Hi sorry it has been awhile!

In future posts, you will see:

-some pictures from the hike back from tukuche
-my village life
       -ma puja
       -bhaai tikka
       -elections
       -miscellaneous
-kanchan's engagement

SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON HATTERIKA

My new favorite corner of the world

Tukuche was incredible!! We were surrounded by himals. I had a really great host family. They didn't have enough families for everyone to get their own, so Manisha and I lived together. I'm still a little confused as to who was in our family, even after we both did kinship charts for homework. At the very least, we had a baa, didi, and 3 bahinis.

Me, didi, Manisha, baa

Our didi was sassy and took us on a couple picnics in their apple orchard and had work for us to do. She goes to school in Kathmandu. Our baa was really hilarious and we had a really fun night interviewing him for a school project. He was the mayor for about 10 years. While we were there, he was running around to other villages with his political friends, trying to convince people to vote for his political party's candidate. Sometimes they'd all come home a wee bit raaksi laagyo (drunk). One night we got a lecture from some guy about the politics in Nepal which we understood about half of. Sometimes we didn't understand their Nepali - they speak really informally, so all the conjugations were different. They also speak Thakali and Gurung, but little English. After returning to Kathmandu, one of my friends uploaded a picture of me, didi, and my bahini, Ajita. Kanchan saw it and recognized Ajita! Small world.

Dhaulagiri at suntrise

Every morning we had language class. After that, we went home for lunch and hung out with our families. One day our didi had us carry potatoes down from their apple orchard (the potatoes grow in the ground under the apple trees). We did it the Nepali way - the bag hanging from our heads. It was painful, but I guess after awhile your neck muscles get strong and it would be more efficient.

Carrying down our potato sacks using the head strap. Niligiri in the background. I submitted this photo to our photo contest.

Piles of potatoes!

So many beans...

Another day, we sorted 100kg of beans for about 4 hours. Black beans in a pot, red beans back in the bag, and bad beans tossed on the floor. It was fun because it was mindless, but we chattered with our didi and bahini about so many things in Nepali: opinions on the caste system, dating, getting married, love marriages, inter-caste marriage, homosexuals, transgendered people, the upcoming elections, adoption, the village, and some differences between America and Nepal. It was so cool.

They are a drinking caste, so each night, we got to try about a shot of different alcohol: apple, chi chi (seabuckthorn...never heard of it before), uwa (oat), and Mustang coffee (spiked coffee). They always heated it up, dumped sugar in, and dried rice. The dried rice was good - really crunchy in the alcohol. The chichi alcohol was really strong and neither of us finished the small mug they gave us. My favorite was probs the uwa or the Mustang coffee. (Mustang is the region we were in)

One night we made about 200 momos. There were about 10-15 ish people living in the house (another family rents a room), so we were folding up momos for awhile. I got creative and made a yak, face, cat, dog, mickey mouse, and a duck momo. I was going really slow anyways, so making special shapes wasn't completely throwing a wrench in the gears.

My cat momo.

Tukuche is also known for its apples. I ate SO many apples, especially when we hiked up the hill to the apple farms and there were just fresh apples hanging out. The villagers don't really eat the apples. They sell whole apples in the village for ~80 Rs and sell them in Polkhara for ~160. The apples are made into brandy, juice, apple crumble, pie, and dried out. However, these are just for tourists. Our didi had never had apple crumble, so we made some for her. We were going to make a pie until we realized we needed an oven. Cinnamon is an uncommon spice here. We ground up sticks of cinnamon she found using a stone grind stone. It was cool to see whole cinnamon sticks turn into powder! On the last day, Manisha and I went to the Dutch bakery (there's a Dutch guy living there who speaks like 5 languages fluently, including English and Nepali) and asked him to deliver a real apple crumble to our family after we left.

So many apples...

View from the top of the hill: himals and apple orchards

South-ish view from the top of the hill. Apple orchards and more himals.

One of our picnics on the hill. Coffee, apple juice, and home made apple crumble.

There weren't any worm holes in the apples or bird bites. They said they don't use pesticides. I'm thinking because it's so windy all the time and a little chilly, bugs don't live up there. In fact, I didn't see a single spider. score. The only bugs I saw were flies and tons of caterpillars eating their cabbages in their garden. It was so chilly, my nose was running all the time. I was blowing my nose and my nose ring fell out. whoops. I couldn't get it back in, so I just re-pierced it when I got back. Didn't hurt too much.

