The Patan Swan Song

Namasté, y’all!

We’ve had quite the busy and entertaining week here, as usual. On Tuesday Emily and I went to the nearby Jawalakel Zoo with Shreeti, her translator, and Y.P., Sky’s translator, both of whom are loads of fun. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go at first because I didn’t want to see sad-looking animals, but considering that this zoo was in a third-world country the conditions were impressively good. It was huge, too – we saw several kinds of deer, hyenas, tigers, leopards, civet cats, elephants, rhinos, hippos (including the cutest, roly-poliest baby one ever), crocodiles, all sorts of birds, snakes, fish, etc. Everything was arranged around a little lake in the middle where you could go paddle boating. We wanted to, as it was only 20 rupees per person (about 30 cents, maybe?), but the line was huge. When we got home we really wanted burritos, and decided that homemade roti (Nepali flatbread) would be an appropriate substitute for tortillas since we couldn’t find corn flour. It took a really long time, but it was worth the effort since none of us had had a burrito in quite some time!

On Wednesday none of us had much to do because it was a huge holiday, the Buddha’s birthday, so most businesses were closed and it was hard to schedule interviews. Interestingly enough, it was the Hindu day to celebrate the Buddha’s birthday; Buddhists go by a different calendar and the holiday falls at a different time. This is a pretty good example of how tolerant people seem to be of other religions here, and how willing they are to mix their traditions around. Buddhists and Hindus also worship at each other’s temples interchangeably. It’s good to see. Fortunately, Tip Top Samosas on New Road was open, though, because Shreeti and Y.P. had been planning to bring us there Wednesday afternoon. They told us we were going to get the best samosas in Kathmandu, and I’m pretty sure we did. The location was sketchy as can be – we had to go through this drippy dark alley into a little low-ceilinged room that looked like a subway station – but the samosas were so worth it. They were huge and deliciously spicy, and came on a little banana leaf plate with some sweet red sauce. We all regretted eating lunch so soon before our visit, and picked up some more samosas to take home for dinner. Back at home Sky had downloaded this fancy Scrabble game onto his computer, so of course a few cutthroat rounds were in order.

Thursday was waiting-in-line day for Shanti and me. We went to two different schools nearby and literally sat for an hour at each one waiting for an appointment with the principal. I managed to get an appointment at St. Mary’s, a nearby English-language school, to come back and give surveys to a class full of 15- and 16-year-olds for my research. I was really impressed at how clean and new everything was within the high walls surrounding the school grounds; it was almost like I’d left the dust and noise of Nepal’s streets behind and magically returned to America. Later in the day we spent a few hours making crepes, fancy scrambled eggs with vegetables, and rosemary potatoes for dinner. I’m pretty sure we eat better here than any of us do during the school year at home. After dinner we played hearts and commiserated about, er, the multitude of stomach problems one experiences here. We are careful to filter and iodize our water, soak any raw vegetables in iodized water, never eat uncooked food in restaurants, etc., but one can only be so vigilant.

The next morning, in what must have been an extremely amusing sight for the Nepali people at the nearby Alka Hospital, five American students (guess who) trudged in to schedule lab tests for said stomach upset. We were told to come back in the evening for our results, so until then I tried to start my research paper. I finished running the statistics for Sitapaila and set up a decent outline by the end of the afternoon, so I was happy. Leila, however, is nearly finished with her paper, so that kind of trumps whatever anyone else has done :oP We later found out that our “poop tests” came back negative, and celebrated by making delicious homemade veggie burgers for dinner, re-re-re-watching “Love Actually”, and going to bed extremely late.

