Christmas at Papa's House, Maoists Making Trouble, and the Ashram

            This post is about the two weeks I spent in Kathmandu after going trekking and before returning to the Guarishankar orphange. 

             When I was first looking at the Volunteer Nepal website, before I had even decided to come to Nepal, I saw one of the Volunteer Opportunities was for the old people's home, and I thought 'Nope, that's not for me.' Cleaning up after old people doesn't sound very appealing. It's not like teaching where you can supposedly change the whole life of someone- their lives have mostly already happened. And there's the added subconcious fear of oh my God, this is what it's like to get old. This might happen to me one day. But I actually found it to be some of the most rewarding work I've done in Nepal. The home is an old Hindu temple that's been converted into housing for old people who aren't capable of taking care of themselves and have nowhere else to go. In Western countries there's an idea that when you're old, you're still mostly responsible for supporting yourself. It's called saving for retirement. In Nepal, most people don't have that luxury. They instead function by the system that sons, especially the first born son, is responsible for feeding and clothing and housing his parents as they age. When a Nepali person grows old and doesn't have a son or is abandoned by their sons, they have no backup plan and end up at the ashram. There are well over 100 people living there, but I worked only in the section specifically for disabled people with maybe 30.

            The change I might have been making in caring for these people was much more tangible than anywhere else I'd been in Nepal so far- The floors and beds and dishes were getting cleaned better and more often, more laundry could be done, and their lives could be made generally more comfortable and sanitary. One day I fed an old woman her breakfast, spoonful by spoonful, because she has a joint-muscular disease that renders her hands practically useless. The most fascinating part about that was the fact that this particular disability was one of the more commonly treated disabilities at the HRDC Hospital in Banepa where I had volunteered earlier. It was so crazy to see where the children being treated in Banepa would end up if HRDC didn't exist.

            I didn't volunteer many days there on account of a having a common cold back to back with three days of a Maoist strike during which it was impossible to get to the Ashram, but it made a distinct impression. The people were so fixed in their ways and would show the same gestures and make the same noises everyday. Many were religious, like the man who was writing in the notebook in the picture above-I asked him what he was writing and he said "Ram" meaning "God" in Nepali, over and over and over again. He had almost filled the pages of this notebook, front and back, and wrote with such slow and deliberate gestures. I just sat and watched him for maybe half an hour after the work was done.

             I spent Christmas at the Papa's House orphanages, and I was amazed to have such a wonderful Christmas in a country whose Christian population is probably 1%. Luckily Nepali people, having so many people of both the Buddhist and Hindu faiths, have adopted the custom of celebrating all the festivals of pretty much every religion, including Christmas for which they had a holiday from school. Their weekends are only one day, Saturday, but they more than make up for it in the amount of school they miss for 'festivals'. And Papa's House celebrated Christmas in style. The highlight of the presents was a new puppy, named Lucky, as a companion for the dog they got on Christmas last year (Snowball). All of the 140 children also got a new blanket, a yellow and black track suit that says PAPA'S HOUSE on the back, and various other clothes and toys and candies. The children were so happy and excited. They also did a secret santa gift exchange among themselves, where each child gave another child a small present and card which was very adorable. 

             The best part of Christmas Day, I think, was the talent show which involved lots of Hindi/Nepali style dances and songs, some gymnastics/breakdancing, an attempt at the Macarena, and a very touching skit on a Kamlari girl being rescued (when parents sell their child as a household slave because they have no money, which is how many girls came to be at Papa's House) It wasn't at all like Christmas at home, but it was still a wonderful day.

           While in Kathmandu I also got to witness a Maoist strike. For three days the entire city shut down. The shops were all shuttered, there were no cars or buses or taxis or tuk tuks on any of the roads, if people tried to ride bicycles they were stopped by the maoists at checkpoints and made to dismount. The schools were all closed as well-the entire country was dead. I've heard all sorts of rumors as to why they were striking, and I think the closest answer is they dismissed the general when they were still part of the government and left it over a dispute about their power to do that. The president has reappointed that general so the maoists are enforcing strikes until the government will listen to them and put someone who will let their insurgents be a part of the army in the position of general. I'm not even sure if that's right though. Of course it doesn't really work and actually is worse for the farmers and street vendors and the lower class that the maoists supposedly fight for than it is for the rich people or the people in power. On the third day I went with Sam, another volunteer to find where the head of the maoist party in Nepal, Prachanda was supposedly speaking. We ended up following a march, pictured, down the road for several miles but missed the formal speech. I wish I understood what they were chanting and the banners they were waving, but I'm not quite that good at Nepali yet.

