Truth and Lies: Where to Draw the Line?
I’m still sorting through my reactions to the controversy emerging around Three Cups of Tea (co-authored by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin). The book has inspired many and been a platform for raising millions of dollars for the Central Asia Institute ( I recommend reading Jon Krakauer’s full allegations (pdf) against the book and [...]
Flapping with Crows
Yet another excerpt from Sacred Threads has been published, this one in the marvelous Raven Chronicles. This issue features writing and art on corvids. My essay isn’t about crows, ravens or jays (though I’m thinking I’d like to write about them some day); it’s in the Cultural Geography section – a recurring feature in every [...]
Listed as Notable in Best American Essays 2010
My essay, “Ama,” published in Crab Orchard Review, has been chosen as a Notable for The Best American Essays 2010. Although, I did not get selected for the final book, I am proud to be among such authors as Barry Lopez, Susan Orlean, Paul Theroux, Naomi Klein and many others who also made the Notable [...]
Gundruk Saves the Day
Rain. Day before last, it was relentless. We had a reprieve yesterday, and I got some planting done, but most of my garden is flooded and impossible to work. I’m already a week or two behind. In this short season, that could mean a lean year for vegetables. So when I woke at five this [...]
First Wednesday Reading at Blackbird Wineshop
On Wednesday, April 7 from 7-9 pm, I’ll be joining Peter Sears, Jackie Shannon-Hollis and Brian Christopher for a reading and wine-tasting co-hosted by Oregon Literary Review and Blackbird Wine Shop in Portland, Oregon….
Memories of International Women’s Day in Nepal
Four months after I gave birth to my son in Nepal, I celebrated my very first International Women’s Day in 1988 in Gunjanagar, a village in western Chitwan District. It was also Gunjangar’s first time to organize an event for that day. I describe the scene in Sacred Threads, my ethnographic memoir-in-progress….
Local Communities Promote Vultures
For International Vulture Awareness Day, I highlight some exciting community initiatives on two endangered vulture species I posted on last spring: The California Condor and White-Rumped Vulture….
Common Indian Toad: Species of the Week
The garden is in now, so it’s time to get back to working on my ethnographic memoir on living as a family member and anthropologist in Nepal. I’m currently revising the chapter where I describe an encounter with an enormous hibernating toad. My six-year old son and his Nepali uncle and cousin almost hoed it in half as they weeded around a lemon tree. My son called me from my academic writing to see it. I picked the sluggish toad out of its burrow and prodded it to hop off to a safer spot. Then I decided to pitch in to help prepare a vegetable garden and discovered a passion for growing food (and a lack of passion for academia) that continues to this day.
Questions About Anthropology
I didn’t have a lot of time today to respond to the “instead of …” prompt at Read Write Poem or the “Poem Title” prompt at Poetic Asides. I’m tearing down and rebuliding the farm chapter in my ethnographic memoir on Nepal and also, coincidentally, designing a website for the farm I worked on. Trying [...]
