The Divinity of a Common Life

My hotel room in Pokhara looks right into the backyard of a typical Nepali family. Every morning, by 6:30, the strong smell of wood smoke fills my room through my open window. Shortly after, the sounds of happy children playing and giggling dance through my still sleepy ears. I open my eyes and peek through the window to see a grandmother sitting rocking a child in a small chair, while mama is busy preparing breakfast. Three children, probably all under 7 years old, are playing a game of tag in the backyard courtyard.

Their roof is made of corrugated tin, and it's held to the home by a collection of large rocks. The home is simple, one or two rooms and the toilet is in a small closet in the backyard, and is a squat toilet that doesn't flush. (You use water from a bucket to do that). If the inside of their home is like others that I've seen, there is a couple of platforms that multitask both as couch and probably bed, too. Theirs is a very typical home.

Saturday is the one day of the week that the children don't have school. Yet they still rise early to settle into the rhythm of a busy life. It is very common to see very young children helping their mothers with the laundry, housework, gardening, watching over their younger siblings, or even sometimes working at the family business for most of the day. When not working, kids play in small groups, often with simple things like an old Coca-Cola crate, or a rock. There is a game that both adults and kids play and it always attracts a big group. I've never been able to see inside the huddles that form but this game can captivate audiences for hours at a time. All they have here to play with is their imaginations, and I've never seen happier, less fussy, more content people (both adults and kids) in all my life.

From my observations and also by what I hear, Nepali women work far harder than Nepali men. For the women, it is far more than just preparing the meals. It is harvesting the rice, drying it, hauling vegetables often from afar on their backs, tending to the garden, raising the animals, leading them to pasture to eat, milking them. When they are not preparing for a meal (always Dal Bhat), they are doing other household chores. At least 80% of Nepali families do not use or have a washing machine. Instead, they gather at the river's edge, in large or small groups, to do the washing and to take baths. This photo was taken in Pokhara at the Phewa River, about a one minute walk from where tourists pay $150 for a paragliding or rafting adventure. There are people doing laundry, doing dishes, bathing and getting water. The rivers are also often used as toilets...think about that.

The average Nepali family makes less than $500 per year - just over $1 per day. Life is very simple here. They do not ever complain about eating the same meal twice a day, every day (if they are lucky, sometimes it's only one meal per day). When I was helping the students write letters to their American sponsors, many of them said their favorite food was rice. I also thought their drawings that they would create for their sponsors were also very telling. One of the most striking to me was of a forest that was all stumps, and a mom at home crying. The title was "No firewood for cooking." These are the kinds of things that kids worry about.This image is of a woman who is using the sun's heat to dry her recently harvested rice. She was doing this for at least 12 hours without a break as far as I could tell. Her children were playing in the rice, and helping her sort the grains for sticks and rocks.

I had mentioned in a previous post that probably only 5% of Nepali people have cars. This means that people walk everywhere, all the time. There is never a time when the streets are not busy. There's an energy that just radiates from the earth. Another popular way for families to get around is by motorcycle. Unfortunately, this is the best photo that I've got (and it's certainly not the most remarkable) but if you look closely you'll see four people - two adults and two kids on this one. I have seen as many as five people riding one. Probably the most interesting (alarming?) scene on a motorcycle was a woman who was breast-feeding her baby while sitting sideways on the back. There was another child sitting in front on the gas tank. Today I saw a 5 year old sitting on the rear bike rack of his dads bicycle while holding his infant brother. His dad was peddling very fast and nearly ran me over! None of them had helmets on.

In my past posts from Nepal, I have been talking more about my experiences, and less about Nepali life. I hope this helps you appreciate the many blessings that you have in your rich and abundant life! I will begin trekking the Annapurna Circuit beginning on Thursday, and will return to blog life when I return sometime around November 25.

With love,
Pam