Some last images
TR's house. His wife, SL, looks in as daughter prepares to remove churned butter
SL weighs out some butter
An evening meal with DB's family
IB and his grandson in their workshop
Friday, July 18, 2008
People
AP and BR's wife drinking tongba
AP with her two grandchildren
BM and her son "maila" - these were my two of my hosts
Goodbye program
Decorations in front of the central seat
Kailash - the "MC"; school children, in the background, begin to arrive
The ceremonial "tongba" - millet beer, with endless-refill-thermos
Children gather around the MC for the first song of the program
A partly-paralysed Limbu woman, wife of a former British and Indian army soldier
Villagers, including my good friend SB on the far left, and CM on the far right
"ke-lang" (L) or Chebrung (N); the traditional Limbu dance
The husband (on the right) of the woman I mentioned above
Members of the "mother's group" dance the rice-paddy-dance - "ya'rakma" (L); dhān nāch (N)
Girls from ward 5 perform a dance
Girls from ward 3 performing a dance
An improvised dance: limbu-anglo fusion
Receiving flower garlands and giving thanks
View from the garlanded-seat
Spectacular performance from a boy who lives in Jhapa (but was born in the village) and is training in dance
Later that evening, laden with gifts and covered in petals and red paint
Tekadin - a day in ward 3
JB shows me how many children, grand-children and great-grand-children he has: 27+3=30
Two of JB's grandchildren
View from JB's house with cut and stacked wheat, and bright-green rice paddy seedlings.
View across lower ward 4 and 5 (southwards) from ward 3
Up the hill to eat khir (rice-pudding) (30/5/2008)
View down to main trail through village, with buffalo grazing
View (south) of village from upper ward 1
The houses higher up thatch their roofs with split-bamboo (malingo)
View of the village from above the main (community-owned) forested area
Portrait of my friend "Mohan-Sir"
The first shed (goT) above the village. Wheat grain, to be brewed, is boiling
View of the fire in the first shed up the hill
View towards the shed as we continue upwards
khir - rice-pudding - on the boil using some 5 litres of fresh buffalo milk
The master khir-maker, and buffalo herder who lives in a village down river but works up here (by renting the land)
Helping to stir
Cooked khir served up and offered to various local deities on leaves, both inside and outside the shed
Ready to eat
Ritual of "Dungdunge" (26/5/08)
Shorter version of the dungdunge ritual using a chicken instead of goat. Dungdunge is a mad spirit that is usually appeased by pulling the heart of a live goat out and placing it at the ritual altar. Impressive stuff.
Up the hill to collect berries (24/05/2008)
View (eastwards) of the cluster of houses in ward 4 where I lived
Collecting yellow raspberries (ainselu-ऐंसेलु)
Sowing millet in 2007 and 2008
Sowing millet 25th May 2007
Sowing millet 24th May 2008 (exactly on time!)
Monday, April 28, 2008
Various photos in village - 2
View over the southern side of the village
View from upper ward 5 down over the school and lower ward 5
Three village shamans during the funeral rites of a villager's younger brother
Older villagers drink millet beer during the funeral
Poster in the Limbu language (using Nepali script) for the November election that was cancelled. The government did not provide posters in Limbu for the election in April (though there were many Sherpa, Rai and Tamang posters pasted up around the village though there are only 1 Sherpa and 2 Rai households (no Tamang) in the whole VDC)
Various photos in the village
The second son (maila) of the house I live in hanging out in my kitchen
Weaving cane-sheets (chhittra [N]) with a high-altitude bamboo (mālingo [N])
View of the workshop of one of the tailor (damai) families that live in the village
Me in someone else's scruffy clothes
Election preparations (9th and 10th April) - Part 3
Election officials, police and local election assistants on the morning of the election
An old woman is carried to the voting booth while her daughter-in-law votes for her
View of the school ground with election underway
Election preparations (9th and 10th April) - Part 2
The stamp used on the voting forms
A view of the voting booth for the "red" vote [proportional representation]
Box for collecting the vote forms for the "red" vote [PR]
Sorting out the "red" vote forms
Close up of the 55 parties on the proportional representation vote [which accounts for 335 seats of the 601 total in the constituent assembly - which will write the new constitution]
Election preparations (9th and 10th April) - Part 1
Helping set up the barriers and sections which will divide male/female/old & incapacitated
Early morning on elections day (6am). The barriers and red/blue boxes for the votes are in place
The main election assistant writes in the details of the voting sheets to be handed out during the day
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Maoist pre-election village program (26th March 2008)
Pre-speech dance by village youths
View over a Maoist banner towards male villagers during the political program
Ram (Surendra) Karki, the Maoist candidate for the Eastern part of Taplejung (there are two seats in Taplejung district, roughly East (1) and West (2). Karki lost to Surya Man Gurung (Nepali Congress) by 312 seats. CPN-UML won in the Western area.
