Rightward and Leftward I Go

Final Update (a little late, yes)

bokserb — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:06:00 GMT

Tuesday 11/11

All in all, a good day. We started the day in Child Club playing GaGa (renamed tarkari bare, vegetable garden), which the children enjoyed, and then had the children read what they had “researched” about their births. Not all the children had exactly properly done this, but from what I could understand it was interesting nonetheless. We then had a good yoga session, ate, and went off to another organic pesticide demonstration. While again not all the women were completely prepared, this women's group was great to work with – they all eagerly helped with the demonstration, those that were well prepared had brought a lot of the needed plants, and they showered us with khaja, snacks. After the first demonstration we were given radishes, a big plate of popped corn and soybeans, very tasty buffalo milk, and buffalo whey (sort of liquid yogurt). Two other women later offered us khaja but we had no time as we needed to head towards Kshamawati school. At the school I worked mostly on the wheat experiment plot, coordinating seeding wheat.

Wednesday 11/12

A crazy day. We needed to leave today because our mid-program group trip to Gorkha begins tomorrow. We all packed up and got ready for the bus which usually comes around 8 AM but didn't come until 9. As the bus was older and in bad shape, the ride was especially uncomfortable today. Then, after about four hours, the bus pulled to a halt by the river at Suketa, where we had been stuck for hours in a bhanda (strike) a few weeks before. This time the bhanda was being held by the family of someone who had died in a motorcycle accident the week before and in the process had had a lot of money stolen. We are beginning to realize that the bhandas are sort of the Nepali version of lawsuits. In the absence of a legal or criminal justice system where these kinds of problems could be properly dealt with, people feel like the only way to cause the powers that be to act is by halting traffic or commerce.

I was treated to a glimpse of the Nepali mentality when, asked how long we might be halted, someone replied, 'Oh, not too long, only about two hours.' Either way, I was happy for a break from an unpleasant bus ride and a swim in the river. While swimming in the river, the nine of us had already attracted quite a crowd of stranded Nepalis interested in what the foreigners were doing. We then proceeded to attract even more attention by performing – a number of times, until we got it right – Elvis Presley's “Falling for You,”in front of a camera, to be sent as a present to Galias new nephew Elvis. Yet after this the bhanda started to get tedious. Around 4 PM we heard that the road would not be opening today and the bus was going to drive back to another town for dinner and to wait the night until the road opened. We decided instead to take all our bags and walk the 6 km until the end of the bhanda (the road was blocked at two points). After about an hour and a half we were tired out from the walk and not yet near the end, but to our luck the road did open and we were picked up by a bus. Yet as if this wasn't enough, five minutes later our bus hit into another bus, breaking its windshield. Luckily no one was hurt and we continued the rest of the way with a broken windshield. We were happy when we finally arrived home in Kathmandu.

Thursday 11/13

Despite arriving home late the night before, the group left for Gorkha at 6 AM. At 9:30 we arrived at a beautiful river side where we ate breakfast, hung out, and swam. This was followed by a talk by Leora about the 20^th century French-Jewish philosopher Levinas and his focus on ethics being based on the encounter with 'the other.' For a tactile experience of this idea, we followed the talk by pairing up and drawing representational portraits of each other. We had a great lunch at a little roadside vegetarian restaurant, followed by more relaxing by the river. For the rest of the ride uphill to the town of Gorkha Bazaar, the entire group packed up on the top of a public bus and was treated to a beautiful view of hills, valleys, mountains, and rivers.

Friday 11/14

We had arrived yesterday after dark, so when we woke up to see the landscape for the first time we were amazed. Gorkha Bazaar sits above a number of hills and valleys, and in the morning all the valleys were full of fog. Our wonder was matched when, walking up a hill, we were treated to a large view of Mt.Ganesh, which seemed to be floating in the sky, next to a few other mountains. On the hill we played some interesting theater games with our counselor Yotam and then continued up to the top fo the hill, where there is a palace and temple. The palace is of historical significance because Pirthivi Shah, the king of Gorkha, who lived in the palace, conquered the rest of Nepal and thus was the first king of Nepal.

Seeing Gorkha, the home of Nepal's first ruling dynasty, was very interesting to me because there is no capital city to speak of. Gorkha Bazaar is a small town and the rest of the district is made up of villages. I had expected the home of the first dyansty to be a major city. Instead, it was a well-established village kingdom. Of course, this befits Nepal, a country that, while experiencing rapid urbanization, remains overwhelmingly rural.

Shabbat 11/15 to Saturday 11/16

Shabbat started with a nice group Kabbalat Shabbat service and a good meal. During the day most of the group left on a walk towards a river, while I and two others stayed in the hotel to rest, read, and eat. Yet in the afternoon we too went for a short walk in the area and, after following the sound of music, soon found ourselves at a lively vegetarian picnic, where a number of local women coaxed us to dance (which greatly entertained them), showered us with tikka (the red powder placed on the forehead, in this context as a sign of respect), and fed us dhal bhaat. A number of women from this group walked with us back to our hotel. We were really happy from this experience, a real expression of the hospitality and friendliness of Nepalis.

After Shabbat the group began a number of activities meant to inspire some soul-searching now that we have passed the midpoint of the program. In the first activity we all had a chance to write anonymously to each of the group members behaviors that we would encourage her to start and those that we would like her to continue.

Sunday 11/17

The soul-searching activities continued – first we all had a chance to write and share a personal and a project-oriented goal for the rest of the time, and then each project group sat with another group to discuss our projects and share ideas. All of these activities felt very helpful though it made me sad to realize how little time is left in the program.

