I 167% like how common it is to hold hands.
And this applies to everyone, but most refreshingly (counter-North American-ly?) to men. Even though apparently Nepali culture is quite homophobic (more difficult for gay men, I've heard, then lesbians), at any given moment men walking down the street holding hands, clasping thumbs or pinky fingers is entirely "fine"/normal/whatever other routine word you want to apply here. Or else on shop steps, one guy will be lying propped against the legs of another man and everyone is just chilling, and everything is fucking fine, and even though it is not quite as "okay" to be gay here, HOLDING HANDS DOES NOT MEAN A THING outside of casual friendship/affection/niceness.
(internally struggling with articulating myself clearly enough here without stepping on toes or blatantly using entirely the wrong/inaccurate/offensive language)
And I'm just thinking of back home and hand holding and what that seems to say and how very much not the same it is here. Imagine if two heterosexual guys just walked down the street swinging their interlocked hands together....except that I don't think many westerners would even be able to get over the fact that they are holding hands to assume they are 'straight' guys.
I mean, I hold my friends' hands often and will rarely ever hesitate at doing so no matter who it is but I know when I walk by people holding hands, whoever they are, I insta-assume they are "together". NOT THAT IT EVEN MATTERS but I think hand holding is such a casual connection and way of being like hey I like you as a person (or a lover, and a lover, etc etc but this makes everything more complicated) that I wish there did not have to be anything surrounding it. And by anything I mean that insta-assumption of oh you must be a "couple". Screw you all, maybe I just want to hold hands. And maybe if you could break the ridiculous barricade of masculinity in (is this too essentialist?) North American culture, maybe some guys would too.
On the one hand, I guess you could justify hand holding back home as a sign of (*shudders*) possession/this person be mine so stay away, but on the other, can't we all just let it be whatever it is and not try and announce your (*shudders more*) territory to the world?
That you can just hold hands and just be HOLDING HANDS no matter who you are. Like...world, why you gotta be so define-y about things? Why do I need to be either/or for you? Why you gotta look at me like that?
AND in Nepal, on the visa form we filled out and on all official documents now, they have male/female/other as your choices for gender. So you don't even need to be either/or.
(Oh, except I guess saying you can be "other" is wince-worthy....as in, yeah, you have the choice of being something not divisible to our gender binary and therefore not quite the same...though I suppose this could also be seen as a fairly liberating choice like yeah, that's right, f*ck your gender binary.)
This, I think, begs the question then on what the deal is with homophobia in Nepal...and what does that even look like? Which actually makes me want to investigate homophobia everywhere and society and how people react and in what ways and why...is it a challenge to patriarchy? Is it too "untraditional"? Does the rural/urban divide factor in, and if so, how and where? What is/is there a culture of homosexuality? Of homophobia? How does it manifest in different parts of the world? And how do you define "tradition"? What and where and is there a divide between rhetoric and reality, policy and practice?
Any ideas, opinions? Am I being too caveat-ish and convulsed? Did you follow those thoughts down to here?
Perhaps this isn't the most appropriate forum for such a discussion but forget "appropriate". Who else but "the man" defined appropriate anyways? Who else but the--
OKAY I WILL STOP HERE BEFORE I GO TOO FAR DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE.
Just...hold hands. Love love. Forget your definitions of things and people and just let it be whatever it is, let who be whoever who is, all the way through all of the matrix's of our strange realities.
namaste folks
-k
PS there is a three day bandha (strike)in effect starting tomorrow. We will then be heading out either EARLY tomorrow morning to Dang before the highway jams, or else Saturday. Check here for more info on that http://nepalbandainfo.blogspot.com/
PPS also follow the DWC in Nepal blog for the less Kelly-shaded view of life...also more pictures, also if you just want to know what we are doing and not necessarily rabbit-hole rants and thoughts on all of the things, as evidently I am prone to: http://dwcvolunteersinnepal.blogspot.com/
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