I have always been a supporter of respecting the culture that one has chosen to immerse oneself and trying to assimilate as much one can, but now that I have developed a lengthy relationship with the community of the village as well as its way of life, (and have eaten a variety of horrific dishes in spite of myself) I can inject a little excitement in the form of American traditions without feeling guilty or domineering. It wasn’t premeditated, but now that the weather here is imitating spring I feel that it could have had a subconscious influence on me; that, and cricket sucks.
One Saturday afternoon, I happened to see a group of little boys trying to play cricket. As I watched them struggle hopelessly with the sticks they were trying to use as wickets I was overcome by frustration and pity. I thought of my friend Max who said that cricket was just “baseball’s ugly cousin.” I finally couldn’t stand it any more and made Kasang help me corral the children to an open area nearby. Forgetting the horror and shame I experienced as a child in little league, I enthusiastically explained the game all the while telling Kasang how immeasurably superior baseball is to cricket. (Not necessarily because baseball is that great, but more because cricket is so painful to watch.)
Armed with a tennis ball and broken piece of two-by-four, I did my best to explain it all. I knew I was successful when they started to heckle the batters, even their own teammates. It was great. (I had been shouting “hey batter batter batter..!” and they tried to imitate me, but it sounded more like “’ay ba ba baha!” It was pretty much the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.) Aside from the ball occasionally landing in a giant dung heap or getting lost in a monstrous thorny bush near by, everything went smoothly and the kids have been transformed into baseball lovers. And, more importantly, now I don’t have to learn how to play cricket; ah, success!
In addition to baseball, I have also brought barbeque to Gurje (see photo). While shopping for chutney, I found ‘American Style BBQ Sauce.’ I was wary, as I usually am of anything in this country that claims to be ‘American style,’ but it turned out to be pretty good. Kasang and I bought some chicken after I explained that BBQ sauce would NEVER taste right on water buffalo meat. We made a makeshift grill out of a bunch of metal skewers weighed down with big rocks over a pit filled with charcoal. It worked pretty well, but I didn’t realize how well until we were done eating and everyone had large amounts of BBQ sauce smeared somewhere on their face. His youngest sister had a whole mustache of it. I felt more at home at that moment than I have in a long, long time. But, it wasn’t until the next night that I realized what a huge success it had actually been. We arrived at his family’s shop to find a recently gutted chicken, bought from a neighbor, waiting for us. Though a whole plucked chicken, including the head and feet, with a bowl of blood next to it is far less than mouth-watering, in this context it represented not just a compliment to my cooking, but serious praise for American culinary innovation. (If anyone has any tips on marinades or homemade sauces, or even potato salad recipes, please mail them to me so I can further enlighten my village family.)
And speaking of further enlightenment, thanks to my awesome friends Christy and Jill, I will soon be able to introduce some of the local children to the fabulous jet puffed marshmallow –thanks again guys, you’re totally awesome! I’ll be sure to send some photos in my next mail (hopefully not including a passed out child suffering some sort of sugar induced aneurism or me with my hair on fire after an attempt to make smores went horribly wrong.) I suppose any activity involving children as well as large amounts of sugar and fire could always end in catastrophe… It’s a risk I’m willing to take. If I have the willpower perhaps I’ll wait untill Halloween (I have been trying to devise an activity to make the day special, but the hypnotic allure of roasted marshmallows may cause me to accelerate my plan…)
In the meantime I will be transferring the very last of my belongings to my home in the village. It affected me more than I thought it would when I finally arranged the last of my things on the muddy shelves. It seems when a person spends as much time on the move as I do, she becomes more than normally attached to the few tangible things she can call her own. Or perhaps I am only trying to justify an abnormal obsession with my dwindling American toiletries, but as usual, I digress.
The apartment in
As you can see by the photo, the view has also improved drastically. I wake up and right outside my window are those crystal clear mountains. And, more importantly, behind our house we have no neighbors or any other type of human chancres to spoil our view. The neighbors across the path in front of us however, do play traditional Nepali music on their staticky radio at five in the morning at top volume. Imagine waking up to the female version of Alvin and the chipmunks set to small bongos and a Salvation Army’s Santa bell; it’s unpleasant at any time of day and that unpleasantness is only enhanced by the amount of static on the radio and the hour at which it is blasted out of the house. The plus side to this irritant is that I don’t feel guilty occasionally blasting some classic rock out of our house when I’m beating my laundry against a big rock in the yard. “We’re an American band!” Nobody seems to mind the volume or me singing along at the top of my lungs. Thanks to my good friends Craig and Kathleen, I now have plenty of music that, were I at home, I might shout along with while driving to work.
I suppose I’ll leave you with that bizarre image of me aggressively scrubbing my clothes in that primitive fashion in a purely rural setting, all the while ‘rocking out’ to Credence, Bob Dylan, Queen, and ACDC (I know the last two aren’t American, but lets not split hairs.)
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