The past month has been taken up with festivals. Desain, a two-week event at the end of
October, is the most important in the Nepalese calendar. A celebration of the warrior goddess Durga,
it is the occasion for family rituals and reunions. Our mit has seven children and 17
grandchildren and most of them (along with numerous in-laws and other extended
kin) came to Dharapaani.
On the eighth day of Desain, each family sacrifices a goat. Because of the large number of family, we did
two. Meat is eaten only occasionally,
and the glut of goat meat added to the festive spirit.
The tenth day of Desain is the most significant, when people
receive tika from their senior male relative. Mit being a patriarch of his extended
family, a flood of people came for his blessing. At times it seemed like we are related to
half the population of Nepal. One of the
most pleasing moments was the exchange of tika between Harvey and mit,
a reaffirmation of their relationship.
Last week, mit sponsored a Narayan puja (worship)
in honor of his late wife. Preparations took
several days and included sprucing up the yard, making scores of flower garlands, the
construction of a temple made from flowers, and cooking for the 200+ people who
showed up for a night of worship, dancing, and revelry. At 3:00 a.m. we set off for a temple two
miles away, did puja, ate breakfast and then walked back, wrapping up at
10:00. Fortunately, we did not have to
teach that next day.
Members of the Damai caste provided the music and played for
12 hours with only intermittent breaks.
The other holiday we observed (sort of) was Halloween. That afternoon we gave a talk and showed
photos to the teachers in our school. It
was interesting that most of their discussion and questions focused on American
beliefs about ghosts and witches, both of which are an active presence in
village life here. In the evening we taught
the kids living around us to say “trick or treat” and handed out candy. It was very modest as Halloweens go, but a
nice reminder of home.
This coming week is the five-day Tihar festival. Back in our anthropologist days, we would
have looked forward to learning more about the ritual cycle, the social construction
of meaning, blah blah blah. Instead, we are
taking off to Pokhara for a few days of R&R and being able to drink beer
without people counting the number of empty bottles.
In other news: The
weather has turned markedly colder…. It
is rice-cutting season, which means that school attendance is even spottier
than usual. We will have more to say
about teaching in a future blog…. Peeps
the chicken has passed on, dying of an ailment that had been going around the
chicken community. Malinda found it
amazing that a chicken could be so responsive and smart. RIP Peeps…. Malinda is befriending two new kittens that
live in our garden. We hope to bring at
least one of them indoors soon since the colder weather has brought an
infestation of mice inside the house.

Our house (the white one), with part of the Annapurna range in
the background.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteWe're just back from Spain...I missed your October blog. We have had experience with built-to-order cabinets not fitting but getting used to them anyhow...Never had a goat slaughtered in the shower...Sorry about Peeps....I hope the kittens do better than Peeps......Keep warm!....Quinn
November 11, 2012 3:03 PM