Weddings

We have found out more about arranged marriages this week. Our high cast Hindu teacher was spending the weekend arranging the marriage of a friend. Basically in the towns nowadays the arrangement occurs when they are old enough to be married. The male is shown photos of prospective women. If he likes then they meet for ½ hour. If they agree the family then has to approve. If they do then the marriage is on the next auspicious day based on the moon, stars and all sorts of other things!!! Our teacher’s friend had met someone on the Friday when we saw him. He wasn’t interested so met another girl that was related to our teachers mother on the Sunday. The groom travelled ½ hour south to meet and the bride went ¾ of an hour north. They approved, the family also approved and as that was the next auspicious day the bride went to a shop, got a dress and went home to the family who cooked a feast and the couple were married a few hours after they met!!! My mother would freak at that idea!!! It is tradition that you invite everyone and anyone that you remotely know therefore by doing it on the day it is a lot cheaper.

The male was also in a hurry as he is leaving in two weeks to work overseas. He will leave the bride behind but she now moves into the house of the groom and is basically a servant, but fortunately the pressure to produce a son reduces. It is important for a son to be born so that the son can light his fathers cremation fire.

Football in Nepal

We went to a soccer game last weekend. It was the final of a series of weekend competitions that are held annually. We went to the final which was the army verses the police. It was a terrible game and I think Mark could’ve shot goals better than they did. The best part of the game was when a microlight flew over the field and threw out the Nepali version of confetti – toilet paper and glitter!!!! It flew over a few times and got the crowd more excited than the game did!!!

Friday was the celebration of the Hindu god Shiva – or Shivarati. Everyone lights bonfires in the street and burns sugarcane which once heated makes a huge bang and sends sparks flying when hit on the ground. There are kids running around all over the place eating the burnt sugarcane. We went for a walk around the block and witnessed about 10 fires all with lots of enthusiastic boys and men vying to make the loudest bang! Its also the one night of the year that it is legal to smoke dope.

We took our bikes out last weekend. On Saturday after church we rode for about 1.5 hours up the Pokhara valley. We left the town behind quickly and were biking through rice paddies and villages. There were a lot of dry river beds which in the monsoon will turn into flooded valleys.

On Sunday we rode half way and then biked the rest of the way up to a lookout above Pokhara. We climbed the height of Taranaki to get there only to realise we were on a tiny foothill looking towards the very steep and high Himalaya’s. They really are big!!!

Language is getting a lot harder now. We are learning the complexities of verbs in the present tense and it really is confusing. Please pray that this will get easier!!

Our big news is that we know what work we will be doing when we finish language. We will be staying here in Pokhara (contrary to what we understood when we left NZ) which is great as it is a city with a higher standard of living than we were expecting (It even has toilet paper!!) though there are still many needy people here! Pokhara is more or less the hub for INF’s work in Nepal.

Mark will be doing project management of a large grant that the organisation has been given by the Finish government. This involves managing the building of an outpatient clinic at green pastures hospital, scholarships for staff and renewal of old equipment at the hospital which is adjacent to where we are currently studying our language.

Jo will initially be working part time (with the aim of hopefully increasing her hours) in the government run hospital helping in the outpatient dept and the orthopaedic ward. There is a very poor work ethic in government institutions as well as a very poor respect for human life. Therefore, I will be attempting to demonstrate through my actions what it means to respect others and work effectively in the time you are paid to be there. As we are in Pokhara we can continue to learn the language. We can start to make Nepali friends like the dear man at the shop next door as well as start to get involved in church life and find a house that we can live in rather than stay in the INF guest house. All very exciting!!

Church

There are a few things about church that are different to home! For a start you sit on the floor for the two hour service, men on one side and women on the other. If you haven’t been to the church before you have to stand up in front of everyone and introduce yourself. Last Saturday (church is on a Saturday morning) this was the only time English was spoken in the whole service, it was obvious that we were new and so the pastor wanted us to stand up!

