The Living Goddess: A Journey into the Heart of Kathmandu

Have you heard of the Kumari in Nepal?

She is the living goddess of Nepal -- the centerpiece of one of the most arcane, and fascinating, traditions to be found anywhere in the world.

Author Isabella Tree has written a book on the Kumari. It's called The Living Goddess: A Journey into the Heart of Kathmandu and will be published on June 1, 2015.

So what is the Kumari exactly"

Journalist Mick Brown explains in his article and interview with Tree:

At the age of three or four, a female child is chosen to be worshiped as the embodiment of the goddess Devi (or Durga; or Kali; or, as she is known in Nepal, Taleju – in the taxonomy of Hindu deities, the goddess takes many forms and is known by many names). She is taken from her family and installed in her own residence, where she is tended to by specially selected caretakers. The Kumari, as she is known (the word means ‘virgin’ or ‘unmarried girl’), is dressed in the finery of the goddess. She may leave her residence – the Kumari Chen – only to attend festivals, a dozen times a year, when her feet must not touch the ground; she is carried by attendants and transported in a palanquin.

When she shows signs of reaching puberty, and before she begins menstruation, her role as the goddess is deemed complete. She is returned to her family and another child is chosen to take her place.

So what to make of the Kumari? To foreigners it is one of those cultural things that takes some getting used to. The idea of taking a four-year-old child away from their families for 10 years is appalling to the western world of course. But Nepalis, and even the former Kumaris themselves, swear by the tradition and continue to revel in it.

[caption id="attachment_3765189267" align="aligncenter" width="477"] (photo courtesy of Shanker Hotel)[/caption]

On my second trip to Nepal, in 2001, I happened to see the Kumari's chariot as it processed through the streets of Kathmandu for the Indra Jatra Festival. Memories tend to get faulty after so many years, but I recall catching a glimpse of the Kumari's face as she raced by.

(Tree is a writer and journalist based in the UK. She is the author of three other non-fiction books and writes for publications such as Granta, National Geographic Magazine, the Sunday Times and the Observer. She has been travelling regularly to Nepal since the 1980s.)

Tikka in Nepal

Yesterday you may have noticed people walking around with ashes on their forehead.

The day is called Ash Wednesday. It's an annual Christian holiday which serves as the first day of Lent. Lent is a complex event, but it is essentially a six-week period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for Easter.

On Ash Wednesday black ashes are applied to a believer's forehead in the sign of the cross, typically done by a priest or minister. The ashes  are a symbol of one's penitence as well as of our mortality ("ashes to ashes, dust to dust").

If you can't make it to a church on Ash Wednesday yourself, someone who did go there can apply the ashes from their forehead onto your own later in the day.  (Thanks for the ashes yesterday, Dad!)

Throughout history, many cultures around the world including Hebrews and Greeks have used ashes to indicate not only penitence but mourning and humility. Ashes are even mentioned in Homer's The Iliad in 800 B.C.

Other cultures, like those of Nepal and India, also mark-up one's forehead on special occasions, including happy ones. Nepal in particular has a wonderful tradition of "tika", which is a red powder applied on the forehead during "happy" events like to welcome a visitor.

So for example, if you are going to volunteer in Nepal, you will most certainly be honored with tika by your host family and/or the place you will volunteer like a school or orphanage.

On my first trip to Nepal, in 2000, the elementary school where I taught English gave me an incredible welcome, filled with songs and a speech by the principal, all topped off by the staff and students smearing red tika on my forehead.



As you can see from the photos here, they were quite liberal with the tika! Having come to Nepal as a volunteer basically on my own with little knowledge of local culture, I had no idea I was in for the tika ceremony until they sat me down on that chair.

(And it didn't help that the only person at my ceremony who spoke English was the guy busily taking these pictures without explaining a thing to me about what was happening!)



As the days and weeks went by on my volunteer trip to Nepal, I learned that tika wasn't always a  full-contact sport. At my host family's place during the Dasain festival, the most important holiday all year in Nepal, I (gently) exchanged tika with my host sister and brothers. The tika on this occasion wasn't just powder but a mixture of the red dye powder (abir), yogurt, and rice.



And even when making a casual visit to a Hindu temple, the custom is to exchange tika with the friends and family you are with.



My clients who volunteer in Nepal often send me photos of their own tika experiences.

Here is one of my volunteers with her host family, riding in one of Nepal's public minivans:



And another volunteer in Nepal with his host family in one of the villages in the Chitwan area.

The 10 Commandments of Voluntourism

The Voluntourism Institute is going to start a project in 2014 that addresses the fact that opinions on voluntourism are "...generated from every angle except that of host communities.".

Won't this new project just perpetuate the model that all of us (presumably) are against -- where outsiders lead the way in helping locals??

