November 26-December 2: Final Thoughts

I ask you the next time you look East of where you are, know the possibilities beyond the horizon.  Be not afraid of placing one foot in front of the other, get out there, and, fearlessly, be ready for life in real-time.

There are many who journey to the country of Nepal to disappear and dissolve into another existence and rightfully so for this land offers multiple outlets and avenues for one to evolve into an alternative presence. This is a country landlocked from the world and still full of surprises both spiritually and socially. Here lies the seduction of the largest mountains man has ever seen as well as multiple religous and social beliefs, some ardent and strict, others left to interpretation and, frankly, need of change. When you venture here from the western world you, as much as you try not, have little choice but to make comparison of this land to your home. During my stay in Nepal, these past seven weeks, there was no choice but to throw in my participation at head-over-heel uninhibitiveness and, in lieu of disappearing, make my presence known, stay involved, and, most importantly, be not afraid to make mistakes. How else was I to learn the meaning of this journey.
There is a kindness of the Nepalese people, regardless of their personal challenges, that never faltered; whether my students, my host family, or a stranger working in a shop down within a Kathmandu alley, who helped me with finding a hardware store in the city, they all had an openess to join with outside stimuli. There were strangers on micro buses who knew I might have jumped on the incorrect route and did not hesitate to jump off the bus with me at the next stop to assure my sails were into the wind insead of against it.  There is so much not organized in this country and you are not given much choice but to become one with the confusion and find your personal sanity within.
This is a great land. There were many parts of Nepal I did not see and I am sure a return trip lies somewhere down the road. But what I did experience was unique and full of color, it was, at times, brutal and raw, and gave me opportunitity to think on my feet, repeatedly.  From that, how can you not be changed at jouney's end?
I will always be grateful to the Dahal family for the generosity and patience and an un-ending need to make sure of my comfort. To the young people of the Jitpur Secondary School there is a large amount of gratitude and respect I have for their energy to keep looking for the answers and doing the work as well as keeping in tune with the world.  And to the gentleman who asked me to just call him brother and who I worked beside in the field, thank you for your ethic and guidance and allowing me to till the soil along with you. In a small part I hope my hand lent nourishment to a dinner table somewhere in your land.
As I bring this Blog to a close I am clean-shaven and in front of cable tv.  I have exchanged many stories with Janelle, my wife, whose 2008 trip was my inspiration. It is terrific how, through the differences in our two journeys she and I gain perspective of our own.
I look at my watch here and picture my schedule and routine 12 timezones away and very real it will always be because you can ever leave a place like Nepal, or mark it off the proverbial bucket list.  Nepal is an experience that has been bringing explorers to the land's open arms for centuries. And similar to those before me, never will I be immune to the inability to release and let go of the deep impressions of this country and its people.

November 26-December 2: Saying Good Bye to The Dahal Family



Bijaya Dahal: Bijaya and I would sit down regularly for some great chess matches. He swindled me into playing the game under Nepalese rules which entailed being able to move the pawns two sqaures at a time, anytime, not just the frist moves. He also showed me much of the Jitpur mountains, the trails and the footpaths. Great Guy. Never hesitant to help around the house and always had a quick jab or joke about something.

Megh B. Dahal: This guy never stopped moving. Up and Out the door by 4:30 a.m. every morning to open the family shop. He would return to the house by 9:00 to take a quick bath, eat, change clothes and then would be off to school to teach and be a head master until 4:00 p.m. At 4:00 he would return home, change clothes again and then return to the shop where he worked until 7:00/7:30.  He would then return home again, wash, eat, and be in bed with lights our by 8:00 p.m.  He did this every single day I was a guest in his home......he just kept going. On my last morning with the family Megh asked me to take a walk with him to the shop for some milk tea. During the walk he asked me again the route I was to take for my flights and he answered me with a look of disbelief. It was all a million miles away to him........little did he know......Megh had a quiet presence about him, stoic at times, but never daunting as he himself was never daunted.......he just kept going.



Daviki Dahal This was my host mother, wife to Megh.  Daviki had the best sense of humor and played second support hardly nuthin'. Large presence she carried and worked in the shop while Megh was teaching. There was a moment I watched her among other village folk gather around a vegetable salesman selling produce from his bike.  There had to  be 12-15 people around his bike all were making deals on price of the vegatables while questionng the salesman of their quality. From that group Devaki was the only one I heard and she knew she had the ear of everyone. You can believe that whatever that salesman was dealing on our dinner table later that night we had his best. Daviki was never over-bearing but never a softy, she had a knack for modulation; knowing when to customize herself to the social situation.

