Three boys at a swing

Three boys at a swing
Tupche, 2000

Near a tributary to the Trishuli river, stood this swing where small boys took turns swinging. Swings are often built especially for the Dasain festival (celebrating Rama’s victory over evil spirits) but this swing may be there year round (I’ll check on my next visit). Usually Dasain swings are huge things about thirty feet tall. Made of four tall pieces of bamboo, they are arranged in a large square and tied together at the top. 

The tributary here is quite beautiful, running through large rounded stones. Crossing is by means of several rickety wooden bridges with an occasional small hop if you’re feeling especially adventurous.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

View fullsize

One such wooden footbridge.

Nisha harvesting

Nisha harvesting
Betrawati, 2002

When a rice field is ready to harvest it is drained and let to dry. Once the ground is hard, the grass is cut by hand. When it’s dry enough, a tarp is laid out and a large stone is placed in the middle. Swinging handfuls of the grass against the stone, the rice is separated off and gathers on the tarp. A child collects the clumps of grass and makes large stacks, which can later be fed to a family buffalo.

The sickle-like tool Nisha is holding is called a hi-shuh.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

View fullsize

Nisha, all but hidden in a field of rice stalks.

Manita

Manita
Betrawati, 2002

I think this was bath day as she was running around playing under one of the villages many public spigots.

If you would like to donate to Swecos, Nepal, which helps people in the Betrawati and Tupche area (Rasuwa district) , please click here.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

Sita and Sushma, 8 and 10

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. 

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

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.

Manju

Manju
Betrawati, 2002

Manju lived a couple of houses away from my host family's house.
This photo was taken on the wide path that ran past our long row of houses.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

View fullsize

2011: The wide path that runs by the houses, a water spigot, a field of maize.

Sanju and her family

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.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

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

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.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

View fullsize

(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?"

Sarita holding her brother Sanjiv

Sarita holding her brother Sanjiv
Betrawati, 2002

Bua and Ama

Bua and Ama
Betrawati, October 8th, 2000

[text below from a postcard I wrote on October 8th, 2000]

"...This is the day when all of the amas and buas [mothers and fathers] give their families tikas. Unlike most tikas, these ones are enormous and by the time you've gone to each of the tika-giving people—in my case, eleven—your whole forehead is almost covered.

Woven mats are unrolled in front of the house and all of the amas and buas sit on them—a plate made of metal or of leaves acts as their palette. There is a paint-like substance made from marigolds (I think), a blackish paint applied with a piece of wood, and a mixture of dry rice and red paint. To receive your tika, you hunch down in front of the giver so that your faces are about twelve inches from each other. As they apply the tika with their caring fingers, they softly speak a blessing in Nepali.

They're looking at your forehead as they apply the tika—but it feels like they are looking you straight in the eyes. Reading their faces, I felt like a favorite painting that an old master was putting a final touch on. For the first time I was able to appreciate the incredible beauty of my ama's eyes—her irises a rich brown inlaid with lace, and the outer edge a grayish moonlight blue.

After everyone has their tikas, we all sit on the mats and eat rice, vegetable sauce, goat, and curd from bowls made of leaves sewn together..." 

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

My bahini [younger sister] Barsha and a boy (whose name I don't know) with their tikas.

As the ceremony was coming to an end, I spied this little girl carrying her mothers much-larger parasol and it was so sweet that I quickly took a photo.

Sisters Sushmita, Manju and Shushila

Sisters Sushmita, Manju and Shushila
Betrawati, 2002

Sushmita, Manju and Shushila lived beside the dusty road that snakes through Betrawati. I remember that Manju went to my school, but I don't recall if Sushmita or Sushila did (there were at least two other schools within a 20 minute walk). Their brother Rabindra was one of the first children I met in the village. He saw me buying several Choco-Fun candy bars on one of my first days, and so sometimes when he would see me he would shout "Choco-Fun!" as a way of greeting.

These two color photos were taken in 2002, on a day when the children were preparing their family's field for planting. You can see the wooden plow being helped along by brothers Rajesh and Rabinda below. In the background you can see most of Uttargaya Secondary English Boarding School.

If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.

View fullsize

Below is a photo of siblings Manju and Rabindra taken in late 2000.

View fullsize