           Nepal, as a country, usually conducts its day to day business quite normally and I often forget I'm in a country that just had its first free elections two years ago and still doesn't have a formal constitution. It's exciting but also frustrating because a lot of groups, like the Maoists, seem to only be working for power for themselves and the government as a whole is still hugely corrupt. Even with all the foreign aid in Nepal, the workers at the main government-funded orphanage haven't been paid in nine months. The very few garbage collectors in the city are on strike because they aren't being paid either. Bribes are accepted in every governmental department and it seems as if nothing is getting done. It's easy to see why the Maoists and others are frustrated, but I think the Maoist strategy isn't really the way to fix the problem at all. It's all very confusing and makes me so thankful for the system of government in America. I'll complain about the inefficiency of congress a lot less now that I've lived in Nepal.

             After those two crazy weeks I went back to Guarishankar Orphanage, my first placement, for three weeks to do some painting. It was beyond amazing, again, but I'll save that for the next post.

You've Never Seen Mountains Like This Before

I wasn't going to go trekking. Really, I wasn't. The question came up fairly often in my first 3 months in Nepal, since that's sort of what foreigners are supposed to do in Nepal. But I was convinced I was just here to volunteer. Trekking was something that didn't need to happen. I'm so glad I changed my mind.

I ended up realizing that for someone who loves mountains and hiking as much as I do, it would be kind of ridiculous to come to Nepal (halfway around the world) for 5 months, and not go trekking once-in the country rumored to have the best trekking in the world. (By the way, the words 'hiking' and 'backpacking' aren't really used in Nepal for some reason, it's all about 'trekking', I don't know why.) So when my roommate at Banepa, Rima, decided to go trekking for one week in the Annapurna area with another Volunteer Nepal volunteer, Patty, I decided to sacrifice a good chunk of my dwindling spending money and join them. Before we left Rima said to me, "You may think you've seen mountains, but trust me, you haven't seen them yet." And she was right.

It's quite a difficult task to imagine mountains more dramatic than the Himilayas. They rise out of the calm and rolling hills as mounds of rock and snow aching to touch the sky, not caring what rules of physics they're breaking. Even when they are so close and in your face, they're practically untouchable save for intense mountaineers like Rima who's going to climb Everest one day.

There's something inherently nice about walking and climbing up and down hills for hours every day. It sort of feels like how humans are supposed to operate: physical exercise, fresh air and all that. And when the reward for straining yourself to get over a hill is spectacular views of the Himilayas, it just becomes that much more wonderful.

The most amusing thing we saw while trekking, aside from the plethera of signs written in Nepali English (see picture below for an example), and aside from when Rima stepped off a cliff to be caught by vines (which was most amusing after she was on solid ground again) was the lodge we stayed at that had an open doorway between the toilet and a storage room. So it happened that a HUGE open basket of potatoes sat RIGHT NEXT to the squatter toilet. Thankfully we saw it before we ordered our food, so we knew not to order the potatoes and it was funny rather than revolting. Also rather amusing was the time when we realized that 4 days into the trek, none of us knew our assistant guide's name, and it was too late to ask. This became rather obvious when Patty tried to say that a cup of tea was his cup of tea and paused where his name should go. We all broke into awkward laughter. Our guides asked bewilderedly why we were laughing and Patty saved the day by talking about how much she loves to laugh and all the other times she also laughed. One of the wittier topic diversions I've witnessed...

So did I accomplish much in service to the Nepalese while trekking? Excepting employing a couple guides and bringing more business to some trekking lodges not really, no. But I learned how to play Rummy 500 and saw views of mountains that made my heart hurt from an overload of beauty and now I can spend the 6 weeks I have left in Nepal (Only 6, can you believe it?) doing the last two volunteer projects I wanted to do. I'll work at the old age ashram (as much as I can between the Maoist transportation strikes) and Papa's House Orphanages through Christmas and then go back to Guarishankar orphanage for a while to paint 3 murals I've planned. And then home! The end is in sight for the first time since I came, and it's a strange feeling.

Thoughts on Tourism in Nepal

The concept of tourism is a strange one. Tourists go to a different country for new experiences but, at least in Nepal, the majority of them only seem to do what tourists are supposed to do. They take a flight over the Himalayas and go paragliding in Pokhara and ride on an elephant in Chitwan and go bungee jumping in a canyon and they walk around the tourist district and buy felt crafts and hemp shirts and other things that no local Nepali people would buy, ever. They see something different than their home countries but also something that doesn't have a lot to do with Nepal. Tourists seem to live in their own bubble-culture.