Monday 11/18

A somewhat crazy beginning of the day. All the village volunteers left in the morning for the department of immigration to renew our visas. On the way, the group's two dogs started walking with us, and instead of bringing them back in the yard as we normally do, we let them keep walking, as they had been outside before and returned home alone. Yet on the way a micro-bus ran over our dog Kalu and after a frantic minute he was dead. Mysteriously, a man with a sack quickly came and took the dead dog away and we were left with only our shock.

When we arrived at the department of immigration, we were greeted by a man who first told us that we would need 12,000 Rs (about $150) to renew our visas, and then, after telling us he would show us where we could find an ATM to take out all that money, escorted us to a number of waiting taxi drivers who wanted to drive us (for a high price) the “half hour walk” to the nearest ATM. We refused this “offer” and proceeded to find an ATM within a five minute walk. However, this ATM was broken, and the next ATM, five minutes away, was also broken. We waited for it to be fixed and took out money, only to return to the office and find out that we didn't really need it, since the actual clerks (and not the con artist at the door) asked us for much less money. Yet even the official bureacracy involved waiting on line and then being told to return to pick up the visa two hours later.

Tuesday 11/19

We had a mostly pleasant ride on the 6AM bus, arriving around 1 PM despite 45 minutes stopped for repairs. Especially as a few of us were a bit sick, when we arrived we all noticed how much colder it had gotten over the weekend (it's still warm when the sun is out, but never hot). The afternoon was spent resting, talking, and watching the movie Hancock on my computer. Watching the movie reminded me of how different Western cities like Los Angeles are from what I have gotten used to in Suspa and Kathmandu. I am due for culture shock when I return to the US.

Today was the first day of a nightly literacy and accounting training for all members of the local ETC-organized womens' groups, including our host mother Subarna Laxmi, which will run for the next few months. In an efficient use of manpower, ETC asked each of the womens groups in the area to nominate one more literate group member or friend to attend its teacher training course and then lead this training. As almost all of the village women (and many of the men) are illiterate, they are very excited for this training. While it may greatly empower them, it is unclear how much it will lead them to start reading for pleasure. The Thami ethnic group of which most villagers are members has a strictly oral culture and religion in which literacy was never a part and is not at all necessary. It is the women, who attended school less and thus spent more time with their parents instead of being integrated into the literate Nepali culture, who have more maintained Thami culture and language. The switch to a literacy-based culture will not come easy. However, their daughters, who almost all attend school with the boys, may end up as poorer bearers of Thami culture.

Wednesday 11/20

We had a fun child club meeting, including some interesting responses to the weekend's research assignment of how things had changed in the village over recent decades. We learned that: the road (and with it access to buses and ambulances; before people would walk at least an hour to town) came only twelve years ago; electricity came sometime in the last decade (before only those with enough money for kerosene lamps had light after dark); widespread literacy and school attendance are very new (the children of the village are the first generation widely attending school and learning to read); growing a lot of vegetables is recent (before this people grew almost only starches – rice, millet, wheat, and potatoes). After this reading the children drew portraits of each other which were very good.

Because I was feeling a bit sick, I stopped on the way uphill to work and rested for a while at a beautiful spot in the sunlight before returning home to rest the rest of the day. By the evening I was feeling better.

Thursday 11/21

Another fun child club. Children read their assignent of what they liked in the village, a number mentioning the natural beauty and the earth; later they worked on a map of the village. After breakfast we started walking high up to the Lamanagi village. Our organic pesticide preparation was cut short and the remainder rescheduled as no member of the local womens' group had the necessary plastic sheeting. This was just our luck, as we were able to observe the day-long festivities at the Lamanagi school called in honor a recently-deceased Japanese donor. We watched some very well-done dances prepared by children from all over the area and a few of us added our own dance performance. The day concluded with more work with the agriculture class in the Kshamawati school garden, where we preapred a bed and seeded vegetables.

Friday 11/22

We spent most of the day preparing a great Shabbat meal including a special dessert for Itamar's birthday, village-style Tiramisu.

Shabbat Friday night and Saturday 11/23

A great meal. Last Sunday we built a mud oven and, with the help of yeast purchased in Kathmandu, tonight we tasted its first success (after a previous failed attempt), tasty challah bread.

With the change of the weather most of the group was sick for some part of this week, as well as the youngest and eldest daughters of our host family. During the week we observed the family's approach to illness. First, they consult with the village guru, a combination spiritual and natural healer, and if that doesn't help, they seek the help of Western medicine. It seems that the main work of the guru is to help people possessed of spirits of the dead. After he found no dead spirit in the youngest daughter, the family brought her to the local health post for care. When the eldest daughter had been ill for three days, the guru came Thursday night, checked her pulse and blood pressure, announced that she was possessed by a dead person (who was eating out of her body), and performed a ritual with incense and water to rid her of the dead person. The family told us that if she was still feeling sick the next day, they would take her to the hospital. But by the next day she was better, so they assumed the guru's treatment worked and the hospital was unnecessary.

