More Thoughts About Nepal

More Thoughts About Nepal

• They certainly buy a lot of red bricks in this country.  People buy these bricks and store them for future projects whether it be a wall around their home, a new room added to the existing structure or a pathway.
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• The beast of burden in Kathmandu for men is his bicycle.
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• The beast of burden for women is their head and back.
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• I love the ginger, lemon and honey tea.
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• I’ve had my fill of Hindu temples.  They are all looking the same to me.
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• Mo-mo (dumplings) is my go to food of choice.  Buff mo mo is my favorite.  Vegetable mo mo is too spicy.
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• I ate buff- buffalo meat.
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• Driving in this country takes nerves of steel.
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• There aren’t many beggars in this country.
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• It does not appear as if many people work a full day as we in America know it.  Shops are closed up as shop owners take mid-afternoon naps.
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• There are no street signs.  Taxi drivers just know where to go.
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• Cashmere, pashmina and silk scarves are in abundance all over the country.
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• I bought a $7 back pack and I’m in live with it.  It’s just a perfect day back even though there is no pocket for my water bottle. I never carry a water bottle but I am now fixated on this small flaw in design.
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• I don’t have a sense of how people spend their free time.  It appears to me as if my students spend their only free day attending family obligations and festivals.
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• I asked my students to dream about where they want to travel around the world.  Most of them only want to travel throughout Nepal.
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• I just ordered a macaroni and chees plate in a back-alley restaurant.  I hope I don’t regret this decision.  Mac and cheese is my go-to comfort food at home.  I hope it doesn’t kill me here.
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• I had a bout of food poisoning for about4 days.  Now I have to find someone to add a notch to my belt. My pants are falling down.
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• Nan (warm bread) is another comfort food for me.
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• I’ve eaten enough rice to last me a lifetime.  The same goes for dahl.
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• I am obsessing with thoughts of food I want to eat when I get home: pizza, steak, sandwiches, IPA beers, salad, seafood, crab bisque, ice cream, fruit smoothies, fresh fruit, broccoli.

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Thoughts on Nepal- 2017

Thoughts on Nepal 
Kathmandu Valley
November 12, 2017- January 8, 2018

The last time (1999) I was in Kathmandu, I stayed in a nice hotel.  This time, I am staying in a home.  My experience is quiet different.

• They don't use top sheets and mattress covers on their beds.  I have a large, bulky, scratchy blanket and that's it.
• It seems as if most people can speak some degree of English
• The streets are exceedingly narrow and filled over oversized buses.
• This is the trekking capital of the world.
• Tuborg is the beer of choice.  There are a few Nepali beers.  I prefer Gorka.
• They follow two calendars which makes it a challenge to clarify exact meeting dates.
• there are a lot of festivals.
• I am eating lots of rice and dahl.
• We like our milk tea.
• They don't use toilet paper.
• They move lots of red bricks from one place to another.
• A liter of water is 30 cents.
• They drive not whether side of the road which causes great confusion for me.
• Their pillows are so damn hard and so are tier mattresses.
• The roads are all dirt so everything is dusty.  i am covered in dust.
• There are millions of cashmere and passing scarves for sale.
• They are mostly Hindu and Buddhist.
• Elephants are the beast of burden around Chitwan National Park.
• Yaks are the beast of burden in the Himalayas.
• Many, many of the merchants and people were Northface,  merchandise left behind from the trekkers.
• I'm constantly coughing, trying to get rid of the dust in my throat.
• In Imodal, there are only Nepali people in the streets.  I stand out in the crowd.  In Katmandu, it's Nepali people and westerners.  In Pokara, mostly westerners walk the streets.
• Instant coffee (Nescafe), is offered as an acceptable option fro a cup of coffeee.  It is dreadful.

Purse Lady

Purse Lady

Dunbar Square

Kathmandu, Nepal

December 2, 2017

She approached me as so many other merchants had today.  But she was persistent.  I wished her "Namaste" and then walked away, ignoring her.  But she stayed with me and got in my way, demanding that I look at her pursue.  She shows me the tag that states, "Made in Nepal." She frantically points to herself, "Me!" she lets me know.

"Beautifully, just beautiful," I tell her, "but no thank you." I continue walking and she continues to pull on my arm. She gets in front of me, in my way and shows me all of the hand stitchery. She shows me the four different compartments to her purse.  She is bursting with pride.  She admires the beautiful, glittery fabric. And nods to me, "You, you. Only 100 rupees, one dollar."

We are stopped now and she is leaning in to me so I quickly take this photo.  When I look at the photo, I am caught.  She has me.  That beautiful grin of hers now owned me.  I look at her and estimate that she must be 75 or more.  And she is still on the streets, trying to squeak out a living.  Why don't I just buy the damn purse?  But I don't want it and I don't want to buy it and throw it out.  But I can't walk away from this face, this attitude, this persistence.

I reach in to my damn backpack and find 100 rupees and hand it to her.  I indicate that I am not going to take the purse and she is grateful.  And I said to her, "And don't tell anyone I gave you any money or I'll kick your ass."  I worry that others will see this interaction and I will be flooded with beggars.

