Damauli and Thimi

After scanning the last few entries I'm dismayed at how little has been captured of the past weeks. The short list itself is long, and lengthier narratives would fill a book...agh! I'll start with yesterday, which was spent in a town called Damauli, 150km out of Kathmandu. I went there with Dr. Koirala, Dr. Kopila, and one of her peers, Dr. Namruta, also a young woman. They were going to do a full check-up of about 30 cases of uterine prolapse (varying degrees), all of which are part of a study they're doing on the efficacy of Ayurvedic treatment for the problem, which includes oils and exercises (yoga). Only 17 of the cases showed up, for various reasons (one woman got very bad jaundice; others were unable to be contacted, etc.) but almost all of them had improved significantly. It was my task to take photographs ("snaps") of each case. Obviously this kind of thing would be impossible to see in the States, let alone in the manner I got to see it...but strangely, what I thought I'd find a little much for my unprepared eyes did not arouse any disgust, only empathy.

Most of the cases are the result of inadequate or improper post-natal care. The women in the hills work extremely hard, including physical labor, and have little or no time to rest after giving birth before they resume their various chores. On the drive to Damauli, I saw three generations of women in one family--a bent-backed grandmother, pretty young mother and her daughters, maybe 9 and 12--walking along the road with huge loads of vegetables on their backs. Given that this kind of toil is part of maintaining their livelihoods, it's no wonder that they'd sacrifice rest in order to keep food on the table. There are other further exceptional cases: one of the cases we saw was a woman whose children are grown and husband is paralyzed. She had total prolapse, meaning the uterus was completely outside the vagina, and had ulcerations and other complications...the only solution was to send her for an operation, but she wouldn't go, because somebody had to care for her husband. It is a real struggle for the doctors.

For the most part the women were relatively open, but some were quite shy (especially those whose prolapse was not severe) and didn't want Dr. Koirala in the room. Of course, the preference women have for female doctors, particularly gynecologists, makes perfect sense. It was an intense day. After the last case Namruta and I walked down to the river and checked out a cave where a yogi supposedly meditated thousands of years ago (in fact Damauli is the site of a few caves where the writers of the Vedas meditated), but it was absurdly hot and we headed back up quickly for the five hour drive home. On both the ride there and back we stopped at a few stands where they sell plates of tiny hot fried fish. They were basically all there was to eat, so I partook; and in fact they were delicious, as was all the fresh produce we bought on the way back--bananas, papayas, endless greens. I bought a small rack of the fish for Ama-la, but when I presented it to her at home she literally screamed and jumped backwards. Hahaha! Turns out Tibetans have a "thing" about fish, but I won't call it an aversion, because that's so un-Buddhist, haha. It was very funny. Now I have a rack of fish sitting in my room and nothing to do with it, but dry or not, I'm sure they'll start smelling. Hopefully Vidhea and Yanik like fish; it would be a shame if such a tasty snack went to waste.

After an evening flying along the bumpy highways gazing out at trucks with painted slogans like "God...Halp Me" [sic] and advertisements for brands like "Lacto Fun", it was great to just hang out all night and rest. It's been about a week since Rupesh came, but the sleep has been sorely needed. And I check to make sure I can still touch my toes every morning and every night, even if I don't do much other stretching. Tsk tsk...lack of discipline. But my discipline is needed for other things: like schoolwork.

Today was the last tour with Anil. His genius has really illuminated the last five months here. This time we went to Thimi, also outside the city, to check out the vegetables, ceramics (which they're famous for) and general entrepreneurship that's popped up around the town. Thimi has other claims to fame, though, including the complex which manufactures textbooks for every school in Nepal, which means about 7.8 million children. The buildings were built by US aid a long time ago. We whizzed by the complex and into the town, where we disembarked from the van and wandered for several hours. The first stop was a traditional mask-making shop and studio where a young girl, high school-aged, was deftly working with black clay (which is kneaded with cotton, because it can't be fired). She showed us the process of mask-making, and the red and white clay as well, while Anil gave us cultural background. He pointed out that in many cultures around the world, creation myths describe that sentient beings were shaped out of clay and life was then blown into them. Because of this the designation for potters has usually had some connotation of being creators; in Nepali this is "prathapati" or "creators of people." This is part of why it's so important for the young people who are reviving and maintaining these traditional arts to take pride in this part of their identity, and not to feel that the amazing work they do is somehow inferior to the overly-intellectual work of others. As Anil said, at the end of the day, it's not just economy.

It's also worth noting that the Nepali designation is one of the 64 surnames that automatically inform the informed listener of the occupation or trade of the person named. For example, "Tamrakar" means coppersmith, and Anil's own surname, "Chitrakar" means image-maker, and his family is traditionally involved in photography, though painting preceded that. He himself used to do some mask-making as a child, and told us some details about them, like how to tell the masks that are used for display; they have the headdresses shaped and painted in clay, whereas those used for actual dances and ceremonies would have real headdresses of jewelry and flowers and the face only for the mask, so it is lighter for the dancer. They're lined with lhota (?) paper from the hills and with cloth inside, and use rice flour glue or a strange concoction of buffalo hide and ground bones, which smells powerful and disgusting. The original paints are made of ground rock. This clay is used not only for mask-making but also for vats and vases, which are painted and used in family rituals to store rice, water, alcohol, and other "divine" substances. Some of the rituals they're used for are really fascinating, like celebrating when a person has seen their 1,000th full moon or turns 77 years, 7 months, and 7 days old. Thimi's particular culture is derived from the period of Nepal's history prior to 1482, when Bhaktapur was the capital instead of Kathmandu, and its strength as a city was supported by 7 small surrounding towns each with a specific function and product, of which Thimi's was ceramics.

Walking around the town I saw quite a few sacrificial goats tied up awaiting their demise around the temples, but one particular Buddhist bahal (Gusi Bahal or the Yellow Jasmine Bahal), open to the public but privately owned by a family, was devoid not only of animals but also any visitors. The family had moved to Patan and left the bahal to fall into disrepair, but we did peek at the Buddha statue, sitting forgotten but looking just as serene as ever, behind the locked wooden gates that were nearly decrepit. Though the wood was nearly destroyed, we could make out the figures of the Buddha's two main disciples, Ananda and Sariputra, adorning the doors leading to his inner chamber. The smaller stone stupa in the center of the courtyard, however, was carved so beautifully that the fineness and subtlety of the work was still not only observable but remarkably obvious. It's a treasure of the world, this city with these places, and it's really "God's work" that Anil is doing in making so much preservation possible.

Afterwards we visited a Thimi ceramics business and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the shop and the workshop, seeing the kilns and raw products, unshaped and unfired clay baking in the sun, and funny little completed products, like a clay foot-scrubber with a little glazed frog on its back. Tuesday, Caitlyn and I are going back to pick up some final gifts, because I saw some things there that my grandparents will love. As we drove back into the city, the fragrant smell of massage oil overpowered the van as we passed a factory responsible for supplying the myriad massage parlors in Thamel with their lubricants. Even more interestingly we passed over a bridge where on either side could be seen long stretches of land occupied by tents and lean-to shacks. When I asked Anil what the story was, he explained that during the election campaign the Maoists had promised scores of people land if they voted for them. Now the masses had appeared at the government's doorstep, in a way, demanding their land and occupying the public's in the meantime. Quite a sight...I wish I'd had my camera.

Alright, it's been two days since I showered (running all about and lacking water at home), so it's off to the Hyatt to wash up. Tomorrow is the second round of hunger strike for me and Caitlyn's first, so I'd better smell alright for the press.