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Sunday 11/24 to Wednesday 11/26

This week we had more successful work with the child club, building organic pesticide, and in the Kshamawati school in the afternoon. I remember a conversation I had with the school principal about how the school disposes of plastic wrappers, a major issue in the village. Since the local road was built about eight years ago, local stores sell many goods wrapped in plastic – mostly junk food such as noodle soup mixes, snacks, and candy bars, but also oil and salt – but there is no systematic collection of these wrappers, nor do people show much awareness of the need to collect them. Plastic wrappers litter the fields and paths of the village, and as they do not decompose, they end up in the ground harming the soil. Stores and families dispose of the plastic wrappers lying around their areas by burning them, which pollutes the air with harmful chemicals. I asked Makunda Sir, the Kshamawati school principal, how the school disposes of the plastic wrappers on its grounds, and he explained to me that it burns the wrappers, as they pose a major threat to the soil, and while burning them harms the air, the air is so clear here that it is not currently a big problem. Burying the wrappers, he explained, would be too difficult. Yet he also suggested that in the future as the air got worse burning the wrappers would become more problematic and they would need to come up with another solution. Similar problems occur in Kathmandu – while some garbage is placed in landfill, much is dumped in the polluted Bagmati river or burned. Yet given how polluting landfills are, I don't see collection and landfilling as the solution to the problem of what to do with plastic waste. In my opinion, it is a problem with no solution; plastic wrappers do not decompose and cannot be recycled. Seeing them lying around in Suspa, where I cannot put them out of my sight, has instilled in me the view that we need to stop producing them.

It is interesting the note how much this is a problem borne of the integration with the national economy brought by the creation of the road eight years ago – before the road, plastic wrapped items were inaccessible. It is a good example of how integration with a wider economy involves losing some control such that the economy may become less sensitive to local needs and concerns; our host mother Subarna Laxmi has said that she is frustrated about the plastic wrappers which pollute her fields and would like products to no longer be sold in plastic wrappers but because she doesn't know the heads of the companies she can't tell them. This problem is also linked with examples of other problems coming from economic integration – most of the food sold in plastic wrappers is unhealthy junk food and its purchase provides little to no benefit to the local economy (even the shopkeepers, who are already from high castes and relatively well off, are prevented from taking a profit by a government-set maximum retail price).

A recent newspaper article stated that the local district of Dolakha plans, among other 'eco-friendly steps,' to discourage the purchase of items wrapped in plastic, but I am pessimistic about the success of such a limited step. Instead, I am encouraged by hearing about the initiative of the Indian region of Ladakh to outlaw plastic wrappers. According to our group member Barak, who visited Ladakh, items are instead wrapped in paper or locally made materials. In addition to mitigating the pollution of plastic wrappers, this law may also be encouraging the local economy in that it supports the manufacture of locally made materials and outlaws goods from outside which have not been made with sensitivity to local concerns. Another option could be a national law requiring manufacturers to take responsibility for any non-compostable waste coming from their products. This kind of system works with soda bottles in Nepal and India – after the soda is consumed, the bottle is returned and refilled to be sold again. This option may be less helpful in addressing the social issues involved.

Thursday 11/27 to Sunday 11/30

After a pleasant bus ride we returned to Kathmandu for a group-led seminar without the staff. The seminar included a creative/introspective writing workshop, challah bread making, a voice workshop, and two social activities, as well as a discussion led by the volunteers in Suspa about the idea and practice of “development” in the context of articles we read and our experience here. The discussion touched on many of the problematic aspects of development, especially our discomfort with bringing the less-industrialized world into a Western lifestyle which is deeply problematic and impossible, not to mention unsustainable, in terms of resource use. We argued for some time over whether our work in Suspa is in fact leading to a different, better end or whether despite all our concerns and efforts it is leading to the same problematic and impossible point. We were provided further food for thought on this issue Sunday night when the group watched the film Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh about the remote Indian region of Ladakh (presented by Barak, who bought the film while visiting Ladakh). The film shows how for hundreds of years Ladakhis have thrived healthfully in harsh ecological conditions and maintained a rich culture and strong community and family ties, yet in recent years integration with the Indian and global economies has in many ways threatened and harmed all of this, especially in the capital of Leh. For example, the entry of cheap imported grain has put local farmers out of business and made people vulnerable to faraway price fluctuations; people studying in school or working as migrant laborers has left women alone to work in the home and fields and disentangled people's willingness to help each other. The film provided a firmer expression to many things I see in Suspa but also instilled in me the importance of making sure Suspa changes in the right ways and not the wrong ways. As opposed to Ladakh, which seemingly lived in harmony until very recently, Suspa's problems began about two hundred years ago with the arrival of Brahmins who attained control over the majority of the land. Since then Suspa's previous residents – mostly the Thami ethnic group – have not been self-sufficient on their land and have needed to purchase food from outside. Our work is thus not breaking harmony but trying to fix a situation that has been broken for a long time.

Another interesting point in this weekend was the visit of an Israeli trekking group to our house. When I heard that their visit with us was the only part of their trip not dedicated to trekking, I was shocked. I think my time here as a foreigner actually living among Nepalis has changed my view of tourism; I don't think I could ever travel again without spending a lot of the trip learning how local people live.

Monday December 1 to Thursday December 4

The week began in a rather unusual way. On Saturday, two buses driving through the area were racing each other when one sped off the road in the village of Damarang in Suspa (a fifteen minute walk from where we live) and fell downhill about fifty meters. Of the three people killed and many injured, a large number were from the area, and in response the local residents closed the road by placing trees across it at a number of places, with the demand that the bus companies stop scheduling buses at the same time. Because of the strike, our bus from Kathmandu stopped at the town of Dolakha and we had to walk with our bags an hour to our house. In the course of the week, a car attempting to cross the roadblock was vandalized by Suspa residents, leading to the arrest of four locals. When a number of people went to speak to the police, another four were arrested. Yet by Thursday afternoon the strike ended after all eight were freed and the bus companies agreed to modify the bus schedules.

For every Shabbat (Friday night and Saturday) we prepare food for ourselves. Up to now we had sent someone to purchase vegetables in the town of Chericot, but because of the strike this was impossible. Instead we tried to buy vegetables from local women and it proved a big success – fresher and cheaper, not to mention easier, than going to Chericot.

