the back row, yes the sixth, backpack and all). They were so kind to me, and spoke english very well I might add. They were wonderful and talked to me for a while.

Then once they'd gotten off, the guy on the bus who takes the money and yells where the bus is going was trying to direct me on where to stand in Nepali, I didn't understand. Let me explain something quickly. They try to get you on and off as fast as they can so they yell the upcoming stop name so you can send your money up to him before you get off. I wasn't sure if that was why he was looking at me or not and rambling in Nepali so, when he was trying to tell me where to stand I said the name of the stop I wanted to get off at. Though this made me look like quite the stupid foreigner it ended up working out quite well for me. Now I never listen when they yell the names of stops because quite frankly I have no clue what they're saying, so I usually just hand them my money as I'm getting off. However, since today the entire bus knew I was getting off at Ten Cuni, when he yelled it in advance to get everyones' money, a guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked "Ten Cuni?" and I said "Yes." he then pointed to the guy asking for my money and I got off perfectly at my stop with ease!

Getting a bus home- waiting for a bus, a man tried to befriend me and was quite impressed to hear I was working with the paper, then he really tried to befriend me and hand me a massive packet about some university. I had already told him where I lived and so I kept trying to ask the golden busses to see if it was going where I needed to go while he was attempting to befriend me, then finally he saw a bus coming and looked at me and told me it was my bus- how? you ask- he can read Nepali! The magic of a kind Nepali, I asked anyway to make sure and jumped on! Shortly after a seat freed up and a women gestured specifically to me to sit next to her. Which was also kind. Then as the bus packkkked itself, and I a small, caucasian, female sat near the "aisle" Nepali men began to nearly fight to stand near me. This was highly inappropriately charged, and I'll spare you the details. However, my lovely friend next to me, a woman might I add, at first scooted herself as far out the window as she could to make more room for me and kept gesturing for me to scoot as far close to her as I could. You cannot possibly imagine how grateful I was to shove my body against hers as opposed to well, ya know, the alternative. Eventually she worked her way up to yelling at the men for me. I don't speak Nepali but I have a few guesses of what she said based on a few people's reactions. Then near the end of this particular ride, she even reached her arm across me and began to shove at a man whilst yelling at him in Nepali. At that point I really, really loved this woman. It is the shenanigans I deal with everyday here, but I usually don't have a female body guard. I was too close to look at her while I was sitting next to her, but as I put my back pack back on my back to stand up I turned and looked at her and thanked her from the bottom of my heart, or at least I tried to have my eyes say so. She said "welcome" and smiled; it was extremely genuine.

So with that, my faith has been restored in the humanity of Nepalis. At least somewhat.

Nepali Yogurt

Today I tried Nepali yogurt. Let me take you on a ride with your imagination to help you grasp what I willingly put in my body today.

Take a clear thin plastic cup.
Got it?

Now pour some milk into it.

Step away from the cup... in fact... let it sit say I don't know a week or two weeks or so.

Come back to your cup. Do you have curdled milk? Un-refridgerated curdled milk? Yes, yes you do. A big white clump in the middle surrounded by clear liquid.

Now take a spoon, put some of your concoction on your spoon. Now slowly and hesitantly put it up to your mouth, open your lips and swallow.

Yep. Nepali Yogurt.

In all fairness it didn't taste bad at all, a little sweet sort of. It was just that looking at it and thinking about the journey it'd been on since the cow... well it was hard to swallow. I even mentioned to Ram that I felt like Andrew Zimmerman, he had no idea what I was talking about, as per usual.