Our family's garden was cool because they had potatoes, cabbage, radishes, carrots, and spices. They are pretty self sustainable! We even took hot showers because they have a solar panel.

1/2 Nepali Gothic in the garden. saag was used for din din mmmm

The last day, our didi dressed us up in traditional Sherpa and Thakali clothes. The Sherpa clothes were our didi's older brother's wife's wedding clothes, and the Thakali clothes were her didi's wedding clothes. The Thakali clothes had many layers. I tried putting my jacket on afterwards and I couldn't zip it up because the 5 layers of clothes around my waist made me gain 50 lbs. The Sherpa clothes were much thinner. We had a big photo shoot. Luckily Manisha has a good camera, so these are her pictures. My camera had weird exposure things going on.

Me in Thakali garb, Manisha in Sherpa clothes.

Still in Thakali clothes

Switched clothes, now I'm feeling the Sherpa vibes

Speaking of fat, I gained hella weight while in Tukuche. They fed us so much food all the time. One day, we made the mistake of telling our didi that one of our friend's family was feeding her a lot. The next day, we had a huge breakfast, lunch, 3 big snacks, and then dinner. We were dying.

I really miss Tukuche! It was so serene. No internet or phones or newspapers or throne toilets. Some of my friends are going back to the village for their research, so I'm going to give them a letter to give to my didi and baa.

Hiking to Tukuche

Hiking to Tukuche from Tatopaani took 2 days. I took a million landscape pictures, but I have weeded through them so that all the scenery doesn't start to look the same.

 

 

View from breakfast at Tatopaani. Our first himal! Little did we know 'twas just the tip of the iceberg.

A lot of something on that guys back.

Sun's out? Guns out. Gurus being tough.

One of many suspension bridge selfies.

One of our gurus read palms. She told me I'm lucky and told Megan (pictured) her husband's name will start with an R (Rupert? Reginald? Ronald? yikes). She told someone else they will love 4 times, but never give as much as the person they are in love with. Dark stuff.

Lunch spot near a waterfall.

Sadhna-ji saying "take a chill pill, dude." One of many English slang phrases we've taught her.

Bridge selfie in the deepest gorge in....the world? Dubious. The gorge I went to in China seemed deeper, but what do I know? This gorge was super windy. If we spit, our spit would fly horizontally for awhile.

Deepest gorge.

Jiwan dropped a huge rock off the bridge. It made a satisfying smack.

Polkhara

We left to the Mustang region, containing himals such as Annapurna, Maachhapuchchhre (fish tail), and Dhaulagiri (no Sagarmartha, that's more east).

After bus-ing in to Polkhara, we were supposed to fly in a STAL plane (an unfortunate acronym that means Short Takeoff And Landing) to Jomsom then hike down to Tukuche. However, India's cyclone was making it pretty baadal laagyo (cloudy) so the flight was cancelled. Those flights are booked a few weeks into the future, so we weren't able to re-book. Instead we bought out a public bus and bus-ed up to Tatopaani. The bus ride was muddy and steep and scary as hell. The 2-wheel drive bus was so close to tipping over many times or sliding off the cliff because the wheels were so close to the edge. My videos of the bus ride look like were on a rough sea. In Nepali, tato paani means "hot water," so in Tatopaani, there are hot springs!! That night we paid 100rs and chilled in the springs for awhile.

Big lake in Polkhara. On a non-cloudy day, you can see the himals' reflection.

 One of our language gurus stuck in the bus. All of our language gurus are fantastic.

My friend is really good at braiding hair. Looks like Daenerys' hair from Game of Thrones.

Everyone modeling their Nepali squat. Potty talk is a daily topic of conversation, from hand wiping techniques to how clean the last squatty was.

Nepali scenery. Some of the jungle kept reminding me of George of the Jungle.

All of us crammed into the bus - notice 2 people sitting in the aisles. Also I have a new hat! It was knitted by the girl two to my right! So cool.

Swayambhu and Dashain

Swayambhu
Went to Swayambhu with some friends the weekend before our Annapurna trip. Swayambhu is another Buddhist stupa, like Boudha. It is smaller, but it's on a hill so there's a better view.

Jiwan and I copying the statue between us - a photo that would have happened had my family been there.

Steep stairs up to the stupa

The iconic stupa with the Buddha's eyes.

The 4 of us with a view of Kathmandu in the back: Me, Jiwan, Adarsha, and Lina

This picture is for mom. Last two times we were here, she took a picture of Kyle and I in front of the blue door. I made Adarsha take the picture with me because he looks the most like Kyle.

