Cooking for 40 hungry Nepali… why not?

Arriving back at school at three pm after our walk you would think some general relaxation was in order, but far from it. What better way to rejuvenate aching muscles than throwing a dinner party for 40 people?

This was the culmination of a rash comment made by Wiebke a few weeks ago that we should cook everyone some European food in exchange for all the Nepali food people were urging us to try.

The principle seized on this idea with zeal, and the next thing we know we are in a basic kitchen with one chopping board, three gas burners, some gigantic pots and mounds and mounds of vegetables.

Bravely, we were planning to cook a meal without rice.  To understand what a radical idea this is, bare in mind that all present would have eaten mounds of rice twice a day every single day of their lives. Our menu was as follows:

To start, creme crackers with a tomato, cucumber, lemon and coriander relish.

For main, ratatouille made from aubergine, onions, tomatoes and a strange Nepali vegetable, almost, but not entirely unlike a courgette, served with boiled potatoes.  

To finish we provided fruit salad (apples, pomegranate, pineapple and bananas) served with yoghurt and nuts; toasted and mixed with honey.

Luckily we had lots of help with the chopping - it took 6 people over two hours to prepare all the ingredients, but we were ready for the 7.00 start with a punctuality that can only be described as Germanic.

So it was that 40 Nepali boarding students, school staff and teachers sat down to their first taste of European ‘cuisine’. The starter was an unreserved success – wolfed down by every table. Next, the main course. In the end we had bottled out of only providing potatoes and also cooked some rice – fearing some sort of uprising if we didn’t.

The ratatouille was immediately rejected by the boarding students as utterly disgusting and although the teachers were very polite we could tell that they too had some reservations, although we thought it had rather a good flavour. The desert, however, saved the reputation of European food at the school. It went down very well indeed and one of the teachers, smilingly commented that “this is better!” After helping a little with the clearing up, we retired to bed in a state of utter exhaustion!

A walk with friends

The next morning we were at the school gates by 6.30 waiting for two of the teachers –Kumar and Germain to collect us for a trip to a famous view point. The four of us squeezed into one of the standard Nepal taxi’s – the size of Peugeot 206 – and bumped our way out of dusty Pokhara before winding steadily upwards for about an hour on a surprisingly good road. For the first time in our trip the mountain Machhapuchere, which looks like a gigantic Matterhorn-esq pinnacle from Pokhara, revealed its famous fish tail summit towering above us.

From a low pass we walked up a good path through a lush, mixed forest, pleased to be able to keep up with a Nepali sports teacher fairly easily. We passed an agricultural research station build by the British, with lots of little cottages looking like a 60s seaside development in the west country.

After only an hour of climbing, at one point glimpsing the red behind of a deer through the trees, we emerged onto an open hill top with excellent views of the Annapurna range, although now partially obscured by developing cloud.

We stopped in a village for a traditional Nepali ‘daal bhatt’ lunch where it was decided we should have chicken as a celebration. This meant we had to wait well over an hour for our food, presumable as said chicken was caught and prepared, during which time the two of us embarrassed ourselves by failing to grasp the local rules of rummy.

 The main vegetable with the dish when it arrived was a juvenile fern – I had no idea you could eat such thing, but it tasted quite good. After this it was a steep decent, with many hundreds of steps, passing some buffalo delighting in a muddy wallowing hole, back to the road and the bus to Pokhara. The bus traveled at a maximum of 10 mph, trying to maximize the distance between it and the previous bus and thus the number of customers, but at least it felt safe.

Oratory, handball and yet more holidays…

On Tuesday we found ourselves unexpectedly relieved from teaching duties and invited to an oratory contest at the local Krishna Mandir. As normal at these occasions we sat through a lot of incomprehensible Nepali but it was rather pleasant to relax in the shade of the temple rather than trying to keep control of overly enthusiastic class 4! One of our students did very well in the contest, coming second overall.

Before the contest was over we were whisked away by taxi to the local under 12s handball competition being held at a school in the centre of Pokhara. We ascended the state and collected our second ceremonial scarves of the day (now feeling rather like living mascots) and listened to yet more Nepali men droning on and on while no one paid them any attention whatsoever. Eventually the handball started, and we were treated to some excellent refreshments as we watched.

Alastair had never seen a handball game before, and was surprised at what a fast moving game it is. Our school team won their first game with the impressive score of 14 – 3, which so terrified their next opponent that they ran away home and we got a walk over for the second match.