View of the school and the Maoist political program underway
Taplejung bazaar market-day (22nd March)
Yeast cakes for making millet beer; marchaa (Nepali); khesung (Limbu)
Selling tobacco; surti (Nepali); pharsung (Limbu)
Handles for hoeing; kodaalo (Nepali); kang (Limbu)
Visit to Taplejung bazaar (20th-26th March 2008)
Morning view over part of Taplejung bazaar
Stone, tin and wood rickety constructions in the bazaar
Images in the office of the Maoist district headquarters
Subba meeting (19th March)
A meeting of all the Subbas (29 Limbu "chiefs", in charge of tax collection and resolution of land-based disputes in the past) along the Kabeli river valley from Yamphudim to Tharpu. Meeting to discuss the collection of money paid by yak and sheep herders in Yamphudim for using Subba-controlled land high up above the villages along the river valley. The meeting took place in the main office of the new Limbu Museum.
Pre-election political meetings
Local pre-election political meeting to determine who will walk in what parts of the village to promote this particular party...
A local school-teacher explains why posters have been put up across the village at different sights in 4 different languages. This was a pre-election meeting for a particular political party, but specific questions were raised about the posters. The difference between First-Past-The-Post and proportional representation systems was also explained.
Edible tree moss (5th April 2008) - Mamangkhe
Spent a morning collecting "yangben" (Limbu), "Jhyau" (Nepali), a mossy epiphyte that grows high up on rotting branches.
(added info below due to comment)
[Extract from fieldnotes]
The hanging epiphyte has to be sorted out. Moss and other plants have to be removed. And bits of bark and such. Enough for one family to eat a meal of takes about 1.5 hrs to sort out. And there is still a large amount left. We must have picked a total of over 1 kg, which uncompressed filled up a large rice sack to 3/4.
The weed is then boiled with ash. About a few tablespoons of ash from the fire. The liquid is brought to a boil for about 20 minutes, until the plant has gone black (from red/grey/brown), and the water has turned dark red.
It then is washed, though apparently either we didn't boil it long enough or S didn't wash it properly, because after washing it well, through and through, the stuff is fried with butter (that surge got from T-Sir in exchange for work), chillies and chives (which they just call garlic here). Salt is added a little later and the stuff is stir fried for 10 minutes or so total, and covered for a moment. We eat it adding a little more salt, with fairly sour jaaD (chaaneko)[millet beer].
It is not too pleasant to eat, though buddharaj claims that in bazaar areas people pay 35 rupees for a plate of the stuff, and 30 for meat. It is extremely, well fairly bitter. They all agree that it was not prepared properly.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Birtamod (26th to 28th Feb 2008) - Cardamom merchants
Visited several cardamom merchants in Birtamod. One of the richest cardamom buyers in the village up in Taplejung regularly comes all the way down to Birtamod to negotiate prices and conditions for sale. Birtamod is one of the largest centres for collection, and distribution of cardamom in Nepal.
Scooping up cardamom pods for packaging.
Removing the "tails" on each cardamom pod and winnowing off the dust. These women earn 3 rupees per kilo of hand cut cardamom pods...
