A Mirge Wedding

I have to admit that I was not expecting to experience such happiness upon returning to Mirge.  Much of the two months I spent in the village in 2010-11 were marked by sickness of one sort or another and an unshakable feeling of cold.  The lone wolf I often become when I travel also regularly rebelled against the overprotective/borderline-controlling manner in which the patriarch of my Nepali family sought to restrain me from wandering around the village, or at least keep me thoroughly chaperoned when all I wanted to do was go exploring on my own.  But Mirge is an idyllic, slow-paced village of terraced earth, tall bamboo and cute little baby goats, and there is only so long one can resist its beauty and charm. Almost as soon as I had arrived, I recognized how many of the nooks and crannies and people of the place had imprinted themselves onto my heart and memory.  Plus, I was there to support a friend, Surendra,  transition into what for him was/is a new phase of existence: married life. (And this time, due to the attention and energy the wedding preparations required, I was mostly free to move about the village solo if I wanted to...and did take advantage of that newfound freedom at various points :)

When I visited Laligurash Bright Future primary school (where I taught English, computers, music and general knowledge to grades 3, 4 and 5 in the winter of 2010-11), I got to see the few remaining students I knew from my time there, who mostly just smiled with shy embarrassment when I popped my head into their classroom.  I even ran into one of my old students, Sumitra (also the name of Surendra's sister...Nepal seems at times to be shy on names, maybe 85% start with "S" and most of those with "Su" meaning "good" in Sanskrit and Nepali [Su-mitra = "good friend"]), on the bus on the way to the village now that I think of it.  We both took a while, examining each other in short bursts in order to make sure that the other was who we thought before saying hello, so as not to embarrass ourselves.  A couple days later she and two of her little friends ended up escorting me on a walk up to the gompa/gomba (small temple-like structure where sacred images are kept) on the pretext of showing me some "natural beauty," but which seemed to have at least as much to do with determining my relationship status.

As for the wedding...actually before going into the details of the wedding, it's probably worth noting, for those of us that don't live in countries where marriages are arranged, that Surendra (the groom) and Sima (the bride) had only met in person once before the wedding.  Suren did tell me that they spoke everyday while he was in China, where he is studying for his MBBS degree (a medical bachelor's I think) so they got to know each other that way after Suren's family and Sima's mother (her father passed and her brother is studying abroad) decided it was a good match.  From my brief experience with Sima, a regal yet light-hearted woman, and from seeing them interact together at the wedding and when the three of us met for dinner in Kathmandu, I don't disagree.  (I'm no one to hate on the benefits of relying on phone conversation rather than in-person interaction in the early stages of a relationship...that's how Amanda and I spent most of our first year and I think it is part of the reason our communication and trust is as strong as it is.)  In any case, they seem to be doing well thus far.

Now for a little bit on the wedding. The first of the two and a half days of festivities of a Tamang (the caste to which Surendra and Sima belong) wedding occurs in the bride's village, which in this case was a roughly three hour walk or one hour bus/car/motorcycle ride down into the valley.  Originally, a whole gang of us, maybe between 1 an 3 hundred, were supposed to accompany the groom and his family down to the village, but there was a last minute change of plans due to some financial/logistical concerns about feeding and accommodating the whole crew, so, in the end, only a small contingent of eight or ten made the trek.  So, while I did get to hear the lamas chanting and the see the wrapping of a white ceremonial turban on Suren's head in the morning before he left, I missed him bowing to 500 or so people and many of the other components of the formal wedding ceremony.

There was a small dance party for those of us who stayed in Mirge.  The music consisted of roughly 6 songs played over and over again, one of which was Gangnam Style (spelling?), to which Sela, my Chinese roommate and also a former volunteer at the Laligurash Bright Future school, and I offered our mildly coerced rendition of the classic Korean dance...I didn't even know I knew the dance to that song...I think we were both surprised at our rather well-received performance.  In any case, it got the party started. For the next hour or so, two competing circles of young dancers that formed in what is normally a millet field, would take turns pulling me in and, when I would consent, holler, cheer and claim a short lived victory over their opponents.  It was certainly a different pace and tone from the mostly silent, slow-moving retreat environment I had left only days prior.  But I didn't spend a lot of time comparing the two.  In fact, relatively little of my time in Mirge involved formal practice--partially because of having a roommate, not being on my own schedule, visiting with Dot and Chris O'Brien (the driving financial forces behind Mirge's development over the last 14 years) and their daughter Sally (a friend and the one who pointed me toward the Laligurash school five or so years ago), participating in the wedding festivities, visiting the village...but mostly, I think my movement away from formal practice had more to do with two overlapping, though distinct mental fabrications: 1) this body, now featuring a growing rash across its left hand, which would later blister, in addition to the uncomfortable bloating and other GI symptoms, was enemy territory, was infected and frightening and my mind wanted nothing to do with it; and 2) which I can see somewhat more clearly now, is that I was indeed reeling--am still reeling--from the rather traumatic set of experiences that constituted much my retreat at Panditarama and was pushing the associated practices away, seeking solace in the mundane and momentary.  I plan to delve more deeply into this thought stream in the next post or the one after.  It deserves a higher caliber of attention and quality of articulation than I am able to offer it right now...better to avoid straddling too many horses at once.

