Saturday, February 25, 2017

Religion Week: Nepal

We're on to learning about our the third most popular religion in the world, Hinduism. Nepal has the largest majority Hindu population in the world. So on we go! 


Home to the mysterious Yeti, and the world's tallest mountain, Nepal has had a rough go of it lately. Threy endured two devastating earthquakes in 2015, a major one and a serious aftershock. In some cases villages were destroyed by landslides caused by the earthquakes. Many buildings were destroyed or damaged. Plenty of countries offered aid to Nepal, but it's still a long road back. 

Obviously Mount Everest ('Sagarmatha', meaning 'goddess of the sky' in Nepal), was our landmark. How could it not be? It is the 'tallest mountain in the world', or more accurately the highest above sea level-mountain in the world. From base to summit it's not the tallest (that actually goes to the Mauna Kea in Hawaii), but at 29,035 feet above sea level it is the tallest from that measurement. 

We did talk about just what a trek it is to climb Mount Everest, and how if you die up there, you just kind of get left there because it's too hard to bring you back down. Instead you just become a marker in other climbers trek. And there are a lot of ways to die up there: avalanches, ice collapses, altitude sickness, among others. The area at the top is even considered a 'death zone' . Just under 300 people have died climbing it, but about 800 people attempt to climb it every year. 


Nepal has the most interesting flag of them all, as it's the only non-quadrilateral flag in the world. (Country wise, I know you Ohioans could try and correct me!) The two triangles are a representation of the Himalayan mountains and the two major religions in the country: Hinduism and Buddhism. 

It's also worth noting that Nepal is one of the last places in the world to use the ancient Hindu Vikram Sandwat calendar. It's 56 and a half years ahead of ours; it's 2070 in Nepal! 


After learning about Nepal, we were on to Hinduism. Hinduism is, for practical purposes, the oldest religion still practiced today. It's at least 4,000 years old, making it twice as old as Christianity. Hindus believe in karma, that every thing has a religious meaning, and worship a variety of deities.  There are four basic stages of life: Student, Householder, Thinker and Wanderer. 

There's no particular official sects/branches/practices, but Hindus can be divided by the God they primarily worship, and there are five major ones.The boys were familiar with some terms and deities such as Brahman and Vishnu from our lessons by dad, when we talked about the Caste system in India.  Smartism treats all the deities the same . 

Their 'scripture' is the Vedas, a book containing songs to the Gods, and the Upanishads, which contain teachings about how to live, and what happens when you die. (Basically the rules of karma decide how you are reincarnated). 


We usually split our religions up to two different countries, and two different days. We actually spread Nepal over two days (since Asa was in the office), and both of our activities had to do with the Hindu holidays, so here's what our board looked like after today. 


I just want to take a second to show you how great my stick people skills are with my drawing of a Sadhu. Sadhus are held to great regard in much of southern Asia because of their dedication to their religion. They give up all their worldly possessions to dedicate their life to bless ceremonies, protect their villages from evil, and meditate. And they wear yellow robes. 


Our first celebration we talked about was Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights held in the fall. 


During Diwali, Hindus, especially in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh (our other Hindu country), make rangolis. The create patterns on the floor, or in courtyards, using colored rice, dry flour, colored sand, or flower petals. 

The boys went out to the front porch to make their rangolis using some colored sand and colored noodles- ok, it's not rice, but I improvised- because I still had some left from Native American week. (See if you keep things long enough, you'll need them eventually!) 


Calib somehow decided he should use Fritos in his design as well. (He was having his snack, I don't ask questions). 


Hayden went out and got leaves and such from the yard. 


And Peyton went with some dried beans, noodles, and sand. 


The rangolis are supposed to bring wealth and good luck, so here's hoping! Asa judged his favorite when we got home (since he didn't know whose was whose), and Hayden won, earning him a dollar for his jar. So I guess it worked, someone got some wealth!  


The boys all did an excellent job on their Nepal postcards. We're going to vote on collections tomorrow, and it's going to be tough to pick a winner, they're all really good! 


So the boys are kind of over certain things for dinner, and one of them is rice. So I've been trying really hard to mix it up. I told them all we were having pizza, and we kind of were, with Chatamari. You can top it all kinds of different ways with chicken, or eggs, or ground beef. But, seeing as we were doing Hinduism, and cows are sacred (so no eating beef) we nixed that. And the boys had been having a lot of eggs lately, so we went with chicken. I took a picture of it in the pan, because I wasn't sure how it would look once I dished it up. 


But I actually did good with it. I was even able to pick it up and eat it like a normal piece of pizza. We paired it with some Asian pears and Nepali green bean-sesame salad


This meal earned five spoons up. 

We all wished we had made more than two pizzas, everyone cleared their plates, and would totally eat it again. 

We colored in Nepal on the table, even though somehow I didn't draw the bottom line to separate it from India when I made the map. I'm sure this will happen more than once, but we'll make do. 


29 countries down, 164 to go! 

Next Up: Bangladesh 



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