Storage of cardamom sacks
Bringing cardamom sacks (each weighing some 40 kg) to the merchants
The transport bike goes vertical
Limbuwan / Limboowan(!)
(26th Feb 2008)
Stuck in Birtamod due to the strike called by Federal Limbuwan State Council (FLSC) activists. This strike has been going on for some 2 weeks, and before that 1 continuous month. A two day pause was called for as rice and other basic goods were not getting to many of the villagers in Panchthar and Taplejung districts.
Photos below are of the headquarters of the FLSC offices.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Back to the field
Back to the field tomorrow. A plane over to Birtamod in Jhapa, as there are no buses running from Kathmandu to the Terai at the moment. I'll stay with one of the families that migrated from Taplejung to the plains. There's a concentration of 35 households around a "chowk" on the main road heading north to Ilam, Phidim and Taplejung, some 10 km north of Birtamod. There's Happenchowk (or "half-pant"chowk because, so the legend goes, it was here that Western half-pants (shorts) were first seen in the area. Someone on their way back to their village having been abroad is said to have bared his knees in style way way back in time), Buddabare, and Aitabare. The road to Aitabare heads east about 5 km at Happenchowk to reach the Timai Bhutanese Refugee Camp, which means there is a continuous rumble of the overly-sized UN jeep with pale peeping faces in the back seats, as well as uncommonly cheap rice and other basic goods (provided by WFP and sold off by refugees). A tiny plot of land here, enough to build a single-roomed box, costs over 1.5 lakh (150,000 rupees=(approx.)=1200 UKP). That is basically equivalent to the cost of organising a work visa to go abroad (more for better paid jobs and non-Gulf countries (or Malaysia).
Many of the Limbu families that have moved here bought a tiny plot of land by saving money over many years of cardamom crop and/or working abroad. Many of the households are run by women whose husbands are abroad at the moment. Generally people say that life is easier here (no carrying 50kg loads for two days uphill), health facilities are more accessible (and better), and children can study in English-medium private school and take computer classes. It does get too hot for most during the summer (there are no mosquitos in Mamangkhe), and many comment that the vegetables and water don't taste as good.
--------------
I will head up to the village when the buses start running up to Tharpu/Medibung by the Kabeli river valley - the end of the road - then up up up, across, up some more - with a bag full of books for children, photographs and mini-tins of "London" tea (all gifts).
Some recent news
Bits of recent news:
Hospitals compelled to use firewood
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, Feb 21 - Hospitals in the capital have been forced to use firewood to cook food for patients due to the shortage of cooking gas in the market.
Director of Patan Hospital Dr Rajesh Gongol said that the hospital has no option than to use firewood to cook food for patients.
Similarly, students' hostel at the Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj has also started cooking food with firewood.
Likewise, TU Teaching Hospital (TUTH) has instructed its staffers to bring food and snacks from home as the staff canteen has stopped serving the staffers due to lack of cooking gas, said Dr Mahesh Khakurel, executive director of TUTH.
Buddhi Pant, a staffer of Bhaktapur Hospital said that an ambulance of the hospital that runs on gas has halted its service due to the lack of gas. Similarly, the staff bus also stopped operating from Wednesday. However, the hospital is getting its cooking gas.
Posted on: 2008-02-21 22:10:55 (Server Time)
----------------------------------------------------- FLSC activists torch Kantipur vehicle
Kantipur Report
JHAPA, Feb 20 - Federal Limbuwan State Council (FLSC) activists torched a vehicle belonging to Kantipur Publications at Laxminagar road section in Jhapa district Wednesday morning.
About 15 FLSC activists burnt down the vehicle at 5 this morning in protest of the news published in the Kantipur daily that had led to the arrest of FLSC activists.
The vehicle (Ba 3 Cha 3933) carrying Wednesday’s edition of the Kantipur daily and The Kathmandu Post was bound for Birtamod from Biratnagar.
The driver of the vehicle informed that the activists looted mobile phones belonging to him and distributor.
The activists had been planning the attack since yesterday night and blocked the road, witnesses said.