I didn’t get to sleep in very long Saturday morning, unfortunately, because promptly at 7:30 AM the people next door, whom I have lovingly christened Bollywood Dance Party, switched on the throbbing Hindi movie music they so adore. Yippee. Kat, Sky, Leila, and Emily headed off to Jessie’s homestay to meet them and have daal-bhaat, but I had made plans to visit Sangita and Aarju instead. It’s about a 30-minute taxi ride and then another 20 minutes of walking to get to their house, so I was quite sweaty by the time I arrived bearing gifts of bananas, oranges, and a pretty folding paper lantern with fish printed on it (I went overboard, but it is polite to bring a present whenever you are going visiting in Nepal). It was great to be back in Sitapaila and hang out with my favorite host family for a while; I had really missed them and Aarju had called several times because she missed me. We played lots of games as usual, and ate a delicious kajaa of curried potatoes, churaa (crunchy/chewy steamed and flattened rice, sort of like eating raw rolled oats), and yogurt. Then it started pouring – monsoon season is coming, so it rains nearly every afternoon now – until the dirt road outside looked more like the river in The Oregon Trail. Hail fell for a while, too, the size of marbles! It was coming down hard for a good hour, but I was happy because it cooled everything right off. After the rain let up I managed to walk to the intersection and catch a taxi home before it started up again. Kathmandu taxi drivers are one of the biggest reasons my Nepali has been getting good – most of them are really chatty and friendly. I got home just as everyone else, including visitors Jessie and Phebe, was heading out for pizza at the Roadhouse Café down the street. Y.P. joined us, too, and we all enjoyed some of the tastiest pizza I’ve had in Nepal. Then we caught a showing of Spiderman 3 in a super-nice movie theater; just like at St. Mary’s School, I felt like I’d been magically transported back to the U.S. A few things were different, though, like the fact that everyone left their cell phone on and answered it throughout the movie (grr), or that there was an “intermission” halfway through (maybe a holdover from 4-hour-long Hindi movies?). It was great fun, though, as was the game of Texas Hold’em we played upon returning to our apartment. We were using dried beans as chips, so we decided that the winner had to make us all daal-bhaat.

On Sunday we all went to a nearby Tibetan refugee camp with Y.P. to check out their craft store. Everything was really expensive, but it’s all handmade by the people who live there. Kat has been studying the rug industry for her research and wants to buy one, so it was interesting to hear her talking with the people in the showroom about the qualities and origins of the rugs. There was a really awesome tiger-shaped one that I liked, but it was too expensive :o( We did get to interact with a real live cat as we waited for Leila to meet up with us, though – it was really exciting because there aren’t many cats in Nepal, never mind friendly ones! After Leila arrived we headed off to Shreeti’s house for lunch with her and her family. They made us the most incredible “kajaa” (it was really a meal, not a snack!): watermelon, lassi*, aloo roti** (flatbread with soft spiced potatoes inside), spiced chickpeas with chunks of fried paneer (farmer cheese), an Indian-style achar of spiced cucumber and carrot in yogurt, fried eggs, and the strongest rakshi (local alcohol) I have ever tasted in my life. The little cups they gave us were literally 4 sips each, but each sip burned for a good minute and after finishing mine I felt as though I’d had a huge glass of wine. I was grateful for a cup of good old milk tea afterwards. We had fun talking with Shreeti’s family and watching her sister’s wedding DVD. Her family is Newari, one of Nepal’s ethnic minorities, although so many Newars live in the Kathmandu Valley that they don’t seem like a minority to me at this point. Anyway, the wedding was a little different than the Brahmin one we attended a few months ago, so it was interesting to watch. During one part of the ceremony the bridge and groom share a plate of “84 flavors” – different sweet foods, salty foods, etc. After watching the wedding tape we enjoyed the many “Y.P.isms” that came up in conversation, because Y.P. is probably the funniest guy we’ve met here. My two favorites were:

Meeting and parting is a fact of life, but parting and meeting is the hope of life.

And:

RENEE: Y.P., do you think you’d like to keep teaching?
Y.P.: No.
RENEE: Why?
Y.P.: *gesturing* Because the sky is so high!

After saying goodbye to Shreeti’s family, I headed to the silver store near our apartment to try exchanging some pauju (anklets) I’d bought for maybe the third time. I didn’t realize they were supposed to be worn very loose around the ankles, so Shanti told me to exchange them for a bigger size, but the guy kept telling me to come back “next week”, “in three days”, etc. This time he handed me a pair like the ones I’d bought, but they were exactly the same size. I was getting annoyed, but then he whipped out a pair of pliers and a blowtorch and extended my pauju using pieces from the new ones! The lesson: don’t get annoyed at the pauju man. Be patient and you’ll get custom-fit ones. Yippee!

