By tierneybb
I felt guilty about demanding this woman move, we had no language in common and it would have been easy enough for me it sidle in and bear the next four hours in the purgatory of the middle seat. But I had held that spot on the twelve hour flight to Qatar, and after thirty hours in transit I was going to claim the comfort I had reserved for myself this last leg into Kathmandu. As we headed East the pitch black of night was nearly uninterrupted by any city lights until a piercing sunrise revealed glimpses of rolling hills under the low clouds. I kept tearing my eyes away from the Disney classics I had pulled up on the entertainment system to check if any of the mountains I was so desperate to see were visible. Finally, as we began our descent cold grey faces of sheer rock were tearing through the clouds in the distance. These Himalayan peaks were like nothing else I had ever seen: not only did they ascend so much faster and further than my native Rockies, but the sharp angles and uniform grey made for an austere beauty I am hoping to get closer to over the course of my semester here in Nepal.
The flight into the city has proved itself to be strangely more revealing than I would have expected. To begin with, it was undoubtedly the most diverse flight I have ever been on in visiting around thirty countries. From my seat in 25A alone there must have been five different native languages between the six of us sitting across the row, and from the little I have seen of the city it has been just as diverse. Nepali faces and language dominate the scene, but The burgundy and marigold robes of Tibetan buddhist monks and nuns bustling about is interrupted by the bulk of backpacks on Westerners looking lost and overwhelmed in groups,with a few white people completely at home in the tangle of construction. I can't imagine anything more indicative of immersion in another culture than nonchalantly wandering through the streets shooting the breeze with the locals the way the long term Western transplants do so well. That is something I aspire to, perhaps it's not so feasible for the end of this semester, but looking and feeling like I belong in such a foreign context is one of my goals this semester, and I think a fair benchmark of an Anthropologist.
Perhaps one of the best ways to describe the local tolerance for diversity is through the Dakshinkali puja ceremony and festival we visited Saturday, held after the full moon. Dakshinkali is a local Hindu temple for Kali that we had found the day before in a field methods exercise where we had to ask locals to direct us to a local site written in a language we don't speak. The exercise was immensely rewarding as an enthusiastic employee showed the six of our group around the open temple grounds, and gave us a tikka high on out foreheads in blessing. But the temple was transformed for the festival, long lines of people approached the inner sanctum from every direction, many of the families holding goats or chickens which they planned to give in sacrifice to honor Kali. This fundamental difference in practice between the local Hindus and the Buddhists, who reject the concept of sacrifice, doesn't result in conflict as I might have expected in America. Instead, a sort of prayer-off takes place, in which the Hindu prayers through sacrifice result in much of the Buddhist community devoting extra prayers and mantras to counter the bad karma of the animal killings for the benefit of the Hindu people.
The glimpses of the capital as we descended also revealed a much greener space than I expected, with the low concrete fortresses that seem to make up the majority of buildings in every Asian city (and also seem to be in a perpetual state of construction) spaced out with patches of vibrant green grass, rice and trees. And as we drove through this city spawned across the length of a vast valley it was clear that the immense population of the city is not as condensed as in Beijing or Delhi. Instead the city takes advantage of the geography to create a unique urban sprawl in which plots of agriculture, and of course cows, are more welcome than skyscrapers. One of our first lecturers, Anil Chitrakar a Newari engineer and modernizing force, described how despite it's reputation as a small country squashed between the colossal masses of China and India, Nepal has considerable population and its youth are bent on modernizing while still reluctant to leave behind its rural agricultural ways. I can't help but think that the maintenance of such oases of rich sustaining heritage as crops in the city is a nogistalgic allusion to a life left behind by many for work in the city.
The SIT programs throughout the world are focused on experiential learning and immersion into the local culture, subsequently I'm not living in a dorm or going to a traditional university campus for classes. Instead, the twenty one undergrads in the Tibetan and Himalayan Peoples program will be staying each in our own homestay and commuting to a program center for language classes and lectures. For orientation we were driven for an hour through the winding city streets and out to Pharping atop the first set of foothills bordering the valley, where we are staying at the Pharping Village Resort. While I consider this place to be a luxury, that should perhaps be defined in terms of Asian cities, especially in Nepal. A lush groomed garden surrounds a few low buildings composed of brick buried in a deep burnt sienna clay coating that now adorns all of our clothes as well, and thatched roofs that elsewhere might be just for decoration are here so tightly woven they keep out the monsoon (but are less successful at the giant mosquitos that we're not supposed to kill out of respect for the local Hindu and Buddhist beliefs in all sentient beings having a reincarnated soul). The beds are actually boards with thin comforters wrapped around them, but I've been assured this will be good for my back, and quite frankly I'm just ecstatic that for the time being I'm guaranteed western toilets and showers regardless of the perpetual puddle that requires you wear the provided flip flops.
Ironically enough, for a semester devoted to the study and immersion into a Buddhist culture, my greatest challenge has been entirely material. Until Saturday afternoon, for the first four days of the semester I was missing my checked luggage. After weeks of preparation, and two days of grunts and extra hands forcing the required items for an entire semester into one giant trekking backpack, I eagerly rushed to baggage claim only to discover my bag had not made it with me. It was still in D.C. At Dulles airport, where I had barely made the connection and it had not. At first a serene realization washed over me, this was merely stuff, and unlike if I had chosen to spend the semester in Paris or Barcelona, it was not very much, nor even very nice stuff. I placidly waited in a gigantic luggage complaints line, thinking of how cheap it would be to replace all my items here, and filed my complaint fully expecting to never see my bag again. But with each activity I stared to miss my bag more. As the extra pair of clothes I had in my day pack went from being two outfits to five, as I kept rinsing clothes out in the sink, and realized that while everything would be cheaper here, it would take a month to find everything I had gathered. Just as I was reaching panic my bag was found, yet it took a further two days to coordinate it reaching me here on the outskirts of the valley. But now, armed with bag and ambition, I can't wait to meet my home stay tomorrow and begin the semester proper.