Posted on: 2008-02-20 08:23:28 (Server Time)
--------------------------------------------- Terai strike enters day 9, curfew continues in several places
Kantipur Report
KATHMANDU, Feb 21 - Normal life across Terai continues to remain crippled the ninth day running on Thursday as the indefinite strike called by the United Democratic Madhesi Front sees no respite. Clashes have ensued in different parts of Terai between the protestors and the police this afternoon.
People in the region are facing acute shortage of daily commodities as the market places have been shut down. Educational institutions have been shut and vehicles remained off the road.
Supply of daily necessities has been largely affected as the vehicular movement on the East-West Highway and road links to India has come to a grinding halt, according to local businessmen..............
The general public took out rallies in Janakpur and Biratnagar urging the agitating Madhesi groups to call off the strike.
The public in Biratnagar chanted slogans of “Call off strikes and protests, Stop ethnic politics, Maintain peace and good-will” and marched around the city area. The rally started by a group of 20-25 youths at 9 am today soon gained numbers as people from every nook joined the two-hour long march around the city.
Meanwhile, there were minor scuffles at Mahabir Chowk in Biratnagar between activists of the UDMF and the police on the ninth day of the strike. Morang district chairman of the Front Jayaram Yadav was injured when an unidentified group attacked a rally of about two dozen activists of the UDMF at Devkota Chowk in Biratnagar.
Posted on: 2008-02-21 03:43:16 (Server Time)
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Project changes...
"It is not unusual for research plans to change after one begins fieldwork. A range of factors may alter one's carefully made plans, including the absence of expected economic institutions, local resistance to research objectives, state or other political intervention, and so on....So many ethnographies begin with a statement along the lines of 'I went to study A, I ended up studying B'. " (Gregory and Altman 1989:44 - "Observing the Economy")
My first post on this blog described research I was planning to carry out in Sikkim, with the Lepcha, on "Medical Culture". Having recently returned from Nepal after 8 months of fieldwork in a village there, my research is now: in East Nepal, with the Limbu, on the "Political economy of cardamom"! A major shift, though it still has something to do with plants (one plant!), and something to do, loosely, with health (one of the major uses of cardamom is in Ayurvedic remedies, though interestingly the villagers in Nepal who sell the seeds never use it themselves).
Pasted below is a short brain-storm of the new things that I became interested in whilst living in Mamangkhe, Taplejung:
What I’m interested in:
1. Cardamom:
1.1. History of cardamom in Mamangkhe; in Taplejung; and in Nepal/Sikkim more generally [I have photocopied 8 MSc theses (economics and geography) from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu which focus on cardamom cultivation in Nepal].
1.2. Technologies and techniques; knowledge of cardamom and ecology of forest; knowledge of what affects cardamom production (soil types, rainfall, etc.); are there people with more expertise or skill and where did they get this from – transmission of knowledge and experimentation and development of new techniques.
1.3. Economy of cardamom: economic and labour cost of production; market chains (selling cardamom); distribution and use of profits; enterprise, management
1.4. Ecology of cardamom: different forest/land types and their relative productivity; distribution of land types among families (this ties into section 3 below);
2. Class formation:
2.1. The histories of families that have moved away from Mamangkhe or partially-moved to Jhapa.
2.2. Competitiveness within the village as the tourist industry develops. People who can provide services to tourists (lodges, food, portering), often people who have bought houses by the main trail through the village, benefit rapidly and tremendously from this.
2.3. Land location and class: there is a probable relationship between physical location of land within the village and economic “position” or class. Tied to points 2.2 and 3, people who live by the main trail have often been able to buy property there from high-caste Nepalis who left in the last few decades. These houses are often large and modern (i.e. tin-roofed) with enough space to provide accommodation to tourists, porters and villagers passing-through. All village’s facilities are on the main trail: the school, health post, telephone, museum (which incorporates meeting rooms and, more recently, a computer), and all the shops from which villagers can buy basic essential goods (cooking oil, salt, soap). Houses located further above or below the main trail, sometimes up to 1 hours walk from the main trail, are visited less frequently by other villagers and tend to belong to somewhat poorer families (though this is of course not always the case).
