Village #2 - Khas Kudoan

(Khaas Kudoan)

The experiences continue to be amazing! I am in love with the villages! This Saturday, 3 students, Darab "The Man", and I visited a second village called Khaas Kudoan. Sanjeev who organized the ninth grade Activity Week for four villages comes from Khaas Kudoan and was there to greet us. Everyone one was so friendly and I became nostalgic for my "own" village Sarab Talla -- I want to go back!

(Khaas Kudoan village)

The student in the middle had braces and the villagers asked about them. Interestingly, they all have straight teeth. You know why? Because they traditionally brush their teeth with branches from a special tree, and by pressing down so hard on their teeth with a horizontal stick, they naturally straighten out their teeth. Also the kids are taught to press down on their teeth with their fingers, sort of like natural braces.

(Sanjeev and his grandpa)

Sanjeev's grandpa taught him about farming skills and the important values in life. They come from the priest/educator caste, and Sanjeev's grandpa has relatively liberal views. And so, Sanjeeve was able to leave the village for a while and join a radical group on reforming village education. Sanjeev is afraid that the newer schooled generations will lose touch with their roots and the human values that you get from village life. Anyway, here is a glimpse into a healing ceremony that his grandpa (a healer) was doing, for a woman who has had strange dreams and unexplainable illnesses since childhood. The room was smoke filled and dark with beams of light coming in. They didn't seem to mind people coming in and out, talking, and cooking at the same time.

(healing ceremony)

Here is a picture of our lunch, which Sanjeev served to us, along with natural honey that they harvested. Awesome!

(roti, dahl, subjee, curd)

We spent some time inside one of the host family's house, discussing issues and sharing cultural information. We talked about deforestation, farming, infanticide, malnutrition, marriage, and modernization. Basically the newer generations like Sanjeev do kind of a hybrid between the old way of blind arranged marriages and now where they get to sort of find someone on their own but not really date. If there is a connection, the pair will ask their parents for permission, and then they have to check horoscopes and everything to see if it's okay. Their way of explaining it was that they get married and then let the love grow. In the western world, people let the love grow and then get married. I explained the divorce rate in the United States, which is pretty dismal.

(Darab explaining something)

Our students were so excited to see their host families again and give candy to the kids. It was funny, because the old ladies really wanted the candy too. Here are some pictures of the girls and women in the village.

I think it is really cool that the villagers love taking photos. These are our parting shots:

(They've totally got the asian squat down.)

(Darab & Sanjeev!)

And as per request by Lovella who said, "Please don't put a picture of your bloody knee on the blog, but please do put a picture of all the layers that you are wearing." Ok, here you go! You can't really tell, but I am wearing 4 layers, including my wool hat, inside the apartment. I put the headlamp on in the picture just as a bonus!