The spring is sometimes occupied by other villagers but I only had to wait a few minutes to have the spot to myself. I relished the peace. Moments like these bring me profound contentedness and root me in gratitude -- bathing in a mountain spring under a warm sun surrounded by green fields of rice, millet, a banana tree, and verdant hills. Not even the foreign service and embassy workers in the capitol can enjoy this!
Although we have had a shower at home for many months, I have started bathing at the spring on sunny days whenever possible. Winter is coming: it will soon get too cold to make this comfortable. I am also forcefully aware of how finite this experience will be.
I was originally planning on just sharing the photos of our spring with a glib "That's it. That's the tweet", but I figured I should make this post a little more educational (cue disappointed audience "awww..." sound clip). So, if it pleases you, continue reading for a tour of my host family house.
This is the front of our ghar. It is an old house and has probably been in the (paternal) family for several generations. My host parents like to talk about how, decades ago, 20+ people used to live here all crammed together. Phew!
You can see the stone-and-mud-caulked veranda below the painted posts supporting the upper floor. Our previously paraplegic kid wanders the agan. The bottom room to the the far left is the kitchen. Then there is the main section of the house next door which serves as a bedroom and living space for my host parents. Vines of giriula snake up from the garden to the attic on the second floor that sits on top of this. On the right side, starting at the second set of steps, is the renovated annex: the window of my room is mostly obscured by vines but you can see it if you squint. And in the very back stands our livestock shed.
We'll explore left to right according to this photo. First off, here's the kitchen.
It is extremely narrow, the most narrow kitchen I have seen in all my time in Nepal. Most of the cooking is done over the fireplace in the far back. Aamaa prefers to cook over fire -- it is cheaper than using the gas stove (out of frame on the table in the bottom right). Food also just tastes better when cooked over fire (I was at first skeptical about this, but it really does). Traditional urns such as our gagri are used to store water (though there are so many varieties of containers and urns with specific formations, shapes, materials, and uses... don't ask me what they are, I don't work here). Next to the copper gagri is the silauto, consisting of a flat stone and a handheld rock, which gets daily use grinding garlic, spices, and peppers for cooking.
The walls and floor are red because they are plastered over their stone foundations with a mixture of red soil, cow dung, and ash. All areas of the original house are maintained in the same way. Aside from being a natural cover for the house foundation, it imbues pest-resistant and temperature-regulating properties, keeping things cool in summer and warm in winter. Its upkeep is laborious (aamaa applies a fresh coat of mud to the oven area every evening to keep things clean, and the floor of the front porch is supposed to be coated every morning), but it is really beautiful and calming. I will definitely miss Nepal's mudded walls when I leave.
Adjacent to the long and narrow kitchen are the "living quarters". To the right my host parents' bed can be seen - the left, our open cabinet for dishware, cookware and utensils. Out of frame on the left is a small shelf-shrine for Hindu worship. Cabinets on the side and in the back are storage areas for dried goods and household effects like soap; the staircase in the back leads up to the attic.
Here is the attic, full of dust and random stuff, some of which gets touched occasionally but most of which sits in dust for years. Not much difference there from its American counterpart.
In the back on the right is a large woven silo for unmilled rice (this spell-checker is telling me that "unmilled" isn't a word -- what other adjective am I supposed to use, then?? As an agriculture major, should I know this? ... I digress.) As the milled-rice stores become low, the family pulls some raw rice out of storage, dries it in the sun for a few days, and then aamaa carries it to the mill to be hulled.
There is another level of the attic evidenced by a narrow ladder in the far back corner, not visible in this photo... to be honest, I have not had any inkling of desire to see what is there. I leave it as the rats' realm to reign. Occasionally I hear them fighting or snacking on crumbs in my ceiling and am amusedly reminded of my late pet rats from the States.
A newly-built house constructed of nearly all wood and cement before painting.