3. Land use:
3.1. History of land use: some parts of the village which were previously agricultural -used for maize, rice and millet production - have been replanted with cash-crop cardamom and shade-producing trees. In other areas these basic crops have continued to be grown as it is important to produce a certain amount of ones own food.
3.1.1. What influences land use decisions;
3.1.2. What determines the kinds of land people have access to, inherit, or are able to buy or farm on;
3.2. Work on land:
3.2.1. Different work arrangements including adyiā, Tekā, bāndhoki;
3.2.2. How large land-owners distribute labour tasks to others in the village;
3.2.3. How land-owners who live outside Mamangkhe (Taplejung, Panchthar, Ilam, Jhapa) relate to their village, the land, and supervise production (similar to 3.2.2);
4. Migration:
4.1. Migration from the village: historical movement out of village by high-caste Nepalis; more recent movement out of village by Limbus.
4.2. Temporary migration out of village: Families often move away from the village when the bread-winner goes abroad for long-term or seasonal work. This may involve moving to the mother or wife’s family home, or, in the case of around 15 households, moving to Jhapa. Several families live in temporary accommodation with no agricultural land and are uncertain about their future: if the husband returns with money saved, they can buy a property in the area and stay more permanently (4.1); if they have made no money they must return to the village (Mamangkhe) and pay back their debts.
4.3. Incentive to migrate: Many people cite the isolation and need to personally carry goods into the village from Tharpu (2 days walk away) as the major reasons why they would want to leave the village. Other reasons include bad health services and lack of a good education for their children. There is currently a road being built which will reach Mamangkhe within the next 5 years (supposedly). It is interesting to speculate on how this will affect migration, perhaps by looking at villages that the road has recently reached, like the village of Tellok, about 8 hours walk downstream.
What I have collected so far:
1. Survey of 201 households in Wards 1 to 7, Mamangkhe. Data on demography, education, language, economics (production/consumption/conspicuous consumption), cardamom, travel, health and religious activities.
2. Survey of 30 households in Aitabare and Happenchowk, in Jhapa district. Semi-structured interviews on similar subjects as the survey in Mamangkhe but included questions on past employment (where/how they made enough money to move down), house and land prices at the time of purchase/building, education of children (private boarding schools), motivations and perceptions of difference between up (Mamangkhe) and down (Jhapa).
3. Structured interviews with older men in the village (a total of 6) on the topic of personal, village and Limbu history.
4. Informal unstructured interviews with 8 local phedangma (shamans)
5. Participant-observation throughout my work in the village. This included work experience during every agricultural task from planting and weeding rice, ploughing terraces, clearing forest, picking cardamom, cutting trees, planting maize, setting up fish traps and fishing, etc. As well as involvement in any important local ritual or ceremony such as marriages, funerals, the museum opening, etc.
6. Over 2000 photographs and 200 video clips of all of the above (5) which have been categorised and labelled.
7. Over 150,000 words of field-notes.
Rice paddy (23/06/07)
The whole process of rice cultivation: preparing the terrace walls; ploughing; flattening out the terrace; transplanting seedlings from "seedling bank"; and planting the rice.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Photos from the survey: 5/8/07 to 30/8/07
A household cluster with shed for storing wood and seperate kitchen to the left
View of a single house with three floors. First floor is used as the kitchen, second as the sleeping and part-storage area and third as storage space.
Married couple with wife of son (who has gone abroad)
With of inside of house (ground floor)
Photo during an interview for the survey
Tin roofed house with wooden balcony and a small shop on the ground floor!
View of Wards 6 and 7 on the western-side of the mountain
Another view of the Kabeli river valley facing south-west
Two-storied house with cane roof
Preparing strips of bamboo for basket-weaving.
A rare view of both cardamom (upper half) and rice paddy (lower half) bordering each other. Usually rice paddy is grown closer to the river and cardamom in forested areas further above.
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