NEPALESE

OBSERVATIONS OF NEPALESE WAYS

While in Pokhara the balcony of my room was overlooking a tiny Nepalese household, at least it looked tiny consisting of a very small hut and two sheds. One of them may have been the toilet.

I was awakened every morning around 6 am by the sound of the woman of the house already splitting wood for the little fire that she started. Like all Nepali she could squat down for hours while working, blowing on the fire to get it going, inserting long pieces of wood to lift her pot up when it was boiling too much etc. She carried out about six pots, lids and ladles and started pounding with a brick on whatever she was preparing to cook. Somehow she prepared food in all six pots although she had to keep rotating them since she had only one fire.

Gradually more women would arrive and some had small children while school children in their uniforms would get their plates filled and they would squat down to eat a full plateful before going to school. A few men would drift over too and all would eat from the never ending food in the pots – where did they all sleep? In that one room? Washing themselves seemed to be from a big barrel in the yard that held water possibly since the last monsoon. That garden is in picture one.

After the meal big basins were filled with the clothes that needed to be washed and this was again done squatting. What a huge amount of labour and time has to be put in to this way of living although I only saw everyone wearing the same clothes the whole week so I suppose the washing is not too much. Despite the time needed for the necessities of life most people seem to spend hours just sitting or squatting in the open. There one can get the rays of the sun and the light which is scant indoors in their tiny dark room mainly having only 4 hours of electricity in the day and the rest during sleeping hours.

The children here are great. They wear spotless uniforms to school and all ages, from tiny to adult, go around with their arms around each other or holding hands. They laugh a lot and sing to themselves. Even tiny children, with their parents, will smile when they meet a foreigner. The main impression I have of the Nepali people is of their kindness and courtesy