Joking in a garden
Kathmandu, 2002
Walking away from the city, through the more rural part of Kathmandu, I said hello to this group of friends farming their garden plot.
I was talking and joking with them, when I quickly discovered who the joker in their group was.
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Friends laughing beneath a tree
Futung, Kathmandu, 2002
I found this group of friends sitting beneath a tree on the top of a Suess-esqe little hill (see panorama below). I asked if I could take their photo and they said yes, but the first photo I snapped, they all looked deadly serious. When I mimed my best impression of their serious faces, they burst into laughter and I took this second shot.
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The tree where I took the photo is on the top of the little hill that, in the photo, is above and a little to the right of the little house-like building on the left. (click to see larger)
And here is a small version of that first photo that I described above.
Three sisters in a sewing shop
Futung, Kathmanudu, 2005
I took this photo of three sisters while walking through the Futung section of outer Kathmandu. The shop sat on the right side of the road as you walked into the hills that surround the capital.
[text below from a journal entry I wrote six years later, on June 18th, 2011]
"Today I walked my usual hairpin route through Dadagaun, Futung, and Manamaiju. In my backpack I carried a couple of dozen six-year-old photos.
I was looking for a sewing shop where I took two photos of three young women many years ago.
The first photo [seen below], was a staid one of the three;
the second [seen above] was snapped after I cracked a face and got them to laugh.
Having walked the area many times, I know that the small closet-like space the shop used to fill has now been taken over by another business.
I stopped at another nearby sewing shop, where a woman sat behind one of those timeless boat-anchor-heavy sewing machines that will outlive us all. I show her the photo and ask with my voice, face, and hands if she might recognize them. She doesn't.
Another woman, who is either waiting for some sewing, or just hiding from the mid-afternoon sun, takes a look as well. No joy.
From across the road, a man in his thirties ambles over. He looks at the photo for a moment, then looks at me, raises his head a tick, and wordlessly points down the road.
I give him my thanks and head off.
Past the three women filling water jugs at the tap.
Past two baby goats,
one who’s mostly black, but for her ears which look like they're covered with white lace
(or a smattering of snow flakes).
Two students in their schools brown skirts and socks walk ahead of me.
I follow the jog in the road that passes by Nag Pokhari;
its thin statue of nagas (snakes) standing in the middle of a square of murky greenish water.
There is an idle butcher shop up on my left. As I pass it, I look back—I like how it’s patina walls contrast with the red cloth that is draped over the counter and the scale. There are a few small spots on the wall; blood I would guess, but only for the fact that it’s a butcher shop.
Two young girls, curiously the exact same height, pass by holding hands. I smile at them and ask “Teekcha?” (are you well?). They laugh to hear me speak Nepali, and smiling, continue on their way. The one on the right holds an orange twenty-rupee note rolled in her little hand. Sent off to buy something from the shop, I think to myself.
The road completes it’s turn and there is a wide spot that reminds me of a gathering place in Manamaiju. A large tree stands at the far end, and a few ducks are conducting business in it’s shade.
Past the ducks, past the tree.
Past a large metal gate that has been stood up at the side of the road, I assume to dry a fresh coat of paint. The various pieces of iron are arc-welded together. Walk most areas for more than a few minutes and you’ll pass an open-air bamboo shack, blue packets of electric snow-blindness shooting out the side.
The gate has two small bas-reliefs on it—one of the Buddha, one of Ganesh. I wonder if the shop makes the entire gates themselves, save these two decorative pieces which they have to order and weld on at the end.
Up ahead I can see the school with the laundry hung in the playground. I’ve reached the turn-around point quicker than I remembered. Do I want to walk all the way up to the gate of the school? No, it’s enough to just look at the shops by the gate and to see that, no, there are no sewing shops.
I turn around and start walking back towards the ducks.
I hear the quick burp of a motorcycle horn and on the left side of the street, the man from earlier is looking at me. Once he sees I see him, he points down a path that leads from the road.
I give him my thanks again, and he drives off.
I’m not sure who yet, but one of the three sisters in my photo lives down this path.
In a pretty blue colored house, as it turns out.
No one seems to answer when I call “bohini?” (young sister?)
I will try tomorrow, Saturday, when schools are out and people seem more liable to be at home.
(Curiously, I was almost in this exact spot about six weeks ago, but of course would’ve never known it. At the time, I was listening to the parade-like brass and percussion of a hired wedding band. From across a terraced rice field I could see the color of the sarees, and the top of the wedding tent.)
I walk back through Phutung and again see the two girls of identical height heading back my way. Namaste I tell them. The one little girl still has the orange note in her hand.
Perhaps the shop was out of cheenee (sugar) I think to myself."
I returned another day, and was able to find one of the sisters at home.