That evening everyone was preparing for the next day’s festival, where sisters give their brothers a sacred thread to protect them and high caste Hindu’s replace the sacred thread they have been wearing looped over one shoulder for the past year. There seem to be a multitude of these festivals where the women folk perform acts of worship of self-sacrifice for the protection of their men: either by giving gifts, preparing special food or fasting. Of course there are no reciprocal acts of sacrifice by the men, but these customs are so engrained that nobody seems to mind, although the unfairness is openly acknowledged.

As we went for our customary evening stroll down the street there were whole teams of men carrying racks coated in colourful thread and jewelry for sale. On the dark street corners (the power was off) there were stalls covered in Indian style sweets of all shapes and sizes. One we tried tasted distinctly of cheese (very odd!) but we bought some others which were almost edible as long as you didn’t think of them as sweets. Along with the festival comes (yet more) holiday – four days off in total.

Snake in bed

Two days ago, Alastair and I took class 4 to the science lab and showed them there some pictures on of animals that adapted to their natural environment. One of them was a picture of a rattle snake.

This evening, when we came home, Alastair was the first to enter our room and put his school bag onto the bed. Somewhere, in the darkness under the bag as he placed it on the bed, a great rustling and rattling sound emerged. Alastair screeched and ran out of the room and Wiebke shouted “snake!” This was all much to everyone’s amusement when some crinkled plastic was discovered to be the source of the sound.

What a day (continued...)

The result of this whole day was, that leaving the internet last Friday (being exposed to a tantrum, screaming kids, and screaming pig (because it was going to be killed)) I got such a headache that in the evening, I felt quit miserable. When we went to bed and I started to close my eyes, I only saw raw meat and scenes of slaughter. I was really stressed and my headache started to become worse and worse that at one point I thought my head will explode.

This headache didn’t stop for the next 72 hours; I got really sick and couldn’t move out of bed. Unfortunately, Alastair couldn’t help except trying to sooth me and hoping that my headache stopped. Due to the pain I even started vomiting and I almost went to see a doctor (I really try to avoid this here!).

Finally, I got better but then Alastair got suddenly a headache! At least, one of us was feeling ok to take care of the other! He also suffered for 3 days. Therefore last week was not the best but both of us are doing better now. During our time of being sick, our neighbors and also some of the teachers took really care of us. As soon as I felt better, some of the male teachers, who normally don’t say hello to me when Alastair and I appear together, came to see me and asked how I was doing. I really appreciated it and I think sometimes they just don’t know what to do around me being a western female and are really shy.

What a day

What an awful day! Today is a holiday (the government decided yesterday that we will have one) and therfore today, we decided to do washing, create new lessons and also spend some time writing emails. In the afternoon, we went quickly to the canteen to have some tea and became part of a tantrum scene. Two boys started to fight and only one of them got then punished. He had to sit down and then stand up again several times. However, he got then so angry because the other boy got away with it so that he started to kick other boys and started screaming. At the end he lay on the ground and started hitting his head on the floor. The teachers then started to scream at him and tried to get him on his feet but he just got worse. In the end I really couldn't stand this anymore and had to interfere. Talking to him in a calm voice and stroking his back and head really helped then!
Now sitting in the internet cafe, there were two small children starting to scream like hell and nobody seemed to care. They were just tired.
And a minute ago, after the kids had left a pig started to scream. If you have ever heard a pig screaming, you know how awful it is! They just killed one outside the cybercafe!
Tonight, we decided to eat in our room with no children around!

Invitation

Last Saturday we were invited to spend the day with one of the teachers and his family. We had possibly the best food we’d eaten in Nepal – an amazing Dal Bhaat with beautifully cooked vegetables which melted in the mouth as well as chicken and yoghurt. Afterwards we were treated to a Jack fruit. The flesh is orange and slimy and tastes like a nice combination of banana and mango, but cannot be chewed to any effect so one savors the taste for a while and then has to let the prune-sized lump of goo slide slowly down the gullet. Alastair quite liked it, but Wiebke wasn’t so keen.

Our host then had to go to a meeting at the school, the arrangements for which give you an insight into the Nepali attitude to timekeeping. First of all the meeting wasn’t called until late the previous evening, and then was arranged for 11.30 on Saturday morning. However our host was enjoying his lunch and didn’t set off until nearly 12.30, which apparently is entirely acceptable – no one else will turn up for the first hour anyway. While he was away, we went for a walk down to the hydroelectric plant, where pipes carry diverted river water a couple of hundred metres down into a spectacular gorge. Big rivers go at an amazing pace here – a sign we really are in the Himalaya. After lunch we returned to the house and played with children before our host returned for a final cup of tea and we headed home.

