Donkey Recount
I stand corrected: Bardibas apparently is more than a two donkey town, for
this afternoon I saw my two acquaintances with four friends--hobbled, yet
still able to kick up their heels in the middle of the road as if knowing
that today is yet another strike day of reduced traffic--bringing the town
total to six, or four more than the U.S. presidential race, provided
Kucinich is still hanging on.
I might as well be one of those donkeys when it comes to getting any sort of
reliable information about national/maoist/regional strikes: I haven't
seen a paper in days (and even that is mostly Kathmandu centric), and while
one person might assure me that all shops and businesses will be closed, I
am just as likely to receive the exact opposite reply from someone else. In
their defense, it is all a great guessing game as to the extent and
seriousness of the strike, and I have come to rely on no one's opinion but
my own: I hop on my bicycle and have a look around the market, collecting
whatever vegetables I can find--mostly okra and eggplant as of late--and
make do otherwise. I see if there are any buses on the roads, where they
are headed and if the small thatch hut that serves as a bus station for
Janakpur bound buses is occupied or not.
A trip to the PCO
There is one telephone in town at the Post and Communications Office (PCO),
which sounds rather official, but is essentially a private businessperson
with the funds sufficient enough to pay the hefty bribe needed to get a
phone line installed. I initially thought this was one line provided by
either the regional or national government until the phone system could be
restored, but I have since discovered that this is not the case at all.
Even the Christian minded United Mission hospital outside of town has a
phone line, which must have been from some divine intervention... Good
governance and transparency is part of every NGO agenda, but the
practicalities of accomplishing the most basic of tasks dictates otherwise.
The PCO consists of a desk with a phone on it; a PCO operator who dials and
receives all calls, and two rather smallish benches for people to wait on.
Privacy is not an option, as all calls are heard by everyone in the
office¡Xand even those outside since there is no door¡Xwith most people
hanging on to every word of complete strangers, as if listening to an
engrossing radio program. A telephone conversation in English brings added
glee and wonderment.
One of my colleagues went to place a call for me, asking the party I wanted
to speak with to call the PCO back after a number of minutes. I went to the
PCO and waited for my call to arrive, but seeing as the facility is mainly a
place for people to place calls--this is the only way they make money--and
there was a steady stream of one caller after another, I finally gave up
hope. The PCO is basically a place for outgoing calls; my colleague in
Kathamandu had attempted for two days to get a call through to me.
Chhang
Most rice producing and consuming nations produce some variation of a rice
wine or beer; here the rice brew is called chhang. In an attempt to reverse
the trend of my steady weight loss, some of my colleagues have suggested the
consumption of rice wine/beer during the hottest months. Not a bad idea, I
thought, since what little I had in Kathmandu I quite liked, and it is
similar to the alcohol rice drinks I loved during my time in Korea. This
morning I put two liters of boiled water in my bicycle basket and cycled
over to the chhang brewing farmhouse. Turns out, this was a small
permaculture farm in the making and a member of my organization¡¦s minor,
yet growing permaculture project and movement. The rice had already been
fermented when I arrived and was in a sort of paste form. The water was
poured over this and strained several times to remove some of the grit and
husks from the rice. It's a slightly sweet and milky looking drink, and I
was encouraged (made, without much twisting of the arm) to try a tall glass
(remember, this is about 7:00 AM and I have yet to have breakfast) for
taste. Compared to what I had in Kathmandu, however, this wasn¡¦t a very
strong brew at all, which was probably for the best considering the time,
but I was told that if I wanted stronger mixes I could have that as well!
This is obviously a day for alcohol (it's a strike day of course). On my
way home from my morning chhang experience, not more than a hundred meters
from our home, a group of men were brewing up a big pot of raksi (a
gut-wrenching, clear, vodka-like drink) over an open campfire and readying a
goat for slaughter. I couldn¡¦t bring myself to watch the slaughter, but
here's Migyoung¡'s account: the goat was first made to drink some water
while one other person put some water on the goat¡¦s neck¡Xas the goat
shakes its neck, it is apparently a sign that it¡¦s ready for the deed. One
man steadied its hindquarters while the executioner made several feint
attempts at lopping off its head with a long curved blade until the goat was
calm enough and would hold still for a clean chop. One blow was all it took
to take the head off, while the others held on to the still twitching
goat¡¦s body. The goat¡¦s head was dipped in hot water for I know not what,
and the body was first skinned and scrapped before being disemboweled and
cut into portions. This isn¡¦t a PETA case¡Xthere was no torture involved
nor hypocrisy, for not only do many people slaughter their own meat, they
consume and use the entire animal with very little if any waste.
Rain
Two nights ago we had an unexpected thunderstorm, which temporarily knocked down the dust and brought a relatively cool breeze. We slept more
comfortably than we have in over a month. But there is a yin and a yang to
everything, and so we have also noticed an explosion in the insect
population and increased humidity. At night, any light attracts a number of
flying, hopping, crawling, screeching, buzzing and sometimes biting insects.
Many, the likes of which, I have never seen in my life. There are monstrous
cockroaches, which we have thankfully only seen outdoors so far, a huge
spider the size of my fist that lives in a crack in the ceiling next to a
light socket, and other hard and soft shelled varieties of insects. So many
in fact, that our resident geckos can¡¦t consume them fast enough. Whether
they are just too full to eat or overwhelmed at the sere numbers and not
knowing which ones and where to attack first, I wish they could do more than
just hang out on our walls