Subha Kamari Dahal: This was the paternal grandmother. Continues to do her own laundry, at times cook, and do some long distance walking as there a couple of times I saw her up by Jitpur School during the day which is a 40 minute walk from the house.  She did not speak any English and when I conversed with her I always needed my Nepalese/English dictionary close.  She was very kind and took this ole American in stride. She always made me feel very welcomed.  As the days grew cold she would build a small fire just outside the back door of the kitchen on the roof of the house (where she is sitting in this photo) and several times I would kneel beside her and together, in silence, we would sit close to the flame for warmth.

Ranju and Sirju Dahal: These two sisters had a deep love and care for each other. Ranju (on the left) was really good to give up her room for me during my stay. Both of these ladies have big dreams and aspirations and yet are grounded enough to know the ethic it takes to have or achieve a large life. They both have street smarts and are excellent with the English language.  In fact, it was these two who bridged many language barrier gaps between me and their mother, or other friends/guests who would vist the home.

November 26-December 2: Final Week and Saying Goodbye to The Students

As the final week was upon me I had the arduous task of figuring out how to say good bye to the students of Jitpur Secondary School. They were all a joy to work with and ever-pressing in enthusiasm.  Some of them realized the distance I had traveled in geography to be their teacher for 7 weeks but the journey I made psychologically and internally they may never realize as it was them who created that trip for me and, exposed me to tactics and creativity of which I needed to survive and to keep them  learning.  Below you will see images of those good, strong, young people.

November 26-December 2: Additional Images of Nepalese Young People

November 26-December 2: Winter is Around the Corner



This is next door neighbor Sudendra showing his little one-year old daughter what heat from a fire feels like. The temperatures after sundown are now in the mid to upper 40's.



November 19-25: The Start of The Day



By the time I was taking these photos the villages on the mountain ridge were already 2 hours into their day. The prority in this part of the world is to not waste a second of sunlight. All of Jitpur Phede is moving well before first glimpse. I asked my family at dinner one night if they had ever been wakened by roosters, they just laughed and laughed. Each day grows colder and clearer as this journey ends. The onset of winter could easily fit the cliched-sleeved metaphor as that  which is cold and frozen is a pre-cursor to another day and new life. There are good-byes on the horizon and they will be sad, but honest, and filled with the realization of all the once-in-a-lifetime sceenarios that occurred over these past seven weeks. 



November 19-25: I Tried To Not Let Them See Me

November 19-25: Origami Brother



There was a night I was sitting at my desk working through my lesson plan for the  next day and little brother Bijaya was sitting in the room with me. All of a sudden he got real quiet and  I could sense he was working on something (I had my back to him)  In the nicest way I have to tell you there was seldom time Bijaya was quiet when he was in the room with me so this was a treat. I turned around and he was half way through these little creations. From this day forwarded we coined him as Artist Bijaya.



November 19-25: What's In A Name?



Had a great conversation with these two sisters on a cold and rainy day and the younger sister had a good laugh when I told her my name.



November 19-25: Vision and Focus



Do you see the genleman in the gray jacket to the left of the girl with the scarf? His name is Depak and he is an English teacher at a school approximately 3/4 of a mile in the direction he is walking.  Depak makes the walk to the bus station every morning for a ride to his school. This photo is unique because on the days we would pass each other he would be by himself, and every one of those days he would call out to me before I would even see him. In this photo he is already 600 yards from his home. What you don't see in this photo (blocked by the kid in the wool cap) is in Depak's right hand is a white cane. Deepak is totally blind.  Without fail, as we would meet he could hear me coming or sense the heaviness in my step (I wore steel toed boots).  He would call to me "Namaste Thomas, How are You?" Depak and I would shake hands, wish each other luck in our day, and part ways on this road almost every morning.



