To Feel Something, Deeply…

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by a young woman who was doing research on Hindu/Christian couples for a paper she was working on at the Harvard Divinity School. She had found me through some of my blog postings on negotiating different religious territory for our wedding.

I admit that I am probably not the best “Christian” to interview for such a paper, for even though I was raised in a Catholic home, I don’t really consider myself very Christian. I was upfront about this in the interview, but the interviewer said that it was okay, that it was good to hear a diversity of opinions.

I always mean to write a more in-depth post about my own feelings on religion. I have touched on some here and there, but sometimes I’m afraid of offending more religious readers of this blog. I wouldn’t mean to as I actually find religion a fascinating topic, but sometimes I worry that professing no faith can seem insulting or sad to those that have deep faith.

Yet personally, I’ve never really felt any religious or spiritual stirrings. Perhaps not everyone is struck with a deep religious calling, but I haven’t even felt minor religious or spiritual murmurs. It’s not for a lack of wanting to, or having tried to seek such feelings out. There was a time when I really just wanted to “get” what other people seemed to, without having to try so hard. However it hasn’t happened, and on an intellectual level, at least with the Catholicism that I was raised with, Christianity just never made much sense to me.

So it felt kind of cathartic to talk to this woman about my religious feelings (or lack there of), and how it shaped our multicultural household. As we neared the end of our hour long conversation she asked me if I ever had something close to a spiritual feeling even if I wouldn’t necessarily label it such, and I had to admit there was at least one time.

It sounds like the biggest cliche in the book, but when I signed up to study in India I had been grappling with my complex religious feelings for years. Although the main purpose of my trip was to learn more about South Asia in general, I was hoping that perhaps something in this “spiritual land” (sorry, even I’m cringing as I write that) would speak to me, and that perhaps I’d finally find that missing religious link I’d been searching for.

I didn’t, I came back just as atheist as I was when I departed, but there was one experience that felt inspiring, that did churn something up in my chest.

I pulled out my India journal to see what I had written.

As our program director was a Tibetan monk, our India semester had a special focus on Buddhism, and in addition to learning about Hindu culture and traveling to places like Varanasi, we also traveled to Dharmsala (where the Tibetan government-in-exile and the Dalai Lama reside) and Bodhgaya, the place where Buddha supposedly sat underneath the bodhi tree and meditated until he gained enlightenment.

The town of Bodhgaya is off the regular tourist track, and although you do bump into western tourists, a lot of the visitors are Buddhist pilgrims from around the world, and particularly from Tibet. It wasn’t uncommon to see nomadic Tibetan pilgrims walking down the street looking like they had just stepped out of a National Geographic documentary on life in a yak caravan.

Bodhgaya itself is a bit of a dusty backwater with frequent power cuts, and not much traffic. Around the outskirts of town are various temples from different Buddhist nations, built to reflect each culture’s style and architecture: Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Laos, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.

At the center of town is the Mahabodhi Temple, which sits beside the spot where Buddha meditated. A bodhi tree is still in the spot, supposedly the sapling of a sapling of a sapling of the original tree. Around the temple and the tree is a path that pilgrims circumambulate night and day.

Mahabodhi Temple– “front”

Mahabodhi Temple and Bodi tree at night– “back” of temple

This is the passage from my journal:

Tenzin-ji [our program director] says, “You can sleep when you get back to the US” and I have tried to adopt this as my new motto…

For instance… our last morning in Bodhgaya a group of six of us woke up at five in the morning and walked to the Mahabodhi temple to circumambulate for two hours before our thirty minute meditation. We left in the darkness, as the town slept, yet found the temple bustling with activity as we walked around it with many Tibetan pilgrims. A chant was playing over the temple loud speakers, and we walked until the power went off… and then we walked in darkness, feeling our way along the path… until the power kicked back on and the sun slowly rose. The devotion of the pilgrims is awe inspiring… old and young alike were making slow prostrations around the temple… hours of bending up and down in prayer…

After being here and watching activites such as this, I feel like I could do something crazy and seemingly impossible. Like walk across the US, or do anything I set my mind to do. It would almost be a test of wills, just to see if I could do it. Nothing seems impossible anymore.

Your mind does funny things when you test it… like walking around a temple in a continuous circle at 5 in the morning for two hours. It starts to wander… and you think about life… I meditated on my feelings about religion, I thought about my family, and life after college. I tried to release some of the anger that I have kept bottled inside and tried to breath out my frustrations.

This has been good for me, healthy.

It’s easy to let life and routine get in the way of seeking out these really inspirational moments. I don’t know if I really felt something spiritual while walking around the temple, but I definitely felt something deeply that day, and it will be a moment I’ll never forget.

Bringing Shoe Stealing to a Whole New Level…

In some sectors of Nepali and Indian culture there is a wedding tradition where the sisters of the bride–and this could be immediate biological sisters, or cousin-sisters, or female friends, etc–steal the shoes of the groom.

The set up for this works well because during the ceremony the bride and groom have to remove their shoes since the mandap becomes a small Hindu temple, and in all Hindu temples one must remove their shoes. I believe it is the same with mosques, so I wouldn’t be surprised if shoe stealing happens at South Asian Muslim weddings as well–readers can weigh in.