There's nothing wrong with tourists- they support the economy of a country that needs it and they do experience new things, but sometimes they seem to skim over the character of a country and try to fit it neatly into a pretty image. They're not always fully aware of the things around them. Nepal isn't really captured by nice kukuri knives and prayer flags and pashmina scarves and clean cafes that serve "Nepali tea". When the average tourist goes home and tells their family and friends how they've fallen in love with Nepal, they're just kidding themselves. Real Nepal with its living standards, complete lack of women's rights, caste system, arranged marriages, maoist violence, and trash and pollution problems is much harder to fall in love with than sunrises on snowy mountain peaks and pretty temples and comparatively cheap prices. It's still possible to love Nepal with all of its flaws, it's just much more difficult. And it takes lots of time and experiences with the local Nepali people to learn how.

I haven't come to like or accept the problems of Nepal I mentioned, but I've come to love the landscape in all its diversity and the noisy, colorful, crowded and dangerous buses and the natural goodness displayed by a vast majority of the people and the dhal baat twice a day and the flow of the traditional kurta sural and most of all the determination and hopefulness of the people even when the odds are all stacked against them. I love Nepal even as an average local experiences it, cold showers and all. And in that way I think I can mean it when I say I'm in love with Nepal, because I recognize its flaws in their entirety and feel them outweighed by its strengths.

Banepa: Crayons and X-rays at HRDC

On my first day working at HRDC, Hospital for the Rehabilitation of Disabled Children, I almost vomited and then I almost fainted. I had just finished helping with the plaster casting of 3 children with clubfoot, a genetic disease where the foot twists inwards. The technicians at HRDC cast their feet in plaster of paris, move their foot into a more normal alignment and let it set. The casts are left on for a little under a week, and the children get six to ten, or sometimes more casts. The children who are older or who have particularly bad cases also need surgery after the casting, but for many of the infants, casting and special shoes can completely cure their condition. The downside is it can be pretty painful while the cast is being put on...changing the alignment of bones and muscles isn't particularly comfortable. So when, after helping cast a kid who screamed particularly loudly, I felt myself get light headed. I became pale and sweaty and cold and very  nauseated. Luckily after that little episode I was fine helping with castings and did many many more over my three and a half weeks at HRDC. 

At first it was difficult to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, or what I could really help with, but after the first week or so I fell into a pattern. In the morning before tea I would help with the castings. Between tea and lunch I would give the kids who wanted them crayons and paper and try to facilitate a peaceful coloring time. It was much more difficult than you would think. By the end of my time I had overseen the coloring of about 400 different pictures, back and front - enough to line the walls of the ward and make it a little less hospital-depressing and a little more colorful. Then after lunch I would usually help out in the x-ray dark room. Yes, they do still manually develop x-rays in some hospitals in the world. After I learned to develop them on my own, I could actually help the waiting time in the x-ray department when it was busy. On my last day the x-ray technician even let me develop an x-ray of my own hand! Probably the coolest souvenir  I'll get from Nepal. 

Besides having the hospital placement, Banepa was great for day trips. I went to Bhaktapur twice, an old-style Nepali city just a 20 minute bus ride away. There was a little cafe overlooking the smaller square where I would order a huge pot of milk tea and sit and read. It was a little touristy, but there were some great old statues and temples and carvings. Once I spent a while walking around outside of the Bhaktapur square areas - a very stark contrast to the squares themselves. It was one of the poorer, dirtier neighborhoods I've seen, with people still living in the crumbling houses that were built in the 17th century and garbage everywhere. It made me sort of upset to see such poor standards of living right next to, even in, such beautiful things and none of the other tourists were seeming to notice. No one else ventured outside the pretty, clean squares.

I also went to Naugurkot with my roommate Chanty, a city a short bus ride away, with some nice views of the mountains. It was cloudy when we arrived so we couldn't see mountains from our hotel (The Hotel at the End of the Universe) but the sunrise was very nice. It was nicer when I didn't have trekking sunrises to compare it to, but still a good sunrise. For other day trips I went with Rima, my second roommate at Banepa, to a HUGE statue of Shiva an Indian man is building for an upcoming Hindu festival. We didn't really realize you could walk up a nice road to get to the statue, so we cut across a steep grassy hill and became covered in burs, came across a Nepali couple in the trees being intimate, and finally made it to the Shiva where we ate pringles and enjoyed a view of the valley.

Between all the day trips via crowded buses, I was pretty practiced at riding on the tops of buses by the end.  

