The road out of Pokhara towards Kathmandu is a narrow, one-and-a-half-lane road crowded with buses and decorated trucks, some of which sound like they have installed mini pipe organs instead of horns. It twists along the sides of the mountains - up to cross a pass, down to nearly touch the water, then up again. The mountains are not simply steep, but sudden, in their jump from roiling river waters to forested tops. As we got closer to the Kathmandu Valley and the day wore on, the heat increased, and we rolled into the noise and pollution of the capital city in the heat and humidity of midafternoon.
Coming back to the city I left in such a rush over a month ago, I realized that Kathmandu is a city of life - all the nasty parts of waste, filth, misery, and poverty mixed together with the wonderful and joyous parts of children laughing, brilliant colors, fruit stalls, the smells of roasting vegetables, God.
A man wheels a bicycle with four big bottles of fresh water strapped to the back around potholes in the road. Two women in brilliant kurtas chat as they brush flies away from their fruit and vegetable stand set up under an umbrella. A young man flies by on his motorcycle, barely missing a taxi and two buses. A woman in a red sari ties her goats in a small patch of grass and burning garbage by the side of the road. Colorful laundry hangs from a balcony against a sky of watercolor-smudge clouds. Two children in torn t-shirts kick a soccer ball back and forth over the head of a sleeping street dog. Taxis weave around a cow standing morosely in the middle of the road. Girls in blue and gray uniforms laugh as they walk to school, clutching their books to their chests. Old men with tikka on their foreheads sit quietly in their doorways, staring interestedly at everyone who passes on the street and regularly spitting into the dirt. Life is everywhere on display. The simple act of families eking out an existence for themselves in this world is nowhere more apparent or more miraculous.
In the few days I have left in Nepal, I've been volunteering at perhaps the largest orphanage in the city. Bal Mandir, which means "baby temple", was founded by a member of the royal family in the 1960s and housed in old palace. Now that grand beginning is all but gone - it is a non-governmental organization that struggles to find private donations, and the palace is now a testament to the dilapidated grandeur of chipping plaster and dry fountains - it is dim and crowded and smells of pee. Over 200 children, infants to 18, call this place home, and nearly three quarters of them are girls. Most were abandoned either at the hospital or on the street; when they turn 18 they must leave, but they are given money for further education or training, and a stipend each month for a year to help them become independent adults.
We work in the baby room where there are over 20 babies, infant to maybe 1 year old, and only three didis ("older sisters", i.e. caretakers). The didis obviously love the babies and do what they can, but there's only so much attention three women can give to 20 crying children. We hold the babies as much as we can, despite the remonstrances of the doctor who says that if we hold them too much, they cry too loudly when we leave - well, what does that tell you? these babies need the attention, and I told him so. We play with them, we feed them, we change their diapers. One baby is a premie who we think might be blind, one has large pus-filled welts all over her head, one has a terrible cough, many have dark spots or skin rashes all over their bodies. They all have bald spots or matted hair on the backs of their heads from lying in one position too long, and many aren't strong enough to sit up, even though they should be old enough. Some beg constantly for attention and bounce up and down in their cribs, but most are good-natured and calm. They are all beautiful. Unlike the other volunteers, I have not given any of them names. I don't want to think of them individually because I'm afraid that I won't be able to stop myself from crying in anger and frustration and pity that these children were abandoned and now lie neglected on an orphanage floor.
I've realized now that I never wrote about the orphanages associated with the organization I'm here with. This organization is called Nepal Orphans' Home, and it operates four houses within a radius of about a quarter mile of where I am staying. The first house is called Papa's House, and it is run by the organization's founder, Michael. A brother and sister, Vinod and Anita, run two homes - one for boys and one for girls. The last house is called Sanctuary - specifically for girls rescued from the kamlari system of selling girls into slavery. (Read the book Sold, by Patricia McCormick, if you want to know more.) Other girls have come here to escape poverty and get a chance at a decent education. Some of the boys are brothers of the girls, and some were sent here by their families to keep them safe from the Maoists. Whenever I have seen the children, they strike me as sweet and funny and smart and motivated and so good to each other. Michael has done amazing work building up this family, and yet he's a mystery man - no one seems to know much about his life before he came here, except that he was once a carpenter. Symbolic, no? More information can be found on their website.