The groom’s friends or male cousins/brothers are supposed to guard the shoes, and I’ve even heard about “decoy” shoes to throw the sisters off.

Once the sisters steal the shoes the groom has to pay a bribe to get them back at the end of the ceremony. Depending on the parties involved, negotiations can be pretty tough.

When my sister heard about this, she loved the idea, and stole P’s shoes at our wedding, but I gave her a limit on how much she could reasonably ask for. When she asked for $50, S said, “that’s too little!” and gave her a handful of money from his wallet. I think she made off with $100 and was pretty satisfied.

Over the weekend we went to an Indian/Nepali wedding in the DC area. It was the biggest wedding I had ever been too– about 600 people. The bride was a childhood/neighborhood friend of P and his brother, and she was marrying a Punjabi man. Both the bride and groom had 13 or 14 members in their wedding party–”bridesmaids” and “groomsmen,” so when the “bridesmaids” (sisters) demanded payment for the groom’s shoes, they meant business and had the numbers to back it up.

They started chanting, “$3,000! $3,000!”

The groom countered with, “It’s a recession! That’s too much for a pair of shoes!”

Sisters: “We want $3,000!”

Groom: “I’ll give you two-fifty each…”

Sister: “Two hundred and fifty dollars each?”

Groom: “No! Two dollars and fifty cents!”

Sisters: “Noooooooo! Boooo!”

Groom: “Be reasonable girls!”

Groom’s brother: “No more than $50 per sister, otherwise they are being greedy!”

Sisters (urged on by the bride): “No, we want $3,000!”

…Haggling back and forth for quite a while…

Groom: “Okay, how about I give you all the money in my wallet right now? Trust me, it’s a lot, you will be happy… and I’ll throw an awesome party!”

Sisters: “How much is in your wallet?”

Groom: “$800 and a gift card for $25, you can have that too!”

Sisters: “Noooooo!”

…Haggling some more…

Some of the brothers reluctantly open their wallets and sweeten the pot to make an even $1,000 plus the $25 gift card.

The sisters finally accept.

P’s cousin’s American husband leaned in and whispered to me, “Um, is this for real?”

Sisters enjoy their shoe money...

Apparently!

Someday I want to be in South Asia for Holi

I know that the festival of Holi happened a few weeks ago, and I meant to write a post like this at the time, but I was reminded of Holi last night while searching for photos on the internet and figured it was time.

As the title professes, one of these days I would really like to be in either India or Nepal for Holi. I understand and appreciate that there is a religious significance to the festival, so I don’t want to seem disrespectful or  flippant, but there is something that looks so amazingly fun about throwing handfuls of colored powder at each other, regardless of the reason.

I remember once in elementary school someone gave me the idea of putting a spoon or two of flour into an opened  napkin and tying the napkin shut with a piece of string to make a “flour bomb” that “exploded,” sending flour everywhere, when you threw it at someone/something. I made about a dozen, and my sister K and I threw them at each other in the back yard. We were covered in white powder at the end. It was extremely fun, and of course, silly, but I couldn’t replicate it because I got in trouble for wasting flour.

I imagine a full scale Holi is kind of like that, only the flour-like powder is dyed vibrant hues, and the world is covered in rainbows.

P says that in real life (well, in the kid version he remembers) playing Holi can also be kind of brutal. Teenage boys love targeting Western tourists (particularly females) and Holi colors don’t always come in fun handfuls of powder… sometimes they come in buckets of colored water or balloons. There was even a dangerous trend of more mischievous people throwing motor oil in Kathamandu, but I still  like to imagine crowds of happy, friendly people, shrieking in delight and playing tag with fist fulls of beautiful powder.

Actually, P has a “battle wound” from a Holi shenanigan in his youth. One year he was up on the roof of his house, leaning far over the ledge to hit a neighbor girl with a balloon filled with colored water. As he positioned himself for the sneak attack he let the balloon go, but lost his balance and fell off the roof with it! He cracked the side of his head on the path below and started bleeding. As luck would have it, the timing of his accident coincided with a city curfew, and his family couldn’t taken him to the hospital until the following morning. Several stitches later, he still has a bump on his noggin that you can see in the right light if you know where to look.

But I’m not deterred :)

We have played Holi a few times in Massachusetts, although of course a tamer version, at Holi potluck gatherings where fellow party goers gently wipe powder in a streak across each others faces. But much like smearing birthday cake on someone’s face, the real fun is getting a little crazy. I wouldn’t mind coming back from Holi looking like this:

Pictures are from The Telegraph and Boston.com.

Titaura

Today I simply have to link to another Nepali blog. Many of the readers of this blog probably already read NepaliAustralian‘s, but if not you should check out her most recent post on titaura.

From time to time I like to write about things Nepali people like…
momo,  sel roti, WaiWai, heck even the Bryan Adams song “The Summer of ’69“

… and  titaura  should certainly be added to the list.

Often when friends or family return from Nepal they bring with them packets of these small dried and candied fruit snacks, and the packets don’t usually last long in our house.

There are several kinds of titaura– salty, sweet, sour or hot. Many are made from the Nepali fruit “lapsi” which comes from a tree native to Southern and Eastern Asia.

