a little about politics...

It looks like the deadline for drafting the Constitution will not be met in Nepal. The UCPN (Maoists) Party of Nepal has decided to go to the streets once again for what they call their "final battle".

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=17671

KUMARI -a tradition going back centuries-

The so called ‘Living Goddess’, Kumari Devi, is a deified young girl worshipped by hindus as well as by nepali buddhists though not tibetan buddhists. Kumari literally means virgin in Sanskrit, Nepali and other Indian languages and is a name of the goddess Durga as a child.


There are several legends who mean to explain the origin of this tradition, I will tell you one (the most popular as it seems). Goddess Taleju used to visit the King Jayaprakash Malla every night to play tripasa –a dice game-, with the condition that he kept silent about their meetings. One night, the king's wife followed him to his chamber in order to find out who he was with so often. The king's wife saw Taleju and the goddess very angered, told the king that, if he wants to see her again or have her protect his country, he'd have to search for her among the Newari (Shakya) community, as she would be incarnated as a little girl among them. Hoping to make amends with his patroness, the king left the palace in search of the young girl who was possessed by Taleju's spirit. And that is how the Kumari legend started.

Finding the Living Goddess is not an easy affair, though.

According to the traditions of Vajrayana sect of Mahayana Buddhism, the girls must be between 4 and 7 years old, and belong to the Shakya clan of the Nepalese Newari community. Among many other requisits, she should also have an ‘appropriate’ horoscope, up to 32 attributes of physical perfection, including color of eyes, “thighs like those of a deer and a neck like a conch shell”. One part of the selection is pretty hardcore for a kid, and is as follows: “if the blood-loving Taleju is to reside in her, she must not be repelled at the sight of gore. And to test her fearlessness, the child is pushed into an odiferous room with 108 decapitated buffalos laid out in a sea of blood. Men wearing horrid masks dance among them in an effort to frighten the child, who walks clockwise through this scene of carnage. If she cries out, faints or shows any sign of hysteria, she is immediately disqualified and the next candidate is brought forward for consideration”. The real goddess is the one who can support this.

Preeti Shakya, having just learned to walk, was found the be the next one. Hereafter, she was taken from her family and installed in her royal chambers. She will not talk to ordinary mortals. She lives a confined life, only coming out of her palace three or four times a year. Tourists come to their palace and if they are lucky and patient she may come to her window, where you can see her. Big dark eyes, serious. Few seconds, and back in. Photographs not allowed. (and many times disappointment from tourists who don't get the chance to see her!)

i got this photo in one of kumari's walks outside of her house. It was seto machendranath festival, she has to be there and when she is out of home, photos are allowed. Her feet can't touch the ground so that is why a man is carrying her.

The Kumari’s godhood comes to an end with her first menstruation, because it is believed that on reaching puberty the Kumari turns human. That day she will pass from all these cares and decorations to her parent’s residence who knows where. After playing God for the last 10 years how would a girl feel? “As soon as I began to menstruate, there was a huge flutter in the palace, and I thought I had done something very wrong,' remembers Anita Shakya, whose Kumarihood lasted 6 years. `The priests went into a huddle and then informed me I was no longer a goddess and that I had to go back to my parents. I could not understand what was happening. I did not want to go. I was very sad.” Uncomfortable in normal society, uneducated, and with no marriage at sight. The superstition that a Kumari's husband dies early has taken firm root in the Nepalese society, and few men are likely to ask for her hand. She will spend the rest of her days trying to figure out the strange hand fate had dealt her.

Facing freedom will definitely not be easy.

Today's Kumari is perhaps relatively lucky. Under quite new arrangements, living goddesses nowadays are all entitled to a formal education with a tutor of their choice.

Thank god –or goddess- some things change sometimes.

It’s time to discover some of the real stories

that the women in Nepal are going through.

One of the shelter girls, her name is Parvati, has realised that speaking up her actual situation can be a way of saving herself.
Parvati, was born in Dolakhha district. During the war, the Maoists arrived to her village and tried to force her to join them. The only desire of that 15 year old girl was continuing her studies, so she had to flee her village and arrived to Kathmandu.
Her uncle lived in the capital, and accepted her home, but after some time, he told her she had to find a job because he was not able to take care of her anymore. Parvati, being a teenager, found herself alone in the streets of Kathmandu. She finally found a friend from her village who had managed pretty well in the capital who offered to pay for a security guard training so that she could get the job and give the money back.

Parvati started her new job as security guard of a dance bar in Thamel. She started a new life. As time went by, she realised that there was one man who kept coming to see her everyday. He was around, looking and after work he used to follow her. One day that man came and talked to her. He said he liked her much and wanted to meet her. Parvati didn’t listen to him and continued with her life. But this 17 year old women to be, started developing feelings about men. One year after their first talk, Parvati decided that if that man had been following her for so long, he couldn’t be a bad person and agreed to start meeting him. He was an army man. She finally fell in love. And they wanted to marry.

Parvati called her family back in the village with the good news. But this time, her big sister (who is a teacher in the village school) was very mad at her because she still hadn’t been married, and so it wasn’t Parvati’s time at the moment.
On the other side, there was the pressure of her loved man, so she decided to let down her family and start a new life in love and happily ever after. They went to court, arranged the papers, and got married.

