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Day 140-142
So we are in the middle of another great festival, Tihar (Diwali) which is the Hindu festival of lights. The girls are on yet another school holiday so we (I) decided to flee the city for a few days and visit our friend Shankar in his village, just outside Gorkha. Pretty much all of Nepal lives in these 'villages' which are unaccessible by car. They work in the cities for money and send them home to the dire poverty of their families. So the trip to Gorkha involved a 5 hour public bus ride and then another 4 hour local bus ride to the village, Mosel. The first part of the journey was ok, but it was a 12 seater minibus crammed full of 40 happy Nepali's, 8 babies, 2 seeting foreigners and 2 irritable white children. The girls punched each other around the head and body for the first 20 minutes or so to the bemusment of the other passengers - eventually I joined in and punched them both a few times too and some kind of balance was quickly restored. Fern shared her seat with a giant dirty toddler who was being breastfed by his mother at various points during the journey - while still on Fern's lap. Clover had two babies to look after at one point so was extremely happy. We left Kathmandu at 7am but it was 6pm and pitch black before we arrived in Mosel - tired, stressed and hungry. Shankar sensed some tension and took us quickly back to his house, which was only accessible by walking through the jungle in the dark. I was trying to be jolly whilst clutching his 11 year old nephew but I really felt 'this is a huge mistake'. When we saw the house and sleeping arrangements our fears were confounded, but again I tried to look happy and bestowed gifts on the 850 family members who appeared out of one small room. Everybody in the village appears related (and not in a Lanarkshire village-inbreeding-kind of way, I mean they choose to be related - everyone is known as aunt or uncle or brother). I love that sense of family and identitiy in Nepal - they call taxi drivers, waiters, strangers - 'brother' - and actually - 'big brother' if they appear older, and 'liitle brother' if younger. How sweet.
Shankar's mother is probably about 40 but looks 60, and although is a nice, pleasant, hard working woman, she generally looks f**ed off most of the time and I don't blame her. She has had the hardest life of anyone I have ever known. Every day she gets up at 5am (has never had a day off, never had a holiday, never left her village) and makes a mud floor from scratch before cooking for the first of four times that day - over an open fire, sitting on the floor. She is completely uneducated and can't read, write or count. She can barely speak her own language. But Shankar assures me she is happy although I am not sure how - she has had a life of duty and sacrifice - completely devoid of choice and opportunity. But maybe the secret to a happy life is less opportunity - the amount of choices, chances, endless possibilities and freedom have driven me to despair over the last 20 years - always feeling I should be somewhere else, could be doing more, should be living differently. And poverty is relative - and here they are all poor. This family would only know they were poor if there was contrasting wealth, and there just isn't that divide in Nepal. Everybody lives the same way and they are none the wiser. The children and the elderly are fed and loved and live in an idyllic, perfect environment where kids play with chickens and sticks. In fact Rufus whipped out his Ipod to show them some photos and games and they were interested for about 5 minutes - then went back to chasing the goats and drawing in the mud. I adored the toothless old granny who just smiled at me the whole time and permanently tried to engage me in conversation which was totally impossible. So instead we sat and held hands and beamed at each other. We didn't sleep well the first night due to the colossal spiders in the rooms - giant, tarantula type spiders - see photos! Fern screamed the place down, as did Rufus, and some hasty new sleeping arrangements had to be made, involving me and Fern sleeping in the storeroom with baskets of corn and Rufus and Clover braving it out with the spiders. The village is honestly like the one in Braveheart and we had to tell Shankar that the whole place looked liked Scotland 1000 years ago. Stone shacks with thached roofs, no doors or windows, mud floors and only an open flame to cook on. No electricity, no toilet, no running water. What started as an adventure became a massive inconvenience within about 2 hours. And just when I wanted to go to bed, Shankar announced that due to the festival all the villagers were coming to sing and dance in our honour. They duly arrived and appeared to sing the same song and do the same dance whilst banging pots for about 3 hours. I endured the first hour and Rufus politely endured the entire thing. We did smile at the drunk uncle who turned up and joined in the dancing (badly) - its nice to see every family and every village the world over proudly owns an elderly alcoholic man. However, we got through night one - me with a streaming cold - and woke at 7am to see what the day offered. We had tea and marvelled at the view of the Himalayas and the natural beauty of the village and things started to pick up.
Fern and Clover scampered, skipped, foraged, romped and explored (and every other Enid Blyton type word you could think of) through the village and were gone for hours with the other children. They had the most freedom I think they have ever been permitted. The village is crime free, completely safe - just miles and miles of beautiful countryside with the odd house scattered around. Bibek and Laxmi, family members of Shankar showed us round the village first thing in the morning. I have never met two more enthusiastic and patriotic children. However, as they pointed out 'look at this wonderful banana tree, look at this wonderful mountain, look at this wonderful river, look at this wonderful (crap) road...' we started to get extremely irritated and had to tell them to shut up. I only want to marvel at scenery the Scottish way - sullenly and in silence. Clover lost another tooth and tried to explain to the villagers that they all owed her money via the 'tooth fairy'. It was lost in translation. We enjoyed a lunch of goat curry (the one the girls had watched being killed in the morning, had helped carry the meat and bones home and had watched it chopped up and cooked) . I honestly think it was the longest and most glorious day I have ever had.