On Thursday many of the other Tevel b'Tzedek participants came up for the weekend. We were very happy to have them visit us and had a fun time. On Shabbat afternoon we walked up to the Kshamawati school and continued past the school a bit to a beautiful meadowy area. It was a very different experience for everyone than when the group had been here in the beginnning of the program, as now everyone has strong Nepali and can actually converse with the locals. We were also able to continue the discussion raised by our class on development and the movie about Ladakh with our friends who were able to draw from their observations here and in their own volunteering projects.

The following Monday night was very special. Our group was invited to dinner by the local shopkeeper. We ate a local delicacy, corn dirro (polenta-esque mush) with sisnu (a prickly bush that we use in the organic pesticide and which is very tasty when cooked with water and a little seasoning). We enjoyed dinner and got to learn a bit about the store. The shopkeeper is a Brahmin with a house and agricultural land in a nearby village. He rents the shop's building from an older woman of the dominant Thami ethnic group. So despite being a Brahmin he is on reverse terms from the Thamis who work in Brahmin fields; in addition, Thamis such as our host family seem to like him, referring to him as a “good Brahmin who doesn't only look out for himself.” We also discovered that the shop houses some local government office and the central television cable room for a few villages.

The rest of the week continued as usual, with the organic pesticide team really hitting our stride. In addition to preparing the pesticide with a women's group, we were looking into women's gardens and giving advice on dealing with bugs and fungus, impressing the women with the few words we had learned of their own Thami language, and being treated after our work to khaja (snack) and tea, fresh buffalo milk, or locally brewed alcoholic drinks.

Photos (links to facebook albums)

bokserb — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:43:00 GMT

All of my photos are available here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2105000&l=4c162&id=310776

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2105022&l=2f7fc&id=310776

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106290&l=02f80&id=310776

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106292&l=17d41&id=310776

Update 2 - life in Suspa

bokserb — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 18:43:00 GMT

Hello all! It's been a while since my last update (http://journals.worldnomads.com/bokserb/). Since then I have experienced an interesting educational tour of the grounds of a Hindu temple, the Dashein festival in Kathmandu, and a meanignful Yom Kippur at the Chabad Jewish center in Kathmandu. I have also studied and learned a lot. I was unable to write in much detail about these things, though I have attached some pictures from this time. However, I have written in detail about the time starting with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Enjoy the following...

On the Jewish holiday of Sukkot we build temporary huts covered with organic matter and pray with four species of plants (myrtle, willow, palm branches and citron fruit). The holiday comes at the time of the fall harvest and these two activities serve to counter the potential haughtiness that could come from a good crop. At this time when it is easy to become proud and self-absorbed in our accomplishments we go outside of the civilized trappings of our homes to a house that is clearly built from nature and that is dependent on the gracious protection of God. We show that we are too a part of nature and that all that has come to us has come from God. We pray with the four species to show that we, like the four species, are dependent on water to survive. While these two activities are meant to be humbling, they are also meant to inspire a happy gratitude.

This year I fulfilled the ideas of Sukkot in an additional manner. On the second day of Sukkot, after celebrating the first day in a beautiful Sukkah in our group's house in Kathmandu, I and seven other volunteers (and two staff) in the Tevel b'Tzedek program traveled to the village of Suspa to begin volunteering there. As was appropriate for the holiday, we were leaving the more civilized trappings of Kathmandu (and Israel and America before that) for a village of simpler lifestyles whose residents live more directly off their own land. Here we live with people who seem to have the humble and grateful happiness which is the point of Sukkot. See below for a day-by-day description.

Wednesday 10/15

We leave our house in Kathmandu at 5:30AM to try to make the 6:30 bus. When we arrive at the “bus park” we realize that our Nepali staff member Bishnu can only make the 7:30 bus so we have some time to wait at the bus park. While waiting the group sits for tea and I recite my morning prayers in front of the tea shop. As it is Sukkot, my prayers include waving the traditional four species (willow, myrtle, palm, and citron) in additon to wearing Tefillin (phylacteries), leather straps and boxes worn on the arm and head every morning. I was aware that what I was doing was very foreign to the many people around and noticed many stares. Yet as this is Nepal I could simply explain “Mero Puja” - my worship – and they would somewhat understand.

After a little while on the bus we reached a point where we would stop for ten minutes, move another little bit, and then stop for another ten minutes. After a while of this the bus stopped for good and everyone got out – we realized we had reached a bhanda – a strike – and there would be no movement for some time. Bishnu told us that the strike was done by the family of someone who had recently been wounded in a bus accident and wanted the bus company to pay for treatment (in Nepal there is almost no health insurance and the family could not pay). Along with the stream of people who had been freed from their cramped buses for a little bit I saw the center of the strike; at two places trees had been placed in the middle of the road and what seemed like the family was in the middle. As it was hot and we were lucky the strike was alongside a river, so I and some friends jumped in for a short swim. Soon after, though, we were called back with the message that the bus was about to leave. The bus filled up and we nervously tried to call our entire group – and then it turned out that the bus still could not leave for about twenty minutes.

