Another day, another festival

Festival mornings are always fraught with anxiety for Mero Budda and I. I get frustrated because i never know what i should be doing or if i have some role i should be performing. Mero Budda gets confused because he doesn't have a clue what he needs to explain. He assumes all families give tikka, slaughter goats, touch each others feet and perform pujas every other day of the week. 

My family don't have a lot of rituals. The ones we do have are pretty relaxed, gifts on Christmas morning, chocolate at Easter. There aren't any real rules about it and i would never put Mero Budda on the spot and expect him to perform Santa duties or prepare a Christmas roast. 

Unfortunately my Nepali family don't seem to believe that people have different rituals in other countries.  There is never any warning that a festival is coming. Usually we wake up and my MIL will say "oh today is [insert festival name] you need to dress Nepali". This usually leads to a panic because there are many levels of Nepali dressing and some require specific coloured clothes, which i never own. And is it a full on Sari event, will a kuta do or just jeans and a culturally appropriate top? The response is usually something like "oh just wear the usual thing you would wear to [insert festival name]." This of course is no help what so ever!

Why can't we all call Nepal home?

**WARNING** This is a bit of a rant and i am not a citizenship expert so please feel free to shoot holes in my ignorant complaints.

I've been looking into Nepali citizenship and i can't believe the patriarchal, hierarchical, power hoarding bullshit which works its way into every aspect of life in this country. I am seriously floored by the fact that women have to rely on their father or husbands to get proper documentation. Without a father or a husband a women isn't even a real person in Nepal.

I had heard about the problems of getting citizenship for people who's father had numerous wives or if your father wasn't in the picture but i didn't realize how difficult it truly was for women. I just figured your born in a country and that makes you citizen. Trust Nepal to make something relatively simply in most parts of the world a complex human rights issue which causes pain and anguish for children and women. 

The 2007 Interim Constitution allowed women to pass their citizenship on the their children (in theory though i heard in many VDC made it almost impossible). But the High Level Task Force appointed to sort out issues which arose from the 2007 Interim Constitution decided that giving women the power to do anything other than clean and cook and die quietly during child birth way a bad idea. The proposed new rules from the task force require that mother and father both have Nepali citizenship and both be present in order to register a child for citizenship. So now single parents, widowed parents, couple were one of the parents are foreign can no longer register their children... i guess at least now the discrimination won't be gender based it will just be racist and vulnerability based, that's so much better.

And becoming Nepali by choice... forget about it. Men have to live in Nepal for 15 years and renege their previous claims to citizenship in any other countries. Women can become citizens immediately after they marry a Nepali but they must loose their existing citizenship. Children of mixed couples will only be allowed citizenship if their foreign parent takes up Nepali citizenship.

So we have all these kids, half Nepali and half something else, educated abroad, maybe a bit of savings. They want to come live in Nepal, maybe help their country (only it isn't their country because one of their parents do not want to loose their citizenship) but they can't because of some stupid rule. It just doesn't make sense to me.

What i want to know is what are you safeguarding? By allowing people dual citizenship, or in the least an easy way to take up citizenship, aren't you encouraging stronger ties with foreign countries, encouraging people with money to invest to stay here longer and spend that money. I just don't see the down side.

And i mean what is it that is really being safeguarded? I would be proud to say i am a Nepali citizen but it isn't for the free health care or amazing welfare system. I'm not trying to live off the hard work of honest tax paying Nepalis. I wouldn't be clamoring for my children to receive an education in the world class schools on offer. I really want to know what is it the government is so worried about.

In a time when half the population is desperate to get a visa to anywhere why is it so scary to let the few people who want to call Nepal home do so officially?

MIA

I had a few comments and a couple of emails while i was gone.  I have been MIA for the last month. We had a bit of a bad time and i didn't want to write for a while.

About two months ago, surprisingly, excitingly, a little bit scarily, we found out we were having a baby. I've never been very good with babies, but knowing how much Mero Budda wants a family, it gave me a lot of joy. I was also anxious, so far from home and i had no idea what i should be doing to look after myself and to make sure i didn't fuck up the baby before it was even a person.

Our families were drunk on happiness, almost to the point of delirium. They said don't tell people, try to hide your  news or someone will give you the bad eye. But everybody knew. Strangers invited themselves into our lives, saying eat more rice, get more sleep, don't wash, don't walk, don't work. But of course I always think i know best.