12 August 2010
05 August 2010
Under Machhapuchhre's Shadow
Pokhara is about as different from Kathmandu as you can get. It feels like a very modern city - women dressed in Western clothes and driving motorcycles, flower nurseries, hybrid cars, waste bins on the main streets ("use me!"), even a blood drive in front of a bakery. It's smaller, cleaner, cheaper, less noisy, and easier to navigate than the capital. However, lest you forget you are still in Nepal, this modernity is mixed with unpaved streets, fruit sellers on the sidewalks, electricity cuts, cows and buffaloes grazing in empty lots, pedal sewing machines set up in shop doorways, age-old traditional dress, and dozens of small Hindu temples.
Manoj, the father of the house, acts as the volunteer tour guide, showing us the sites in the form of early morning walks. On the morning of my third day, he took the other volunteer, Josh, and I to a Hindu temple across the city. We walked past a sign with a picture of a cobra on it that Manoj told us meant, "Don't piss here: home of a snake god." We crossed a deep river gorge on a swaying suspension bridge made slippery by the night's rain. We climbed stone steps past men and women selling flower offerings and reached the temple - a courtyard complex atop a hill, though we couldn't see far because the rain that had started again. There were small stone carvings and offerings placed against one large central tree, all covered in red and yellow tikka powder, a table outlined with small unlit lamps, a small temple building with a holy man crouched under his umbrella near the door, a golden cow statue, and a stone corridor below the hilltop for animal sacrifices. My favorite: to one side was a small little guillotine for coconut sacrifices.
Another morning Manoj led us to a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery atop a hill above the house. It was lightly raining as we climbed the steep hill, but inside the compound we forgot the rain. The main building was incredibly carved and painted in brilliant, breathless colors. The silk curtain over the doorway billowed in and out with the sounds of chanting coming from inside. In spite of our nervousess about causing a disturbance, Manoj convinced us to go inside the hall, where the monks, most very young, were sitting in rows and reading chants from traditional books of loose sheaves. Occasionally the monks in the center of the room would play enormous gongs and long low-toned horns that made the whole building with energy. To one side was a shelf of books, and in the center of the back wall was an enormous golden statue of the Buddha surrounded by neon lights flashing red, green, and yellow. The walls and ceiling were painted with scenes of nature and what I suppose were bodhisattvas in jewel-toned colors. Some of the monks stared at us in a very friendly way, and one gestured for us to sit. We perched on a pile of cushions in the corner, absorbing the sounds around us as they mingled with the early morning light.
Our longest morning outing began with a bus ride in the blue predawn light. We could see Machhapuchhre, the mountain called Fishtail that dominates the Pokhara skyline, rising palely, its snows almost purple. At the end of the bus route we climbed hundreds of stone steps up a green hillside until we could look down into the river valley below, where clouds came and went in white misty threads. We climbed up farther above the city, and we could see the shapes of distant mountains through the cloud, some edges touched with gold by the rising sun, and then the lake - Phewa Tal - and the lakeside strip of Pokhara beside it. At the top of the hill was the white dome of the World Peace Pagoda. Its sides hold four golden statues of the Buddha, four events in his life in four different places. The hilltop pagoda offers stunning , unobstructed views of the Annapurna Himal - or at least it would, if the world had not been blanketed in cloud. The clouds shifted fast in the early morning light and we caught glimpses of the snow peaks between the golden mist, but it wasn't until we were descending through thick forest towards the lake that the mountains really showed themselves. If only we had stayed on top a little longer! At the edge of the lake, sparkling in the bright sunshine, Manoj arranged for a man in a colorful canoe to paddle us languidly across the water to Lakeside, where a bus took us back home again.
