Jaws and Cultural Faux Pas

This past week we celebrated the festival of Dashain in Nepal which is the biggest festival of the year and everyone goes home to see their family, take tikka and eat lots of meat. [For more real information about Dashain, check out this website.] I got a week off of work so I went up to visit my Nepali brother's house just outside of Kathmandu. It was a perfect few days up there--lots of people, food, beautiful weather and tons of time to sit around and read. The evening that I got home as I was getting ready for bed, I panicked because I couldn't find my retainer that I use when I sleep. It isn't one to keep my teeth straight, it's because my TMJ has a mind of its own and I get terrible headaches when I don't use my retainer. I searched every corner of my room and bag and realized that I must have left it up in Chapagaon at my brother's house. I sent a message asking if he had seen something white that looks like teeth and get back this message:

1/2

2/2

I'd be embarrassed no matter where I left my retainer (or jaw for that matter) but Hinduism has a concept of jutho where things become polluted after they touch someone's mouth so people don't share cups or food after someone has started eating it. [Read this website to get a better explanation.] So here I was asking my brother to return something dirty and gross and completely jutho to me. Luckily, it was wrapped up in a piece of paper and the person delivering it didn't know what it was when she arrived at my office.

I was relieved that it wasn't a bigger deal and that I was able to get my jaw back and that was ok.

My jaw getting cleaned

Portraying People Accurately

This morning I led the first of a four-part workshop about photography. Today we just talked about the purpose of photography, the messages that we send with our photography and the concept of creating "others" with our photography. I drew my presentation largely from the work of Howard Zehr and the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers.

I took some photos on a field visit months ago and still don't know which one is the more accurate depiction of her story. I spent a little while talking to this woman, she shared some coconut fresh from her tree and we walked around her garden and field. Then I asked if I could take her picture.

This was the photo:

Then I asked her to smile, explaining that in our culture we like to smile in pictures.

I was quite happy with the second one until one of my coworkers said, I wonder what she's hiding behind that smile.

As much as I want to be careful not to portray our project beneficiaries as poor, unhappy people, I also don't want to portray them in a false way by forcing them to smile. So, which photo is more accurate?

April and May

Road in Morang

Walking home from work

Namobuddha with Anielle

Field Visit to Dailekh

Picking mulberries in Dailekh

Cash for work participants in Achham

Friends in Achham

Tea farm in Morang

Landrovers in Achham (stuffexpataidworkerslike.com)

MCC Dinner

Classic Kim Chee-1

Classic Kim Chee-2

Photos of food

My family recently pointed out to me that most of my photos (which are posted here) are of food. I go through phases with my photography, sometimes wanting to document everything and sometimes keeping my camera in the cupboard for weeks at a time. Those in-the-cupboard phases are usually when I'm report writing, data analyzing or other office bitchery and the most novel part of my day is in my encounters with food.

Today my bro Chase and I went to the immigration office to get his visa renewed and while we were waiting we stopped at an Indian fast food restaurant that has tasty sweets. The only food that they had available was described as "two pieces of bread and some curry." Here's what we got:

It's huge!

Naturally, Chase had to show off his volleyball skills.

A new season, a new garden

A garden tomato from summer 2010

MCC Nepal recently moved into a real office, hired new staff and allowed me to come hang out in the office two days each week. There's a great porch that gets a lot of sun so now that we're thawing out from a cold winter, I decided to get a new garden going. I think that it has something to do with working on a food security project or the class that I took in college that helped me think about where my food comes from and what my faith has to do with my food but if I'm honest, the real reason that I wanted to start a garden in Kathmandu because I miss our garden in Pittsburgh and the strange tomatoes that it produces.

Soil solarization in Morang

I usually feel confident shopping for things that I need but finding simple things like a saw (borrowed from my boss) or a piece of plastic (purchased at the plastic store (what??)) proved to be more challenging than I expected. It was a frustrating project to get it all together but reminded me that things always take longer than you expect.

It's small and I haven't started planting anything yet. I recently went to the hills of Morang to check on the project there and learned about soil solarization so that's where we are now. My plan is to leave the plastic on for another week and then get some herbs, tomatoes and beans in for a harvest before the monsoon rains come.

The new MCC Nepal garden

Photos from my most recent field visit, mostly of baby goats and compost

Landlocked Blues

For my mom, who hadn't heard this song and didn't understand the title of my blog.

Summer 2010

Because sometimes you don't have much to say and you miss home.

Home

Going for a walk

Sisters//Steeler Nation

Elijah

boas amiguinhas

Mom

Bauju

J+J

Shoutout

A well-deserved hat tip to Chase Snyder who helped redesign this blog, gave it a name and has reminded me that just because it's hard to tell a story doesn't mean that we shouldn't.