Lapsi fruit hanging on a tree

I’m not a fan of the spicy or salty titaura. Early on in my friendship with the Nepali crowd at my university I was talked into trying a spicy mango titaura and I’m not interested in eating another one of those any time soon! However I love the sweet and sour ones. Even writing about titaura is making my tongue tickle with sweet and sour anticipation. Too bad I polished off a recently found (and presumably last) packet  from our October trip a few weeks back.

Packets of Nepali titaura candies.

I like the yellow ones in the lower right hand picture, but I’ll eat the orange ones in the upper right and the ones right below that too! yum yum :) P likes the ones that are sticky and wet like the red ones in the lower left picture. I think he is also more of a salty or spicy fan.

Musing on Gas

My blogging ebbs and flows, depending on what is going on in life, how busy work tends to get, and if I need a distraction. Even if I’m not a super consistent writer (although I try), I’m usually lurking on other blogs, and when I get really hooked on one and all of a sudden there hasn’t been a post in a few weeks (or months) I find myself thinking, “Come on!” [in the voice of GOB] “Where did this blogger go… I miss them!”

Alas, as of late, I’ve become one of those absentee bloggers. Je suis très désolée.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, I just sometimes lose the motivation to sit down and put it together in a post. I have a bad habit, during dark chilly New England months, of burying under blankets in the evening and reading good books. Perhaps I was a hibernating creature in another life.

So, to transition in to writing a little bit more, I decided to share an amusing story from the weekend.

January 15^th is P’s western calendar birthday (his Nepali calendar birthday was near the beginning of January, and like every year he didn’t know it was happening until he got a call from his parents one night wishing him a happy birthday) and this year it was also the Nepali holiday of Maghe Sankranti. I’m not totally clear on the details of this specific holiday (although the ever handy Wikipedia gave me a better idea), other than it marks the start of the Nepali month of Magh and the passing of the unlucky month of Poush, and that on this holiday you eat boiled cassava and purple colored sweet potato that can only be found locally at the Vietnamese grocery store.

This year, as last year, S-di invited our local crew over to her place for the day. Between S-di, M-dai and his wife’s cooking there was much to be had—the required boiled cassava and sweet potato, sel roti, a giant bowl of homemade ghee, sesame sweets, rice, taarkari, chicken, etc.

And as usual, we went to her house thinking that we would only stay for a few hours… and we wound up being there for eight or nine. After our bellies were full, and M-dai, Bhauju (M-dai’s wife), S-di, P and I were settled on the couch under cozy blankets, we spent time chatting and M-dai told a funny story.

M-dai grew up in a village up in the hills of Okhaldhunga district. When he was a kid there was a Peace Corps volunteer who worked at his school. He even remembered the volunteer’s name… “Spike.”

Anyway, they used to find this foreign teacher really interesting. He was quite different from the rest of them in various ways, but he had this one habit that all of the students found really bizarre—he used to fart in public like it was no big deal.

Now one could speculate. Maybe this guy was a bit of a bum, and he would have farted in public anywhere, including in the US. Or maybe the combination of Nepali food, a different altitude, and intestinal bugs continually agitating his GI tract, left him with no choice but to let loose, or else be plague by terrible gas pains (hey, it could happen). Yet it’s also possible that maybe this guy simply thought passing gas wasn’t a big deal in Nepal—burping certainly isn’t, although apparently there is a different feeling about flatulence from the other end—and never thought much about doing it where ever he was, alone or with others.

Certainly Westerns fall into this mentality when it comes to clothing while traveling in the “developing world,” myself (formerly) included. Sometimes even the most “culturally interested” or “attuned” just fail to realize things. I used to think that when walking through dirty, dusty streets, or living in a village, it didn’t really matter what you looked like. I’m not really one to get really dressed up in general, but I wouldn’t bring my “nicer” clothes on my study trips to Kenya or India, in part, because I was worried about “ruining” them, but also I just figured there wasn’t really a need to bring them. Even before my time in Kenya was over, I was starting to catch on and dress a little more “East African chic,” but it wasn’t until my embarrassing first clothes buying experience with P’s family in KTM that I really realized that in the “developing world” (and, let’s face it, most of the rest of the world outside of America) clothing is more formalized than back home. When you go out, you dress up, period—whether it’s for school, going to a party, going to a friend’s place, going for dinner, going to the market. It’s simply not acceptable to show up in a shabby pair of shorts and a dusty t-shirt, even if you sit next to a goat on the minibus you take to your friend’s house!

So maybe this guy thought the same way about farting—hey, it’s the “developing world,” people burp, I’m not in America where they have social etiquette rules about this, I feel gassy, and I’m going to let it go. According to M-dai this guy would fart all the time, including while he was standing in front of his class, and the students just couldn’t believe it.

“Sure people fart.” M-dai said, “But not in front of others, and certainly not in a formal situation like a class, or in front of elders!”

So from this early ambassador to American culture, the young M-dai thought that in America it was acceptable to fart at any time, that there were no social taboos in the US about doing so in public.