Before I had any idea where I would be living for my two years of service, I was speaking with the Peace Corps staff member who assessed all of our volunteer host houses. "It's an old house," she said about my family's house. "I like it -- it's really nice." And, after seeing a lot of houses since then, I have to agree. I love the natural look and feel of dhunga-maato houses which are increasingly being replaced by concrete houses.
The guest room.
Next is the renovated annex. You can see the plastered brick-red mud has been replaced by a concrete floor and walls and modern-style paint. In this section of the house is the downstairs bedroom (above) which is used for guests -- or, alternatively, when my host mother is menstruating, because she is compelled to sleep in separate quarters during the period (pardon the pun). Generally it is empty; though sometimes it is occupied by the chickens when someone props the door open and forgets to look after it.
Mother-in-law style stairwell to my room.
The stairs leading up to my room above. The stairs and railing were a modification imposed on my host family by Peace Corps; the previous stairs were more haphazard and deemed a safety risk, so this nice set of stairs was built for me during my first month or so at site. I thought the railing was overkill at first but really do enjoy it. I use it for exercise and for hanging clothes up when it is raining. One family kid in particular likes to use it as a slide.
You can see a mosquito net door on the outside which was recently installed with the help of a carpenter. For some reason mosquitoes swarm on my doorstep every night (that is, during mosquito season ... or half the year). I can now have double the daylight indoor, a breeze moving fully through the room, and can wear short sleeves and shorts in my room in the evenings -- so, so nice.
My room in its natural state of chaos.
My room when I am expecting guests (almost never).
I honestly love my room so much -- it is spacious, comfortable, clean and has a huge window through which I can see the hills and mountains on clear days. I couldn't ask for nicer accommodations. It gets a lot of natural light (very important to me -- without it in my living space I get depressed). And it has a lot of privacy by virtue of its mother-in-law side entrance and second-story leveling, which is very unusual for Peace Corps volunteers. I love my room!!
Livestock accommodations -- outdoor.
Inside the goat shed, bottom floor.
Inside the goat shed, upper floor, feat. one of our beautiful roosters (not for long...)
Next we have the livestock shed. During the day the goats are tied as pictured; we bring them inside at night to protect them from animals (mostly leopards which roam the villages at night and snatch cats, dogs, and any poorly-kept livestock that can't defend themselves). The chickens are kept on both the bottom and top floors of the livestock shed. For the first 8 months or so at site the top floor was more of an attic storage space until my host parents bought a batch of chicks for raising, and then it was converted into a chicken coop.
The toilet/bathroom from the porch area. We use its tin roof to dry a variety of items when the sun is out.
Asian-style squat toilet. These things are great. I don't know how I will go back to using Western-style toilets... I know I am in the minority opinion on that one.
Last and likely least, the toilet and bathroom! These are made of wood supports and cement. When I arrived in village there was a much smaller and rougher toilet that didn't have much room to move around. My host family tore it down and built this nice new one, again a requirement from the Peace Corps office as part of the housing agreement. It is quite nice. From the toilet you can look out and see the hills if you leave the door open -- which I often do because, 1. I am lazy, and 2. I would rather have a view while I am on the toilet than be sitting in the dark. Nepal is alllllllll about the views.
Water for the toilet, bathroom and our (also newly built) tap run from two sources: the natural mountain-fed spring and one of the water tanks that serve the community. Our house and family are quite lucky: we rarely run out of water compared to other community members who have to fetch water by hand when supply runs out, sometimes for days or weeks at length, which mostly occurs during the dry season.
How often are you going to have a view like this from the toilet?
One night I was talking with my host parents about the future of the house. Aamaa and buwaa were sort of laughing -- my host brother will be inheriting the house after they pass. They wonder what he will do with it, though their hope is that he will keep it in its basic state as a testament to the family and traditional values. Though I have no stake in the matter it is hard to disagree after living here for a year. I hope when I return to Nepal in the coming decades this house will still be standing -- though there is no doubt that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.
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