A Very Nepali Thanksgivukkah

Belated Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends!  This marks the second year in a row (and only the third time in my life) that I have missed being home for the holiday (another reason I can’t miss Christmas – I would never be able to live down missing two major holidays within a month).  Despite not being at home with my family, I would not trade my two days of celebrating here with my KTM family for ANYTHING!

The day started with Devon, Liz, Andrea (the newest volunteer at the house) and I going to a wedding – one that we were actually invited to attend!  The bride is a girl from SASANE, so Liz was able to score us the invite, as she had gotten to know her over the past 3 months (and it doesn’t seem to take much to get invited to a wedding here).  We met up with Laxmi and Indyra, two of the women who work at SASANE, at 11 so that we could go to the wedding with them.  We were originally supposed to meet them at 10 and be at the wedding at 12:30, but being Nepal, times and plans change constantly.  So even though we met them at 11, we did not end up leaving until 12.  And we still had to walk to get a gift.  And get on a bus for a 10 minute ride before transferring to another bus for the hour long ride to Bhaktapur.  We finally arrived around 2, afraid we might have missed the ceremony because of the late departure.  We should know by now that NOTHING is EVER on time here, and our arrival was still a good hour early.  From where we got off the bus, we walked about 10 minutes through a small village to the rural countryside area where the homes of both the bride and groom were located.  Despite being neighbors, they had only met each other a few times prior to the wedding.  And unlike the last wedding we attended, which was a love marriage, this one was arranged, and the difference was quite obvious.  The bride was petrified, and the groom was completely solemn, his face empty of any emotion whatsoever. 

So here’s what went down.  We were instructed to sit on the front porch of the bride’s home and forced to drink soda, which has happened numerous times here – I hate, hate, hate soda (except as the occasional mixer with alcohol).  Then we were told to come inside to the room where the bride was getting ready, and we all took pictures with her (weird, since she had no clue who most of us were, but whatever).  Then it was up to the roof of the house to hang out and take more pictures.  Although we were actually in dresses/skirts instead of yoga pants and t-shirts like the last time, we still didn’t look “wedding good,” especially compared to all the Nepali women in their beautiful outfits.  But for some reason they wanted to take pictures of us 4 Americans, so we went with it.  Then it was across the field to a large tent set up with rows of plastic patio chairs facing each other.  And again we were forced to drink some gross orange soda.  We really tried to say no, but I guess “no means no” doesn’t fly here.  Then the band started to play so we went back outside, where the bride’s family circled the groom and threw rice at him.  After that, we went to another small tent where we stood as onlookers as the stoic groom was brought in and sat in his groom’s chair.  We turned around to see the bride being carried piggy-back style by her brother, who was the one to “give her away.”  He put her down inside the tent in front of the groom and she “honored” him by circling him, giving him flowers and placing a necklace around his neck.  He then put a necklace on her, they quickly exchanged rings, and that was it.  They were now married and it was time for the blessings to begin.  We went back to the big tent where we sat and were given appetizers and offered beer and wine (which, shockingly, we were able to refuse – but we only did so because of the absence of Western toilets and the upcoming hour long ride back to KTM – I don’t think our bladders could have handled it).  We then went back to the wedding tent, where guests were still lined up to bless the couple with tikka, and we congratulated the couple and bade them farewell.  We needed to leave by 4:30 in order to get home and get to Marisa’s for dinner, but we were immediately ushered back to the big tent and told to eat dinner.  Luckily, we were able to serve ourselves so could make small plates!  By 5:15, we were in a cab (to save time) and headed home to pick up the momos we ordered from Yogesh to take to our Thanksgivukkah dinner!

We arrived at Marisa’s around 7 for our very untraditional, but VERY delicious dinner.  Buff momos, samosas, latkes, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, stuffing, biscuit cake, pumpkin momos, and various other desserts.  And the company at one of Marisa’s dinner parties was once again unparalleled – another melting pot of amazing people from America, Nepal, Germany, Scotland, Canada, and India.  We talked, laughed and ate a ton of food, while Leiben and Rajiv provided the musical entertainment.  It was lovely.  We were even given an extended curfew of 11 pm for the occasion!  Exciting stuff!

On Friday, Devon and I continued the Thanksgiving celebration at the monastery, since we had to miss the day before due to the wedding.  We took blankets to spread out on the ground picnic style, and we brought buff momos from Yogesh (obviously – would you expect anything else?), some Jerry’s (basically fried sugar) and juice.  Not the healthiest meal, but what can you do?  The boys LOVED it.  They licked their plates clean – seriously.  Then we taught them how to draw turkeys with their hands and ended the day with a dance party.  It was the BEST DAY EVER.  They were so cute.  The few older boys were too cool to dance, but most of the younger ones were really into it.  I was teaching them to twirl me and then we all started twirling and spinning each other.  Devon said a lot of the older monks were peering out their windows watching us in amusement (and probably also thinking “who are these crazy girls, they are clearly not teaching English today”).  But they had so much fun, and they probably needed it.  I think it is important to just let them act like kids and be crazy and carefree.  Sadly, we only had Devon’s phone with us, which we used for the music, so no pictures were taken.  Which just means that it WILL happen again by the end of this week so that we can take pictures of the dancing cuteness. 

This year, I am most thankful for the opportunity I was given to spend 2 months of my year here in Nepal, which in turn gave me the ability to feel happiness again.  And for random dance parties with the cutest little monks in the world – life doesn’t get much better.