Site Visits in Kavre

So I recently went on my first site visit to the nearby district of Kavre. It was my first trip outside Khatmandu Valley and took about an hour just to get out of the city traffic. Then at least another hour to get into the mountains...oops, sorry, they're called hills here. We planned to visit two sites for my project, the first was alongside the main highway and the second...not quite that easy.

At the first site, we organized a meeting that took place under the communal tree.  We introduced ourselves and the purpose of the project and then broke up into groups to get ideas from the villagers and discuss various electrification aspects. It was mostly in Nepali, but with bits of translation from team members I was able to understand and formulate my own impressions.

After the meetings, I went with a few Nepalese over to the powerhouse to look at the components and agricultural machinery. Pretty cool stuff! Oh, and we had to cross a river to get there. Apparently it's only accessible in the dry season.

Back at the village, we ate MORE Dal Bhat, a giant plate of rice with lentil soup dressing and small vegetable sides, and drank some warm milk before crashing on the hardest bed I've ever slept on. It was fine by me! I really appreciate those villagers welcoming and taking care of us.

The next day we were up at 5ish??  A morning cup of tea and off we went. A few kilometers up the main highway we turned off for an hour of offroading. Breakfast. Another hour of offroading, but ohhhhh what a view!

After getting lost and backtracking, we found the trailhead and began our two hour hike to the village. This was really steep! We made some poor man trekking poles, sticks :P and continued on our way. I quickly learned the Nepali word for leeches (Juka)...yes, there were a lot of them!

Crossing a few streams and through the jungle we eventual made it to the village. It's there...people live there! Pretty incredible to me, a two hour hike (longer uphill) just to get to the village from the trailhead. It was probably another few hours walk to the nearest market.
  

Indra Jatra Festival

After work on Wednesday we decided to go to see the Indra Jatra festival. The story is Indra, the god of rain, was trying to steal a flower from the Kathmandu Valley for his mother, and was caught and imprisoned. When his mother explained who he was, immediately the towns people released him and provided a festival to celebrate and appease him. In return, the gods would provide for a good harvest at the end of the monsoon season, as well as take to heaven those who have passed away in the last year.

There is a Kumari, a chosen Nepali child believed to be a living goddess, that is pulled around in a chariot, surrounded by two other chariots with Nepali children resembling Ganesh and Bhairab. (More on Ganesh and Bhairab another time)

Now, here are my impressions. After taking a taxi in town…I wasn't sure what to expect and thought the main festival was over. Boy was I wrong. We first had a buffet style Nepali dinner at a friends place. Mmmm tasty lungs, of what animal, I'm not sure. Then we walked around. Apparently it was a group of us, tourists who looked like tourists and acted like tourists (lots of photos) because we were tourists, being toured around by a Nepali brother and sister who were Awesome! It was jam packed and pitch black, we had to use flashlights to walk around because all the electricity was cut out in case the large chariots got caught in any wires along the narrow streets. And we had to duck under buildings because the doorways were too small. We were basically herded around, not knowing what was going on, taking pictures that didn't come out and videos of chaos, and then being told to watch out because the chariot could roll down the hill and crush us! Symbols crashing, people screaming, small mosh pits of teenage boys, a wildly dancing human elephant?, and everyone packed along the parade route and hanging out of windows. It was exhilarating madness. I loved every bit of it. We ended up back at the house…although I have no idea how, apparently we walked in a giant circle.

Next we went into the main square. SO many people! Although, it's different from the Netherlands, I can actually see over most of the crowd and it's super easy to spot our group, being the few white people…we kinda stand out. Still, we were being pushed around quite a lot to get through the crowds. We found a meeting spot in the main square (Basantapur/Durbar Sq.) and then wandered around taking pictures of the what we thought was the Kumari, but really just pictures of other photographers taking pictures. Then, the chariot with the actual Kumari came in. I realized why there was such danger of being crushed at the bottom of the hill earlier. It's being pulled and pushed by a bunch of drunk, unorganized, chaotic locals. See the video, there's almost no coordination haha. Once in place, cannons shot off and madness again. Try pushing through the crowd and it's a workout.

Afterwards we could relax and walk around to see a few other festival sites, like the large face of Bhairab, a representation of Shiva, being one of the main gods ("the destroyer"). Beer is supposed to pour out of his mouth, with a lucky fish inside too. But that was the next night. After getting back, we saw the Mata Biye. This is a group of Newars who have lost and honor their loved ones in the past year. It was a peaceful procession swiftly gliding through the streets.


What an evening!