Why aren't locals themselves organizing such a project? Why aren't they taking the initiative in letting us tour operators know what the best practices are? Where are their blogs and websites and Ted Talks and LinkedIn groups and Meetups?

And don't say it's because it's too hard for locals to get connected! Today I was on WhatsApp with a friend in Ghana. She basically has no income and lives in a crappy ghetto. Yet she is able to call and text and share photos with me 5k miles away!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Dusty backroads of Accra, Ghana[/caption]

(Every week I get dozens of emails from legitimate NGO's, host families and potential staff in Africa and India and everywhere else -- all asking me to send volunteers and/or hire them. Not to mention tons of LinkedIn requests etc. I'm sure most tour operators in this field have similar experiences.)

So what's the real reason that "host communities" in the Third-World aren't giving their opinion about the problems with voluntourism?

It's money of course. We all know it. If I were in their shoes I would do the same thing. Why risk pissing off the foreigners who are sometimes (unfortunately) one of the few steady sources of income in the local community.

Yes, we as voluntourism operators should press on and constantly try to improve our approach and methods of helping others. It really does start and end with listening to locals and learning firsthand about their unique communities and cultures and problems (IMHO).

But I wish that we as the outsiders didn't have to be the ones leading the way in trying to capture as well as disseminate the opinions that members of local host communities have about voluntourism. It seems like the same type of paternalism that all legitimate tour operators feel is bad and wish would go away.

I'm seriously ready for the Ghanaians or Peruvians or Indians or the Thai people to come up with a "10 Commandments of Voluntourism". Then make us foreigners stick to them -- or else locals kick us out of their communities until we change our ways.

Bring on the tablets!!

Networking and Interviewing Skills

I recently read a piece by Weston Gardner called "Perspectives From an Underemployed College Grad" that I wanted to share with the high school kids who go on volunteering trips abroad with my company.

Weston is less than two years removed from graduating from college, where he had a good GPA, lots of extracurricular activities, and did his share of charity work.

Problem is, since graduating college he's only been able to find a part-time job (working with the disabled). So he has ended up "...broke, success-starved, and embarrassed." He feels like he "fell through the cracks" somehow.

It's usually about this point in the story that most writers these days go on and on about how the economy sucks, or he picked the wrong major, or should have bagged college altogether (at least for a while).

But to Weston's credit, he takes it in another direction. He instead talks positively, about some of the "takeaways" from his experience that might help others.

And this is where all my teen volunteering clients can learn -- so listen up!

Weston's biggest takeaways?

The two things Weston most undervalued while in college were networking and developing interview skills.

How do you network? Weston suggests participating in clubs related to your interests.

He's right. And by volunteering abroad, you are joining a "club" I like to call the "international community". To me, these are people who are deeply interested in and connected with others around the world (in my case the third-world) vis-à-vis kindness and understanding.



Granted, you might resist trying to reach out to that nerdy, pimply-faced teen from home who is part of your school group building houses in Guatemala for los pobres.

But reach out anyway. Say hello, ask questions, offer to help them with their Spanish. Just as important -- stay in touch with them long after the trip. It could end up being a networking home-run for you, because nerdy kids are often the ones who end up running things as adults. (But mostly, reach out and be kind because it's just the right thing to do. )

Even when you're back home after your trip, you can network and remain connected to this international community. When I am in my hometown of Philadelphia, I do things like stay in touch with colleagues and friends I've met in place like Ghana and India. I seek out books, articles, films and TV shows that portray life in third-world countries. One thing I'm doing more of these days is meeting new people here at home who are part of the international community. Even simply going to a Vietnamese restaurant or a Chinese grocery here in Philadelphia can strengthen this connection.

The other week I was in Manhattan for a day. I don't think it's an accident that I ended up in Chinatown. I was lucky enough to catch some dragons dancing for the New Year:



Be a giver, not a taker.

I found another useful networking tip last week. This one is from entrepreneur Jeff Archibald. He actually says to stop networking and start helping:

Meet people and look for ways you can help them. Understand their business, their pain points, and their challenges—keep them in mind. Then, when you come across a helpful article, eBook, application, referral, and so forth, send it to them. Don't expect anything back in return. Be genuine.

 He couldn't be more right. Especially with those last two sentences. You would do well to remember them on your volunteering venture overseas. It's not about you over there. It's about being as real as you can and helping others, unselfishly, without any conscious thoughts of how it might benefit you.

Insurance when Volunteering Abroad

There are two types of insurance available for volunteering trips broad – Travel Insurance and Medical Insurance. I strongly urge you to get both of them.

Travel Insurance covers you for travel-related costs like lost baggage, canceled flights, and travel delays.

Medical Insurance covers you for medical expenses like hospital visits, prescriptions, and emergency evacuation.