During the day while the kids are at school, the other volunteers and I can do what we please. Lina, a young girl from Latvia, and I learned how to navigate the buses and together we explored the fringes of Pokhara. Our first destination was to the south: Devi's Falls, supposedly so named because someone named David or Mrs. Davis (depending on who you ask) once fell in and drowned. Upriver, you can see that the water has begun to carve a gorge, but here it cascades heavily under the earth into a cavern of black rock, sending up spray and glimpses of rainbows, and continues on invisible. I don't know where, if ever, it reappears on the surface. Next stop were two caves north of the city, Mahendra Gufa and Bat Cave (I never learned its Nepali name). Mahendra was nothing special: a narrow muddy stone hallway lit by electric bulbs. At the back was a stream sacred to Ganesh and a holy man selling tikka. Bat Cave was a little better because there were no electric lights and no pathway. We brought our own flashlights and climbed over the wet rocks looking for bats on the high ceiling; there was one small cluster of maybe 25 bats that hung motionless in the beams from our lights.
The International Mountain Museum is housed in an impressive building on large grounds, but the museum itself is not so good. The first gallery, on Nepali mountain peoples, had interesting photos and clothing displays, but little to no explanation. I enjoyed the comparative photos of Nepali mountain life and life in the Alps - children playing by a mountain stream, a man plowing with a wooden blade and an ox, women carrying tall baskets of cut stalks. There were hundreds of photos from different mountaineering expeditions, including an impressive display of the Hillary and Norgay ascent of Everest, but many of the other photos were badly faded or damaged. The yeti exhibit was atrociously funny with a model of the yeti that looked like a prop from a B-rated horror film.
On the last day at the orphanage, I bought the kids mangoes and the ingredients for pasta and banana lassis - we had a feast for tiffin before playing Bingo for chocolates. Then - "To the Magic Tree!" said the boys, and off we went on an evening walk. We stepped carefully along the thin walls between the flooded rice paddies to the east of the house, then up a steep hill and around a few houses to the tree - a branching giant sitting in the dip between two hills. The boys told me that if you put your right hand against the bark, bow your head and close your eyes, the gods are sure to hear your prayers. When we descended the other side of the hill, the tree, silhouetted against the setting sun, certainly looked magical. We climbed down into a green valley beginning to fall into the shadow of evening and waded through the water at the edge of the paddies until we reached a small temple on the edge of a swampy lake - the home of a cobra god. A black statue of a snake with red eyes rose out of the water. We raced past the temple and into one extended arm of the city, and as it was getting dark we hurried up the steep steps to another hilltop Hindu temple, where the boys ran in circles ringing the bells, and on to the gumba, the monastery. We reached home in the dark, a bit mud-splattered and bug-bitten but laughing at the speed of our evening tour.
Manoj, the father of the house, acts as the volunteer tour guide, showing us the sites in the form of early morning walks. On the morning of my third day, he took the other volunteer, Josh, and I to a Hindu temple across the city. We walked past a sign with a picture of a cobra on it that Manoj told us meant, "Don't piss here: home of a snake god." We crossed a deep river gorge on a swaying suspension bridge made slippery by the night's rain. We climbed stone steps past men and women selling flower offerings and reached the temple - a courtyard complex atop a hill, though we couldn't see far because the rain that had started again. There were small stone carvings and offerings placed against one large central tree, all covered in red and yellow tikka powder, a table outlined with small unlit lamps, a small temple building with a holy man crouched under his umbrella near the door, a golden cow statue, and a stone corridor below the hilltop for animal sacrifices. My favorite: to one side was a small little guillotine for coconut sacrifices.
Another morning Manoj led us to a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery atop a hill above the house. It was lightly raining as we climbed the steep hill, but inside the compound we forgot the rain. The main building was incredibly carved and painted in brilliant, breathless colors. The silk curtain over the doorway billowed in and out with the sounds of chanting coming from inside. In spite of our nervousess about causing a disturbance, Manoj convinced us to go inside the hall, where the monks, most very young, were sitting in rows and reading chants from traditional books of loose sheaves. Occasionally the monks in the center of the room would play enormous gongs and long low-toned horns that made the whole building with energy. To one side was a shelf of books, and in the center of the back wall was an enormous golden statue of the Buddha surrounded by neon lights flashing red, green, and yellow. The walls and ceiling were painted with scenes of nature and what I suppose were bodhisattvas in jewel-toned colors. Some of the monks stared at us in a very friendly way, and one gestured for us to sit. We perched on a pile of cushions in the corner, absorbing the sounds around us as they mingled with the early morning light.