When he came for graduate school in Massachusetts five years ago he was shocked to discover this wasn’t the case! ;)

The Newest American-Nepali Household Part II

Being that MS and MK had been in Nepal for quite some time, neither of them had a lot of money saved that they could spend on a formal wedding. Unfortunately the K-1 fiancée visa timeline doesn’t really care about money or planning, all it cares about is the 90 day window a visa holder has to legally wed before filing for a change of status to permanent resident. So MS and MK decided they would do a small “paper signing” marriage to satisfy the requirements, and organize a larger event at some point in the future.

P and I figured we would get a call about the paper signing at some point soon, so that we (along with P’s brother U) could “represent” the P family at the ceremony. However MK’s arrival in the US coincided with the early days of P’s post-operative recovery, and she saw him at one of his lowest points of physical capability, leading her to think he probably wouldn’t be well enough to travel up to Vermont any time soon. MK reasoned that the ceremony wasn’t a big deal anyway, so the couple thought that it would be easier to sign any paperwork while at MS’s parents’ house over Thanksgiving weekend. Yet while discussing their idea with MS’s family the couple realized it took a few days to get a marriage license, and other complications would probably make Thanksgiving an improbable time. “Plus wouldn’t you want your cousins there?” asked MS’s sister-in-law. MK told her she didn’t think we would make it, but they encouraged her to call and invite us anyway.

About a week and a half ago we got the call. “If you aren’t busy, we are thinking of getting married on Sunday December 11^th. We would love to have you, but we understand if you can’t make it.”

We assured them that we would (of course!) be there, and organized to meet up with P’s brother and drive up together.

The night before the wedding MS’s band had a scheduled gig in Burlington, and the “wedding party” all went to the show—MS’s parents, his older brother and sister-in-law, us three “P family” representatives, and two friends. MS, who comes from a very musical family, joined this up-and-coming band a few months before MK made it back to the US, and plays guitar and sings backup vocals. The music was great—a bit folky and a bit punk rocky, but something fun you could dance too–and the Burlington crowd was lively, cheering for MS when the lead singer announced, “Did you know you were at a bachelor’s party tonight? MS is getting married in the morning!”

I spent a lot of time talking to MS’s sister-in-law at the concert. She was curious to hear about my experiences as a foreigner in the family, and wanted to contextualize MS’s experience. When you are unfamiliar with another culture, it can be challenging to keep a relative perspective. It was also interesting to hear more about MS’s experiences in Nepal from his family’s side.

The house that MS and MK are renting for the winter is a summer vacation cottage north of Burlington on the shores of Lake Champlain. MS found the posting for a “winter caretaker/tenant” on Craigslist, and thought it would be a quaint spot for their first married winter together. The bungalow is tucked away on a back road farm, and it is a cozy, quiet place, heated by a woodstove, with beautiful views of the lake. We got back from the concert around 2am, played a sleepy game of “Apples to Apples” in front of the roaring fire to wind down from the evening, then wrapped up in warm blankets and headed off to bed.

By the time we all rolled out of bed in the morning there were only a few short hours before the ceremony was due to begin. Luckily MK and MS are pretty laid back and informal (unlike yours truly). They were making us scrambled eggs and cups of chai in their pajamas shortly before the “guests” (MS’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and niece, and two couple friends) started arriving.

The day felt very “homespun” and it was sweet to keep it simple but intimate. Everything was done at the last minute, but turned out so lovely… I actually felt pretty emotional watching the ceremony.

For example– The day before MK had decided it would be fun to make an arch decoration for the couple to be married under. She didn’t think we would have time to come up with something, but I insisted we drive to a craft store before the concert and buy some fabric. After eating our scrambled eggs, MK and I were outside in our pajamas, shivering in the thirty degree temperature, tying tulle between trees on the cottage’s porch. A friend of MS’s came over with a bag of clothing and jewelry so that MK could find something to wear—MK picked out her outfit a mere hour before the program began. The same friend and I ran up and down the road looking for last minute flowers and eventually picked a small handful of hardy geraniums and tiny white flowers from a neighbor’s garden and tied them with ribbon.

The music was also improvised, but lovely. MS’s parents and brother brought their guitars, and U borrowed MS’s, and the family jammed together after the ceremony.

One of the best last minute surprises of the day was that P and U figured out a way to Skype their family back home through an iPhone so that P’s dad, J Phupu and MK’s sister could watch the ceremony unfold through the internet.

The brief ceremony started with a song that MS wrote for his brother’s wedding. He sang it for MK, with a chorus that went, “there is only one woman you will call your ‘wife’.” Then the justice of the peace (another neighbor… luckily not the same neighbor we had just stolen some flowers from!) led the 14 of us outside and started the ceremony under our improvised “arch.” MS lit a large candle to represent the fire he had seen at Hindu weddings, and the justice of the peace introduced the ceremony, explaining it was six years in the making. MS recited his vows, and MK hers, then they exchanged rings that they had brought back from Nepal. MS’s parents offered a blessing, and then MS was able to “kiss the bride” after being legally declared husband and wife. MS’s dad played the guitar, while the family sang sweet love songs to the new couple (while walking back inside to warm up by the fire!)

We cracked open a bottle of champagne and offered a toast. MS’s dad said a few words, and then J Phupu—still watching via Skype on the iphone from Nepal—decided to say a few words as well. With P translating, J Phupu also gave the couple her blessing. It was a very touching moment… linking two families, even though it was rocky at first, and even with a distance of thousands of miles.

