One of the best things about staying with friends in a different country is getting to experience the culture more authentically. My friend, Gaurab and his wife and son have a joint family and live in the same house with his parents.
It was really interesting because his wife, Dharti, was telling me some of the difficulties of living in a joint family. The mother-in-law is in charge and teaches the daughter-in-law how to run the house, and then it is her responsibility. To show respect to her in-laws, the wife shouldn't be seen in her sleeping clothes, so Dharti made sure to get up and change in the morning before her in-laws came downstairs.
There are so many signs of respect and signs of showing that a woman is married there. She must wear glass bangles (if she breaks them, it is bad luck for her husband, as a woman breaks her bangles when her husband dies), she will wear a string of small glass seed beads, bindi, nose piercing, and also red clothes are a sign of being married. The women have bangles, necklace, and sweater to match all their different salwar kameez.
Because Katmandu is a poor country and especially rural life is difficult. Kids can't go to school because transportation issues in the mountains and such, so Gaurab's family had taken in two boys. The boys live with them so they can go to school in the city, in exchange for cooking and cleaning. There is an older boy, Anil, 18 and the younger, DilKumar, who is 12, but I thought was around the same age as Gohan. He's a little guy! Gohan and Dil were playing all the time, at first Gohan was shy but by the end, they kept asking me to come play with them after I taught them "Red Light, Green Light."
Power cuts are a problem in Nepal; they said they are without electricity for six hours or more a day, so they have a generator, but usually only use it to power lights, and they had two sets of lights. One had bulbs that were dimmer but used less power, and the other brighter for when they had power. You would be driving down the street and suddenly all the lights would go out! Houses aren't heated like ours are - and it was pretty cold when I was there - at least at night and in mornings it was probably near freezing. They heated water by a solar heater on the room, but still I could only bring myself to bathe every other day!
I really and truly love how you stay with local families rather than in hotels. Every time I read a blog you've written, I am more proud of you. You are an unofficial ambassador and doing a wonderful job. Gaurab's family is very lovely. His parents are handsome, as well as his wife and son. Which of the 2 boys is this one in the picture? Their house is very nice too. Thank them for me for hosting you.
ReplyDeleteThere son is in the yellow shirt! His wife bought a magnet for you! I only met his father a few minutes before the airport - he's an engineer and was on site. His mother and father have traveled a lot; she was saying they've only been apart for a month ever. She always goes with him and always likes to try everything. She had recently taken an Ikebana class, so there were cool flower arrangements all over the place!
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