And then one morning, a little pain, a quick trip to the hospital, a waiting room of rounded, perfectly pregnant women listening through the door, and an obnoxious little man with a fancy machine confirmed we weren't having a baby any more. The reason why was never translated to me by the hospital staff but i understood what the women in my community were saying, "we told you". And they did. I never listen.

Suddenly everyone was sad. What comes after making everyone you know sad?

That's all i have to say about that right now but i reserve the right to return to the topic later, after all, it's my blog. I have some new photos and some writing, i might not post as often as before, i'm working through some things so don't rush me.

A rant about gender.

I have read a lot recently on other blogs and intercultural relationship forums about gender roles and the impact of culture. Gender roles are something we learn from birth, through every interaction with our parents, the media and our community at large.

It is in every children’s program which show boys playing with cars or running around outside and girls at home playing with dolls or cooking with mum. Every time your mum does the laundry while your dad sits watching TV or your dad drives the car “because he is just better at that kind of thing”, our gender roles are reinforced.

Over the course of our lives we may recognize that some of our gender roles are sexist, stereotyping or just plan wrong but it is hard to change beliefs that you have been unknowingly molded by your whole life.

My family are essentially a traditional gender roles kind of family. My dad cooked sometimes, but only if he decided he wanted to, mostly the cooking cleaning and child raising was my mum’s domain. Dad drove the car, held the TV remote and made the decisions. Despite the traditional arrangement my mum and dad had, they taught us fairly relaxed gender roles. We were never told we couldn’t do something because we were girls.

I actually remember when I realized I was a girl and that came with ‘rules’. I must have been 8 or 9 when I realized I would have to have the babies. I had always thought I’d be the one working and I’d come home to someone who’d look after me the way my mum did. It was a huge shock to realize I was part of the “weaker” sex.

Of course as I got older sexism in Australia became less tolerable. At school we were told women can be anything they want and I truly believe that. I studied, I worked and I travelled the world alone. Mostly I was fine (apart from a few calls to mum and dad when I was lost in Spain but that’s another story). Then I came to Nepal.

Now my worth is measured by having a son and cooking good Dal Bhat, both of which I have not been able to master yet. The other day I heard a woman tell my mother in law that Mero Budda should get a new wife to do all the work. I wasn’t rude enough to tell that bitch I am the only one in the house that actually has paid employment and maybe if Mero Budda or my MIL had jobs I wouldn’t have to work so much and I would have time to learn all the ‘important’ things like making good tea and washing laundry in a bucket.

I am really struggling to find that balance between respecting the Nepali culture and my “modern ideas that men and women should share the house work”. I am slowly realizing how frustrating it must be to be a woman in Nepal. I can’t imagine how a talented, educated Nepali woman would make peace with roles she is handed here.

Have you forgotten that we were boat people too?

My whole family came here on boats at one time or another. My whole family are the product of boat people. Well, maybe not my Hungarian Grandfather, he might have flown here after the war, so i guess he's a plane person but the rest of us, BOAT PEOPLE.

Sure it was some 200 years ago but i think a lot of Australians forget that most of us come from boats. Some of our families came as "settlers" looking for a better life. Many of our ancestors came in chains, criminals kicked out of a country that had so many criminal it had to start exporting them. 

Don't misunderstand me I am not ashamed of my country's, or my family's, heritage but we came here as less than nothing.  I am the genetic product of a boat load of convicts, thieves,whores and probably one or two corrupt policemen. Our families we sent to the end of the earth where we couldn't bother the nice, more respectable people of England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales .

Today was the first time i have ever known any of my family to be overtly racist. I have to say it was a shock, especially considering where our family came from. Many of our ancestors worked hard to remove the convict label from their names and to become 'respected'  but i guess my self-righteous middle class relatives don't want to think about that when they post on their facebook about people "going back to their own country".

I love my family but one of them really shamed me today. I don't know how we mend that. I'm married to someone wanting to immigrate and my relative is the kind of person who enjoys posting slogans like "F*** off  boat people we are full" on their facebook. Not a whole lot left to say to each other after that little gem. 

For the first time i today i felt ashamed of some of my family. I never realized there was racism so close to home, i thought it was just idiots in Cronulla and insecure rednecks with nothing better to talk about. I feel ashamed. I can accept my family used to be criminals but i don't think i can make peace with a bunch of ignorant racists. 

