Sukkot in Nepal

Aik TC SG

Sukkot in Nepal

Right now in Nepal, a group of Tibetan Buddhist nuns is trapped in the city of Katmandu, living in sukkot.

Not the beautifully decorated, religiously infused sukkot — or “dwellings” — erected as part of the Jewish High Holy Days. Not the kind in which delicious meals are served, songs are sung, and ushpizin — privileged guests — are invited to share in the harvest holiday bounty. Nor are they the romantic honeymoon-suite-with-God sukkot that allow Jews and their creator to spend just a few more intimate moments together before the holy days season closes.

The Nepalese shelters occupied by the nuns are something entirely different: stuffy, unsanitary, overcrowded.

After the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country last April, followed by another, equally devastating 7.3 quake two weeks later, 8 million Nepalese from all castes of society were plunged into a primitive nightmare.

More than 8,800 people lost their lives; another 10,000 were injured. Much of the country’s infrastructure was demolished, including 600,000 homes, countless roads and many UNESCO World Heritage sites that were reduced to rubble. The destruction displaced 2.8 million people, and according to the United Nations, more than half a million households have spent the last five months languishing in temporary tent cities or shelters. There, it is not z’man simchateinu — a season of joy — but rather a season of survival.

The Tibetan Buddhist nuns are among the country’s most marginalized groups, with few legal protections offered by the Nepali government. A lot of this is due to Chinese animosity toward Tibetan Buddhists and the power China has to exert its will over Nepali authorities. Before the earthquake struck, 200 of these nuns had been living in a nunnery on a remote but idyllic mountaintop with a view of Tibet. Many had come there as children, sent from poor families who knew it was the only way their daughters could be fed and clothed. Lives that began in desperation became, over time, lives of devotion, and the nuns passed their days simply, in solitude, meditation and prayer.

But all that ended last April. Homes were destroyed; but perhaps worse, food and supplies were mostly cut off after the only access point, a 15-mile road leading to the mountaintop, disintegrated. It was then that 120 or so of the more able-bodied nuns made a two-day trek down the mountain to the nearest road, where they were transported by bus to Katmandu, where aid awaited. But many sisters were left behind: Nuns who were too elderly, sick or disabled to make the trek remained on the mountain, living under plastic tarps. Life in the city was hardly better: Spiritual beings used to the space and solitude of the monastic life were forced to share small, ill-equipped tents, living virtually on top of one another. Many got sick.

“These women have never lived in such close quarters; they’ve never lived in a city before, and they’ve never been so hot,” Samantha Wolthuis, director of Disaster Response and International Operations for American Jewish World Service (AJWS), said in an interview from Nepal.

“They’re used to being in a quiet, peaceful environment where their primary purpose is meditation and devotion to Buddhism, and now, they’re living in a very congested city, on top of each other. The trauma is pretty significant.”

Wolthuis was among the first emergency-response workers to travel to Nepal after the earthquake and spent two weeks on the ground there providing immediate relief. She returned for the second time in late September to begin mapping out longer-term projects, and what she found was disheartening. Rebuilding had been seriously stymied by the summer monsoon season, which brought torrential rains and dangerous mudslides.

Although some fear Nepal may become the next Haiti, where “yesterday’s temporary shelters have become today’s permanent slums,” according to Haitian-born Nixon Boumba, AJWS’ in-country consultant in Nepal, Wolthuis insists that the Nepalese people are resilient and that progress is being made, little by little.

One promising trend was started by the Himalayan Climate Initiative, a Nepal-based nongovernmental organization that AJWS supports, which assembled a team of architects and engineers to create the Resilient Homes project, an effort to rebuild communities with durable, lightweight, easy-to-assemble homes that are “climate-smart and earthquake resistant.” Each building uses locally sourced materials, including from debris, and offers locals a chance to build the walls with whatever materials they can procure — whether mud, brick or bamboo.

So far, 254 homes have been built this way, and the prototype could easily be replicated at the nunnery, offering reliable protection from the high-altitude elements. But Wolthuis said that the nuns’ dream of returning to their mountain is a long way off.

“They think it will take a minimum of a couple of years to be able to rebuild the nunnery and go back to the mountains,” she said. “It’s an incredibly sad situation. The rebuilding is very complicated, because it’s expensive and it’s incredibly hard to get to the community, because there are 15 miles of road and trails that need to be repaired before any rebuilding can happen.”

The nuns are hoping for government intervention, but Wolthuis said that is highly unlikely. In addition to all the other needed rebuilding, the Chinese government has long pressured Nepali authorities to marginalize the Tibetan Buddhists. Plus, Nepal recently passed a new constitution that is roiling trade with India and further precluding recovery.

In the meantime, AJWS is providing the nuns, among other local groups, with health care and psychosocial support. They also are looking to help with rebuilding efforts once the nunnery road has been repaired.

Wolthuis said the Jewish response to the earthquake was especially robust — perhaps because of a spiritual connection to Nepal, or because it remains a popular tourist destination for Israelis getting out of the army — enabling the creation of a $2.3 million fund to support both immediate relief and long-term rebuilding.

Asked if it was difficult for her to conjure the joy of Sukkot in a place of devastation, Wolthuis said, “There is no place I would rather be.

“If you know [something terrible] is happening, not to be doing anything or working on it is really, really challenging for me. So I feel very lucky [to do this work]. It’s festive in a very, very different way.”

singfail SG

May they i.e. the buddhist nuns remain trapped and master the dharma especially the dharma of dukkha.

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