The Mother of All Blog Posts

Okay so. Since my last lengthy blog post I've faded out of my ignorant bliss of Nepal and hit a point of getting really, really angry. The thing is you arrive in a new country and it is like culture shock blinds you. All you can see is the difference and it leaves you in awe. You are so happy to finally be experiencing the culture shock you've always dreamed of that you immediately decide how much you love it wherever you are. Then you adjust. You take a few micro busses and motor bike rides. You pay a guy on a street corner to fix your helmet strap. You want to vomit eating dhal bhat so you just eat plain white rice. You get ripped off by taxi drivers. You try the coke and realize it tastes different, but still good. You try a lychee for the first time and fall in love. You see beautiful children whose beauty is so under appreciated. You do your laundry in a bucket of dirty water. You get sick from swallowing one single bad ice cube. You try yak cheese in momos and you try local made rice wine called raksi. You get taken to Kirtipur when you clearly said Kantipur. You plant rice in a rice paddy, and you answer "hello" back to all the school children who are always so eager to practice their english with the white people they see on the streets. You get blisters and break your shoes. You get bruises and huge spider bites. I've made amazing friends and had some wonderful laughs. And with all of this amazing different shocking wonderful stuff going on, at first you are really blinded to what is really happening around you.

And then- and then you start to see it all. The slavery that is smack in front of your face every single day. The pollution. The lack of equality in ethnicity and gender. The general treatment and expectations of women. Did I mention the slavery? And when you see it, you get really, really, realllllly angry. Like long rants to multiple people and some tears kind of angry. And you start to question whether any of the work of all of the organizations out there that we see and hand money to every single day in the western world will ever have any effect on a culture that has no problem saying in 2014 "women need to work in the kitchen all day," nearly literally.

So I said it before that everyone here is so happy, and yes this is true, it is. Really Nepalis are very happy people. However, as I came out of my culture shock fog last week I realized that there is a very thin line between happiness and complacency. Happiness is great, wonderful even, and it is a very strong characteristic to have in a culture, accepting that life isn't about brand names or material goods at all is phenomenal. Recognizing that having enough to eat means being lucky, is a grateful culture. But there are people who are in dire situations who do nothing about it and no one in the wealthy situations is trying to help. Yes of course this is true everywhere in the world but please hear me out. There is no, "make your own luck" attitude, there is no "if you work hard enough you can achieve anything you set your mind to" though process. There is slavery. "Okay. So what. Nothing we can do about it. That is just our culture. You have to look at our history and where we are coming from as a society." That is the mood I'm getting at least. So when I see a painted wall that says "Stand up for women's rights" or talk to the people at Maiti Nepal of course I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled there is awareness. I'm thrilled that people voice that there are issues. But- culturally I don't know these people to be "go getters", so is anyone turning awareness into action? And okay say they are, I know the pace of this country, and for the rate of slavery that exists here, someone needs to pick up that pace, and I really question whether or not it can be a group of Nepalis.

A Nepali I know here has told me about a time that, under professional circumstances, he was talking with prostitutes working at a brothel in India. He tells me they would sit and play cards together and then be called for a customer and they would just get up and go, they told him something along the lines of "its the job". His interpretation of this as a Nepali is that some people can be happy in these odd jobs that we don't respect, some people choose this. He deducts that it is her decision to work in a brothel simply because she can be happy enough to play cards in her free time. I deduct this as slavery. Slavery in its most pure form. That woman has been coerced, and threatened to be there, most likely with physical violence. Her ability to play cards plays nothing to her choice to be there or her happiness but rather her internal will to survive. That woman is fighting for her life and she has, after most likely years of abuse and unimaginable circumstances, learned how to best get through each day as she has accepted there are no other choices for her.

The slavery and the lack of respect for women is particularly hard for me to see so first hand.

*cue ending rant*

Amongst my frustrations I've realized that anger is no way to solve anything. I think anger can act as a motivator for me, but nothing more. And in that decision I've worked over the past few days to look again at the beauty of this place, and in trying to understand what brings this place together and what makes it all work, maybe it will help me solve all of the issues.

So on Saturday, the one day off here, I took the day off. Hannah, who was my sort of roommate was leaving soon so we decided to live it up and go to a three hour class on the basics of Buddhism taught by Dolpo Tulku Rinpoche at a yoga studio in Thamel. His speaking was translated and pretty vague, for someone who has studied a bit about Buddhism in the past. However, there was time for questions and his answers were at times decently profound. Everything he spoke about seemed like it should be common sense, but we all know that it isn't quite reality and we should strive for it to be. Anywho some of his answers were also quite funny such as when someone asked the difference between Tibetan Buddhism and mainstream Buddhism and he said that monks in places like Thailand and Burma get to wear thinner robes, and he is likes their robes, he wishes they had them here in Nepal. No joke. We ended class by meditating with him and it felt like a true honor to meditate in the same room as someone as well practiced in the art of meditation as him. We were all so glad we'd went by the end, even if just for the experience and to say we had gone.

