INSIDE HIMALAYAS | NEPAL | TIBET | BHUTAN
INSIDE HIMALAYAS | NEPAL | TIBET | BHUTAN
COMMUNITY HOMESTAY.COM
Food and Fulfillment at the
Patlekhet Community Homestay
by Erin Green
Black gram being ground the traditional way. Photo: RMT.
change can be seen in one generation.
In the villages you see mamas wrapped
in saris slaving over stone slab mortars
and pestles, grinding sesame seeds in
wood-fired kitchens. Their daughters
attend university in Kathmandu and
study social sciences or management,
wear tight jeans and heels to class,
sleep in group dorms and eat meals
mass produced in the cafeteria. It’s
almost two different worlds.
The homestay project is giving the
female heads of household more
responsibilities. The homestays are
registered in their names. This in
turn provides women a bridge into
business and revenue generation, and
facilitates collaboration with males
and local businesspeople. Raja, my
host in Nagarkot, holds English training
workshops for the ladies of the village.
They learn basics in communication.
Raja’s mom was mastering cooking
terms. She’s even contributed a new
word to the vernacular. She insists that
the word for ‘salt’ is ‘salty.’ As much
as Raja tries to urge her to drop the
‘y,’ she’s not having it. To the dal, add
one teaspoon of salty, and that’s final. I
completely understand her.
In Patlekhet, the female homestay
heads meet in the town hall to make
crafts to sell for profit. I attended a leaf-
bowl-making day: environmentally
friendly and attractive! The ladies
collectively invest their profits and
earn interest on them. They’ll distribute
the funds whenever a member needs
financial help, for things like medical
bills, school fees, or home renovations.
The women are savvy and they’re
demonstrating newly acquired skills.
Tourism also changes the traditional
dynamic in the community. Tourists
bring money, that is certain. Money
creates and opens all kinds of doors,
and sometimes it can be easy to get
caught up in the pull of wealth down
these corridors. The Community
Homestay program focuses on how
to keep this surge in village tourism
Members of the community spin thread. Photo: RMT.
A typical Nepali meal of rice, lentils, and vegetable curries. Photo: RMT.
If you stay at a Community Homestay,
prepare to get fed. The matron of the
house will greet you and tikka you,
squeeze your hand and assess you.
She’ll offer you tea, she’ll ask about
your family. She’ll tell you what time
to be home for dinner because she is
going to cook you up a Nepali meal to
remember.
For the past several years, Royal
Mountain Travel has been developing
a program where both foreign and
Nepali tourists can come and stay
with families in their homes. The idea
is to foster a reciprocal exchange of
cultures, and to provide a livelihood
for the villagers, especially women.
Guests can share and compare their
lives while living as their homestay
hosts do. Staying in a Nepali home is
a much richer experience than staying
in a hotel or guesthouse. Hotel staff can
be distant, and menu options include
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things like sub-par pizza, tacos, and
inferior token Nepali set menus. If you
want to understand Nepali life, you
must eat family dal bhat.
If you ask the majority of Nepalis what
food they’d like to be their last meal,
a hefty percentage would say their
mother’s dal bhat: rice, lentils, curried
veggies, and pickled and preserved
accompaniments. This is the meal most
Nepalis eat together with their families,
twice a day. To go without is unheard
of. Even if Nepalis spend a day off with
friends, eating substantial snacks for
hours, the day is not complete without
a sizeable portion of dal bhat. When you
visit the Community Homestays, expect
to consume a healthy portion of this
meal. Wear loose fitting pants, because
you’re going to be offered seconds.
The Community Homestay experience
is about sustenance and togetherness.
www.insidehimalayas.com | By Royal Mountain Travel
It’s a chance to observe day to day
Nepali
life.
White-water
rafting,
paragliding and summiting mountains
are incredible and unique adventures to
undertake in Nepal. But if you want to
learn about the normal Nepali day and
what home life is like, you’re going to
find it in the kitchen making achar (spicy
pickles), in the barn milking cows, in the
fields tending to the rice, in the temple
offering puja, on the terrace drinking
tea, or just about anywhere watching
YouTube. (A teenager in a Patan
homestay taught me how to download
free movies; it changed my life.)
In addition to cultural exchange, the
Community Homestay program has
other aims. Women’s empowerment
and
gender
equality,
along
with environmental and cultural
preservation, are core values. The
modern world has merged with Nepal’s
traditional way of life rapidly. Enormous
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