Gai Jatra festival

Namaste,

I was passing through Kathmandu in August at the time of the Newari festival of Gai Jatra. The Newars, a large ethnic group in Nepal, believe that after death, a cow will guide you to Yama, the God of the underworld.  The festival of Gai Jatra "Festival of the Cow" is partly in remembrance of those who have died during the previous year. In the three Durbar Squares of the Kathmandu Valley this festival is celebrated with colourful parades. In some places cows are led through the streets and some young boys dress up as cows.

I went to Kathmandu Durbar Square to experience the celebrations.  The Square was crowded, with hundreds of people sitting on the tiered steps of the temples, higher up to get a better view of the procession. The cacophony of noise was all around; bands, drums, vehicles and people all mingled in the close confines of the square. 

Being the centre of Kathmandu, cows were not much in evidence.  However I did see one calf being led through the square in the parade, its forehead covered in tikka and a marigold garland around its neck.  Several family groups carried photos of cows too.

It was moving to see the family groups in the procession, honouring their loved ones who had died during the past year.  In many groups a photo of the deceased, often surrounded with a flower garland, was held aloft beneath a very large colourful umbrella.  I imagine this was to shade everyone from the hot sun, but there may be another significance I don’t know of.  Beneath this, the young people from the family were dressed up in brightly coloured clothes and had headdresses and masks. 





Many had their faces made up with moustaches drawn with eye pencil.  The family group was, in most cases, led by a small band, with drums, cymbals, bells and wooden Nepali flutes.

Saddus, holy men of the Hindu faith, were out in force, carefully dressed and with faces painted for this special festival. I loved the flamboyant headdresses of the two featured in this photo.

This culture with the celebration and parade creating a public display of commemoration and mourning is so different from that of our western cultures that I found it hard to watch without feeling voyeuristic. However the square was filled with spectators both Nepali and Western, photographers and even television crews, obviously a very public occasion for Nepalis.

Refreshments in a rooftop café gave a different perspective. The view of the Taleju Temple opposite is very interesting and one not generally seen. It was built in 1564, stands on a twelve-stage plinth and reaches to a height of 35 metres. Roof supports on each stage are beautifully carved with gods and figures. On the eighth stage a wall and 16 miniature temples surround it. This splendid temple is generally closed to the public, only open to a few Hindus during the festival of Dashain.

It was interesting to look down on the procession with the colourful costumes and large multi-coloured umbrellas.  It made me appreciate the large number of people in the square, both taking part and spectating. This was obviously an important event in the Nepali calendar.
Pheri bheTaulaa

Monsoon

 Namaste.

Water!  Pouring off the hills, dripping from the leaves, splashing in the puddles, tumbling over rocks in the streams and roaring down the rivers.  The constant sound of raindrops pervades. Everything is sodden. It is monsoon time in Nepal!

The road to Besisahar has become a mess; boulders and small landslips, which have fallen down the hillside, restricting the road width in many places, huge potholes filled with water and knee deep fords where the side streams cross the main road.  Two smooth rock faces beside the road have turned into torrential waterfalls, one spectacularly high with white water streaming down it. It is not surprising that there are so many difficulties with the condition of roads in Nepal, when you see the power of running water at this time.

Lying awake at night I listen to a cacophony of noise; from the stream that runs beside my house (but has never had water in it until now), the frogs croaking and cicadas scraping; one variety actually whine like a drilling machine struggling to keep going.  

How green all the vegetation is too!  Everything is growing so fast. The young rice in the paddies has coated the hillsides in emerald and the forests are lush. 

However work weeding the rice paddies is a very wet activity, so the Nepalis have invented a special umbrella-hat, leaving hands free. Simple but effective!

It is hot and uncomfortable because of the humidity, especially for a ‘bideshi’ from a cool European climate.  At around 24C.degrees at 8pm as I write this, it will be too hot to sleep comfortably.  My walks to school, even when cooler early in the morning, leave me wringing wet with sweat, and I need to carry a change of clothes to freshen up before I start work.  No wonder the schools shut for 5 weeks during July and August because of the monsoon!

The river in March

Yesterday, on the way to one of the nearest school, much of the path had turned into a rushing stream.  

The river in August after heavy rain.

From the bridge over the main Marsyngi Khola, the river was unrecognisable from the one I had seen a few months before.  A roaring torrent of water, double the size of the dry season river, was charging down the valley.  

The water was brown/grey with the silt it carried, and I’m sure there were lots of boulders being rolled down the valley within this torrent.  No wonder there are so many large boulders visible when the water level is low, 10 Kilometres down the valley. 

Even the small stream up a side valley near the school, had become a fair sized river.  I stopped and stared in wonder at the ford; here back in February I had managed to cross without getting wet feet.  Now the force of the water would have carried me away if I had attempted that! Fortunately there is also a suspension bridge further upstream so we were able to reach the school.

In places long streams of water fall, bubbling and white, down from the hills above.

A tree covered in large white flowers caught my attention – beautifully scented and with an interesting shape, this was a flower I hadn’t seen before.  This tree looks very dull and ordinary during the rest of the year, but comes into its own with the rain of the monsoon.

