10.11.19
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We recently came back to school after our Dashain break during Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. As the country's biggest holiday, Dashain (pronounced "dus-aye") is similar to Christmas. Families travel around the country to visit each other, give presents, clean and decorate their houses, fly kites, go to temples, receive tika (blessings), give animal sacrifices. It really is a beautiful holiday. Kathmandu, during the first few days, felt extremely congested, but then during the last few days (during our school break, thankfully), the city cleared out as the locals traveled to visit their older families in the other districts of Nepal. Streets were so much less polluted and hectic, haha.
Unfortunately, my host family had two deaths, so we weren't able to celebrate Dashain. But. I went to my classmate's house (which is literally next to mine) and received tika there. Her parents blessed me and placed the water-red vermilion powder-rice mixture on my forehead. I think it was a bit too watery because the tika immediately dripped down my face, making me look like I got shot in the head. However, I also received some money (205 Rsp, about $2.05) from her parents.
Before our three-day break, we did motorbike tika at SIT. People typically bless their motorbikes and cars by tying on colored ribbons, waving incense around them, splashing the sacrificed animal's blood (in our case, we did a "vegetarian" blessing by slicing a coconut and splashing the coconut "blood") on the vehicles, and placing red and yellow tika on them. The tika is typically presented in the om symbol, but can also appear in the form of splatters to represent a "death" because it is believed that it can prevent any accidents from occurring. (Hence, it probably isn't that ironic that my tika looked like I got shot in the head, haha.)
Also! I'm excited to say that I got my very first tattoo last Sunday! I went to Thamel with a friend and luckily found a tattoo place that was still open during Dashain (we didn't know that so many businesses were closed for the holiday), called Ink Soul. The tattoo artist is extremely talented and efficient and professional--he took less than an hour to design the tattoo that I wanted, based on my sketch and a few reference photos. The process was a bit less than two hours--during which I was in a hecking amount of pain--and it costed 8,000 Rsp (about $80). It hurt a LOT but I really like how it turned out! My skin is still healing, and I'm hoping that I can maintain its freshness for as long as possible. My treat for myself. :)
We had our second Nepali language exam on Thursday, which I actually did okay on. I actually did slightly better than my first exam, haha. Even though I wish I caught all those silly little mistakes, such as mixing up postpositions, I'm satisfied that I got the score that I did. I hope I can be able to be very fluent in Nepali, mainly for myself, but also for our ISP (independent study project), through which we'll have to communicate with the locals and interact with the real world by ourselves.
This Saturday and Sunday will be free (despite a few assignments due on Sunday), and then we'll head off for our major excursion in Mustang, Nepal. We'll be living with a rural homestay for about a week, during which we'll be doing some minor trekking, having daily language class, exploring the village, and working on some field work assignments. Afterwards, there is an optional four-day trek. I don't think I'll go, just because I don't feel really excited to trek...as I have mentioned before, Nepal wasn't my first choice to study abroad at. Rather, to put it bluntly, it was my last choice. I feel really bad to say that, but it's true. Don't get me wrong--I really have been enjoying my experiences here in Nepal, and I don't regret anything, but I just feel a bit out of place because all of my classmates came to Nepal for mountains, while I didn't. Everyone is excited to go trekking and hiking but I don't feel like it's my thing. It's true that I haven't really done it before, and call me scared to go out of my comfort zone, but I don't really feel a desire to go trekking. I know that I'm physically capable of doing it, but I would rather take the other option of staying in Pokhara, the popping mountain city atop a pond (pokhari means "pond"). I may be just wanting to stay in my comfort zone, but I think that I would enjoy being in Pokhara a lot more than doing the trek. I have a phobia of falling, and so I always go slowly down slopes and tend to slip and fall because I have terrible balance. Therefore, I feel like I'd just be so worried about falling that I wouldn't have any room left to enjoy the experience. Whereas in Pokhara, I'd like to see the Japanese Peace Pagoda, go boating, embrace the Pokhara culture, do my own mini treks, and just relax by myself. Furthermore, I've been meaning to find a quiet, friendly place to just sit and draw, like I did at the Darjeeling Peace Pagoda. However, in Kathmandu, there aren't many public spaces that fit that criteria.