Old people, family and a brick load of guilt?

 One thing i really love about Nepali* lifestyle is that it is so family orientated. 

I admit i was a little shocked when I learnt we would be expected to live with my mother in law and Mero Budda's grandmother. I was even more shocked when I found out we have to live with them FOREVER! But I have gotten used to the idea and the constant invasion of privacy and bath-time rituals (another complaint for another post). 

Once you get your head around the concept that nothing is yours, even your time or personal space, it is actually kind of sweet. I know I am making family life in Nepali sound like a cult. It is not my intention. I am very sincere. I will even go as far to say I enjoy the power out at night, sure when I wanted to work it was a pain in the arse but really it taught me once i leave the office it is time to be with my family, something a lot of people could benefit from. At night when the power is out everyone in our house sits and talks, sometimes we get a few drinks, play some cards. It is nice. 

I particularly like the way older generations are respected and included. In Australia we don't really live that way. It is really unusual for people to live with their parents (especially at my age), to live with your grandparents seems unthinkable. It isn't that we don't value the elderly, we just value them more from their own homes and on Christmas when they cook up a feast, give you a hideous card and $20. 

I've been thinking about it a lot because My Granddad burnt down his house last week. We didn't even know for three days. The hospital called us to say he was going to be released and didn't have any clothes or anywhere to go. 

It my family and even as I am reading i am thinking 'What kind of self-involved people don't even realise their granddad is in the hospital? Maybe if we had been more vigilant, more involved it could have been avoided. 

In our defense he does live five hours away and He said he heated up a brick and put it in his bed to keep it warm, and then left the house for a few hours, I don't know if anyone could have seen that coming. 

My family is scattered from one end of Australia to the other. One sister in Melbourne down south, and cousins up top in QLD, with everyone else in between. So now comes the inevitable discussion can he return to living alone? If not then who and where? He has lived in his village his whole live. His friends are there, even if none of his family are. We can't just force an old man to move to where we live, can we?

 I've got some time to waste, once his house is rebuilt i'd be happy to go look after him but i can only make plans one visa at a time. In a few weeks i could be on the other-side of the world? I can't offer any stability (If Mero Budda gets his visa then maybe we can). My family has longevity in there genes. Granddad is in his 70s and his mother lived well into her 90s. So this is not an issue likely to be quickly resolved (wow that was callous). I just don't know if i can commit to 20 years of living in a tiny town with no employment opportunities... i've just committed to living in Pokhara where there are no employment opportunities! 

In Nepal this wouldn't have even been an issue. My dad is the oldest son so we would have always lived with my granddad. Someone would have been home to turn the heater on, no hot bricks needed! 

I have kind of lost the point of this post in my ramble of shame and confession. Maybe it was that living with your grandparents is good, or maybe it is don't put hot bricks in your bed? Anyway that's all i've got for you today.

*Ahhh OK once and for all is it Nepali or Nepalese? I have had people correct me when I say both terms. 

Baby Blues

I remembered my sister's baby as a small bundle of crying, smelly nappies. She was cute but she was still in that stage where all she did was cry and poop. When my sister said she was bringing her baby to my wedding I was thrilled. I thought now Mero Budda will see how hard it is to look after children. I thought maybe this will put him off for a year or two.

My family arrived a few days ago. Rather than of the deterrent i hoped for my sister has a cute, laughing, crawling, bundle of sunshine that makes ever the crankiest didi beam like a 100watt bulb (the old kind not those new enviro bulbs, those are rubbish). People approach us in the street and ask if they can take a picture with her. Every where we go people want to hold her! I don't even like kids much and i like her (a little bit).

Mero Budda is crazy about kids. He has gone into super babysitter overdrive. He ALWAYS wants to hold her and he has asked a few times if the baby can come stay with us. He got her a dress. He wanders up the street parading her to anyone who stops. He talks baby-talk to her and sings songs for hours. When she isn't there he talks about our children.

Not only am I trying to prevent him from stealing my sister's baby and raising her as our own, I actually have to compete for his attention... and i am losing badly. I don't think it is hilarious when he clicks at me. I don't clap my hands when he shakes the house keys in front of my face and he doesn't find it adorable when i get food all over my clothes.

Instead of convincing Mero Budda he isn't ready for kids she has completely amped up his desire for children BUT totally shut mine off. If we have children I will never get any attention!