We arrived near dark to Suspa and the house where five of us rent rooms and another three often stay. After a long day of travel we were very happy to eat the homemade dhal bhaat that the woman of the house gave us. Dhal Bhaat is the basic meal in Nepal and consists of dhal, a lentil stew, bhaat, rice, and tarkari, a cooked vegetable dish. Yet the name is misleading because in many parts of Nepal dhal is not grown locally and is thus not often eaten and rice can be expensive. Other possible elements include diro, a thick porridge/polenta made of millet or corn flour, and achar, a cold (and spicy or sour) vegetable dish. We eat dhal bhaat with our hands in the village after mixing the diro or rice with any of the other more liquidy elements. The dhal bhaat we eat in the village is an alternative eater's dream – almost fully organic, local, and macrobiotic. While dhal and much of the rice we eat is bought from a store (the family's rice crop is enough for only 3-6 months), the rest of the food comes from the family's garden right by the house or from local wild plants. Vegetables to be eaten are picked right before each meal. Thus the food is obviously local and macrobiotic (seasonal), and as the family uses no pesticides and a very small amount of chemical fertilizer (in addition to compost), it is pretty darn organic. To my benefit as well, the food is also vegetarian and thus (to my standards at least) kosher (the family eats meat about once every few months on festivals, and uses different dishes for preparing meat). We have come to love the fresh and tasty dhal bhaat we eat in the village and fill our stomachs at every meal – which is just morning and evening here in Nepal (a small snack is eaten in the afternoon). Of course, it is only fitting that dhal bhaat be such an important part of our day. My work with village agriculture is focused on helping the village women raise vegetables in the gardens near their houses. We spend all of our day learning, thinking, and helping raise vegetables. We have learned a lot about the vegetables raised locally and how to care for them. So eating those vegetables is the crowning achievement of our work.

Thursday 10/16

After dhal bhaat we built a Sukkah with the help of the man of the house, Pirthivi. He is a jack-of-all-trades who works on carpentry and electrical projects throughout the village, so he was very resourceful in helping us make the Sukkah; it was finished pretty quickly. Building the Sukkah also seemed to come pretty natural to him since many things in the village are made of local organic materials. For the rest of the week I ate my dhal bhaat in the Sukkah; At every meal I would come up to the top floor, where the family eats, cooks, sleeps, etc. in one big room, and be given a heaping plate of food (so as not to have to come back too many times for a refill), which I would take down and eat in the Sukkah.

The rest of the day was not too eventful; some people went to town to buy food, the group members who are teaching in the local schools went to visit one of the schools, and we reviewed material about gardening.

Friday 10/17

Either today or yesterday we began doing Yoga in the mornings. Irit, a member of the agriculture team, is very experienced in Yoga and also an experienced teacher. So she leads us every day – mostly at 6:30AM – in a Yoga class that has been great for my body. I do my morning prayers before Yoga, waking up around 5:30, which is fine since we go to sleep around 9PM here.

In the morning I helped the “education team” move their stuff up to a house they live in during the week which is closer to the schools. We walked through a beautiful forested area. When I returned to our house I helped cook for Shabbat.

Shabbat 10/17 evening to 10/18 day

As a group we did evening services and dinner in the Sukkah. While it was cold, both went well and dinner was great. The Sukkah was lit by flashlights which we hung from the roof of the Sukkah. On the next morning some people went to a nearby town for the day. I stayed and participated in Yoga, a great meal, and a group reading of the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), traditionally read in synagouges today.

Sunday 10/19

We started work for real. In the morning we (the agriculture team) worked in the demonstration vegetable garden of ETC (the NGO whose work we are joining here). We prepared a tomato nursery and garden under a greenhouse. I learned more about the work of gardening. In the afternoon we did some “kitchen garden monitoring” with the ETC staff and visited a garden with a great tomato greenhouse.

Monday 10/20

We ate dhal bhaat early and rushed to get to an 8:15 AM bus to a nearby village in the area. As is often necessary in Nepal, I sat on the top of the bus, which is always somewhat exhilirating while scary and uncomfortable. When we got off the bus we met an ETC staff member and walked for about 20 minutes straight up to the village. ETC runs its village activities through women's groups composed of about 20 women who live near each other. We had come to see such a women's group meeting. It was run (by the ETC staff member) in Nepali, so we couldn't really understand anything, but we were able to notice each woman donating dues to a group microfinance fund, some women requesting loans and then receiving them after everyone else agreed, and the staff member recording everything in the group's records book. What seemed great was that the staff member was only facilitating but the women were really in charge. After the meeting we did some more garden monitoring.

Tuesday 10/21

We did some more kitchen garden monitoring with ETC staff. In the afternoon we prepared some food for the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah.

Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah Tuesday night to Wednesday 10/22

We began with prayers and the traditional singing and dancing done on the holiday. It was smaller and shorter than the singing and dancing I usually do in a bigger Jewish community but felt very special nonetheless, as this is a group I feel very close to at this point. We ate with our host family but did the special prayers over wine and bread before eating. After eating we invited the parents to have some roxi (a local alcoholic drink) with us, which they did. Yet right after they offered us their own homemade roxi and jar, another local drink made of corn meal. It felt very much in the spirit of the holiday. In the morning I prayed alone in a beatiful spot near the house, we did Yoga, and then went downhill to the rice paddies, which are all being cut now. It was a beatiful sight and fun as well – all the children go with their parents down to cut rice. Afer a fun hike up the river from the rice fields we read from the day's Torah reading.

Thursday 10/22

A full day of work at the ETC garden. The day was dedicated to preparing an organic pesticide based on cow urine and leaves of strong-smelling plants. We cut up the plants and filled them in a burlap sack. We then dug a pit, put the sack in the pit, and filled the pit with diluted cow urine. The liquid will take in the scents and ingredients of the plants and after a few weeks will be a powerful yet safe pesticide.

Friday 10/23

We did some more work in the ETC garden – weeding and turning soil. In the afternoon I prepared food for Shabbat and showered in the river.