Our longest morning outing began with a bus ride in the blue predawn light. We could see Machhapuchhre, the mountain called Fishtail that dominates the Pokhara skyline, rising palely, its snows almost purple. At the end of the bus route we climbed hundreds of stone steps up a green hillside until we could look down into the river valley below, where clouds came and went in white misty threads. We climbed up farther above the city, and we could see the shapes of distant mountains through the cloud, some edges touched with gold by the rising sun, and then the lake - Phewa Tal - and the lakeside strip of Pokhara beside it. At the top of the hill was the white dome of the World Peace Pagoda. Its sides hold four golden statues of the Buddha, four events in his life in four different places. The hilltop pagoda offers stunning , unobstructed views of the Annapurna Himal - or at least it would, if the world had not been blanketed in cloud. The clouds shifted fast in the early morning light and we caught glimpses of the snow peaks between the golden mist, but it wasn't until we were descending through thick forest towards the lake that the mountains really showed themselves. If only we had stayed on top a little longer! At the edge of the lake, sparkling in the bright sunshine, Manoj arranged for a man in a colorful canoe to paddle us languidly across the water to Lakeside, where a bus took us back home again.
During the day while the kids are at school, the other volunteers and I can do what we please. Lina, a young girl from Latvia, and I learned how to navigate the buses and together we explored the fringes of Pokhara. Our first destination was to the south: Devi's Falls, supposedly so named because someone named David or Mrs. Davis (depending on who you ask) once fell in and drowned. Upriver, you can see that the water has begun to carve a gorge, but here it cascades heavily under the earth into a cavern of black rock, sending up spray and glimpses of rainbows, and continues on invisible. I don't know where, if ever, it reappears on the surface. Next stop were two caves north of the city, Mahendra Gufa and Bat Cave (I never learned its Nepali name). Mahendra was nothing special: a narrow muddy stone hallway lit by electric bulbs. At the back was a stream sacred to Ganesh and a holy man selling tikka. Bat Cave was a little better because there were no electric lights and no pathway. We brought our own flashlights and climbed over the wet rocks looking for bats on the high ceiling; there was one small cluster of maybe 25 bats that hung motionless in the beams from our lights.
The International Mountain Museum is housed in an impressive building on large grounds, but the museum itself is not so good. The first gallery, on Nepali mountain peoples, had interesting photos and clothing displays, but little to no explanation. I enjoyed the comparative photos of Nepali mountain life and life in the Alps - children playing by a mountain stream, a man plowing with a wooden blade and an ox, women carrying tall baskets of cut stalks. There were hundreds of photos from different mountaineering expeditions, including an impressive display of the Hillary and Norgay ascent of Everest, but many of the other photos were badly faded or damaged. The yeti exhibit was atrociously funny with a model of the yeti that looked like a prop from a B-rated horror film.
On the last day at the orphanage, I bought the kids mangoes and the ingredients for pasta and banana lassis - we had a feast for tiffin before playing Bingo for chocolates. Then - "To the Magic Tree!" said the boys, and off we went on an evening walk. We stepped carefully along the thin walls between the flooded rice paddies to the east of the house, then up a steep hill and around a few houses to the tree - a branching giant sitting in the dip between two hills. The boys told me that if you put your right hand against the bark, bow your head and close your eyes, the gods are sure to hear your prayers. When we descended the other side of the hill, the tree, silhouetted against the setting sun, certainly looked magical. We climbed down into a green valley beginning to fall into the shadow of evening and waded through the water at the edge of the paddies until we reached a small temple on the edge of a swampy lake - the home of a cobra god. A black statue of a snake with red eyes rose out of the water. We raced past the temple and into one extended arm of the city, and as it was getting dark we hurried up the steep steps to another hilltop Hindu temple, where the boys ran in circles ringing the bells, and on to the gumba, the monastery. We reached home in the dark, a bit mud-splattered and bug-bitten but laughing at the speed of our evening tour.