(I know I wrote down her name, I just don't know where—hopefully I can find it in the future)
She is seen below, in 2011, at her beautiful blue house.
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Proud boy holding Spider-Man
Kathmandu, early 2003
Sometimes in Nepal when a house or building is built, the roof is left un-finished or half-done; columns and re-bar, but little else, in case more storeys want to get added later. These mostly-flat roofs make a great place to put up a clothesline, spread out and dry vegetables in the sun, or keep potted plants.
It was the tail end of winter—probably early February—when I took this photo. The air was still cool enough for extra clothes, but the winter sun brought a gentle warmth if you caught it directly. This proud boy was on the roof of his family's building, enjoying the sun with his mother and his new Spider-Man toy.
Behind him, you can see the fallow fields that later will be awash in the yellow flower of mustard plants. In the far distance, above the dark green hills surrounding the Kathmandu valley, you can catch a glimpse of some of the Himalayas.
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Update: Above is a field of mustard in bloom in Balaju.
Below is a photo taken on the same roof on a different day.
I'm unsure if that is a neighbor or a sibling
Cool morning in Manamaiju
Manamaiju, Kathmandu, 2002
Friends and neighbors share a cool morning in Manamaiju.
Walking through this area nine years later with a copy of this photo in hand, I was directed by neighbors to Alisha (above in the blue shawl), who now runs her own shop.
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Alisha (in yellow) and friends, in front of her shop in 2011
Update: I also recently ran across the photo below. Seems to be taken in 2002 as well, although on a slightly warmer day.
Three sisters
Balaju, Kathmandu, 2011
While visiting Sanju’s family, I got to meet her downstairs neighbors—a trio of little girls—all dressed up in their school uniforms and ready for school.
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Sita and Sushma, 8 and 10
Manamaiju, Kathmandu 2005
The red clown nose, one of two I brought with me in 2005, was a great crowd pleaser. Sometimes I would namaste a group of children, holding my hands hand together in front of my face as one does, (but with the foam nose squished between my hands), and then when I would lower my hands I'd have it on my nose—and they'd burst into surprised laughter.
All the children would then want a turn trying it on. Sometimes, to their disappointment, their noses weren't big enough yet for it to stay on.
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2011: I printed up some of my old photos, and walked the routes I remembered. I was able to find Sita and take this photo, six years after the previous one. I asked her if her friend Sushma was nearby, but she told me that she had moved away a few years ago.
Sanju and her family
Balaju, Kathmandu, 2011
I met Sanju in 2002, when I was teaching the schoolyard game Red Rover to a bunch of children in a fallow rice field in Kathmandu. I was trying to teach how you try to break through the other teams line but, at the same time, not hard enough for them to hurt each other.
That rice field is now covered with a house, the surrounding area being more built up than nine years ago.
On this visit, Sanju's ama made me tea that was piping hot in it's metal cup, and it became a bit of a good-natured running joke upon my visits—the extreme heat of the offered tea, and my seeming inability to cope with such.
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Below, is a set of four photos that I took while I was demonstrating my best Nepali dance moves for Sanju's family. They seemed rather amused at my effort.
Sunil at his families fruit stand
Naya Bazaar Marg, Kathmandu, 2011
I would walk past this shop—one of many set up along the busy thoroughfare Naya Bazaar Marg—every day on my way to Balaju.
This long road is a constant stream of traffic: enormous lumbering TATA trucks, motorcycles, buses with thunderous horns, vans with passengers packed like gum balls, tempos with little puttering engines, bicycles loaded down with long bending lengths of re-bar, men, women, and children in school uniforms dodging puddles.
Large colorful posters for the latest Bollywood and Kollywood films are displayed on free walls. I happened to see some posters being wheat-pasted up one day; a pair of boys, one with a ladder, the other with a large bucket and a brush so rigid from the glue that the bristles had curved over like a hook.
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(I believe you can see Sunil wearing a red top in this panorama of Naya Bazaar Marg—he's basically under the "A" in "MANIA" on the big red billboard)
P.S. — The first Nepali movie I saw was called Dharmaputra and starred Rajesh Hamal, colloquially known to children countrywide as "the hero of Nepal". The movie was about three hours long, with plenty of dancing, romance, and singing.
A month or so later, I picked up a videocassette of Star Wars in Kathmandu to show the children of my host family. About 30 minutes in, my bai [younger brother] turns to me, unimpressed, with his arms out and says, essentially, "What, no singing?"
Busy mother with baby under her wing
Manamaiju, Kathmandu 2003
Walking home one afternoon, I ran across this woman taking in the family's laundry.
I love the cloth that holds the baby; it’s like she’s wrapped her son up in a piece of star-filled night.
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2011: With a freshly-printed copy of the original photo in hand,
I was able to find the mother and son again to take this photo eight years later.
Update: I recently ran across this photo that I took of them looking at the old photo.