Dashain

We finished up week 6 last week with a pancake breakfast and brownie snack during our group training day. It was amazing to see what a bottle of cheap syrup could do to us trainees...these small reminders of our american lives never fail to cheer us all up. I also received my first package from home (thanks mom!), so I've been busy snacking on dried mangos, apples, and trail mix, which is a nice change from the sugary biscuits or donuts that are usually consumed during snack time.

Dashain has been in full swing here in Chhap, with its arrival also marking the start of week 7 of PST. I also woke up today with one of the most gorgeous views I've had so far. I looked out my window at 6:20am and could see snow-covered moutain peaks in between the clouds. I was looking directly north into Tibet and China. It was a nice treat because normally the mountains are hidden by clouds for most of the day.

Today we spent about 3 hours watching raago get slaughtered (male water buffalo). All over Chhap there were burning biles of water buffalo. Once they kill the animal with a swift chop over its spinal cord they drain the blood and then put the whole body into a burning pile of leaves in order to get all the hair and skin off. I watched this whole thing take place and even 5 minutes after the entire head of the buffalo was removed, the body was still kicking and seizing. There was even a man whose sole job was to kill the buffalo. I watched him casually smoke a ciggarette and drink his tea before sauntering over to the buffalo with a giant knife. He put some grass on the ground to get the buffalo to eat and get its neck down than BAM he chopped its head off. After delivering the fatal blow he washed his legs of the blood that had splattered and then resumed his tea drinking/smoking. Besides slaughtering buffalo, Hindus' believe that your body should temporarily leave the earth during Dashain, so a humongous swing was also constructed! Pictures will come, but it was made of four 25-foot long bamboo trees that were placed in the earth and then tied at the top, sort of like a teepee. The swing was then attached. All of us trainees took turns swinging with the kids in the community. You actually get super high and this man kept pushing me higher so I kind of felt like I might die at times because I was standing up on the swing. It was funny because right behind the swing there was a fire with an entire buffalo in it, so you were actually right over the burning buffalo at certain points in the swing. It was one of those moments where I was like wow, i'm swinging on this probably extremely unstable bamboo rod about 20 feet in the air over a burning buffalo carcass in Nepal. Later that night we had a special feast to celebrate Dashain. Now, I normally am really good about trying food and whatnot, but dinner was something else. It was all served cold on a giant banana leaf. It was an interestesting assortment of churaa (beaten rice, which doesnt have much taste, as its literally just dried rice), this sort of spicy trail mix, badaam (peanuts), keraa (banana), shrimp-flavored chips, water buffalo skin, and scrambled blood. YEAH. I couldnt do it. I tried...I really tried to eat it and force it down but I couldnt. There were chunks in it and it looked like dirt. So basically my entire meal consisted of dried rice and a banana. I couldnt manage the buffalo skin either. I could see the pores where the hairs used to be. I also had some other weird looking meat that I can only describe as the meat that you would potentially find around a spinal cord. Otherwise, the meal was really great because it kind of felt like a christmas/holiday meal I would have at home. Thats kind of the same feeling I've been getting with Dashain, which is nice because I wont be really celebrating Christmas here with my host family. My neighbors even have sparkly colored lights on their rooftop. All the older siblings who study in Kathmandu are home for the month and everyone just kind of hangs out and drinks raksi and eats a lot of meat. My siblings and I all sat around drinking beer and Sprite and eating off our banana leaf plates, just talking and joking. All of my sisters guy friends kept trying to refill my beer even though I kept telling them over and over I was full. I ended up going to bed at 10:30 that night....so late for me! It was actually the latest I've stayed up in Nepal too, which is sad because i've become an old person.


More Dashain events: Today I went around from neighbor's house to neighbor's house watching a squawking chicken get sacrificed at each one. They would pull the neck back and then slit its throat, splattering its blood all over their worship area. At each house I was offered the local alcohol raksi after each sacrifice; i politely declined each cup, mostly because it came out of a dirty-looking water bottle, but also because if I had accepted each cup I would have been drunk out of my mind. One house also offered me a cup of chunky milk; it gets awkward here because all my siblings know I like milk, but its really hard to explain that you only drink milk that has been boiled so you dont die. So I had to politely decline the milk as well. Afterwards the day was filled with dancing, "hit the clay pot," and musical chairs! The dancing was really fun to watch, and one of my sisters did 2 dances with her friend. Its so unlike any sort of American dancing...I dont think I could copy it if I tried. After the dancing the community played their version of hit the pinata. They placed a clay pot about 10 meters down the road, blindfolded and spun the person around, and gave them a 4 foot long stick to try and hit the pot with. Literally this game went on for 4 hours and no one ever hit the pot. I tried and made it about halfway to the pot and got completely turned around and almost started hitting some children. Then we played musical chairs. For the music a man was playing a homemade drum, and for the chairs we used bricks that we had to jump and stand on when the music stopped. I think i made it 3 rounds out of about 12. C- for achievements, but A+ for community participation!!

 

Later that night there was a street dance! It took place on the stage where the dancing program was held earlier. It was so fun...probably one of the most memorable nights I've had thus far in Nepal. I went with my sisters and met up with the other Chhap trainees. They were playing a mix of American and Hindi/Nepali music and my sisters taught all of us how to dance like Nepalis (super hard..they dance with their arms much more than americans do), and we taught them how to dance like americans! It was so fun..it kind of felt like a high school dance though because all the girls were in one corner and all the boys were in another. After we danced for a solid hour they served Coke and a cracker/noodle snack and then some drunk men came and it got a little rowdy so my sisters took me home. All of our families here are so protective of us, its actually so sweet. My sisters always hold my arm or hand when we are walking and were trying to shield me from the drunk people. Even earlier today when I was at my friend Andrea's house her dad walked me home when I left because it was dark, even though I live about 100m from her house.

We had another day off to observe Dashain with our families. I posted more pictures on facebook, but today i went around with my family to all the houses we sacrificed chickens at, except this time I received tikka at each one, which is the giant red ball of rice on my forehead. With each tikka I also received some Nepali rupees, some fruit to eat (mostly coconut, banana, or apple) and jamarra which is the grass they have been growing over the course of the holiday. Today was when they harvested it and then you stick a bunch of grass stalks in your hair along with flowers. After 5 houses my entire forehead was covered in sticky red rice, I had an entire garden coming out of my head, and was about 90 cents richer than when I started. all of the families kept giving me Coke to drink as well so I think I may have consumed a liter of that today. Otherwise the day was fairly mellow...I hung out with the other Chhap trainees and we finished up a movie we had started earlier in the week and then went and played on the swing some more. I went with my friend Marvin's sister on the swing. Swinging with a Nepali was 100x scarier than swinging with my friend Andrea. It was terrifying I thought I was going to go flying off the swing into the forest. I then helped cook some dinner. Thank the lord they cooked some saagh today, which is basically a local spinach they have, because I am over eating random buffalo body parts. The last day I have been straight up refusing meat because its been sitting in a wooden drawer in a plastic bag the past 3 days, and i'm prettyyyyy sure its past its prime.

Thanks for once again reading the novel I wrote. Heading into week 8 here of PST....only 4 more weeks left in Chhap, which is crazy because the time has really been flying by lately. I am really excited to have our last week of training in Kathmandu though...super ready to eat some food other than rice. This Sunday we have our mock Language Proficiency Interviews and Peace Corps is bringing in testers from Kathmandu, so I'll be busy studying until then!

Namaste,

Alex