Shabbat Friday night and Saturday 10/24

We started with communal evening prayers joined by many of the local children. Though they don't know Hebrew at all, they were very excited to sing and clap along. Many also grabbed prayer books and pretended to follow the words. Afterwards we ate dinner joined by the rest of the host family; the parents enjoyed our food which made us very proud. In the morning there was Yoga, lunch, and reading of the Torah portion. In the evening Irit led a very throughtful discussion about our impressions of the village and how exactly we see ourselves affecting it.

Sunday 10/25

Me and the two other “junior members” of the agriculture team, Itamar and Gili, went for some more kitchen garden monitoring with an ETC staff member. Yet we spent more time enjoying the scenery and running into the staff member's friends than doing real monitoring.

Monday 10/26

We went to visit Makunda, the principal of one of the local schools, to speak about working on agriculture in the school. Makunda is a Brahmin and he lives uphill in a neighborhood markedly different from that of the poorer Thami ethnic group where we live. The houses have ornately carved windows, beautiful flowers and other plants, and very well-kept vegetable gardens. We were served home-grown tea in ceramic cups (as opposed to the metal cups used by almost everyone in Nepal). Makunda showed us around the school's large grounds and we saw how much area there is for agricultural projects in the school. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with the “education team” at their house nearby.

This week is the festival of Tihar, and today was the day of the dog puja (offering/worship). At Makunda's house we noticed a dog with a garland around his neck. He had been fed puja by Makunda's family and presumably many others.

Tuesday 10/27

The Nepali (Hindu, yet observed also by the Thami ethnic group in the village and many others) festival of Tihar went into full swing starting in the morning with the cow puja. The family we stay with offered ceremonial food to their cows, dabbed their foreheads with tikka (a colorful ceremonial paste including red rice), and put garlands on their necks. Then the family (and some of us) received tikka and food as well. While the cows were happy to have the sweet ceremonial food, they were not fully cooperative in recieveing the tikka and garlands, yet the family persisted. The mother of the house explained that the cows do not understand what is going on, but this did not seem to deter her. While some might look down on this custom, I appreciated the idea of expressing gratitude to different things that we depend on – such as cows, which provide Nepalis with milk and manure – even if those things cannot understand.

In the evening we were served a lot of raxi for the holiday so that we were ready to fully enjoy the performance of the child club at 9:30 (which is after our bedtime). About fifteen kids of assorted ages were going around the village performing dances accompanied by music and singing. After a number of impressive dances, they opened into a simpler song with a chorus repeated every line. We soon learned that this was the song where they ask for donations – and, for a foreign group such as us, expect a lot and keep singing until they are satisfied or worn out. After one of those happened (not sure which), they invited us to dance with them, which we did. It was a fun “late night” that lasted until 10:30PM.

Wednesday 10/28

After morning dhal bhaat the celebration continued with the preparation of sel, a brown simple doughnut. The mother of the house (with a little of my help) prepared a lot, and we ate a lot. Afterwards we went uphill to where people had constructed swings – one standard back-and-forth swing, and another four-seat merry-go-round-style swing. All were built by hand of local material (wood and rope). Four of us went on the merry-go-round swing and it was very fun, though we felt we were straining its capacity and got off quickly. After this we returned to the house for a very interesting discussion led by participants Barak and Galia about the Thami ethnic group that makes up the majority of the village region. Their culture is very interesting – e.g. property and clan names are handed down through female and male lines as girls inherit from their mother and boys from their father – yet many aspects of their socioeconomic status are depressing.

Dinner was a special meal. It is customary to eat buffalo meat on Thursday, but because we were going to leave on Thursday the family cooked meat instead on Wednesday, but using separate dishes and a separate fire out of respect for those of us who keep Kosher. The first course was a plate of sel, coconut, a fried hard boiled egg, and rock candy, and a bowl of meat for those who eat non-kosher meat. Afterwards we ate a special dhal bhaat including dhal (lentil stew, rare in this house) and a peanut and potato vegetable curry. After dinner there were again visits by roving groups singing and dancing, yet this time the groups were made up of somewhat tipsy adults, which made for a different experience.

Thursday 10/29

Before leaving for Kathmandu we were presented flower garland necklaces as a holiday going-away present. Yet it took a while for a bus to come and the bus only went partway, to the town of Chericot. There were no buses going to Kathmandu in the morning, so we had to wait unsure of how we would arrive until a bus finally took as at 1PM.

Friday 10/30

We were back in Kathmandu with the rest of the Tevel b'Tzedek group for “Seminar Nepal.” For the first segment, we were split up into different groups researching different sectors of Nepali society – Tibetan refugees, the Newari ethnic group, Muslims in Nepal, and the Young Communist League (associated with the Maoist movement which has succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy and winning parliamentary elections held this year). My group researched Tibetan refugees. We had an interesting time including a visit to a Tibetan monastery and a “refugee camp” made up of the houses across from our group's house. The afternoon was spent cooking for Shabbat.

Shabbat Friday and Saturday 10/31

After a great Friday night meal I went straight to sleep to wake up for the group's 5:30AM walk uphill to the nearby Swayambhou temple. We saw a beautiful sunrise from the top and observed the large number of people jogging and/or worshippping at this early hour. Afterwards I did Yoga, which made for a very focused morning prayer following. At 10AM we had an interesting speech by Shanti, a parliament member from the United Marxist Leninist party (which is less radical than the Maoists) about human and womens' rights, a field she has worked in. After lunch we all presented our research from Friday morning and then Yotam, a staff member who also works at the Israeli embassy, talked about the complicated situation of Nepali foreign workers in Israel. After Shabbat there was a very impressive talent show.