Pheri bheTaulaa

Lamjung Durbar

Namaste.

Several hundred years ago Lamjung was one of the small kingdoms that have since been merged to make a unified country of Nepal.  The king of Lamjung had a small palace, the Durbar, perched on top of the hill overlooking Besisahar.  Dianne, a Dutch volunteer, was visiting for the weekend, so we went for a walk up to the palace on Saturday morning. 

Because it is the monsoon season we left early in the morning, to walk while it was still cool and also to avoid the heavy rain which we frequently have during the late afternoon.  This was a really good decision, as not only was it cool and dry, but it was also very quiet with almost no-one else on the path or at the palace when we got there.

The path took us steeply uphill, mostly up steps, but the vegetation surrounding the path was lush and green, due to the recent monsoon rainfall.  It was hard work climbing the stone steps – and we became very hot despite the relative cool of the morning. 

We passed some children from nearby houses, who had been picking flowers.  They walked with us for a short while and then presented me with a posy of their flowers, which we wore in our hair for the rest of the day.

Near the top, one of the houses in the surrounding hamlet had a beautiful garden full of flowers.  When the lady of the house saw me taking photos she invited us into her garden and was delighted to have photos of her and her family taken.



Her baby was fast asleep, snuggled into a tiny makeshift hammock slung between posts on her veranda. 








 

Eventually, after this detour, we reached the old palace.  In front of the main entrance is a stone paved courtyard surrounded by steps.  I thought initially this area was for water, but I was later informed that it is a small arena for dancing and music performances, with the steps as seating.

Nearby is a large bell, that had been decorated with flowers and red tikka powder, though I’m unsure of the purpose of the bell or why it was decorated.  The doors and windows of the Durbar were simply carved and all decorated similarly, with flowers and tikka.

Not large or palatial, the Durbar is obviously a well cared for and honoured place, and we spent a tranquil hour wandering the gardens, taking photos.  The hibiscus flowers were stunning, as were some large pink flowers growing in the grassy bank behind the building.

There were no views from the top, as we were up in the clouds, but as we made our way back down, the clouds parted to give us a great view of the town below.  I could even pick out my flat amongst the buildings. (It's the pale blue building left of the royal blue roof in the foreground of the photo.)

Pheri bheTaulaa

A coat of paint.

Namaste

Would you like to spend all day working in a room where the walls are covered in ingrained dirt, old graffiti and torn and faded papers? Would you feel inspired to work harder?  What message does a working environment like this give to the workers who use it daily?

Sadly some classrooms in the government schools I work with in Nepal are like this, and yet we expect young students to come to school every day, want to be there and feel inspired about their education.  I feel desperately sad at the state of these classrooms.  When a group of young volunteers offered to paint some classrooms I was delighted.

Twelve ICS volunteers, young people between the ages of 18 and 25, of both British and Nepali nationality, wanted to help. They work and live in pairs, each Nepali volunteer with a British partner, and spend 3 months at their placement, working on community projects.  Everyone gains from this arrangement. The Nepali volunteer travels and lives in a totally different place to his or her home, and through practise speaking English to their partner, develops fluency and correct pronunciation. Their British counterpart travels, works and lives within a totally different country and culture.  Of course, the community where they work gains from their unpaid work too.

The volunteers arrived by bus and we immediately set off to walk to the school, about an hour away, carrying all paint and tools needed.  The day was a public holiday so there were no students at school, just some children playing, very curious to know what we were doing there.

Our first job, before painting could start, was to clean the walls and remove all the old paper stuck to them.  Within minutes of arriving everyone was busy with buckets of water, cloths and scrapers clearing the walls of the first classroom.  The ingrained dirt was almost impossible to remove, as were the faded and torn pictures stuck to the wall. This classroom had not seen a coat of paint for many years.

Once clean, one group of volunteers began painting this first room, whilst the rest continued with cleaning the walls of the next classroom.  A production line evolved: the painting team following the cleaning group, classroom by classroom. 

The walls were so filthy that the first coat of paint hardly covered the dirt, and so a second coat was applied to the walls when the first was dry. Eventually three coats of paint were needed to achieve a good clean result. 

Despite the heat of the day, these young volunteers worked incredibly hard, helped by one teacher and the caretaker from the school. After three hours of concentrated effort a halt was called; the paint we had brought with us was all gone!  

Two of the four classrooms were finished, and the other two were ready for another coat early next morning when we could return with more paint. By midday the next day all was complete and the extra paint finished.  The classrooms walls were clean and white and the rooms ready for use again. 

 Look at the before and after photographs of one of the classrooms.  

Before.

After painting!

What a fantastic difference! Thank you ICS volunteers for giving up your free time for this project.

In the morning the delight on the young students faces, at their transformed classrooms, was reward in itself for the hard work.  They stood and gazed at the walls with beaming smiles. There were claps and cheers of appreciation for the volunteer painters. 

What a worthwhile project this was.  In 6 hours, with 12 volunteers and at the cost of 6,000 rupees for paint (around £42), four classrooms have been transformed.  Now it is time for other schools in Nepal to follow this lead and improve their classroom environments!  

Pheri bheTaulaa