Yakity Yak the Parkers Talk Back

Well yesterday was an interesting day as far as fun time with your neighbors goes. Two nights ago our Tibetan neighbors asked if they could borrow a flash light. We of course let them and could not figure out for the life of us what they were doing. They were building some kind of cooking contraption. So the next morning Ryan and I woke up and spent the day out studying language and visiting people in the community and then when we came back we found out what exactly was going on...they were making "chang" or in our terms very very strong homemade beer!!! The largest Tibetan festival is coming up...Losar...it is the Tibetan New Year and everyone makes all kinds of food and drinks and gets all ready for huge celebrations. We found out later that they are actually making a lot of this "chang" (20 liters a day for 4-6 days) and selling it to a man who is having a big wedding for his daughter around Losar. It was actually pretty amazing...they have these 3 large clay and metal pots one right on top of the other and they put barley and rice in one and water in the others...they boil it over an open fire and when the pot of water on the top is boiling over, well, your chang is ready! So we spent some time with them in the afternoon and learned a little about the process which went into the night. At about 8 pm we went out again and talked some more. It was a great chance to practice our Tibetan and build relationships. Since they were just sitting around waiting for the water to boil, I taught them how we roast marshmallows in the states (they do not have them here...some friends from America brought me some to Thailand) It was so funny to see them try this round white blob on a stick. They each pinched a taste off of the marshmallow (5 Tibetan friends shared about 1/2 of a marshmallow). They thought it was fun. All in all it was a great experience. Ryan and I just sat there thinking...we are in Nepal....with our neighbors...who are...making beer!!! It was so fun and a funny scenario. They asked if we drank chang and we told them that we did not. The younger ones said they did not like the taste at all or the smell for that matter...they said it was only for Dads and grandmothers. It made us laugh. We helped them clean the pots after and Ryan carried the heavy 20 liter barrel full of chang to their upstairs patio. All in all it was a great experience!