A quick re-cap since my last post: I made another quick visit to the field to conduct qualitative interviews of district health personnel and health facility workers. I went with Anisha to Bhaktapur, where we explored the old village, saw many statues and the old palace, ate some delicious yogurt, and sat by a pool to watch people feed the fish. We also went to Patan and toured the museum after walking around the site of Patan’s old palace (there are many sites of former palaces in Nepal, I have learned). We also went bowling, at which I am terrible in any country, drove/hiked to a spot where you are supposed to be able to see the tip of Everest (unfortunately it was all fog that day), heard a concert, spent an afternoon in the European-designed Garden of Dreams, and climbed to the top of a tower called Dharara, from which we had a good view of Kathmandu at sunset.
This past Saturday, Anisha and I left around 6:30 am to catch our bus/taxi to Manakamena, a two-and-a-half hour drive away. We went with several of her co-workers to the temple that is the site of worship for a goddess who is believed to grant wishes. (Manakamena is the name of the goddess. “Mana” means “heart” or “soul” and “kamana” means “wish”). It is a very popular destination, made more so by the fact that now there is a cable car system to carry you up the mountain, where previously it took a five hour hike to reach the top. The drive was not comfortable, though at least I had a window seat, and we stopped for a tea break. The driver played a mixture of US and Hindi music, heavier on the latter (for which I was grateful, especially after a horrifying set of songs that had me convinced we would be subjected to the Chipmunks covering today’s top hits for the entire ride).
Once we arrived, we joined the line to get a cable car to the top. While waiting, we noticed that there were two types of car- the kind with benches and doors, and a ceiling, in which we would ride, and the kind that was basically a metal box with no roof. The latter, we discovered, is for hauling your animal sacrifice to the top. Yes indeed, this is a site where goats come to die. (We did not observe the act itself, but there were a couple of goats we saw before getting on line to go through the temple and didn’t see again- plus a suspicious red stain in one sectioned-off area). The ride to the top only took about 15 minutes, and provided a spectacular view. The system was designed by Austrians, who have probably supplied several ski slopes with similar transportation systems, but it was a bit scary.
After we disembarked there was a bit of a hike to get to the temple. Then we had to remove our shoes and wait in a long line. Anisha and her colleagues purchased flowers, butter candles, and coconuts from vendors along the line, to leave for the goddess. We tried to ignore what we were stepping in as the line slowly crept forward. The man in front of us turned around with his cell phone and started snapping photos of the floral arrangements, which were quite pretty. Then he turned the camera on me until we called him on it. Where the frak did he think he was, the zoo? “American female observed outside her natural habitat.” Later we discovered he was on the same bus as us, but I did my best to avoid interaction. Creepers gonna creep, what can you do?
As we reached the front of the line, a man directing the flow of traffic informed my friends that I wouldn’t be allowed to go into the shrine. I could walk around it, though, ringing bells and putting some borrowed petals into the wooden grates as I made my wishes. We agreed to this, but he still kept a very close eye on me as I trouped around the temple, even going so far as to warn us a second time. I wanted to tell him that I would be respectful of his religious traditions, so it would be nice if he would stop acting like I was a criminal, but I didn’t want to engage (or get my friends to translate something inflammatory) so when I passed by the shrine entrance, I just gave him a good hard look and glided on by.
I waited for Anisha and the guys on a bench from which I had a gorgeous view of the valley. They walked around the temple a little while longer, ringing bells and lighting lamps, and then we retrieved our shoes and had lunch. We walked around a bit more, then headed back to the cable cars for the ride back down. The ride back was as comfortable as the ride there had been, but we made it home, scarfed our dinners, and went to bed.
On Sunday we went back to Thamel to make a second (and much more fruitful) attempt at shopping for gifts. Luckily, we still have another couple of weeks to finish up this project, as it is easy to get overwhelmed and exhausted wandering the winding streets. We got caught in a downpour, but took a breather inside a coffee shop, with tea and coffee and doughnuts to tide us over as we shared a newspaper and waited for the rain to stop. It was a fun weekend and I felt we made the most of the time off work.
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