03 August 2010
Tahara Nepal
I'm sure you have been wondering, "What has Nathalie been doing these past two weeks? We're absolutely dying to know." Well, let me tell you. I am currently in Pokhara at a boys' orphanage called Tahara Nepal (check out their website; link on the right), run by a fabulous couple, Manoj and Sarmila. Manoj was a social worker before he and his wife Sarmila decided to start a home for orphaned/at-risk boys four years ago. The oldest is 16 and the youngest is 6, but most of the 11 boys are around 10 years old. It's a very well-run place, modern and comfortable and organized, with a constant stream of volunteers from all over the world playing with the boys, helping a bit around the house, and giving Manoj and Sarmila a break.
It's hard to imagine how Manoj and Sarmila do it. They must act as parents to 11 boys with different and often difficult pasts, run a functioning and stable household for them, and help support the volunteers. I'm not sure where they find the time and energy to go to work, let alone have a moment to themselves. But however they manage, they've really created a family. The boys love each other and look out for each other (as much as any brothers can be expected to). They do well in school, are clean and healthy and well-fed and happy.
Our daily schedule looks like this:
4.30-5 am: Wake up, have tea.
5-8 am: Either take the boys to their karate lesson, or go on a long walk to cultural site with Manoj (more about these later).
8 am: Chores - sweeping the house, carrying water, doing dishes or laundry with the didi Sarita.
8.30 am: Breakfast of dal bhat.
9 am: Walk the kids to the bus stop down the road, and see them off to school.
9.30 am-4 pm: Free time. Walk to Mahendrapul to use the internet or get some food, visit a cultural site, hang out.
4.15 pm: Tea with the boys.
4.30-5.30 pm: Help the boys with their homework (which for me usually means helping the youngest, Shiva, with his multiplication tables and his English spelling).
5.30 pm: More chores.
6-7 pm: Play football or other outside games,or if it is raining play Monopoly, limbo, or a simplified version of Mafia.
7.30pm: Dinner of dal bhat.
8.30 pm: Bed time.
The boys are very friendly and outgoing, and because of the volunteers, they have an amazing understanding of foreign geography and culture. They love to play Bingo, which we do every Saturday and on every volunteers' last day, and they want the us to be involved in every part of their daily life - doing chores with them, walking with them, sitting with them to watch a movie, helping them with homework. Sometimes it gets to the point that they fight over who can hold our hands!
It's hard to imagine how Manoj and Sarmila do it. They must act as parents to 11 boys with different and often difficult pasts, run a functioning and stable household for them, and help support the volunteers. I'm not sure where they find the time and energy to go to work, let alone have a moment to themselves. But however they manage, they've really created a family. The boys love each other and look out for each other (as much as any brothers can be expected to). They do well in school, are clean and healthy and well-fed and happy.
Our daily schedule looks like this:
4.30-5 am: Wake up, have tea.
5-8 am: Either take the boys to their karate lesson, or go on a long walk to cultural site with Manoj (more about these later).
8 am: Chores - sweeping the house, carrying water, doing dishes or laundry with the didi Sarita.
8.30 am: Breakfast of dal bhat.
9 am: Walk the kids to the bus stop down the road, and see them off to school.
9.30 am-4 pm: Free time. Walk to Mahendrapul to use the internet or get some food, visit a cultural site, hang out.
4.15 pm: Tea with the boys.
4.30-5.30 pm: Help the boys with their homework (which for me usually means helping the youngest, Shiva, with his multiplication tables and his English spelling).
5.30 pm: More chores.
6-7 pm: Play football or other outside games,or if it is raining play Monopoly, limbo, or a simplified version of Mafia.
7.30pm: Dinner of dal bhat.
8.30 pm: Bed time.
The boys are very friendly and outgoing, and because of the volunteers, they have an amazing understanding of foreign geography and culture. They love to play Bingo, which we do every Saturday and on every volunteers' last day, and they want the us to be involved in every part of their daily life - doing chores with them, walking with them, sitting with them to watch a movie, helping them with homework. Sometimes it gets to the point that they fight over who can hold our hands!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)