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> By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings October 02. 2014 3:38PM Anthropologist builds life in Nepal Anthropologist Elizabeth Enslin learns about disturbing treatment of women in Nepal Elizabeth Enslin Readers expecting a romantic, spiritual tale of an American woman's life near the Himalayas will not find it in " While the Gods Were Sleeping: A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal. " Released this month, Elizabeth Enslin's book is inspiring and full of fascinating details, but it is also disturbing and depressing. An anthropologist with an interest in Africa, Enslin abandoned her early career ambitions after she married a Nepalese man and followed him to his home country. There she experienced first-hand how women and girls are treated as the lowest members of society, regardless of their caste in largely Hindu Nepal. Enslin will discuss "While the Gods Were Sleeping" and her experiences from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20, at Bloomsbury Books , 290 E. Main St., Ashland. Enslin has since left Nepal and lives in a straw bale house in northeastern Oregon, where she raises garlic, pigs and yaks. But back in the 1980s, she met and fell in love with Pramod Parajuli while they were at Stanford University. They married and moved to Nepal. There, Enslin met her father-in-law, a man who focused on spiritual affairs as a Brahman — the highest rank in the Hindu caste system — and worried his son's caste status would be destroyed by his marriage to an American. Enslin's mother-in-law was married off when she was just 10 years old in an arranged marriage. Lucky for Enslin, her mother-in-law was kind and didn't follow typical Nepalese behavior when it came to mother and daughter-in-law relations. In Nepal, girls are considered virtually worthless. When they marry, they go to live with their husbands and in-laws. The husband's mother finally gains status over someone — her new daughter-in-law — and often treats her cruelly and like a virtual slave. The daughter-in-law can only escape her low rank when she becomes older and a mother-in-law herself, lording over the new young woman in the household. And so the cycle repeats itself. Yes, many Nepalese men hold girls and women in contempt, but it is women's behavior toward girls and other women in the book that is most disturbing. In one episode, Enslin helped as Nepalese women aided a woman in childbirth. As the woman screamed in pain, her mother-in-law derided her for having had a baby girl in the past. When the woman again had a girl, the mother-in-law commented, "We don't need another baby girl from this one." The mother-in-law stated she was glad her daughter-in-law gave birth at home so the family didn't have to "waste" money on a hospital birth for a girl. Following Nepalese custom, the family then treated the woman who just gave birth as an "untouchable" — the lowest and most despised caste in Hindu tradition — for 11 days. Whether women give birth to boys or girls, they are not honored and cared for, but treated as sources of sin and contamination. Enslin writes of the woman, "She would not be allowed to bathe or wear clean clothes for the next 11 days. I was tempted to intervene, to encourage some cleanliness to prevent the kinds of infections I had seen among other women. But I kept quiet." Women who give birth to girls are often denied medical care and deprived of the food they need to recover and breastfeed their infants. In "While the Gods Were Sleeping," Enslin also describes the inspiring story of women coming together across castes to win land for a women's meeting center. Yet the political victory rings hollow given their inability or unwillingness to defy tradition and care for each other during the most vulnerable times in their lives, such as after childbirth. Enslin is donating a portion of proceeds from the sale of "While the Gods Were Sleeping" to the Nepali  Rural Health and Education Service Trust.   (This story has been updated to correct where the donation will go). The care includes treatment for uterine prolapse, which can be caused by returning to heavy work too soon after childbirth. For more information, visit www.himalayan-foundation.org . For more information on Enslin and "While the Gods Were Sleeping," visit www.elizabethenslin.com . Reach reporter Vickie Aldous at 541-776-4486 or by email at [email protected].   http://www.dailytidings.com/article/20141002/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/141009963 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->