The rest of the evening we ate South Asian food, listened to music played by MS’s parents, brother and U, and got to know each other better. It was such a wonderful day, and my heart is brimming over with happiness for my—as MK introduced me at the wedding—“sister-in-law” and my new “jwain” (brother-in-law).

Cheers!

The guitars are getting ready (U, MS's dad, MS's mom and MS's niece)

MS opens the ceremony with an original song. He's also wearing a tie made out of Nepali dhaka fabric.

The Justice of the Peace begins

U handles the iPhone webcam coverage, beaming the ceremony to Kathmandu...

MK gives MS his ring, plus a nice shot of the flowers I stole ;)

Newly married... the most recent addition to the "American-Nepali Household"

A cute moment together

Toasting with MK's mom (J Phupu) watching via webcam in Kathmandu... the wonders of technology!

P, MS, MK, U and I

The Newest American-Nepali Household Part I

P and I just got back from a lovely weekend in Vermont. About a week and a half ago we got a call from P’s cousin MK asking if we could come up to Burlington. She was planning to get married, and wanted to have her American-based family with her. Albeit last minute planning, it wasn’t something that happened spur of the moment, instead it was an event many years in the making…

I’ve mentioned MK and MS before, but usually in passing. Let me rewind and flush out their background a bit.

MK is J Phupu’s eldest daughter, and P’s first cousin. She grew up a few houses away from P in KTM, and after her father died of a brain hemorrhage about fifteen years ago, J Phupu and her daughters (MK and SK) moved in to P’s parents’ house.

MK is the same age as P’s younger brother U, and the two of them were sent to the US for university together in 2004. U went to a school in Pennsylvania, while MK went to a university in Vermont (coincidentally the same university my sister K went to). While at the university she met MS, and the two dated for several years. MS graduated in 2006, but stuck around Burlington. He majored in music and was connecting into the local music scene, playing in bands (he’s a gifted guitarist), and doing equipment and stage set up for programs around the area.

The first time MK told her mother about MS, J Phupu cried. The family had already dealt with P introducing the idea of marrying an American, and even though they accepted me, I’m sure deep down inside the family was hoping that P was an anomaly—that P’s brother and J Phupu’s two daughters would at least end up with Nepalis. The last thing they probably expected or wanted to hear was MK saying, “Actually… I am seeing an American.”

Right away P’s mom made U swear he would marry a Nepali… but you never know.

MS finally met J Phupu in 2008 when the family came for MK and U’s graduations. Their first interaction was rocky. J Phupu was still not happy with MK’s choice. Ideally she wanted MK to be with a Nepali, but MS probably made the whole “Hi, I love your daughter” situation a little worse with his first impression… he looked like a hippy Western tourist from Freak Street in Thamel—he had dreadlocks that reached down to his waist, and the wardrobe to match his hair. His appearances and her disapproval were roadblocks which inhibited J Phupu from seeing that MS was very hard working, devoted, caring, organized and came from a loving and supportive family; that he had a lot to offer MK as a life partner. Instead, J Phupu spent the week at MK’s apartment (which MS temporarily moved out of so as not to scandalize J Phupu any further) trying to convince her that MS was a bad idea, and even told MS that she didn’t think their relationship was a good choice.

It was a difficult period in their lives. I’m sure it was frustrating because the family seemed to be ultimately accepting of P and my relationship, while MK’s own mother wouldn’t budge on her relationship. The family didn’t say anything about P and I living together, while MK had to pretend that MS didn’t live with her. I didn’t really get it, but our friend R explained that expectations were different for sons and daughters. Although a family might not approve of a son’s relationship, families are often more flexible for a man. I think this could be a whole separate post topic for the future.

MK graduated in 2008 and like almost all international students in F-1 status in the US, she had to apply for OPT work authorization to be able to stay in the country and legally work. She only had twelve months to find something where she could earn money and hopefully be sponsored on an H1B (work) visa which would allow her to stay in the US even longer. She found work as a teacher’s aide at a local elementary school, a job that helped pay the bills, but not something that would sponsor a visa. At the end of her 12 month work permit the US government dictated that it was time for her to leave.

Obviously MS didn’t want her to go. He loved her, and asked if she wanted to get married. They could do a simple court marriage to keep her in the country, and if she didn’t feel ready for “real Marriage” yet, they could pretend like their legal marriage was an engagement until they had a “real” wedding with friends and family a few years down the road.

Ultimately MK decided to leave. She packed up her stuff and left it with MS’s parents, and flew back to KTM. Her family started pressuring her to study for the GREs and apply to graduate school to get back to the US, but I think she wasn’t really interested in that path. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, and eventually found a position working at a research institute in Kathmandu.

It’s tough to be apart from the person you care about most, and MS was no exception. After being separated by half the world for a year, he decided he had had enough. During the months that MK had been away, MS worked as much as he could, picking up jobs here and there and saving until he had enough to leave the US for a while. He departed for KTM without much of a plan, excited to see MK, and hoping he didn’t have to leave the country until she could leave with him.

