Happy or cranky, that is the question
Every single morning I get surprised by the flurry of activity happening around here from the early dawn. It starts with birds chirping and dogs barking and goes on to more intense stuff. It makes me baffled. Because when I say early dawn, that’s exactly what I mean – early dawn. You know the time when you are having the best dreams of the night. The time when you accidentally wake up, look at the clock and realize you still got two more beautiful hours of sleep before needing to get up for work. The time I thought was illegal for anyone to be up. Yup, 5 am. Believe it or not, people around here get up at 5 am. The pressure cookers start whistling all over the neighborhood, motorcycles buzz in the streets, and children laugh happily. I thought children hated getting up early. I thought children loved to sleep as long as they possibly can. Nepal is challenging all I ever knew.
Now, you would (wrongly) assume that people around here get up early because they start working at 6 am. No. That’s not the case. Offices and schools here open at around 9:30 am. So what do people do from the ungodly hour of 5, till 9:30 when their work starts. They drink tea, then cook their morning serving of daal-bhat (hence the pressure cookers), they (maybe) work out, clean up, eat and off they go. Still, I see no need for getting up that early, but, to each his own. I sleep like a lazy foreigner until 7:30.
One of my “favorite” activities to hear my neighbors do in the morning is sweeping. It wakes me up every single day at 6 am on the dot. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh… Neighbor’s helper sweeps every day, no exception, right underneath my window. I am confident that in couple of months she will completely wear out the stones there. I wonder what’s there to sweep every day. Yes, Kathmandu is dusty and all, and they do have a dog, but seriously, every day!? In my humble opinion, every second day would do, but who am I to say that. What do I know of sweeping practices in Nepal? Sometimes she even splashes water and then sweeps the yard, despite the fact it rains almost every night, all night long. Their yard must be sparkling. I need to have a peek one of these days. Who knows, maybe it reveals the secrets of Nepali early risers.
The Roofs of Kathmandu 
I just enjoy reading your posts. Many of them remind me of my home country. I sometime can’t believe anyone else does similar things, such as sweeping driveways etc. You normally splash water to calm down the dust. I did that myself at some point :). All developing countries have a lot in common, regardless of the culture, geographical locations, you name it. By the way, those little girls are unbelievably precious!
Thank for the comment my friend! I am sure I have gone embarrassingly long without writing you an email. Sorry.
It’s interesting how countries so far from each other still have so much in common! I love learning from you.
hehe you surely are surprised with the morning activities that goes on in Ktm household, but I must mention your scenario is better than mine when I’m in Ktm. My Dad and Mom wake up early and my room is just on the way to the kitchen, so I hear all those early morning chatter between Mom and Dad and then the pressure cooker whistles … after that comes the sweeping and Mom giving directions to the helper. Many times I come out of the bed half asleep and literally shout at my parents to be quiet after all its just 6 am…they do keep their voices down for 5 mins and then the chaos resumes….what I’ve learnt in years is to stack a pillow above my head and sleep 🙂
It’s incredible how people wake up so early here! Your technique sounds like a winner. I’ll try it tomorrow morning 🙂
In Nepal, they are sweeping not because they want to clean only, but they believe that one must clean his house every day before starting morning Puja rituals. My mum is the same:)
Well that casts a completely different light on sweeping! Thanks for letting me know. It totally makes sense now why she sweeps so early in the morning!
I know exactly what you’re talking with me it was the same way. every morning very early to catch the women cook and make a big noise after washing dishes. I was in the wintertime there, water was very scarce, so the women could often only wash at early hours. nice, I also found the whole sellers who come in the morning to offer their goods. every 2 days at 6 clock a sadhu came and asked for a donation. I was initially surprised after a few weeks I loved it and now I miss it
So much activity going on very early in the morning, isn’t it? It has its charm though, right?
As already mentioned above, sweeping is a part of the puja process. In my house, they not only disturb my slumber with the flurry of activities, they have actually assigned the sweeping of the whole house to me..so, I grudgingly wake up and sleepsweep 😉
Oh, I feel for you. That sounds excruciating 😉
It is,
but as long as I can go back to sleep after the sweep process, I don’t mind it much. Which is what happens most of the time. 😀
K
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