Sunday 11/2

“Seminar Nepal” finished up with a speech by a top secretary of the Maoist party. In short, he said that Nepal suffers from structural oppression (of the poor, women, and ethnicities) domestically and external interference and that the ruling Maoist party hopes to address these issues through renegotiating treaties with India, land reform, a strong constitution, and development. It was interesting to see him describe Nepali history from a different angle – that of exploitation – than others have. Also of note was his emphasis that the Maoist party sees previous communist states as mistaken in their lack of respect for human rights and political competition.

I followed that speech with a visit to Zandon Ukyab, the husband of a colleague of my mother's in the New York West Side Montessori school. Mr. Ukyab warmly welcomed me and talked to me a little about his political views and experiences, which were very interesting to me. He spent many years involved in the government in the previous monarchial republic regime, including a role as consul to Tibet. Yet when the last king curtailed democracy in 2006, he switched his support to the Maoists and is currently active in consulting with the Maoist government. As with the previous speaker, this experience gave me the impression that the Maoist government is serious and thoughtful. With people like Mr. Ukyab providing advice, I am optimistic about the government's future.

Monday 11/3

We woke up very early to make a 6AM bus back to Suspa. The bus went very quickly and we were at Suspa by 1PM. We spent most of the afternoon helping in the rice fields. First we helped our host father's parents (who seemed very old) in the hard work of collecting and piling up their emptied rice stalks. The old woman worked harder than me. Part of me is saddened by the amount of work people here do even at an old age, yet part of me is impressed. Then we helped our host family collecting and piling rice stalks in the field they work.

Tuesday 11/4

At 6:30 was the first meeting of the child club which we are leading a few mornings a week. While it took a while for children to come, we had fun.

Today was election day in the US, but I didn't have much to do with it, especially since the election only started late in the day given the time difference. Today we worked a bit in the ETC garden and had a bunch of planning meetings. Our Nepali staff member Bishnu had a baby boy and we celebrated.

Wednesday 11/5

We left early for a day of lots of walking. Along with the ETC staff we walked throughout the village area to visit the leader farmer of seven womens' groups to set dates when we will come and teach how to prepare organic pesticide. Throughout the morning I tried to call my mom to find out the election results. When I finally found out that Obama won, I and some of the others in the group who were Obama supporters were very happy. The day was also happy because it was the birthday of our staff member Leora. At the end of the day we had a little celebration with her.

Thursday 11/6

I went to Chericot, a town near Suspa, to buy supplies for the group. We cook our own meals for Shabbat, and since there isn't much available at local stores, we buy food for Shabbat in Chericot. I just rode in on top of the bus and had a beautiful view of the Himalaya mountains - most of them fully snow-covered. Some seemed very big. The view of the mountains in the background of the high hills in the foreground is very special. While in Chericot I went to check my email but the internet was very slow and otherwise problematic, so I spent a lot of time staring at the screen and didn't finish all that I wanted to do online.

After I returned home we went to the ETC office to visit another foreigner who will be volunteering here, Tracy Tyson. Tracy, an experienced Montessori teacher from Ohio, will be here until June at least teaching in a local school with the goal of adapting Montessori teaching to Nepali resources and context and providing general teacher training. This seems like a very interesting project which fits with ETC's goal of improving on the overly frontal teaching here.

Friday 11/7

In the morning we finished visiting leader farmers to arrange organic pesticide training. Afterwards we returned home to bathe and cook for Shabbat. Tevel b'Tzedek has opened a new program for short-term volunteers, and this group arrived in the afternoon for a short visit. While I had met them before and they had seemed nice, it was difficult for me at first to see a large group of outsiders in the village as they seemed out of place and I felt like I had work to do in cooking for Shabbat. But after a little while I was able to adjust and be a good host happy to have more people see this wonderful village.

Shabbat Friday night and Saturday 11/8

We started Shabbat with the largest Kabbalat Shabbat services Suspa has surely ever seen. Our ten people, seventeen of the short-term volunteers and two staff, a number of ETC staff plus Tracy, and a few village children, packed into our communal room for a Kabbalat Shabbat that was spirited despite being limited to about five prayer books. Afterwards the ETC staff and Tracy stayed for dinner, which was followed by roxi and fun revelry – singing and dancing of Israeli and Nepali songs.

Shabbat day was pretty uneventful. Lunch was a picnic on a warm patch of grass with a great view.

Sunday 11/9

The day started with a fun (though a bit stressful) child club and Yoga. As it was a Nepali (Hindu) holiday, we did not work with the local women, but instead practiced preparing the pit and ingredients for the organic pesticide at our own house. We also built a mud oven for us to bake with for the rest of our time here. Many villagers, including the father of our house, walked three hours to a holiday service. He returned along with the other villagers in a parade of music and dance. Many women, including the mother of our house, fasted today. She broke her fast with the first local rice of the season, which we first ate in a ceremonial dish of uncooked rice, yogurt, and spices (very tasty) and then as part of dhal bhaat. The local rice is much tastier than the rice we've eaten here before, which is bought imported from India. There seem to be a number of possible reasons for this: it is a different species; it is processed and milled less intensively as e.g. the mill here is river-powered; rice from higher altitudes is better. Either way, this rice tastes better and, the mother of the house has told us, is more nutritous. For whatever reasons, the imported rice is presumably produced for price and quantity and not for quality, and the costs of such a focus are clear. Yet without such low-quality, mass-produced rice, this family might not have enough to eat for most of the year; their local rice will only last about a month.