Yesterday we went to this neat bead store. Leila knows the owner from the church she’s been going to here – otherwise we’d definitely never have heard of it because the shop is in a regular-looking house and has no sign. It’s called Hosanna Crafts, and all the women employed there are single mothers. The owner was talking about how she had more business than she could handle, much of it for export, and that she’d need to hire even more people. It’s wonderful to see people creating good jobs, which are so desperately needed here. Leila and Emily each got some pretty bracelets, and for 20 rupees (maybe 30 cents?) I bought a really neat pendant with a real silver-colored Nepali coin on it. Emily asked me to take her to see Pauju Man but he didn’t have anything she liked in her size, so we went to the store next door and each ended up buying a set. They’re so fun to wear while it’s warm enough for sandals – they have little bells on the clasps so they tinkle while you walk, kinda like cowbells. Emily and I haven’t been having any trouble locating each other in our apartment since we bought them!

Later on we went to Shreeti’s house again because Emily needed help translating something for her Tibetan medicine research and I wanted to interview Shreeti’s cousin Ruchi, who is an extremely health-conscious nursing student. We rode in a tempo, which is like a little bus, but electric and on three wheels. It was my first time in one; usually we take taxis or the bus. We had a delicious kajaa with Shreeti and Ruchi (Newari-style roti bread made from rice flour, more chickpeas and paneer, and potato curry), got our work done, and then had fun chatting with them and their other cousin and aunt for a few hours. We arrived home to a delicious tofu and Chinese eggplant dinner with Kat, Sky, and Leila, and then whiled away the evening playing some Spades and poker.

Today has been busy, since we’re getting ready to move out tomorrow and I had my research appointment at St. Mary’s School. It went well, although I’m not 100% convinced that the girls understood all the questions now that I’ve gone through about half of the surveys. I took Shanti out for pizza afterwards at Roadhouse Café – she chose the pesto, tomato, and olive one for us to share and seemed to like it a lot. Now I’ve been typing up today’s research results, packing, and cleaning the apartment. I’m excited to see all our friends at C.N.S.P. tomorrow, but I don’t want to leave Patan yet. Ah, well! We’re never ready for change, are we?

Sorry for the lack of pictures; Blogger has been acting up today. The one I did manage to get on here is of Y.P., Kat, and our new kitty friend at the Tibetan refugee camp. I’ll put some more up once I get back to C.N.S.P.

Pheri bhetaulaa,
Rani

P.S. Here are a few examples of the excellent Engrish I’ve been seeing for the past four months. All of these are from today:
-“I love fashIOn style” (on a shirt)
-“fat people is hard to…KIDNAP” (on a shirt)
-“hey! Why not you join here? Come! Lets learn to-gether.” (sign outside a school)
-“Give a fish to a child will eat for a day. Teach a fish to a child will learn for a life.” (school sign no. 2)

*Lassi is a tasty yogurt drink that’s easy to make at home. Just mix plain yogurt, preferably full-fat, with some water and sugar in the blender to make a thin beverage. It’s also tasty with fruit added, and some people like it with salt instead of sugar, though I’ve never tried that.

**Aloo roti is one of my favorite snack foods here. It’s simple but time-consuming to make them. First, you need roti dough: just knead wheat (more traditional) or white flour with water until it makes a smooth, pliable dough. For plain roti, you would just roll these out flat and cook them on both sides in a hot dry pan until brown, pressing down with a cloth to deflate any air bubbles that form. For aloo roti, however, you wrap roti dough around a little ball of boiled mashed potatoes seasoned with onion, garlic, cilantro, turmeric, salt, and any other spices you’d like (cumin and hot red pepper would also be very Nepali). Roll the ball out and cook as previously described for delicious potato-stuffed roti.