MS stayed with P’s family for nearly seven months, and I think it was often difficult for him. Not only were there periods of culture shock (Nepal was his first trip outside of the Western world), there were social expectations that frustrated him. As he told his family back home, “I’ve missed MK for so long, and now that I’m here I can’t even hug her!” since public displays of affection are frowned upon. Unlike P and I, they insisted that MK and MS sleep in separate rooms. When MK would go on field expeditions for her work, MS was left alone with the family, trying to fit in and learn about the culture.

After a while MS’s extended visit became awkward for P’s family. Whereas my shorter previous visits could be explained away to nosy neighbors as a “good friend” visiting from abroad, MS didn’t want to leave after a month, and it was harder to explain why he was living with the family. In a country where family is generally centered on the man’s side, it is already awkward for a son-in-law to spend extended periods of time with his wife’s family, but now we are talking about a couple that’s not married, and the boyfriend is from America! J Phupu started pressuring MS to start thinking about leaving, but MS was adamant that he didn’t want to leave until he could bring MK with him. They started paperwork at the American embassy for a K-1 fiancée visa for MK, but the process was still taking months.

Eventually J Phupu changed her tactic and started pressuring MS to return to the US so he could find a job and start saving to build a more solid financial foundation for when MK was able to come back and the two were to get married.  While in Nepal he had connected with several musical groups, and found gigs playing guitar for a few hundred rupees at bars in Thamel. It gave him some pocket money, but he wasn’t earning anything substantial, and he had used much of what he had saved getting to Nepal and living there for so long. After seven months MS eventually agreed that it made sense for him to go back first and start “setting up” their new life.

P was in Nepal at the time, and took pictures of his departure. That particular day there was a city wide bandh (strike), so there were no cars or taxis on the road. The city tourist council arranged for a tourist bus to leave from Thamel to bring foreigners to the airport, one of the few authorized vehicles able to drive that day. The family garlanded him in the living room, and said their tearful goodbyes (I think MS and J Phupu were the most emotional), and walked him to the bus in the tourist district. His last glimpse of the family was from the dusty bus windows. Once he arrived back in the US, he headed to Burlington to set up a place for when MK joined him.

We invited MS and his parents to our wedding over the summer. It was nice to see him, and our first time meeting his mom and dad. During the Nepali Wedding-after party MS bought me a drink and gave me a hug. I told him we were happy to have him, and he said he was happy to be there. “Without you guys leading the way, I know it would have been much harder for us. I’m glad I could see this all happen.”

MK’s fiancée visa was finally approved in September, and she elected to stay in KTM through the holiday season of Dashain and Tihar, and arrived in the US in mid-November. They spent their first night back together at our apartment in Massachusetts before heading back up to MS’s family home in New Hampshire, and then up to Burlington, Vermont.

One of the requirements for a K-1 fiancée visa is that the couple has to be legally married in the US within 90 days of the visa holder’s arrival in the States or the visa is nullified. We knew the wedding would be happening soon, we just didn’t know when…

I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow…

“Hot, Fresh, Sweet”

This post is dedicated to our DEAR FRIEND D who said last night, “I know what C’s blog post will be about tomorrow…  I even know the title” and who was sad that a few posts ago I referred to him as “our neighbor D” and thus felt demoted in relationship status.

As many of you probably know, Hurricane Irene blew through New England on Sunday. It also happened to be my birthday. We spent much of the weekend sitting around the apartment with Mamu and Daddy talking about what a hurricane is, and how they are different/similar from/to other weather events. I think they were both a little nervous and a little excited—they were curious to see what a “hurricane” was like, but worried that something would maybe happen to them. Mamu would stand near the window watching the trees bend and say, “Hurricane is coming…”

We had some gusty winds, but never lost power (although it seems a lot of other people around us did), and didn’t have the same flooding problems as other places an hour or two drive north or west of us. By evening the weather calmed enough for us to even go out for a little birthday dinner and cake.

After Irene blew through the weather cooled off, so I thought I would experiment with some “American autumn” inspired food. Always on the lookout for foods that I love, that I could try and introduce to Mamu and Daddy, during our pre-Irene grocery shopping I snuck a bag of brussels sprouts and a butternut squash into our cart.

Attempt #1: On Saturday I decided to pair the sautéed (in olive oil, garlic, salt and fresh ground pepper) Brussels sprouts—or “baby banda” (cabbage) as I called them—with the vegetable curry that Mamu made. P and I were practically fighting over the sprouts… but I saw Daddy push a few around his plate, and eventually toss the two or three half pieces that he couldn’t manage to eat into the garbage before washing his plate. I guess the “baby bandas” were a “fail”–my guess is that they were still too “raw” (crunchy) for their taste, but overcooked brussel sprouts are really bad and bitter, so “what to do?“

Attempt #2: Again Mamu had some taarkari left over from lunch, and made a pot of rice, but I decided to whip up a quick butternut squash bisque. I sliced up the butternut—

“Is it a pharsi? [pumpkin]” Daddy asked.

“It’s in the pharsi family, it’s a butternut squash” I explained.

When I sliced open the round bottom part of the butternut and scooped out the seeds with a spoon Daddy said, “It is a pharsi! Look at the seeds!”