Monday 11/10

After a short yoga and morning prayers, we went to the child club, where today we handed out notebooks for the children to research family history and the like. We had them decorate their notebook covers, which they enjoyed a lot, and then gave them a first research question – to find out about the day they were born. After dhal bhaat I, Itamar, and Gili (two others in the agriculture team) set out for our first day of teaching village women how to prepare organic pesticide. While there were a number of complications – the women didn't come to the arranged meeting spot so we had to find them at one of their houses, and they didn't have the exact required materials – it went well and we had fun. By the way, the organic pesticide is a solution of (e.g. cow) urine, water, and strong smelling plants. Our teaching involves building a pit lined with plastic sheeting for the solution to sit on, making sure the appropriate plants are there, cutting the plants and putting them in a sack, and explaining the rest of the preparation of the solution and its use. This is a task that is very much needed, as the women's plants suffer from pests and fungi but the women don't exactly know how to prepare the solution, while easy enough for us to have learned quickly.

After finishing the three of us headed over to the Chemawati school to help Irit and Galia, also in the agriculture team (Galia is working in agriculture and education), as well as staff members Bishnu and Leora, who were leading work in the school garden. Some of the work was preparing beds for a vegetable garden and some was preparing a plot for an experiment in which we will plant wheat in different conditions (with and without compost, water, or sunlight) and notice the differences. This will all be in conjunction with an agricultural science class Irit will lead.

Gallery: First Post

bokserb — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 12:05:00 GMT

Update and Happy Jewish New Year

bokserb — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 11:56:00 GMT

Greetings from Kathmandu!

While I had planned to have written a number of updates so far, I have had very little free time so this is a combined first update and Jewish New Year greeting. Please enjoy the attached pictures which I'll refer to during this update.

I am in Nepal on a Jewish study and volunteering program called Tevel b'Tzedek. A little about the group: there are 20 participants on the program. Including me there are three Americans and one Australian, and the rest are Israeli. Most of the participants are between 20 and 30 but there are also a few older participants. There is a mix of religiously observant and secular members of the group.

The first three weeks of the program were more focused on study. For two weeks we had 3 hours of Nepali lessons every morning and lectures about environmentalism, globalization and poverty, Nepali history, politics, and culture, Judaism, and other related topics. During this time we were based in Kathmandu. The city suffers from horrible air pollution due to its placement in a valley and the large amount of cars traversing (mostly idling in traffic on narrow badly paved roads) its roads and its main river, the Bagmati, is horribly polluted (see picture). The political situation is interesting - the Maoist rebel party, after overthrowing the king, won a plurailty in Nepal's first (relatively free) democratic election and is in the process of putting together a constitution while trying to run the country. Meanwhile there are often protests and strikes which can shut down all transportation (see the photo of a student union poster; the student union struck a few weeks ago to protest the killing of a civilian by the police). However, there is much beauty as well. Our house is very close to the Swayambhou Buddhist temple (see pictures) which is very beautiful and in a less central neighborhood with better air and nice views of hills. There is much religous richness - Buddhists, Hindus, and other smaller religious groups coexist in apparent harmony - and the food is great. Two major dishes are dhal bhat (a mix of rice, lentil stew, and a vegetable curry) and Mo Mo (dumplings with a tasty spicy sauce). While in Kathmandu we also saw a little of the other problems that it confronts, such as street children, general poverty, and slums.

Many of Kathmandu's problems come from the stresses of rapid population growth due to the influx of people from villages. This is a problem experienced by many cities in non-industrial countries. So in the third week we went to the village of Suspa to try to understand what is going on in the villages. Suspa, because of the bad one-lane roads (for both ways, it's "exciting" when buses pass each other), is about an eight-hour bus ride from Kathmandu. The poorer residents of Suspa can only support themselves on their own land for 3-6 months a year. For the rest of their income they sharecrop and most of the men work outside the village – in Kathmandu, India, or further away.

I really enjoyed my time in the village. I and another member of the group were hosted by a village family. While communicating with the family (exclusively in the little Nepali we had learned) was difficult, we managed to communicate minimally (often I pulled out my pocket Nepali guide to look up words mid-sentence). The family was very nice and the local children who played together in the morning seemed innocent and pure. Yet we knew that the family must suffer from the fact that their father works in Kathmandu and thus is rarely home (see picture of me with the family).

I've decided that I'll be doing my volunteering in Suspa. I've decided this because it's beautiful (see pictures), because the air is clean (as opposed to Kathmandu's polluted air), and because I feel like supporting the villages is the best, most sustainable way to address poverty in Nepal (and elsewhere). Addressing the problems of Kathmandu will be temporary if the stream of poor villagers continues to the city.

There will be eight participants and two staff volunteering in the village. We will be working with Educate the Children (ETC; www.etc-nepal.org) Half of us will be focusing on education and the other half – including me will be focusing on agriculture in order to maximize the villagers' ability to feed their families healthy food. I and two other participants will be visiting vegetable gardens which ETC has helped the village women plant by their homes. We will be ensuring that the gardens are growing well and providing advice and help as needed. Of course, since I don't know much about gardening, we will be receiving some training before starting. While I don't know what to expect, I hope this will be an interesting and helpful project. Either way, I'm excited about the prospect of hiking around the beautiful village every day.

The Jewish New Year began Monday night I observed the New Year with the rest of the group in Kathmandu. We joined the Chabad Jewish center for prayers and some meals. Because there are in this season many Israeli backpackers in Nepal, there were many people at the prayers and meals so there was a good group for the intense prayers of the New Year.

It is customary around the Jewish New Year to reflect on one's behavior in the past year and try to mend wrongs done. While this type of impersonal letter is not a great way to express this kind of message, I would nevertheless like to take this opportunity to ask from all of you for forgiveness for anything I might have done to hurt or insult you during this past year. I preemptively forgive all of you for anything you might have done to hurt me.

Happy Jewish New Year and hope to see everyone soon,

Ben Bokser