| My first visit to my ancestral land, Nepal |
| by Sakher Sijapati |
| Last month, I went to Nepal with my parents to see my relatives and my ancestral home. It was good to see many of my relatives whom I had never seen before. I went with the understanding that Nepal is a poor country with a very low literacy rate. My expectation was totally different from what I found there. I did not expect that they would be so technologically advanced. I was amazed to see that they have more television channels than we have in the US. Computers with e-mail and Internet access are available in almost all houses. I communicated with my teacher during my stay there to catch up on my month-long homework assignments. While we stayed in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, I was questioning why my parents told me Nepal was a poor country! But the real Nepal is more than the capital city. Later, we began to travel outside the city and then my perception began to change. Our main purpose for visiting Nepal at this time was to celebrate Vijaya Dasami and Deepawali with other family members who I had never met. I knew briefly how these festivals are celebrated, but I was unsure of how I should behave with other members of the family. The language barrier was a problem. But I managed to talk a little with the limited words of local language learned from my parents. The Vijaya Dasami lasted several days. We visited relatives, received Tika and blessing, and ate a variety of Nepali food. Overall, it was very fun to see all the colorful dresses and foreheads full of tika. Sometimes I felt funny that although some relatives are older than I, chronologically they are my nephews whom I had to give tika and bless as a junior. / I went to Pashupati temple and Swambu Nath temple. The Pashupati temple, one of the holiest Hindu temples, was big and crowded with people to worship Lord Shiva. There was a big golden bull called "Nandi" sitting in front of the temple guarding Lord Shiva. I had a unique experience seeing so many devotees coming to worship lord Shiva. There were monkeys all over the temple and the surrounding areas. They seemed very friendly; however; sometimes if I got too close, they would try to scare me with a frowning face. |
| (Sakher Sijapati is 12 years old.) |
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| (Above) Putting dasai tika on Sakher's mom, Radha. (Below) Elephant ride |
| Below the temple, on the bank of the Bagmati River, people were cremating dead bodies, which was a very disturbing experience for me. I had never seen a dead body cremated. My dad told me that it is a Hindu belief that if people are cremated close to the Pashupati temple they would go to heaven. Another very important experience I had was going to Muktinath temple. We had to ride a cable car for five or six miles, climbing high up on the top of the mountain where the temple was. On the way up and coming down, I saw a real mountain terrain where people lived in isolated houses -- a long walk from the bottom of the hill. On the top of the mountain, at the temple, I saw a crowd of people coming to worship. In the third week of our journey, we went to the National Wild Life Preservation Center, 120 miles south of Kathmandu. There, we rode an elephant through the thick jungle to see all kinds of wild animals. We saw a crocodile, two rhinoceroses, some peacocks, and some deer. I didn't like it when the tamers hit the elephant if she was hesitant to move forward in the muddy path. The elephants even crossed the river. As part of our sightseeing tour outside of Kathmandu, we went to my cousin brother's recreation cottage outside of the Kathmandu valley. On the way, we saw the real Nepal, its terrain, and the poverty of the people. From my relative's land, we could clearly see the Himalayan range in the early morning. At other times, it was hazy and we could hardly see the Himalayas. We cooked and I even got to dig up some peanuts right from the ground. I really enjoyed going to Nepal and I hope to go there again sometime in the future to explore even more about my ancestors and their lifestyle. |
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| (Above) Sakher's mom (c) with her sisters |
| A view of Kathmandu |