Nepalis do love to celebrate. As a clue to just how much they celebrate, let's start with the fact that there are five different New Years officially observed in Nepal. All government offices and schools are closed for all five New Years. The Sherpa New Year falls in January/February, Gurung in February/March, Tamang in February/March, Nepalese national New Year is in mid-April and Newari in October/November.
But the biggest of them all is Dasain, a nine-day festival that is the crown of Nepal's busy line-up of festivals. Families take to the roads and travel home to unite so they can observe and celebrate together.
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| Houses are freshly painted for festival with a mixture of cow dung and dirt |
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| The government offices and schools close the entire time. The roads are choked. As to the shopping to get ready -- think Christmas shopping mania. People stock up on food and new clothes. |
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| An endless stream of buses pours out of Katmandu as city workers return to their families in the rural countryside |
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| For fun, villagers erect oversized bamboo swings called Pings |
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| Carrying the poles to build the Ping swings |
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| Children make kites to fly |
Scores of animals are accumulated on the roads and led to temples for slaughter. Throngs of goats and sheep crowd the roadsides. The types of animals eligible for slaughter are sheep, goats, duck and buffalo. The sheep and goats were the most obvious contributors to the traffic jams. The government's army conducts the slaughter in Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. Soldiers behead the animals and offer them as live sacrifices at the temple. When I first heard about that, I thought that in such a poor country, the loss of so many animals to religious ritual would mean that people would go hungry. But no, actually, the animal is killed and its blood is offered. But, the family (or the soldiers) get to take its body away and eat it. Outside of those three cities, the family conducts the sacrifice.
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| Herding with an Umbrella? |
During festival, there is a rush on the bead section of Kathmandu's Jewelry district, Indrachowk. Women have their bead necklaces restrung or upgraded in time for festival. Every married woman owns one gold bead that would have been given to her to wear on her wedding day; strung in the center of channels of shiny green and red. The stall walls of beaders are a profusion of glimmering color. Seated in each small cubicle are expert men, suspending strings anchored by their fingers and toes as they slide the new beads, channeling into a new necklace.
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| Guys String Beads with their Toes |
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| Jewelry Store decorated especially for Festival |