Where to Start

First – find out if one or more of the following entities will provide you with insurance coverage abroad:

• Your insurance policy back home


• The volunteering placement agency


• The credit card used to book your flights


• The airline(s)

If you do not get insurance from one or more of the above sources, then you will have to obtain a policy from an insurance company that specializes in travel and medical insurance abroad.

What to look for in a policy

Whether you use an existing policy or obtain a new one from a travel specialist insurance company – make sure your policy provides at least $50k in benefits and covers (at minimum) the following:

• Trip Cancellation / Delays / Interruption


• Baggage Delays or Loss


• Medical Expenses


• Emergency Medical Evacuation

Make sure to find out also about

• Specific coverages


• Pre-authorization requirements


• Pre-existing conditions


• 24 hour hotline


• Deductibles, co-payments, and refund policies


• Are payments made abroad – or reimbursed to you

Which company to choose

If you obtain a policy from a specialist insurance company – choose a company that provides one policy that covers both travel insurance and medical insurance.

The U.S. State Department has a list of companies that provides travel and medical insurance abroad.

For all of my trips abroad (including the very first one in 2000), I have used HCC Medical Insurance Services (formerly MNUI). They are a recognized leader in international health. (Disclosure: I’m not affiliated with HCC in any way and don’t receive any commissions)

When you’re abroad

• Have your insurance card, a claim form, and copy of the policy

• Leave copies of all of the above with family back home

• Keep copies of all paperwork like medical charts, prescriptions, boarding passes, and currency exchange receipt

• Follow the claims-submission process meticulously

Masters and Servants Abroad

If you're going abroad to volunteer, including to places like India and Bangladesh and Ghana, you should have some awareness of the dynamics between your host family and their servant(s).

I recently came across a photo essay called Close Distance by Jannatul Mawa, a documentary photographer and social activist in Bangladesh. Mawa photographed more than a dozen housekeepers in Dhaka and their bosses as they sat side by side. The aim was to show the distance between the two people.



I don't pretend to fully understand the relationship between a host family and their servant. But I know it is a very complex one. And it differs among countries; even within a country based on things like ethnicity, caste, geography etc.

First off all, you should understand that, while not every host family abroad has servants, many families do, even middle class ones.

The servants are usually young girls (some not even teenagers yet), from rural villages, who come to big cities like Delhi and Nairobi for one purpose -- to earn money as housekeepers then send the cash back to their family in the village.



In Ghana in 2011 my host family in the capital city Accra had a 15-year old girl from their village (and "Ewe" tribe) who was their live-in housekeeper. She did all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry and watching the young children.

In exchange, the host family fed her and gave her a bed and would pay her medical bills if she ever got sick. Then, when she returned to the village the next year, the host family would be paying her high school tuition.

How are the servants treated?

Again, it's complex. But for the most part, the servants are not treated like family members. They are there to work, and work extremely hard, from the crack of dawn until nighttime when all chores are done.

Some families beat their servants, thinking it will keep them in line and get the most work out of them. Other families treat their servants well -- and include them on family outings, help them get an education and sometimes help the servant's family back in the village.

For foreign volunteers and their program managers (like me), our natural instinct is to be friendly with the servants and chat them up.

How can you blame us? Most Americans of a certain age (like me) grew up watching the Brady Bunch with their beloved housekeeper Alice, who spent most of her time acting like a dear aunt to the kids and as a best friend to the kids' mom.



But it's best for you as a volunteer, and the servant of your host family, if you disavow yourself of the 'beloved housekeeper" paradigm from our TV sitcoms when you're in places like India and Nepal.

Tread lightly when you first move into the house. I suggest that at first you don't even talk to the servant when the host mother is around. If the host mother hears her talking to you, the mother will assume that she's hitting you up for money or otherwise saying something that will make you the guest uncomfortable.

And even thought it will take place out of your sight and hearing, the servant will likely endure a scolding and perhaps a physical beating from the host mom for "bothering" you at all.

Many-many host mothers have told me privately over the years -- "If we the host family or the volunteers we host show affection to the servant, it will make them lazy and they won't do their work properly." [Translation: "They might get ideas!"]

Yep, that's right. Once again, we find that this whole volunteering-abroad is more complicated that it may seem.

Safe Passage

The Guatemalan non-profit Safe Passage turns 15 years old this year.

From their latest newsletter:

In 1999, Hanley Denning founded Safe Passage in a tiny dilapidated church at the edge of the Guatemala City garbage dump and dedicated her life to empowering this community through education. Throughout 2014, we commemorate our 15th anniversary and look back at the progress made over 15 years of service and dedication to Hanley's dream.

We send our volunteers in Guatemala on a one-day tour of Safe Passage's programs in Guatemala City. The tour leaves from the city of Antigua, one of the cities where our programs are based, and takes volunteers by minivan to Guatemala City.

Here are some photos from my visit to Safe Passage in 2011: