Amazing technology, Amazing bureaucracy

Yes! We FINALLY have our own internet connection as of today! Not only one, but two, one for each cellphone! We can surf the internet, send email, and even attempt at skype from our own place. Yes, it's slow, but we are NOT complaining!

Some things which we consider basic necessities to life, such as having a bank account, a phone subscription, gas for cooking, etc. can't be accessed without proper documentation. That means that people with less resources (along with us foreigners) have difficulty accessing these things. (The whole process is a little too complicated to write it all here...) I can't get into details here, but God provided for us in surprising ways!

The Home-Stay Program

We spent the last two weeks in two separate Nepali homes. The two families are related to each other so it was easy to go from one house to the other to visit. Here are some highlights, challenges, and other interesting things I learned.

Highlights:

• Sharing lots of laughters with my family
• Talking in Nepali, watching Hindi & Nepali TV shows together, drinking lots of tea
• Reading Luke 12: 22-29 with my two sisters, as we talked about Jesus. One sister said she's not sure if there really is a God, but when she thinks about the birds in the air and how they survive, she wonders if there is a God. This led to reading the Luke passage together.
• Sharing my family's conversion story of turning from Buddhism to Jesus and challenging them that they too can call on the name of Jesus when they find themselves in need.

Challenges:

• Eating Nepali food two times a day (Nepalese only have 2 meals a day), especially when the majority of your plate is filled with rice, daal, and a small side of vegetables cooked with lots of oil.
• Sleeping on an extra hard bed--I don't remember having one good night of sleep...I was always yawning in class.
• Having to wait a week before a shower because there was no hot water and I felt bad boiling a lot of hot water for a bath. But, I did wash my hair, which makes a whole world of difference. :)
• Navigating through some cultural subtleties with limited language ability

What I learned:

Some interesting things about Hinduism & daily rituals involved in worship of their gods (fasting, washing, cleanliness & uncleanliness, etc.)

Every Sat. they prepare an array of food and small items for puja (worship) and to give to the priest.

• about the youth culture in Nepal & top Hindi stars
• a Nepali song & dance
• that saving face is important here.
• that there is no God like our God. The longer I am here, the more I am convinced that people desperately need to hear about Jesus and we must tell them.
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

“Love but Not Honor”

We have been seeing how cultural values are reflected in language as we learn Nepali. Nepali conjugates its verbs according to the amount of respect paid to the subject. There are four (at least that we know of) levels of respect, each with it’s own conjugation. The lowest form is used for animals, sometimes with children, and with someone you want to insult. The middle form is used to address children, close friends, and family members of lower position. Today, we were learning the middle form of “you” for imperatives, and it led to an interesting discussion with our teacher.

In Nepali husbands address their wives using the middle form, but wives are required to use the high form with their husbands. I shared with Jyoti that this is not to my liking because men and women are equals – that both should show respect to one another. She agreed, but shared that this is part of the culture. She ended her explanation with the familiar one-liner, “Ke garne?” “What is one to do?” Then, she said something really interesting that caught my attention. She said, “In Nepal, the husbands have to love their wives, but they do not need to respect [honor] them.” An interesting statement, I thought. “Is it possible to love without honoring?"

She explained that a lot of the husband and wife social structure is based on Hinduism. In Hinduism, she explained, the husband is like a god to wife, and the wife is supposed to serve the husband. Paul commented that it is interesting how Hinduism, created by men (males), on this level (and many others) codifies what is advantageous to its creators. I shared how I think both husband and wife should serve each other. She agreed, and went on to share how she feels that both should be serving, not just one.

Paul often gets corrected by Nepalese men when he addresses me in the high form. We’re in discussion about whether he should explain why he is using the high form with me, or whether he should just accept the correction in the current situation. Our sense is that people aren’t correcting Paul’s honoring of me, they are just correcting his grammar. That is how deeply the pattern is ingrained in the culture – it is a grammatical error to address one’s wife in the high form!

10/11/06 Birthday Apple Samosa

Today, my dear husband turned ?! Nine years ago, when we met, he was only 31 years old. How quickly time flies….
Happy Birthday, Paul!

Paul loves apple pies, but we couldn’t make apple pie this year. As one would say in Nepali, “Oven chhaina, ke garne?” (We have no oven; what can one do?) So, our didi and I made apple samosas (like apple turnovers). With lots of cinnamon, sugar, and great local apples, apple samosa was a hit with my husband!

Trekking in the Himalayas

Our language class was not in session in celebration of the biggest Hindu festival (Dashain), so we decided to go trekking up to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) at 13,550 feet. The scenery was picturesque, the people we met along the road interesting, and had plenty of Korean food! Read on if you're curious...

Day 1 (Nayapul to Ghandruk)
We started our trek in Nayapul with our guide/porter Tulasi. Our destination: Ghandruk, a traditional Gurung village nestled in the steep hills of the Himalayas. (The Gurungs are one of many ethnic groups in Nepal. Supposedly, I look like them.) This village is the largest and the oldest village in the Modi Khola valley.
It was a tough day—mostly uphill, climbing 3,500 stairs. As we were taking a break in Salibazaar, I told Tulasi (in Nepali) that I am trekking up the hills for my husband. He thought that was funny, but it was true! (As you can see in the picture, I do not look very happy!) This trekking trip was Paul’s 40th birthday present. There were a few moments when I had to remind myself that I am doing this for Paul. What a wife! We also had to pay a fee to the Maoists to enter their “territory.” They even gave us a receipt, with some information.

We met a Korean group (mostly consisting of professors) heading up to ABC like us. Their porters carried up Korean food and had a cook to cook Korean food for them! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them with Korean food…

Day 2 (Ghandruk to Chhomrong)
Chhomrong is the last major village before entering the Annapurna Sanctuary. Mainly corn and millet are grown here, and we saw lots of rice paddies on the way. We met some Finns and Israelis. I had an interesting conversation with two Israeli men about why we’re in Nepal. He asked me why am I leaving Nepal for India when there are so many people to convert here… I didn’t know how to answer this, except that our first contact is in India, but that we may come back to Nepal some day. It’s an interesting question… perhaps, God will send FECAI workers to Nepal! I learned that the Jews in Israel call Christians “Nazarines,” because Jesus was from Nazareth. He also asked a lot about whether Protestant “priests” (pastors) can marry. He seemed to really disdain the idea of celibacy! (He’s married with a child.) We got to see a little bit of Annapurna South and Machhapucchre.

Day 3 (Chhomrong to Deurali)
This was a killer day! We walked 10 hours and had about 8,000 feet of elevation gain! Our feet were so sore by the end of the day. Our original plan was to get to Himalaya, which is about 2 hours below Deurali, but when we got there, we found out that a couple of Korean groups had booked all the guest houses! They had sent someone way ahead of everyone and had booked it by 10 am that morning. We had no other choice, but to keep walking. When we finally arrived, we celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary by soaking our sore feet in two buckets of hot water!

We also met a South African couple, the same Israeli guys, and two guys from Spain. Paul, who is (or used to be) quite good in Spanish could not speak a word of Spanish that night! His Spanish got replaced with Nepali. Only Nepali would come out of his mouth. He couldn’t even remember how to say, “What is your name?” in Spanish. Spanish would only come out when he didn’t know a specific word in Nepali. What an experience!

Day 4 (Deurali to Machhapucchre Base Camp)
Thank God we only had to walk about 2 hours! We could have gone up to ABC, but we decided to stay in MBC, thinking that all the Korean groups would end up in ABC. We later found out that all the Korean groups were staying at MBC, but we were able to get a room!

I met a Korean businessman who came up to go trekking on a short notice because he had not realized that it was Dashain time, the biggest Hindu festival time, and many offices and businesses were closed. He kindly shared Korean cup of noodles with me! I also met his guide who spoke some Korean, and the guest house owner also spoke some Korean. It was lots of fun to be able to understand 3 different languages simultaneously! I met another Korean woman who shared with me Kimchee stew with mackerel! Yummy!! I had no idea that Koreans were really into trekking, but from what these people told me, it’s really popular. I remember hiking a lot with dad when I was a kid. Basically, I learned that Korea has lots of mountains, and hiking is what people do for recreational activities! I got a quick lesson in Korean geography, culture, and hobbies!

Of course, I can’t forget to mention the views! Quite spectacular. A picture is worth a thousand words. So, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!
Day 5 (M.B.C. to Annapurna Base Camp)
Stunning, marvelous, gorgeous, majestic, absolutely beautiful! Never seen anything like it. As I was hiking up, I was overwhelmed by its beauty, and couldn't help but to sing praises to our creator! 360 degrees—surrounded by white shimmering peaks. It was incredible! It was worth the hard work to get there, with headaches, colds (Paul) and all. Paul is pretty sensitive to the altitude, and was feeling a little sick going up, but he made it.

More Koreans….this time, Paul was surrounded by Koreans and Nepalese. Our hotel was occupied by Koreans, and all their porters and guides. But, we got to take a bite of their feast—kimchee stew and more kimchee!! There was a group of nine ranging in age from 23 to 50+ who had come to Nepal to do volunteer work for 2 years. It was fun to interact with them, although darn Koreans! They can be sooo loud!! :)

Day 6 (A.B.C. to Chhomrong)
It took us 4 days to get to ABC from Chhomrong, but we decided that we want to get to Chhomrong in one day! Tusali must have thought we were absolutely crazy, and in some ways, we were! We walked for over 10 hours, and the last hour of the trek was spent climbing over 2000 stairs! We lost over 8,600 ft of elevation – and then climbed back up 2,200 ft. We arrived at our guest house at 6:45pm, just before it became pitch black and started raining hard.

Day 7 (Chhomrong to Pothani)
We decided to take a different route back home, so that we could do a loop. Weather permitting, we were hoping to see Machhapucchre from another angle. We met 3 Korean families heading to ABC with small children. One was being carried in a baby carrier by a porter. They had lived in Kathmandu for over 10 years. They seemed quite surprised when I spoke to them in Korean, and they asked me how I learned to speak Korean. I told them, I’m one of them! I surprised a few people when they realized that I was Korean. One man said, I was carrying a Japanese bag, so he assumed I was Japanese or from Hong Kong! Anyway, you can usually tell if someone is Korean, Chinese, etc. by what they wear and how they carry themselves….I think people were confused because I was with a white man, spoke some Nepali, and carried non-Korean looking bag!

We walked another 10 hours today. Not as difficult, but still hard. The trails were quite slippery and we had few small falls. It was quite eerie to walk in the fog… I made sure that my imagination didn’t go too far.

Day 8 (Pothani to Pheri)
It only took us 3 hours, and we were back at our taxi by 11am! There were some leeches along the way that we had to be cautious of…. Those leeches are fast, and they’re hard to get rid of! It was a cloudy day, so we didn’t get to see any spectacular views, but it was cool. It would have been nice, but we also didn’t mind walking in shade rather than in the hot sun!

I wish I can add more pictures to capture all that we saw and experienced, but it's difficult to do it with a dial up, and there's a limit to how much I can post. Hopefully, this gave you a little taste of our adventure!

9/18/06 "Mad Driver Sought by Police..."

Not here in Nepal!

Everything started off smoothly. Our taxi driver called us at 3am to confirm our need for a taxi and he was here by 3:30am. For being up so early, he seemed to be in a cheerful mood. On our way to the bus park, we saw a number of people walking to catch their bus. I hoped they weren’t trying to get on the 4am bus because they would never make it on time.

The bus ride from Pokhara to Kâkarbhitta normally takes about 14-15 hours, so we had prepared ourselves for a long ride. We packed some boiled eggs, bread, and cake that our didi had prepared for us. The last time Paul ate something on the road, he ended up with the runs, so we decided that it was in our best interest if we just stuck to our sacked meal. The bus attendant gave us the best seats at the front so Paul had lots of leg room for his “long” legs. Also, we had not slept much the night before, so we figured we could snooze on the bus, and help shorten our trip a bit. However, we quickly learned that our bus driver also planned to shorten the long drive. What should have been a 14-15 hour bus journey, he managed to shorten it to 12 hours, including the lunch and potty breaks!

I didn’t know that a bus, the size of a Greyhound, can maneuver in and out between cars, cows, fruit stands, and people so quickly. I must have thought a dozen times or more, “He’s going to kill someone or something!” And, there were a few close calls, WAY too close for my comfort! I must have had multiple heart attacks where I thought we were going to die from head on collisions. The whole 12 hours, our driver honked every 2 seconds, letting everyone know that he’s coming, so get out of the way! We dodged on coming trucks, motorcycles, cows, goats, and people, but mostly other people dodged us! What was most incredible for me was that even when he saw an on coming traffic, he barely slowed down. Instead, he would lean on the air horn and the mélange of oncoming traffic, animals, pedestrians, bicycles, and carts would part like the Red Sea. Well, not quite like the Red Sea – it parted before the Israelites started across. We would start into the crowd if the driver thought that people had enough time to get out of the way! He would predict the trajectory of ambling cows and buffalos, sometimes heading right for them, guessing that they would be four feet farther on by the time the bus arrived where the cow had been. If he was a little wrong, he dodged and swerved. I am still amazed that the driver managed to get to our destination without hitting, killing, or being hit by anyone. Many prayers were prayed in desperation, but Paul’s leg is still recovering from by fingernails digging into his thigh. I had different scenarios running through my mind; the worst one being our bus being burned by angry bystanders who witnessed the mad driver hitting a child.

To our amazement, we arrived with no glitch, not even a scratch, or a speeding ticket! I think maybe I would prefer to ride the night bus next time….at least, I’ll be asleep and it’d be too dark to know what’s outside! Hmmm…on a second thought, maybe I’ll just fly! :)

9/7/06 Bus Strike “Ke garne?”

There seems to be some form of strike or protest every few days here. Sometimes, we’re not even clear about why the strike is happening—not everything makes sense for us. We’re finding that even for the folks here, they don’t quite understand the reasons behind the strikes, except that it is one way in which people’s voices are heard. We know something is about to happen or has happened when we see police and army officers roaming the streets. One morning, we noticed burned tires in the middle of the market area, and realized that there was a big protest in the market the evening before.

Today, we learned that the transportation network in Pokhara came to a halt because there was an injury accident, and in anger, the bystanders burned the truck. Originally, we heard that it was because the people thought the truck driver was trying to kill the person who was hit. It was quite puzzling to us until we talked with folks more. We learned that here, when a person is accidentally hit, the driver must pay for all the fees for hospitalization, loss of work, etc. But, if a person dies at the scene, the driver only has to pay a fee for the death. Hence, what we gathered is that it is more beneficial for the driver to “finish the job” if he accidentally hits someone. This helped us to understand a little bit more why the crowd thought the truck driver would want to kill a pedestrian. In any case, buses and taxis stopped running today in protest. The roads were blocked so private cars couldn’t run either. Our didi has to walk an hour to get to her house. Everyone has to walk to work for the next two days while they try to settle this matter. As our teacher said yesterday, it seems that for one person’s mistake, the citizens of a city are inconvenienced and affected…. People are definitely frustrated with the system, but often the conversation ends with the words, “Ke garne?,” which means, “What can one do?” No one knows, but life goes on anyway.