She takes my money with gratitude and I am grateful she didn't understand my off the cuff, rude comment to this delightful human being.

CRAFTS OF NEPAL

Tibetan Refugee Camp

Tibetan Refugee Camp

Polahara, Nepal

November 2017

This camp has been here since 1959 and not much has changed.  These people live, here isolated from the rest of the city.  They shear sheep, spin wool and weave all day long.  They chat and joke with each other in their own language.  They continue to wear their native dress. They continue to be Tibetans in every sense of the word.  After I left the shop, I wandered over to the store to see their beautiful weavings.  As I talked to the women, I mentioned that I loved my visit to Tibet.  

One woman chimed in, "You have been to Tibet?"

"Yes," I tell her, "In 1999.  You have a beautiful country."  And then it dawns on me that she has never been to her country.

Stop Child Labour

Stop Child Labour

Let's Make Child Labour Free City

Kathmandu, Nepal

December 2017

This practice is so pervasive that the government really can't stop this practice.  So, instead, it is suggested that we, the people, take the moral high ground.  But the reality is: people have to eat.  Stopping this atrocity would be a huge economic loss for some families.

I was once in Mexico and there were signs posted to appeal to the tourist:  "Please don't buy merchandise from children, they should be in school."  I thought that was a good message.  So I am using this statement to the children who are begging to me today.  My stance on the value of education is not well received.

Watching Him Play Football

Watching Him Play Football

Riverside Middle School

Middlebrook, VA

Fall 2016

Clay told me he wanted to play football all his life.  And he was so damn excited when he finally made it and played for a team.  He was a good player.  He was fast and wasn't afraid to take a hit.  He understood the game and he was a team player.  But I worried about the injuries.  I worried about his skinny body and his knees.  But mostly I worried about concussions.  And I tried not to be negative but I also couldn't bring myself to be thrilled about this choice.  When he broke his arm during the summer, I thought that might deter him but the doctor gave him the OK to play as early as the first game.  He was so damn excited not to miss even a game.  But when his arm broke again, in the third game, in the same spot, that did it for him.  He was finished with this sport and I was silently relieved.

Waiting for Customers

Waiting for Customers

Pokhara, Nepal

November 2017

The sun is just about to set for the day.  So the local restaurant owners bring their food and grills out to the street curbs in hopes of enticing people as they saunter home from work.

I am in search of a Himalayan Dragon beer which I find at one restaurant that is well prepared to handle a large, hungry crowd.  I position myself behind a woman who sits behind a table filled with dried fish, spicy drumsticks, cubes of potatoes, chicken skewed on a stick, sausages, chicken feet and fried dumplings.

She turns on the propane fueled wok and slowly shimmers the potatoes and chicken feet. Her husband and another man carry out a wooden burning grill that is afflame. They gingerly place the grill down and leave it to the woman's charge.  She sits patiently, waiting and hoping for the pending on-slaught of business.

The Rug Weavers

The Rug Weavers

Imadol, Nepal

December 2017

It is dusk when I walked in to this factory. By the time I leave this dank, cold building, it is completely dark outside and poorly lit inside. But that does stop any of these women from doing their work.  They sit quietly and count to themselves as they intertwined wool around the warp of the loom and follow the difficult pattern that dictates their every move.

An old woman sits on the bench by herself.  She has occupied this bench for 34 years.  Her fingers are bent with arthritis. She stoops towards the loom,  She squints as her yes move from the pattern to the warp.  She has been here for hours today.  But there is no indication that she is quitting any time soon.  She pulls out a long strand of wool from the ball on the floor. There is more to be done today. 

When I speak to the owner, he tells me that most of these women "just work 8 to 9 hours a day,"  But some work up to 11 or 12 hours a day.  They start right out of 10th grade and stay with him for as long as their family issues allow it. Most of these women learned to weave from their mothers.  And they will teach their daughters to weave. And there will be long stretches of time when the two generations will work together. And then, before they know it, another generation will seep in to this rug factory.

My Mother- 1949

My Mother

Moore College of Art

Philadelphia, PA

1949

• She was a senior at Moore College of Art. She earned a full scholarship for all four years.
• She studied Textile Design.
• She is on the far right.
• She smoked cigarettes then.  She stopped smoking some time after she finished college.
• She had been engaged to Hector DeLoenzo but that relationship broke up.
• She was dating my father at this time. He was about a year younger than her.
• She was a Methodist but some time after she started dating my dad, she converted to Catholicism. She told me she converted because "I was tired of not having  religion."
• Gloria Morrarity was her best friend.  They stayed friends for years, although after a while, they only correspondent at Christmas time.
• Her parents were living in the Azures.
• Her brother was in a military academy. He was five years younger than my mother.
• She was 22 years old.
• I never saw her wear anklets.
• In the summers, she went to Long Beach Island.
• She lived in the dorms for four years.
• After she finished college, she moved to Greenwich Village and worked for a textile company.  
• She was married in 1951. 
• She stayed connected to Moore until she died in 1998.

To read more stories, check out:   bkmemoirs.blogspot.com

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