Life was good, until that man started saying to Parvati that she should go to Dubai, Qatar or Saudi Arabia to work for a couple of years so that she made money because they couldn’t manage to make a living. Paravati refused, she didn’t want to leave him. At this point, her husband started using the force to convince her. Beatings started. And mental torture became a daily routine. Parvati decided then to start looking for a job. She thought that if her husband had the money, she would be safe.
And finally found herself working at a massage parlour, where forced sex was involved. As she came home with some money, her husband was happy and the beatings weren't as hard or usual.

One day, Parvati heard an interview about Raksha on the radio. It was our Menuka Didi, talking about her work and desire of liberty for all nepali women.
Parvati found the NGO and came to share her situation. The shelter program was just starting and she was our first beneficiary.
Searching for information about her husband, we found out that he had had two other women he did send abroad for work. And when they came back, he asked for divorce. As they wouldn’t accept it, he would torture them physically, mentally, so that in the end, they would also want to divorce.

Maybe you know about the vicious circle of domestic violence. After a couple of months, Parvati’s husband contacted her and started promising his love again. Of course, a women in love, usually falls in same lies. And so, she left the shelter, knowing that the doors were opened if any problem. After three weeks she came back, full of bruises.

Nowadays, Parvati is a self empowered women. By herself, she decided to fight her husband, get divorce papers and let Nepal’s authorities and the world know the real story about an army man, who inside home uses his army shoes to step on his women’s body.

what the figures say...

A survey conducted by Raksha Nepal among 200 women working in dance bars, cabin restaurants and massage parlours produced the following results:

- 57.5% respondents were dispalced to Kthmandu due to the armed conflict
- 91.5% respondents were in the age group of 15 to 28 years
- 66.5% respondents had some 'transitional' job before entering into forced prostitution
- Average income of respondents was Rs. 4605.50 (around 45 euros) working for 10 hours a day
- 87.5% respondents had never disclosed information about their jobs to their families
- clients were in the age group of 31 to 50, and army/police officials were frequent clients
- 81% respondents stated that they were forced into sex by employers
- 50% respondents say they never used contraceptives
- 60.5% respondents have little or no knowledge about HIV/AIDS
- 98.5% respondents were against legalisation of prostitution

today is a holy-day

"Nepal to witness partial solar eclipse on Friday"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/14/content_12808502.htm

no work today, we'll just spend the day dancing on the roof!

I haven’t talked to you yet about how dirty Kathmandu is…


There is no method of storing and recycling or making disappear all that fohor (nepali word ford dirty). People store some at home, and if you want you can pay someone who will come and take it somewhere for you. I was eager to know about our rubbish, and I discovered that they take it to a back street of the English embassy where street children and poor people come by sometimes to see if they find some useful and usable goods. From there, I don’t know where it goes, but watching the rivers, I can imagine where…. Just imagine it, with little islands formed with rubbish.

Another way of getting rid of all the waste is burning it. Sometimes in the morning, when I go out of my home, a fog surrounds the city, -but not everyday’s mountain fog-, these times, the smell of burning is strong. An in fact it is an everyday activity, and you can also see neighours gathering around a fire at dawn.

The funny story I had yesterday is that I was waiting for a friend on the street, and the man next to me, a street seller, was packing. His day was over. After putting all his items in a couple of huge bags, I was surprised when he started collecting the waste he had produced over the day on the street. It was the first time I saw something like that, and I was so astonished, I wanted to tell him how good job he was doing, but at that moment I didn’t find my nepali words to speak to him, so I just stared at him.

When he finished collecting all the remains, he just walked a little bit further on that street, where there was a big tree and dropped all he had in his hands! I just couldn’t believe what I was watching. But in fact, I feel sorry to say that this is Nepal’s natural order…

I love to walk. Looking at everything that goes on, feeling the smells, watching the colours and imagining the lives of the people around me if I don’t get the chance to speak to them.

Walking in Kathmandu is my everyday challenge. The roads are used for all purposes, street selling all around the sidewalks -with plenty of fresh vegetables, hot chillies, face-masks for the polluted air, all kinds of clothes and underwear, hair brushes and cotton swabs- wait for costumers next to a Ganesha statue around the always present temples on the streets. The cars, motorcycles and bicicles go freely in every direction, horning right and left to the brave population who loves to walk. Then, also appear the rickshaws trying to pick up any tourist with some rupees in the pocket.

On rush hours, the micros (public transport vans) travel with their doors opened due to the 25 persons packed in the inside who overflow and stand with their body half out.
I was astonished to see that there is another public way of transport called TucTuc which works with electricity rechargeable batteries, to which we have to give a sincere thank you for not contributing to the massive air pollution of the valley.
On the road there are almost no signs who will guide you about when or where to cross safely, and the ones there are, are not respected…being a pedestrian, you just need to dare in this daily jungle.

Lately I have had the chance of riding a scooter (when the other girl with permit at the NGO is not free) I have that duty. It took me a couple of drives to understand that the language of traffic here is the horning. I can now understand why so many noise is ‘needed’ (or not, but it’s fine). The thing is when you are passing over someone on the road, you have to let them know by horning, which makes me think that no-one uses the vehicles mirrors -but anyways-, the special factor is that the horning does have an effect on the other driver who fairly pulls out on the side of the road and lets you free driving!
I do try to sneak in the most silent I can, but I know now that you don’t have to think you will be safe by not horning, because you will be horned…