“Yes,” I responded, “pharsi family different type.”

—then sautéed some sliced onions, garlic, salt and pepper, added the butternut, and then a few cups of water and some veggie bullion. I let it boil, covered, for about ten minutes until the butternut was soft, and then poured the whole soup into the blender and pureed. Lastly I heated the pureed soup with a bit of whole milk mixed in for creaminess, and then brought it to the dinner table in a serving bowl.

I turned back to the kitchen to grab bowls for everyone but before I returned to the table Mamu and Daddy had already ladled my “pharsi soup” on to their heaping piles of rice—“like daal!” Mamu exclaimed.

“Whatever gets you excited about it” I thought.

I returned the bowls to the kitchen, keeping one for D and myself, since we both elected to eat my soup like soup.

While we ate I asked Mamu if she liked the dish. She smacked her lips and declared, “I like… hot, fresh, sweet!”

D started giggling… “I know what C’s blog post will be about tomorrow” he said, “I even know what the title will be!”

Mamu, Daddy and P had a few more spoons of “pharsi soup—like daal” on their rice while I finished up my large bowl.

Finally an American culinary win!

I’ll take it, “like daal” or not!

“Not Our Habit” Pasta Dinner

Maybe I’m a little sensitive after coming off of four days of international student orientation where “American food” was a major criticism—in discussions with the students on what they thought the biggest challenges would be in transitioning to life in Massachusetts “American food” was targeted again and again… “American food is so tasteless.”… “It has no flavor”… “American food is basically pizza and hamburgers”—

But do any of you sometimes feel like standing up and yelling, “Hey! There’s nothing wrong with my food!”

I get it—there is a big difference between different types of cuisine, and when you are used to one type of cuisine over another it can be hard to transition, but I feel like I try a lot when it comes to food (minus meat), and it is disappointing to me when others don’t seem to make the same effort.

I’ve heard the arguments before—parents are older and set in their ways, you can’t expect them to change, you probably wouldn’t do/try new things when you are their age. I guess I’d answer that I hope I’d still be ready to try new things even if I am my parents’ age. I get where people are coming from with the argument, but I can’t help but feel a bit defensive.

And the worst answer to the argument of American food versus South Asian is “Well, you have to admit South Asian food does taste better. It’s easy to transition to a different type of food when the taste is simply better than what you grew up with.” That argument is just unfair.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t something I’m going to sit and cry about, but after a while it can get frustrating. Sure, I’m not a gourmet cook making fancy dishes, but there are certain “feel good” foods that, when criticized, leave me licking my wounds. Like fresh cut veggies, or a flavorful cheese, or a crisp garden salad on a hot summer day. Or apple pie, or a fresh veggie pasta dish, or homemade pizza, or waffles and maple syrup—how can you dislike fluffy homemade straight-out-of-the-iron waffles and Vermont maple syrup??

“Not our habit” Mamu solemnly answers.

“The maple is too sweet.” Daddy adds.

I hear that a lot. American food is too sweet. Cereal, maple syrup, apple pie. But somehow American chocolates and Indian/Nepali mithai/laddu are not too sweet. I don’t get it.

Or I hear–American food doesn’t have enough flavor/isn’t spicy enough. I remember once I found my uncle’s recipe for guacamole and said to my Dad, “He barely puts anything in it. Where’s all the garlic, and chili, and lemon?”

“When you put all that extra junk in you lose the original flavor of the food.” My dad responded.

I never thought about it from that perspective before. I sometimes think about what he said when I bite into a fresh sweet corn on the cob, unadulterated by butter or salt, so I can taste the original flavor of the kernels. Do I use garlic when cooking like it’s my job? Sure, but there are certain things that are nice to leave simple and natural.

So anyway…

Yesterday after work, P and I took his parents (they’re back from P’s brother’s place! Did you miss Mamu and Daddy stories?) to the Indian grocery store to replenish the kitchen. Our neighbor D had made meat momos over the weekend and there was spiced meat leftover, so P/Daddy/D decided to have momo for dinner, which left the two veggies—Mamu and I—on our own. We grabbed pani puri fixings, but when we were in the car Mamu said she wanted to have pasta. “You will make, okay?”

I felt that the pressure was on, and the deck was already stacked against me since I know they don’t like “American pasta” that much (or really at all).  The only pasta they like is waiwai or elbow macaroni fried with veggies and curry type spice. Once in Nepal P’s mom asked me to make her “American pasta” but that particular night P’s dad had taken us on a side trip and we got home really late. Mamu was upset that we all missed the proper dinner time, but rather than put the pasta dinner off for another time, she still insisted I make it. So already late, and pressured to cook fast, and using the single kerosene burner in P’s kitchen reminiscent of a camp stove in the US, I tried my best to whip up a descent pasta dish. It was “okay,” not great, but at least I tried. No one really ate it but me, and to be polite, P’s dad, and Mamu still insisted that P’s dad also have rice since “only rice make you full.”

When we got home I broke out the cutting board and veggies and started slicing. Mamu came in to help, and I ushered her out of the kitchen (“Mamu, tonight is your turn to rest.”) least she decide ahead of time that she didn’t like my cooking technique (she doesn’t like raw mushrooms. Even if mushrooms are going to be fried, she insists they are still “raw” if they haven’t been boiled first), or if she discovered the “Italian seasoning” I used… and ultimately decide not to try the pasta.

