Holi

The 5^th March heralded one Nepal’s biggest, or at least most famous, festivals.  The bulk of my knowledge of Holi prior to arriving came from the Nikon advert.  The guidebook however filled a few gaps.  Holi is the Nepali festival of colours, celebrated by hurling handfuls of coloured powder at one another.

We decided that the best place to take part would be in the village of Jiwakhola in the neighbouring valley where we could meet up with the other 8 Project Trust volunteers.  We set off early, at about 6 am, and arrived in Jiwakhola already smeared with red powder- nothing like being a white boy on Holi...

Before anything Holi-related could start, we had to watch a long volleyball match along with 2000 other Nepalis who seemed to enjoy it far more than we did (they’re nuts for their volleyball, WWE and volleyball).  After the match had ended and the violent fight between Jiwakhola and Jijakhola had been broken up by the police, the main events of the day were able to kick off.  When a popstar from Kathmandu stepped up, you could tell that it was all really about to get going.  Sure enough, as she launched into her apparently well-known repertoire a violent mosh pit of dancing Nepalis appeared in the centre of the playground.  Playing the ‘white guys’ card, we bundled our way through to the middle and had a space cleared for us.

The scene that followed was a typically bizarre and fantastic one.  2000 people were crammed onto rooves and into windows all looking down into the playground where, like performers in an amphitheatre, the 10 of us plus 20 raucous Nepalis were dancing around in a cloud of purples, reds, blues, greens and yellows.  When things drew to a close and we were ushered out by the police, we were essentially unrecognisable, plastered head to feet in coloured powder.  As you can see from the photos, I look particularly frightening, like something out of Dr Who...

We had 4 days in Jiwakhola to wash, recuperate and relax before we headed home over the mountain (which is now a sheet of red thanks to the flowering of the Rhododendrons).  Since then we have completed the final 2 weeks of the school year as well as the end of year exams.  Invigilating for 3 hours a day has been a... long... experience and I will now always sympathise with the noble men and women who were invigilators when I sat my exams.

Last weekend we used the 4 days pre-exam leave to travel north to visit Dhorpatan.  We have woken up every morning to see its snow-capped peaks in the distance and have become used to hearing it discussed as the place to be when the weather gets hot.  We therefore, duly hiked 5 hours in the blazing sun last Friday on a continuously upward gradient, climbing over 1000 metres.  Arriving at the top though was not dissimilar from arriving at Shangri La...  We hiked up and up, through forests and clouds, all the while with the surroundings becoming more bleak and mountainous.  Suddenly, we emerged over a lip and, spread out below us, was a lush green plane, covered with grazing horses and blight blue rivers and surrounded by towering Himalayan peaks.

We spent a fantastic weekend exploring such wonders as: a huge Tibetan refugee camp and Buddhist Gompa, a tourist hunting resort laid out a little like Skirmish Paintball in Exeter and fantastic stone villages, like something from Medieval England.  The real highlight though was as many apples and potatoes as we could eat, Dhorpatan being famous for both.  If nothing else, that is definitely a reason to head back as soon as we can.

We now have a glorious 3 and a half weeks of holiday to enjoy.  Hopefully we should get through a mountain trek, an elephant-back safari, New Year’s festivities in Bhaktapur and even some white water rafting if we’re lucky...

(Posted one month late due to internet problems)

Last Wednesday Chris and I were invited to our first Nepali wedding, a concept in Nepal signifying 24 hours of eating, drinking and dancing.

We arrived at school in the morning to be presented with two glossy, scented leaflets, made out to ‘Shayam’ and ‘Krish’.  These, we were informed, were wedding invitations.  All the teachers were invited on account of the fact that the bride was in class 10.

We duly rocked up at the scene of the festivities after school.  It was not hard to find- the music and dancing had being going on all of the previous day and night...  On arrival, as usual, mutters went around at the prospect of the white boys dancing.  Before the ritual humiliation could commence though, we were ushered into a low, smokey kitchen where we found a circle of Nepalis eating and the bride and groom seated at one end of the room.  Before food, we had to pay our respects.  This involved handing over our present (some touristy fudge from Heathrow airport) and smearing tika (coloured powder) all over their foreheads.  Bearing in mind we were probably the 200^th people to do this, they were absolutely covered.

This ritual completed, we were handed a towering pile of sel rotis (chewy savoury donuts), curried potatoes and mutton.  We absolutely stuffed ourselves as the food kept on coming.  This turned out to be a huge mistake as, by the end of the evening, we had been handed 3 more full meals and then another 4 over the following morning and afternoon.  In fact, after 24 hours we had consumed 8 full meals, each one twice the size of what I would generally consider a healthy dinner...

Between eating, the main order of the day was dancing.  I honestly think we were quite good this time (we’ve done it so many times we have to be getting better now).  One particularly odd dance involved a slightly boisterous woman of 40 stalking Chris and me round the dance floor (former vegetable patch) to uproarious laughter from the 100 strong crowd of onlookers.  This was unnerving to say the least, bordering on traumatic.

The final essential component of this, and every other, Nepali wedding was Raksi (home brewed rice or millet spirit, cheap as it is disgusting).  Every meal involved at least 2 full glasses.  At one point, when it was clear saying “enough” was not going to have any effect, I put my hand over my mug.  To my dismay, the Raksi was poured over my hand and through my fingers.  Later on, when I was feeling pretty grim, dehydrated and generally unhappy, some of the teachers spotted me and shouted, “Samsir, eta, cheesho pani, cheesho pani!” (here, cold water, cold water).  I gratefully lifted up the jug and started drinking.  I was two gulps down when I noticed the laughter and realised I was in fact drinking yet more Raksi.  It is genuinely harder to find water than alcohol at these events...

The whole affair lasted late into the Wednesday night, into Thursday morning, afternoon and night.  We of course had to teach lessons on Thursday so didn’t quite manage a full night.  We did however spend all of our free periods and lunch time eating and dancing.  By the end we were pretty well beaten.  I passed a grim night on Thursday and Chris was out of action for the whole of Saturday.  The effects of sleep deprivation, alcohol consumption and major over-eating took a heavy toll, but even so, bring on the next one...