Week of November 19 - 25: He Told me To Just Call Him Brother

As I mentioned before, one of my favorite times of each of my days was working in the field at the bottom of the valley from the school where I started my days.  The gentleman I worked with, a longtime villager and veteran of working the land, asked me to just call him my older brother (he spoke no English by the way).  Nepalese for older brother is "daaju" (pronounced: Da-Zu). He called me his younger brother which is "bhaai" (pronounced: BYE). He was 68 years old and everyday would offer me a cigarette even though I told him I didn't smoke and he thought that was just the funniest thing in the world, a man who worked the field who didn't smoke. Great guy.  Last time I saw him he hada 15 kg (35 pound) bag of tomatoes on his right shoulder embarking on a 1/2 mile walk to the nearest bus station, in flip flops.

Week of November 19-25: The Hats.......all of These Hats!!!!!

As I was preparing for this trip to Nepal my wife, Janelle, who traveled to Nepal in 2008, let me know that among items the people of this country enjoy receiving from the western world is baseball hats. Through the years I have been known to collect, buy, and, acquire tons of baseball hats. Before leaving Chicago, I opened my closet door, where my collection is stowed (some not worn in a long long time) and filled a suitcase half full with all of my hats.  When I arrived to Jitpur Phede I stacked my hats on a table in my room and gave the request to the the Dahal family to give the hats to all of the villagers. As they see fit they should grab hats from the table and spread them among the land as if they were the holy word. One by one like rats sneaking cheese I noticed the stack of hats decrease and as I would walk to and from school and to and from the field on each of my work days I would see more and more of the hats on the heads of the villagers. There was even one afternoon I was on a microbus into Thamel, a microbus packed with people on top of peole, baskets of turnips, and a live goat and a propane tank under a seat, and two rows ahead of me was portly gentleman with polished shoes, slacks, a great looking sweater, and, within and through the quagmire of humanity and cargo I caught a glimpse of my ole New York Mets hat on top of his bald head. He looked great! In the photos below there it had been raining at the end of the day as we all gathered back at the house and Bijaya and Ranju and I created a contest of how many of my hats we could balance on our head.  Take a good look and see if you can recognize any of the hats.

Week of November 19-25: Megh Dahal's Birthday



One morning, after breakfast was over, Megh (my host father) calls me upstairs and back into the kitchen. He wanted me to bring my camera. It was his birthday and he allowed me to take photos of the ceremony. The Dahal family is Hindu and what you see in these photos is a local man of the cloth from one of the temples and a family friend of the Dahal's. On your natal day this person from the temple comes to your house and winds and weaves you through several scriptures which are repeated. Each of the dishes and platters you see in front of Megh represent a significant step in the mortal and after life. 



Week of November 19-25: Power Outages

 

One of the challenges the people of Nepal have to contend with, on a regular basis, is power outages.

A couple of ways these occur: One, by a mandated shutdown through the Nepali government to ease the strain on the power line infrastructure or Two, the power infrastructure just collapses on its own due to overuse and for, sometimes, up to two hours there is no electricity.  For this past week we experienced blackouts every night and a couple of evenings more than once.  The villagers do not flinch when the lights go down; grab candles, light’em, and continue on. 






This photo is taken during one of the backouts. Bijaya and Hementhe challenged me to find them in the dark through the eye of my camera and take a picture of the their different poses. I am probably 12 feet from them and could not see either them or a shadow of them. When the lights go out, it is really dark in this village. In this photo I caught them by blind luck (again, no pun intended) and just hit the shutter.



Without them telling me Bijaya and Hementhe moved up on the porch where I was standing and at maybe 2.5 feet away I could not see them at all.



The candles are the only light in the kitchen. L-R Davaki Dahal (my host mother) Ranju Dahal (sister) Subha Dahal (paternal grandmother) and Sirju Dahal (sister). Ground Corn (Maze) is what is being placed on the plates, and is eaten as if you would cornbread.  You use it to sop up Daal which is, for westerners, no different than Lentil Soup. Damn Good.



Bijaya's headlamp is our only lightsource in this photo.

  

November 12-18: Taking Advantage of the Sun




Along my walk to and from School, this woman dries rice while she can and while the sun is out.

 


This gentleman was out early as the sun was beginning to break through the fog. He and his sewing machine are on the roof of his house ovelooking the Kathmandu valley



November 12-18: Photos of Swayambhunath Temple



Monkeys Rule.




Sound asleep at the Top of the Monkey Temple





These photos do not begin to illustrate how large these structures stand.