New Digs, part 3: Chaitya Marg
We are now ensconced in our third, and hopefully last, flat/house/apartment during our six months of work in Nepal. The 3rd time is the charm, they say, and certainly in terms of amenities our new place at 44 Chaitya Marg (even the alley name is auspicious-chaitya is a small Buddhist stupa) is the best of the lot. We were extremely fortunate to find a place that’s quite close to my new office (without having to cross through the madness of central Kathmandu on bicycle) and in a newly completed house to boot. It’s a small, but lovely, three room place with kitchen, bathroom and sunny balcony, while certainly no bigger than our previous Terai abodes, is quaint, cozy and comfortable. Based on the bare bones existence and facilities of our prior places, I almost feel guilty about living in such comparative luxury, although our flat is mostly a nice shell at the moment devoid of any furniture to speak of. One of the advantages in the Terai, is that a lot of basic furniture comes with the place, or in our case is borrowed from the organization, so one doesn’t have to worry so much about that. We have a thin futon on the floor for the time being, a few cushions in the sitting room, a small table fashioned out of a tin trunk, a small wooden table we had made in Terai and a couple of old chairs we picked up out of VSO storage. We covered some of the more kitschy light fixtures with paper lanterns
Our new neighborhood is a smattering of ex-pat development workers, Tibetan households with their prayer flags fluttering from nearby rooftops (and a diversity of ethnicity in general), narrow alleyways, both new houses and old and crumbling ones, muddy footpaths and newly paved ones, empty lots (where street dogs rule the night) and the odd rice paddy and intercity garden tucked away here and there. We are somewhere in between the new Royal Danish Embassy and the Nil (Blue) Saraswati temple with one of Kathmandu’s infamous stinking sewage streams nearby. The dichotomy of things is a microcosm of life in the capital: it is without a doubt the “wealthiest” part of the country, yet poverty exists all around-which can often be a jolt as it appears from nowhere-and the infrastructure, although decidedly better than areas we have known, can still be rather or wholly lacking.
There’s a sort of reverse discrimination at work house hunting in Kathmandu-our new place could quite easily go for a much higher price, but some Kathmandu landlords actually prefer foreigners for what they perceive as rent always being paid on time, and they are willing to trade the occasional noisy party for the fact that foreign tenants won’t be moving in their extended family in every conceivable place and floor space… We were offered dumpy places at the same price, so our choice was a rather easy one. Our landlord and his family (Krishna & Manju) live below us on the second floor. They’ve been wonderfully accommodating so far.
These are the great, post-monsoon, clear blue-sky (and increasingly chilly-yet another new feature) days of Kathmandu before the dust and haze begins to settle over everything once again. On the best of days, we are offered Himalayan views to the north and northeast from our rooftop, and at the clearest of times, peeks of the Sagarmatha (Everest) region from our window. It is also the time of Dashain, the biggest festival of the year in Nepal, where the never-ending queue of goats are lined up for the slaughter to appease the blood thirsty goddess Durga and celebrate her victory over the evil buffalo demon (water buffaloes are also sacrificed, though not in such wholesale numbers). Even outside of our window, the goat slaughter and cooking has been going on for days. The whole country gorges on meat. Each day of Dashain, and there are many, offers something different: the offering of the sacred flowers from Gorkha (we caught a glimpse of the King’s motorcade and were subsequently trapped in Durbar Square), small, paper kite flying (and a vicious array of strings for cutting those of your opponent) for kids and adults alike, and the receiving of tikas from family and friends-so many blobs of red on the forehead that today many people look like walking gunshot victims! On the heels of Dashain comes Tihar, or the Festival of Lights (more to a vegetarian’s liking), so the whole period from mid October to mid November seems to be one, long perpetual festival and celebration.
Life in Kathmandu will put our meager allowance to the test. With greater availability come higher prices, although the vegetable markets in the neighborhoods haven’t been too bad so far. This normally entails getting to know certain vendors where prices don’t magically double or triple. There are also the temptations of the tourist ghettos, with their surprising array of food menus, cold bottles of beer and drinks. We have gone from almost nothing to spend our money on to quite a variety of things if one is so inclined, but for the most part, we are still trying to live our rather paltry, Nepali lifestyle. For the time being, we are enjoying the bustle and atmosphere of Kathmandu with seemingly every section teeming with history and culture. To wander the back alleys of old town Kathmandu (and her sister kingdoms) is to step back in time and/or wander through an open air museum-it is entirely possible to stumble upon something new every time one ventures out. Most of old Kathmandu is truly a saunterers’ paradise.
So, life in our new Kathmandu home is mostly good. Although we first arrived in this city, it seems so much different to me the second time around. Stepping out of the airport and onto the teeming streets of Kathmandu can be an utterly overwhelming experience in the beginning, but seeing as we have just come from six months in the hinterlands, the familiarity seems rather placid. In actuality, it is the countryside that is mostly easygoing and docile, but sights, sounds and smells travel the whole breadth of the country, so that the sensory overload is not so all consuming. In the beginning, I relished the opportunity to both live and work in the same community, and even now I see that there is an intimacy of trust and understanding that one gains by placing oneself in the thick of it, so to speak. I will miss that intimacy of Bardibas-an understanding that one fails to develop by merely traveling through a place, but, as aforementioned, consider myself fortunate to have had a rather lengthy time getting a feel for the epiphanies and challenges of the area and at the same time forging some friendships.
Migyoung is very happy about our move, which especially makes sense when you are trying to do your work from home. Good or not, at least I had an office to go to… And from an artists’ perspective, which is not to say that I am one (but I will venture a guess), does have a few galleries and other venues that may be possibilities for her. Our location in the Terai may have been good if one likes landscapes, but on the whole, I think that being based in Kathmandu will be much more inspirational for her and it certainly offers a lot more diversity. It’s easier here to get out to Teraiesque landscapes, but much harder in our prior location to find a place like Kathmandu. I have noticed the upsurge in her enthusiasm, and that makes me happy.
Posted by david at October 30, 2004 01:03 PM