Note: this post was written and backdated to January 10th.
On January 31st, 2023, my host family invited all the volunteers in my district over to celebrate New Years.
Starring:
Mark (a 1-1.5 hour walk away depending on how long your legs are)
Pearl (a 3 hour hike away)
Kiehl (a 5 hour hike or 1 hour bus and 2 hour hike away)
Kim (a 2 hour jeep ride and 2 hour hike away)
From left to right: Kim, Kiehl, and Mark enjoying sel roti.
Weirdly, the western New Years is much more celebrated than the Nepali new year which occurs mid-April. In Pokhara this time of year, the second-largest city in Nepal, the streets are swarmed with thousands of people and the city puts on a fireworks show. I asked around as to why this is and the only satisfactory answer I got was that Nepali are welcoming of other cultures and like to celebrate festivals of all types, including foreign. I guess a big celebration for the Nepali new year must not be the norm.
So it was ironic that we, the Americans, would get together in my village for a quiet New Years experience.
We had returned from our 3-week long technical-training follow-up in Kathmandu. Since my family had wanted to host us all for a while, New Years presented a great opportunity to get together in the village for a day of raamailo.
The extremely hilly terrain, rural rock/-and-dirt roads, and lack of formal public transportation in Nepal makes travel a bit challenging, however, so we had to plan out how that was going to work.
That morning, I left before breakfast to go pick up Kiehl from the market at the bottom of our hill – an hour’s hike for me and an hour’s jeep ride for Kiehl. Kim had taken the previous day to spend the night with Mark, who knew the way to my house already, being within walking distance; so the four of us planned to rendezvous at my house that afternoon. As for Pearl, they had a conflict of plans and wouldn’t be staying the night – but promised to visit on New Year’s morning.
I picked up Kiehl from the bazaar and we started our trek hillside. In all, the journey back to my house took about 3 hours – longer than either of us expected. We took plenty of breaks and enjoyed the view. And about 2/3 of the way up we were stopped and offered oranges by a house we were passing on the stone steps. The elderly father and his son chatted with us for a while. We explained our circumstances for being in Nepal as Peace Corps volunteers – a common dialogue.
***
“Agriculture?” the son asked with interest. He appeared to be in his late 30s. “My avocado tree is sick – will you come take a look at it? It hasn’t been producing well.”
Kiehl and I exchanged glances. Neither of us knew much about avocados.
“Sure,” we said. Why not? We followed him up the hill to the family’s small garden. The tree in question was surprisingly large and assumedly prosperous until recently. He proceeded to show us the disease growing large white rings on its trunks and branches.
We asked some basic questions. How long ago did it start? Are there any other symptoms? What else can you tell us? There wasn’t much to go off of. It was a fungus perhaps; I had no other insight. Did Kiehl? She shook her head.
“I don’t know what this is, but I do have something you can try. If I can have your number,” I said, “I’ll send you some notes on something called ‘Bordeaux mixture’ that you can apply and hopefully that will help.” The son obliged.
As we were still talking, my phone rang. It was aamaa. “Where are you, chori??” she practically yelled into the phone. "Kim and Mark have arrived at the house already, aren't you getting here soon?" I looked at my watch. 2pm. Oops.
***
We thanked the family for their hospitality and finished the last leg of the journey in thirty minutes or so. Finally, after our three-hour hike, the stone steps came to an end. Rounding the corner of the stairs, we were suddenly greeted by our friends from the patio of our house on the cliff above. We responded in kind. One of my aunts laughed at the sight of our waving and dancing.
The rest of the day was mostly spent at the house eating snacks and catching up. The family wanted to prepare some special foods for our guests. While we were out they had been busy cleaning up and deep-frying rings of rice flour. (I had, in the days before, tried to discourage my family from doing anything special for us. That, however, would absolutely not do; and buwaa, brows furrowed sternly, had instructed me to report back to him with everyone's food and snack requests. He flashed a satisfied smile when I told him later that Mark wanted to eat sel roti.)
And so there was sel roti.
I tried my hand at frying some. (“You’re going too fast. You have to do it slowly. Slowly, slowly. Like this.”). I watched, and tried again, but I was still not slow enough. It was clear I had practicing to do.
Other guests started to arrive as afternoon fell to dusk, and the party turned into a large family affair. Extended family had been invited for dinner and merrymaking, which mostly meant sitting by the bonfire and enjoying time together – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, kids. My mother and aunts-in-law prepared big pots of achar, cooked vegetables, daal, and rice to go around; even one of my host sisters came to visit for a few days which made things especially fun.
The real star of the night, however, was Mark and Kim’s deep-fried spam fingerlings.
Yes -- deep-fried spam fingerlings.
Kim’s wife had sent a few cans of spam in the mail. Kim and Mark, for months, had been carefully reviewing recipes and conspiring to cook something up on this special occasion. Spam was highly coveted by us – a tangible memory of our American home in all of its saturated-fat infested and dietary ill-repute. In contrast, my Nepali host family members appeared to regard the formless meat with intrigue. They watched intently as it slopped its gelatinous mass on a plate, congealed in the form of the can it was packed in; and continued to watch as the two carefully cut, breaded, and fried the slices with a mixture of flour, panko, and eggs in a pan of oil with the help of Bipendra dai.
We passed the fingerlings around to the 20 or so family members hanging about. Many of them – mostly women – abstained. Pork is considered impure in many cultural groups (which is also why we had to cook it in the shed and not the kitchen proper). The fingerlings that remained after this we finished off ourselves with a tangy and questionable sludge made from ranch dressing powder. Despite feeling a bit overindulged, the fingerlings (and the sauce!) were scrumptious. Thank you Joyce.
By this time night had fallen. Family members peeled off in small groups to return to their own homes, and soon we were left with my aamaa, buwaa, bahini, and Kiehl, Mark, and Kim by the bonfire. It was dark and cold. We amused ourselves by talking and playing games of Uno while we sipped on sparkling lemon soda that my host sister had brought from the city.
My host parents had been intent to stay up until midnight, but lasted until 10:30 or 11 before nodding off in their chairs. They retired to bed after all; as did Kim a mere 30 minutes before midnight. The rest of us waited sleepily, yet impatiently, for our mobile phones to strike twelve.
And strike they did. We raised our lemon soda in a group cheer to 7 months in Nepal.
Happy New Year!
Lingering family members sit by the fire and talk as the night gets colder and the New Year looms closer.
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