I’ve already heard a lot about how much my Nepali family dislikes marinara sauce. They tell me it has a “smell” they don’t like, and even P doesn’t like to eat it. Again, I don’t get it—they eat tomatoes all the time, and that is the basic marinara ingredient. P thinks it is the oregano, but I don’t think it has that strong of a taste (or smell). But anyway… I knew ahead of time that a “traditional” marinara sauce was out of the question, and an Alfredo sauce would be too “cheesy.” So I decided to make a sauce that was kind of “achar” like in its original preparation.

I sliced up and roasted several tomatoes, then fried some red onion and garlic. I blended the onion, garlic and tomatoes with some salt, black pepper, chili pepper, and a bit of water into a paste and set it aside. Then I sautéed green peppers and mushrooms in olive oil until they were super well cooked (as per Mamu’s preferences although without a “pre-boil”), and added green onions, green peas and dried oregano and “Italian seasoning” (“Uh oh” P said, “You probably just screwed everything up with that oregano. They probably won’t like it now.”)

When the veggies, pasta, and “achar/sauce” were ready I quickly fried it all together before serving.

As I was dishing up the food Mamu said, “It has nice smell.” Which I took as a good sign, although she also said, “I take little” at first.

She put a few spoons of pasta into her bowl and took a small bite. “Good” she said… but then, she reached for the momo achar—which had a similar base as the pasta sauce, but had ground sesame seeds, chili, and cilantro also blended in. It was a subtle way of saying, “It was good, but still not flavorful.”

I must have looked disappointed, because then Daddy, who was eating the momo, reached over and took a few spoonfuls of pasta onto his plate and ate it without the momo achar. He also commented, “It’s good. See, I’ll take more.”

When Mamu reached to get more achar to put on her pasta P and his dad said, “It’s good without achar, have more with the original sauce.” So Mamu tried again without the achar, looking up apologetically adding, “Achar has… more spice.”

I appreciate them trying, I know the food is different, but it would be nice to make a dish without feeling like I have to defend and take a stand on all of American food. And my pasta was pretty damn good if I do say so myself… I’m about to eat the left overs for lunch.

Going to a Friend’s Wedding

I mentioned previously that we went to a wedding in Pennsylvania last Friday. Our friends DM and CN were married. Like many of the friendships we made at university, we met them through international student connections/international interests, and eventually we all lived in the International House on campus together.

I remember meeting DM pretty early his freshman year. Three years before I had attended an international youth summit in Washington DC and had made a friend who lived in the Netherlands but was Bulgarian by birth/heritage. I kept in touch with this friend for several years, and had learned a bit about both these countries through him. So when I met DM for the first time I was happy to pull out the few words of Bulgarian I knew– Как сте? (Kak si-te? How are you?) and Добре съм (Dobre sãm. I’m fine) which was probably pretty unexpected from an American girl in rural northern New York.

Although we are both American, CN and I had similar intercultural interests—we both studied in France but during different semesters. Her freshmen year roommate was from Kenya, another eventual close friend of ours, and my Swahili language teaching assistant. All of us wound up in the International House for the rest of our college careers. Eventually CN and I both enrolled in the same international education masters program, and we both have jobs working with international students (she’s an ESL teacher) in addition to both being married to former international students.

Their wedding was the first wedding P and I attended after our own. I guess the first one you go to after your own always feels a little weird. You are very happy for your friends, but seeing them go through the motions can’t help but remind you of your own experience and how you were feeling at the time. Everything happened so quickly during our own wedding, that I didn’t really have a time to process it, but as a spectator at theirs I felt like I was processing a lot. I was that annoying person sitting in the audience whispering to the person sitting next to me, “I remember at this point I was feeling/thinking ______. I wonder if he/she is feeling the same.”

At your own wedding, the guests are there because they know you,  so there are so many people to talk to.  I remember people constantly approaching us, asking us for pictures, wanting to chat, wanting to dance, it felt a bit overwhelming sometimes, and certainly added to the feeling that time was passing so quickly. At someone else’s wedding you think about how you don’t know a lot of people, and how you want to be that person approaching the bride and groom to talk, to steal them to take pictures, to dance with them on the dance floor, but you try to be understanding because you know how it feels to be inundated.

It is certainly more relaxing to be at someone else’s wedding. To have a drink or two during the cocktail hour, to sit back and enjoy your meal, and dance your heart out on the dance floor without worries or distraction. It also hits you that your wedding time is really over. You are not the “bride” anymore, but a “wife” which has its own mystique and excitement.

They did one of those anniversary dances during the reception where all the married couples dance to a song and the MC calls out dates, and the longest married couple is the last remaining at the end of the song. P and I were the first ones off the dance floor when the guy called out, “Anyone married a month or less?” It will be a month next Tues/Wed. Holy cow… a whole month already, where did that month go? Can’t time just stand still for a little while?

Fat chance with international orientation coming up in the next two weeks with our largest international class ever. My summer is pretty much over now.

I better finish my last two wedding posts before I forget to jot down my “white wedding” thoughts.