Dashain
Dashain is one of the biggest holidays here. People have work and school off for a few weeks. Many people in Kathmandu return to their original villages, so the city seemed a little empty. This time of year is similar to Christmas/Thanksgiving time back home. My didi had school off and my birth sisters went back to my birth village for the big weekend. My class was in town for the big day of Dashain, but we missed the last week of it.

I'm still a little unclear about how and why Dashain is celebrated, but I guess that goes for xmas and thanksgiving a little bit too (for me at least). Anyways, on the big day, everyone wears nice clothes and travel around to relatives houses to get blessed. At the end of the day you end up with a giant tikka on your forehead. In some families, kids get money from families. Sometimes it's only girls, sometimes the kids give money to their elders. Older people bless the younger people. So, my hajur buwa (grandpa) gave many blessings. Because he isn't too mobile, my family didn't travel too much, other family came to us. I really liked Dashain (and many classmates liked it for similar reasons) because it definitely felt like family-time/holiday-time and I definitely missed that xmas morning feeling or that content feeling after eating thanksgiving dinner with everybody. I got a few blessings and ended up with ~400 rupees and a big tikka. The bills I were given were new and crisp, and in small denominations which means....bus money!! The buses don't take 1000 rupee notes (they don't have the change to break a 1000 for only 15 rs), but that's all the ATMs spit out. ke garne. 

One day was a blessing for cars. So my buwa told me to go outside to look at their blessed car and motorcycle.

Getting tikka from my hajur buwa.

 ping khelnu: Swinging! These big swings are built from bamboo shoots and kids go swinging in them. I have no idea what there significance is, but they were every where, and kids were flying super high.

Headless Goats and Humungous Spiders

Pictures are up in the previous post! Sorry for the deteriorating quality of this blog. Pictures are all that matter right?

This past week has been pretty busy with a language exam and 2 papers due. I thought study abroad was supposed to be less work than real college. Lies.

Last week my class went to Bhakatpur's Durbar Square - one of 7 World heritage sites in Kathmandu. There are 3 big sections/districts of Kathmandu: Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur. They used to be separate kingdoms, but grew into each other, like the Twin Cities. A Durbar Square is an old palace. According to our prof, Bhaktapur's is the largest.

Oops....can't remember what this is. I'll find out. I just remember walking through an archway and finding this surprising view. There are catfish in the water, which we fed. So creepy, their mouths look like spiders.

One of the courtyards

Tree that has grown over a mandir. Kids charge a few rupees to pray for you because they can fit into the hole between the tree roots.

Detailed wood carving - very old

A kiln. They fill up the entire room then some how heat it enough so that the clay gets baked.

Bhaktapur is famous for it's yogurt, and for good reason. I'm not usually a yogurt fan, but I went back a couple days later to shop around and bought a tub to share with my host family. I think my family really enjoyed it.

BAM! another spider pic. Documenting my phobia. I saw this just before going to bed and had to give myself a pep talk as to why I shouldn't wake up my aamaa for help, put on my big girl panties, and ignore it and go to bed. Day one in Nepal, I am 100% certain I would have woken up my aamaa or thrown my water bottle at it. Progress. Speaking of phobias, one girl is afraid of bridges, someone else hates knives, and someone else hates ketchup (weird, but it actually bugs her). If there is a situation where there are hanging knives and spiders crawling all over a ketchup painted suspension bridge we have to cross, most of our group would probably choose to swim across.

nothfield restaurant in the tourist district

not just northfield, but Carleton's Northfield!! Jesse James and nofo is not a coincidence. We asked to talk to the hakim (boss), but something was lost in translation. Good food though.

Happy Dashain! People build these big swings and go swinging during Dashain. Also,  many goats are eaten. My current headless goat count is 5.5 when walking to school. I came home the other day and my helping didi was cutting up tons of meat and there was a bowl of intestines, a liver, and a heart. More about Dashain later! The big days are coming up.

OH and next week we're going to Annapurna/Mustang for 3 weeks. NO computer, so don't check the blog during that time.

Highlights from this week include:
-Learning how to make daal bhaat
-teaching the language teachers slang like "take a chill pill" and "make like Tom and Cruise."
-dealing with housing upon returning to Carleton (thanks Ives!)
-2 really late nights of writing
-eating lots of goat meat
-discovering good youtube videos from class mates: A really cute kid  and "Banana Frustration"
             wait for the whole video to load first!

Feeling a little burnt out! Looking forward to Annapurna.