The second day of festivities, which is when the party moved to Mirge, mostly involved Suren and Sima sitting in a Christmas light-wrapped booth built of bamboo and banana tree, accepting monetary gifts to offset wedding expenses, smiling for pictures, and receiving tikka (having milk-rice stuck to their foreheads...which I think Sima was pretty over by day's end...there's really only so much room on a single forehead).  Some villagers played traditional drums (video on Facebook), others danced to more contemporary music and still others spent the day cooking for the thousand or so guests that passed through that day.  About a dozen women, including Surendra's mother, Sipari, had been frying traditional ring-shaped bread for days in 14 hour stretches that was now being devoured [en mass].  (This segues into an observation I made that seemed to find agreement among the other outsiders.  The women of Mirge are its lifeblood.  [We can debate whether this is a universal or international truth another time.] The men plan, walk tall and have financial meetings over tea, but the women tote the gigantic baskets on their heads, do most of the farming, look after the children and animals, cook in the houses...wield the power in many ways.  It was explained to me that most of the men in Mirge eek by working as trekking guides, porters and cooks and are therefore, often away for stretches.  Therefore, the local community has learned to get by without them contributing very much as regards day-to-day life.  Anyways, I just found it interesting.

I spent a good chunk of my time in Mirge visiting and being toured around some of my old favorite places: a cemetery on a hilltop with an Amazing view where Surendra, his former friend Pramod, and I spent the better part of a day together four years ago...I think it was there that I really felt a trust-based connection (something very difficult to come by in Nepal in my experience) with Suren for the first time; a collection of stupas near a valley of rhododendrons; a collection of classic half white, half-ochre homes in a small pool of terraces, framed by tall stalks of bamboo; and of course, the Laligurash school where one class performed the daily-sung Laligurash anthem, based on a song that grade five and I wrote four years earlier...I was touched.  Dot, Chris, Sally and I were also taken to an intriguing place I had never before visited: a shamanic altar, a place of ritual sacrifice associated with the Hindu goddess Durga, consisting mostly of locally-crafted iron tridents ranging from a few inches (from the less affluent members of the community) to more than 6ft tall (from those who could afford it)-(pictures on Facebook).  The religious life of Mirge is a unique hodge-podge of Vajrayana (Tibetan/tantric) Buddhism (mostly in name and art rather than practice) and a shamanistic-Hindu mesh, of which animal sacrifices, a pretty significant "no-no" according to the Buddha's teachings, seem to be an integral part.  The people of Mirge call the jagari (shamanic priests) "jumping doctors" and, from what I heard, one of the ways they can tell who will become a jumping doctor is that potentials will start bouncing for no particular reason in class or wherever.  Interesting to think that in our culture, if you can't sit still in class, you're often given a diagnosis and put on Prozac, whereas in Mirge you're placed in a position of significant authority and are sought out for sage advice.  Culture is fascinating.

The long and short of it is that my five days in Mirge were overall a very enjoyable experience despite struggles with food and concerns about health.  I'm glad I could share a little bit of it here with you.

I apologize for the long pause between posts.  I sometimes feel like a host who, having invited you all to my birthday party, spends most of the time in his room.  But then I remind myself that that's not quite an accurate analogy here--this is not a birthday party, it is a journey of self-exploration for which I created space between graduate school and whatever comes next.  I did this in the interest of living a healthier, more compassionate and peaceful life, not so that I could keep an interesting and frequently updated blog.  And even if the analogy were accurate, true friends are interested not in how much time (or how many words in this case) I spend with them, but in growth and state of mind...the degree to which I am having a meaningful experience.  And for those of you who fit that bill, thank you for your support.

Oh, and health update so nobody's freaking out (Stacy and Dad): my hand, while ugly, seems to be healing, my digestion has improved, and, if the scale in the Kathmandu clinic was correct, I'm pretty much the weight I was when I left.  Feeling pretty good...a bit disoriented and sensitive still, but overall peachy :)