For communion they use ribena as the Nepali church has taken a stand against alcohol, alcoholism is a big problem here and no-one drinks socially, (if you drink it is to get drunk). Communion is given out of a small watering can which one holds towards their mouth and pours a small bit down your throat without touching the spout and pouring it down your chest! The lady offering it to the ladies (and man to the men) then wipes the bottom of the spout to catch any drip but not around the spout as it never touches someone’s mouth (so they think!!).

When the border to Nepal opened up to foreigners in 1951 there were some women sitting on the border waiting to serve the Lord in Nepal. They walked for seven days to Pokhara and started a hospital using an aluminium kitset from India. They were given some land for their hospital that was near a hindu cremation site therefore considered unholy and haunted. The buildings were so bright when the sun shone on them that it was called the shining hospital. The area isn’t used now as people are arguing over the lands ownership but the buildings are still there so we visited it – inside the buildings must’ve been sooo hot in the summer.

Photos

Jo learning Nepali

The original INF hospital (Shining hospital)

Nepali kids

More Nepali kids

View of Pokhara from lookout

View from our roof

I thought I'd make the most of the broadband at the office and post a few pictures

Its raining

Yipee!!! The Lord has answered my prayers and it has been raining since 3am this morning!!! As it hasn't rained since Dec the ground was REALLY dry, everything was dusty, the air hazy and the water low this is a real blessing. The downside is that it is freezing and the power we think got hit by lightening so even when we are scheduled to have power there is none!!!
The upside is that when it clears the views of the mountain are going to be great. Watch this space!

We have a different teacher for language every two weeks so we have started with another teacher this week. She is teaching us heaps of vocabulary and is using the Nepali script for everything whereas previously we have been using romanised letters so class has been really hard this week.

Well, I am going to crawl into bed to study as that is the only warm place here - reminds me of being a student in NZ - only thing was there I couldn't afford electricity, here we just don't have it!!!!

House Photos

The view from our front door

Our house

Kitchen

Bedroom

Bathroom (the shower is right over the toilet, a most annoying feature of Nepali houses)

Here's a few snaps of our dwelling. Not too shabby!!! It's much nicer than we were expecting we were all psyched up to be living in a primitive Nepali house and this is what we got...We certainly can't complain about the view from the front door. We will be experiencing the life in a village house when we spend a few weeks living in a small village as part of our language and orientation training, that will be primitive. One of the couples that was staying with us is now in Tansen for a week before heading home to Surkhet. We got an email from them saying that the guest house they are staying in has no running water or flush toilet, but has wireless broadband!!!

God Bless
Mark and Jo

Hindu Wedding

Food preparation out the back

Father of the bride

Bride and groom

Hindu priest with a long list of tasks to be completed by the couple and family. Groom is getting a blessing by a member of the family

Relative in traditional Nepali dress

We were invited to a high class Brahmin wedding today. We have seen about 15 weddings today as today is the one day in this lunar month where all the factors come together to make it an auspicious day. (The planets etc all line up which brings the couple good luck.)

Weddings appear to be arranged a little differently than in the past, in the towns anyway. The groom is shown pictures of potential girls when he is at the appropriate age for marriage. If he is attracted to one he gets ½ hour alone with her. If both male and female are happy with each other the families are left to decide whether these people are right for each other. If the family approve they are married on the next auspicious day that is coming up. Therefore, a month ago the bride today didn’t know that she was going to get married!!! I think that the partnership may be decided at a younger age in the villages.

We arrived in time for the feast (great timing, good food and heaps of it!) and after the guests had eaten all the street kids managed to get their fill!!
The wedding goes for 3 days (we think) and today was the brides family part. Tomorrow is the grooms family part. There was a feast today and all the official stuff. We arrived after it had been going for 2 hours before breaking for lunch. We left after about ¾ of an hour into the formalities after lunch and went for a bike ride. We came back an hour later and it was still going!!! Even while we were there the family was coming and going all the time!!!