We then did some shopping in Thamel which is always fun, and I discovered singing bowls and I'm so obsessed. My friend Hannah went to an awesome place in Bhaktapur that uses singing bowls as a method for therapy which she told us about and it sounds like the coolest thing ever. So, I'm hoping that I'll be able to go to the same place she'd gone to possibly buy myself one before I head home.

This morning, Hannah, Tessa, and I all headed out before breakfast to go to a yoga class at the same studio in Thamel we had been at the day before. The class was amazing, quick paced but manageable. This was the first time I've been able to do yoga and get through a class, since I injured my knee last November. I couldn't help but want to call my physical therapist the whole time I was in class. It felt so amazing to be back. We focused on our core chakra with stomach issues and releasing our anger from this part of our body. It was amazing. And the meditation at the end, was seriously the best meditation of my entire life. It was wonderfully instructed and extremely well worth it.

The rest of the day was spent out shooting with Ram. I won't go for the typical photographer's joke here but- I was fortunate enough to photograph many important political figures of Nepal today including the vice president and president of Nepal himself. It actually was pretty awesome.

So- Nepal has living goddesses, it is a pretty interesting concept. You'll have to do some research because I don't know much about them myself however, today I photographed the Kumari of Patan I believe who sat a total of maybe five feet from where I was crammed in the press pit. It was pretty interesting. Not to demean their goddess but, she is just a little kid, and it was quite hysterical for me to watch her fidget and nearly whine out of boredom and discomfort during this ceremony/festival thing. I have photos of the whole thing but I didn't much understand the significance of a man holding up a small black vest. Everyone cheered as if he were holding Prince George up into the air though, so hey, I went with it. After the chariot of something similiar to a Rain God, which leaves the Bungamati Temple for six months out of the year, is returned and the people celebrate by burning massive clumps of straw. It is extremely smokey so much so that you can't breathe and your eyes burn. It is very interesting. It was fun though for a "festival" to finally actually mean something.

I came home to Hannah shortly after leaving to head back to Canada. I'm going to miss her so much!

And now I'm exhausted soooo, on to another day of adventures tomorrow! Something about a vote something or other is happening tomorrow so we will see how that goes!

Namaste!

Saturday

I had an amazing day. It started with being published, and ended with my realizing I didn't take a single photograph all day for the first day since I've been here. I finally had like a true day off and it was wonderful. Wonderful. Ahhh so great. It deserves a really good blog post though. Hang in there for my stories please! I'm in love with Nepal all over again, and I'm so happy about it. I didn't eat any dhal bhat today and I had an amazing day with amazing friends! I have to save my stories for another longer post which will hopefully encapsulate all of my anger, frustrations, love, and great experiences of the last week pretty much. Sorry again but I'm waring myself so thin everyday trying to soak it all up!

check out my name!
http://epaper.ekantipur.com/kantipur/epaperhome.aspx?issue=2162014

Allergies and Apologies

I've been plagued with some of the worst allergies of my life for the past three weeks. Today I got some medicine from a pharmacy... it costed $1.97... So yes I'm not completely expecting it to work or do exactly what I need. Any who, I'm really wiped out from dealing with them, I'm going to pass out soon here. I will hopefully be posting in the next few days though! Sorry for the lack of adventure stories. With that comes a lot of frustration on my end as I slowly start to recognize some faults in the society here, not to say that different is bad or wrong in anyway. There are so many things going on in my mind lately as I struggle to come to terms with Nepali culture, a dhal bhat diet, a zillion mosquito bites and some serious allergies. Keep looking for new posts though! Hopefully a decent story will come about worth telling in the next few days. Namaste.


oh and here. yet again, I promise it is mine. don't I seem thrilled?
http://www.ekantipur.com/photo-gallery/2014-06-20/1956/21814