Oct. 12th, saneebaar

Dashain; Nepali initiation day

Today was the eighth day of the festival Dashain, and I suppose it is when the parties start really happening. Today was our day of from training so I had all day to wander and be taken around, where I saw lots of coocoo things. The list is long, so I'll try to keep it brief but informational.

Woke up, drank tea and ate biscoots with the fam then was taught how to cut grass by my bahinis.

Followed my eldest bahini (she's 15) to take the grass to the buffaloes and goats (bakraa). Watched one of the buffaloes poop while another one peed next to it.

Watched my bahini climb a guava tree that hangs over a ledge to get me a guava. She was standing on a limb that was around 15-20feet high and was about 3 inches thick. I held my breath but realized its an American thing to be scared.

Stood directly under a giant spider hanging on its web, and realized I'm quickly shaking off the culture shock of spiders.

Watched the Nepali men of Chhaap cut up buffaloes on the village streets. Watched my grandpa and some other dude squeeze out the poop from the intestines. This guy knew enough English to say, "diarrhea". 

Ate a common Nepali snack that's served off of old classroom scratch paper with cut up pieces of a microwave box as the spoon. Then like true Nepalis, littered it on the floor when we were done.

Played ping, which is a giant rope swing. While we were playing, a wild buffalo was running on the trail and got freaked out by the swinging of the ping and made a dash at the crowd of spectators. Lucky for us one of the boys ran at it and scared it off in a different direction.

Watched a woman smoke a stog while carrying a doko full of grass off her forehead. Just thought that was ironic.

Ate lots of weird puja (worship) food, but the best was smushed rice with banana. Yum.

Everything was pretty fun and super interesting, but I was also continuously tired because we kept drinking throughout the day. sleepy bora was alive today.

Happy Dashain! The celebration continues for the next few days.

Na jaane,

Bora