The best bit, and I don't mean this in an immature way, was the discovery of the secret village life, the double life that Hindu men feel compelled to lead. Shankar is a lovely person and a wonderful son - but he is also a young man. This means no amount of elephant-headed gods will stop him wanting to drink alcohol and snog girls. He is clearly torn between Hindu values and Western culture which is a situation sadly created by his poverty - his family had to send him to the city to earn money but as a result he has discovered music, internet, alcohol, foreign girls, choices, money, restaurants, clothes, bars. He will marry a local girl to please his parents but probably stay in the city, and as a result for him and all the other like him, village life will die out. Now he has seen the other side of life, he realises how harsh life is in the village and doesn't think it is for him. And he will never tell his parents he drinks alcohol. He's very good looking, and it is a strange sight to see him in his trendy jeans and t-shirt but with red tika and flowers smeared all over his face and wearing a marigold garland. He'd be leathered for that in Scotland. We had to drink beer in secret in the local shopkeepers house in case his parents saw him. And we 'gambled' (a game much like Ludo where 10 rupees (about 8p) is passed around) in secret as well, folding the game up quickly when anyone walked by. He's 22! And then, after only one beer (none for me, two for Rufus) he got all giggly and silly and decided, like all of us do, now would be a good time to send a barrage of drunk texts to his ex-girlfriend. And I have to pause here - I asked him, what do you mean ex-girlfriend? Did you have a proper relationship with her? The answer was no. Did you even kiss her? Again, no. So how do you even know she is an ex-girflriend, I persisted. Sounds just like someone you hung around with to me. And he gave the sweetest answer - 'because every time I close my eyes her face goes round and round'. I felt like saying well, stop drinking so much then, that'll stop things going round and round. Anyway, he couldn't get a signal so bravely decided just to go and visit her. And we all trooped off to go to her house, via the beautiful village temple. An hour of walking later, he had sobered up and decided we had best go home. Later on that night however, he got a second wind. Via a series of secret whispers, nods and winks, a gambling evening with hash and local millet wine (apparently it causes blindness in some) was being planned. Rufus agreed to go, just out of politeness really... and I desisted. I ended up going to bed at 7pm with both girls, all of us feeling exhausted but happy. Rufus told me the next day he had returned home at 11pm, hadn't touched the millet wine but had enjoyed some cards and a few beers. It had obviously been too much for Shanker who drank everything available, went to the ex-girlfriends house (who he was by now just referring to as 'girlfriend') and didn't return home till 6am. Am pretty sure nothing happened though, he is honestly a good Hindu boy. I made him list the worst things he could do to his family (I reeled off my own list to help him think). In order they are - 1) Be gay 2) Marry a lower caste girl 3) Marry a foreigner 4) Drink alcohol. Now this boy is loved and worshipped and respected by his family but he admits they would reject him totally if he did any of the above. And it made me think - I am pretty sure there is nothing I could do that would make my parents disown me (and I would know, I've tried 'em all). But they certainly don't worship me on a daily basis, they barely tolerate me - but they certainly wouldn't completely reject me. It's a funny thing.
The girls had their own tika ceremonies with new friends, smearing paste on each others faces and exchanging money and gifts. This means they are now honorary family members and I have two new daughters. Shankar explained that since we are all family, he is now my brother, and if Fern and Clover ever get married, we must invite all their Nepali family now too. What, all 850 of them? I thought. They'll never afford the airfares.
In a desperate quest to get back to Kathmandu to make it for our friends birthday party which we had organised and paid for, we hatched a cunning plan. I would come back early in the morning on our friend Gopal's motorbike and Rufus would follow with the girls by public bus. Rufus was not too pleased and would much rather have had my plan than his - but I only need to arch one eyebrow and say the word 'Everest' and he backs down. Clover was furious at not being allowed to come with me but Fern didn't mind when she realised she wouldn't be able to read her book on the back of the bike. So Gopal turned up at 6am to whisk me back to Kathmandu. Only a few minutes into the journey he confessed to having also been very drunk last night on the millet wine and had enjoyed much 'gambling and marajuana'. I said that sounded wonderful but could he go a bit slower; I held on a bit tighter. He then, whilst going round a hairpin bend through what can only be described as rubble, decided to use the moment to show me how he had killed a snake with his bare hands. Unfortunately this involved an impression of the snake with one hand (a black hooded cobra, ready to strike) and him killing it with the other hand. I swear at one stage both his hands were off the handlebars. I shrieked 'yes you were very brave, now please hold on and keep your eyes on the road'. It was a five hour journey and my bum was completely numb and my knuckles pure white but I never complained once, it was the most fabulous thing I have ever done. We passed through the most beautiful countryside and scenery I have ever had the pleasure to witness and for a few hours, I swear I felt something very unusual and peculiar. Happy.
Turned out Fern, Clover and Rufus had to sit on the roof of the bus from Mosel to Gorkha so in terms of who had the most fun journey, they won.
- comments
Shankar Dhakal I m really happy to see this blog about me kethya. i m really pleased with you. thank you regards to all of u.