Escalators

Pokhara has recently gained its first department store, where you can by anything from food to cloths to upholstery and kitchenware. The store comes complete with escalators – the first in the region – which have become a bit of an attraction in themselves. When we visited we found a lady at the top of one, contemplating the steps appearing at her feet and trying to pluck up the courage to descend. With some encouragement and a deep breath she made it on with hardly a wobble. At the bottom a group of giggly ladies were trying to make it onto the up escalator, each jostling to be the last to take the plunge. Eventually they all jumped on simultaneously and promptly fell over, clinging to the disconcerting moving banisters.

School festival

A few days ago we were treated to another ‘cultural program’, this time associated with the school. Some 600 teachers, parents and students packed the newly build ‘party palace’ hall next to the school and watched dancing by the students and speeches by religious leaders of various faiths. One lady was a Hindu leader who sang songs about Krishna (they were call and response – so we all joined in) and advised people to be vegetarian, because then you will get a longer gut. Do I want a longer gut? The length I have the moment is quite enough of a handful as it is here in Nepal!

Culture

One notable cultural difference in this part of the world compared with Europe is that men are very fond of holding hands. Male friends routinely sit and walk around hand in hand, and even sit on each other’s laps for the fun of it – even if there are plenty of chairs. Alastair’s especially glad he’s managed to escape this treatment so far since we saw two of the male teachers holding hands when one of them used his ‘engaged’ hand to have a good scratch of the crotch. The ladies also have come up with novel ways of passing the long evenings when there are power-cuts and the TV doesn’t work. We observed one of the female teachers having a good spot-popping session, surrounded by several friends and students all working on different carbuncles.

Magar

Last weekend, our neighbour kindly invited us to a Magar cultural program – the AGM of the society of the Magar people of Nepal. These people are very proud of being ‘indigenous’, as compared to some other castes such as Brahmin and Chitri, who originated in India. Brahmin and Chitri families who have lived in Nepal for hundreds of generations unsurprisingly find this attitude a little exasperating. The Magar people hold a strong sense of indignation that they are not well represented in government office, so the meetings of their society are intended to raise awareness of this issue and encourage high achievement amongst their members.

The gathering took place in a large hall with a stage at the front and fragrant toilets at the back. We were not expected at the meeting, but we had not been sitting in the audience for more than a few minutes when we were invited on stage to receive scarves and rosettes and to join the guests of honour. The introductions of Magar luminaries went on and on while we sat sweating on the stuffy stage, with hundreds of eyes staring back at us. Eventually we risked being rude and returned to our seats next to our neighbour in the auditorium. The program started well, with some lovely dances performed by girls and boys in traditional dress. Strangely, a key part of the boys dress seemed to be a tartan scarf.

Next came the speeches. They averaged at about 20 mins each and were either delivered in a low monotone or haranguing, evangelical tones. The greater the heights of the oratory to which the speaker seem to aspire, the less attention the audience paid them, merrily chatting amongst themselves while the speaker’s amplified voice reverberated around them. Mercifully for us, this meant we could talk to other people in the audience and chat with the children since we couldn’t understand a word coming from the lectern.

The talking was interspersed with entertainment, including an emotional piece of dance in which 6 lonely boys met 6 lonely girls who fed them and gave them hats in exchange for hankies. Then all tearfully parted, because the men had to move on to find work. Although a traditional dance, this situation has special poignance for the present because so many men here leave their wives and young families for years at a time to go and find work in Qatar, Dubai or Malaysia. Men between the ages of 25 and 35 were almost entirely absent from the audience.

The lowlight of the entertainment was an astonishingly bad comedy routine in which a man in a silly hat crept about the stage making funny ‘ahhh’ noises and repeatedly saying ‘namaste’ when meeting invisible people or talking on the phone.  The sequence involved a young boy whole followed close behind the man most of the time and occasionally slipped round into the man’s field of vision, eliciting no reaction whatsoever. There was only one laugh in a routine of 15 mins: when the man pretended to snore.

At this point we were asked if we would like to address the audience about our experience of their cultural program. They insisted, so Alastair made his way to the lectern and spent a couple of minutes saying how much we enjoyed the singing and dancing and admired their sense of community. The final humiliation of the day came when Wiebke decided it would be a good idea to join the small group dancing on stage to music provided by a singer. So Alastair’s first attempt at Hindi style dancing (all writst and wavy hands) was also horribly public. There is video evidence.

After 5 hours, the speakers still breathing hellfire into the microphone, we decided to beat a retreat and returned home to a very welcome lassi.