Offering

The water buffalo stood tied with a golden rope to a golden statue.  Two horns curled in the shape of a "C" at the top of its head and its black coat speckled in brown dirt glistened in the sun.  His front hooves were tied together but the animal did not struggle.  It breathed easily, eyes blinking sleepily in the sun.

I snapped a quick photo marveling that the animal's owner would choose to tie it to a statue.  The guard standing nearby laughed at me and I moved on to admire a larger temple.  This small shrine seemed insignificant in the shadow of the three story pagoda style temple nearby.

I held my small son's hand and walked over a hundred steps to the top.  He enthusiastically pulled me forward up the narrow steps and we stood together at the summit.  We admired the view.  Everything seemed to be versions of brown.  Buildings were build in red brown brick and topped with deep brown roofs.  The square was paved in gray brown stones and the tourists in white t-shirts reminded me of aphids on a green leaf.

I looked for the peaceful bull tied to a temple and saw only a small crowd of young men near the temple.  From our height the men seemed to be one entity moving together - all with the same dark hair.  As we descended a drum beat near the grouping of men followed by chanting and singing.

Curious I passed my child's small hand to my husband waiting at the bottom and walked over for a closer look.  I pushed through the crowd until I was shoulder to shoulder and part of the moving group.  Standing on my toes I found the water buffalo in two pieces.  Its head was removed without the animal making a sound. The body was still twitching and the hooves fluttering in some false effort to run.

Sickened I looked at me feet now realizing they were planted in a puddle of sticky red blood.  I stood too crowed in to move and watched as they butchered slices of buffalo presenting it to the golden statue of the deity.  As men sang the priest scooped blood from the animal's body and from the ground tossing in on the temple.  Blood covered his hands, arms and chest. Speckles clung to his sparse black beard.  The once brown temple was now an all crimson spot on the landscape.  I pulled away, unwilling to watch but still morbidly fascinated.

As I lay awake at night I hear cows mooing in my neighborhood.  They wander listlessly eating from piles of trash.  Cows are sacred to most Nepalis.  They will not eat beef and many will not eat water buffalo because they consider it nearly a cow.  The cattle in my neighborhood have been abandoned.  Bull calves offer little value to an owner unwilling to slaughter them and cows who do not give milk are equally worthless.  They are left to fend for themselves in a bustling city without grass.  Owners do not want to feed a useless animal and cost for disposing of dead livestock is a further deterrent to caring for them.

This is Nepal.  It is a country of stark contrast.  Here in Nepal the sacred are allowed to eat trash and the nearly sacred are beheaded in front of singing young men.