The formalities that we saw revolved around the Hindu priest direction. He had a very very long series of activities that they had to go through. The blessing was given from family members by washing themselves with water and then placing a tika (red dye with rice – a holy Hindu blessing) on the forehead of both the bride and groom. At one stage the father of the bride took the topi (traditional hat) off the groom and replaced it with a new one as well as giving him a gold watch. Another part involved some money being place in a sheet, tika’s added to this and then it all tied in a knot that was pulled tight by the bride and groom and then draped over their shoulders while they marched around a fire as the priest chanted prayers.
The thing that struck Mark and I the most was the sadness of the bride. They are supposed to look sullen as they are leaving their family but she either was a really good actor or really wasn’t enjoying the whole thing. Ok, so parts of it must be boring but still – to us it is your wedding day and it should be a happy occasion but here it certainly doesn’t seem to be for the bride!!! The groom was really happy.

Water and Power

Water is becoming a real issue. It isn’t due to rain for another few months and the hydro and town supply lakes are low. Each house has a tank connected to the town supply that should be filled regularly. However, we are getting about 2 hours of water once a week we think. We ran out last week so had to get a tanker to come and give us more. We are very low again now so showers are getting even shorter – think we can both shower in 2 minutes now. As well as the low water the load shedding of the power system has now increased to 11 hours of power cuts a day. Today the power was cut from 5am to 11am and 5pm – 11pm. I’m not complaining as the wedding next door has just lost it’s sound system so the repetitive Nepali music has finished for the day!!! We get power on a Saturday evening but often parties and weddings drain the system so much that there are frequent cuts anyway!!! Surges are frequent and one must use a volt guard on fridges, computers etc. We didn’t bring one so had to get one here. We got the best, most compact locally made one available – check out the photo!!!

Bikes

We have bought bikes to get around here. They weren’t the cheapest available but they weren’t the most expensive either. They are 18 speed but haven’t got suspension although the roads here are like mountain biking trails in NZ! We road them home from the shop and then for another ride one afternoon after which Mark had to tighten almost all the bolts holding his one together only to find all the ball bearings in the rear cluster missing and the bike not working next time he went to get on it. The shopkeeper even looked surprised!!!

We are really enjoying being on bikes and being able to get around cheaply. Today we went to the tourist part of town for a ride and twice we were stopped by police to get one side of our wheel sprayed as we went through a bird flu area!!!!

Schooling and Youth Group

We are really settling into Pokhara and loving it here. It is an incredibly beautiful place. We have been living in a house with two other couples from the mission. They have now left and we are in a six bedroom house on our own!! There are lots of people who come through for meetings and they will stay here. Anyone reading this is also welcome to stay!!!
One has to talk about schooling and youth group here. There are now to be no complaints about what it is like in NZ.
Parents and students have the choice of going to either a private or public school. Anyone who can pays for their children to go privately as the quality is much better than the public system. The private system, minus Nepali lessons, is taught in English. In the public schools it is all taught in Nepali.
The children in the public school start going when they are 5 years old and can go up to school leaving certificate which is 15. They don’t have uniforms.
The private schools start at 3 years of age and then formal education starts at aged 6. They start exams at the age of 10 which they have to pass in order to go up to the next class. Once you have achieved a school leaving certificate at aged 16 you can then do another two years of education not available in public schools to get a higher school leaving certificate that enables you to attend university. The parents are told that in order for the children to pass their exams when the child is a teenager they have to attend the boarding school. If the children don’t attend the teachers ignore the students ensuring that they fail. Boarding fees are expensive and hard to parents to pay. They have uniforms similar to Catholic schools in NZ from the age of 5.
In both systems school starts at 8.30 to 9am and goes until about 3pm after which most students have tuition in order to pass the exams they have to sit. They attend school 6 days a week although Fri is only from 9am until 1pm. There is no school on Saturdays which here is the day that people attend the temple or church.
Youth group starts at 6am on a Saturday with a bible study. Teaching begins at 8.30 and then the youth join in the main service at 10am. There is often a bible study during the week as well.