 On one of our last days at the hospital, we walked with four other HRDC volunteers up the hill behind the hospital and had a nice picnic at the top. At HRDC a lot of the other volunteers came from Volunteer Abroad...there were volunteers from Holland, Finland, Germany, Australia, the U.K. and America while I was there. The community of other volunteers was very nice and we had some interesting discussions over morning tea.

Also while in Banepa Chanty and I set up a fund for a kid at HRDC who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a tumor in his spine. HRDC is a free hospital and they were able to surgically remove the tumor, but they don't have the facilities or medicines to treat cancer and this kid didn't have the resources to get the chemotherapy necessary for his cancer. He was going to be discharged from HRDC to go home and battle cancer on his own, so Chanty and I decided to raise money to get him admitted to the cancer hospital. Our friend and family really came together and helped us raise over 1,000 USD, but it turns out that raising money was the easy part. The cancer hospital was in Kathmandu so we had to go back and forth from Banepa to get him admitted (which took 3 days) and pay for the tests and the chemotherapy he got, and make sure he and his father were taken care of and getting the right treatment and everything. With the way Nepali hospitals are run, this wasn't an easy task. We finally got his first round of chemo done and sent him and his father home for three weeks until the next round, and entrusted the money for the rest of his treatment to Damu, the HRDC doctor who's house we stayed at and who is a wonderfully nice person. It was such a headache sometimes, but I'm so glad we were eventually able to help this kid and his family, and it made me really appreciate what families with sick or disabled children have to go through in Nepal to get their children treated.

HRDC was overall a really fun placement. The food was delicious, especially the breakfast of chipatti bread, bananas, jam, boiled eggs or potato curries and lots and lots of milk tea. Except the one festival day we were served a sort of molasses wrapped in dough that was not so pleasant. The rooms were comfortable and occasionally we even had a hot shower (!)

In Banepa there was a free community yoga class that I went to twice during my stay. It was at 5:30 in the morning, but totally worth it. It was a decent workout, some nice stretching, but the best part was at the end when the whole room of almost all local Nepalis did the laughing exercise - throwing their hands back over their heads they would laugh the most loud and unnatural laugh, then reach down to touch their toes and repeat the process ten times. I would laugh too, but not really as part of the exercise.

Rima and I were at the HRDC placement for Thanksgiving, so we came back to Kathmandu to try to get the other American volunteers from Volunteer Nepal together and go to a place in Thamel that was rumored to serve a real Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately the plans fell apart for one reason or another and we found ourselves at the restaurant by ourselves. Amazingly, at the table next to us was an American couple we both knew, so we ended up having a pretty festive dinner. The meal was delicious and pretty complete - everything except for the cranberry sauce. The restaurant owner came by and invited us to go back to the kitchen for seconds (or thirds in my case..) We were all in a proper Thanksgiving food coma by the end.

Saying goodbye wasn't easy, but HRDC is a well-run hospital with plenty of staff and plenty of volunteers and a little too much down time, so I felt I could be more useful elsewhere. I'm starting a placement where I change beds and wash dishes and clothes at the old age home in Kathmandu. It'll be nice to do something hands-on that really needs doing.

Chaturali

My stay in Chaturali was not at all what I expected it would be, but like most things in Nepal that don't turn out the way I expect, I'm still really glad it happened. I went to Chaturali, a village one hour by bus out of Kathmandu and a 2-3 hour walk from the bus road with Sarah, a volunteer from North Carolina and Peta, a volunteer from Australia.

  

Even though it didn't take long to get there, it's distance from the main road made it feel very remote. We were surrounded by spread out houses among tiers and tiers of rice crops. The village center, where our house was, consisted of a few shops, a little temple, and a communal water tap. We stayed with the Panday family which included a grandmother and grandfather, a father and mother, and two boys and a girl all 13 or 14 years old. They were a wonderful family, and although they spoke very little English, which made communicating difficult at times, they treated us very well. Perhaps a little too well in fact.

Our original plan was for Sarah and Peta to work at the free clinic (they're both considering going into medicine) and for me to spend my time at the home, working on chores with the family and learning what life for people in the hill villages is really like. Unfortunately, the family wasn't comfortable with letting me help with everything. They may have thought I would hurt myself (quite possible with the amount of time they spend cutting things) or I would get in the way (learning how to do new chores is quite difficult with a language barrier) or I think the most likely reason is I had the role of a guest and in the culture guests aren't supposed to work at all. Whatever the reasons, I soon decided that doing solely a home stay wouldn't really keep me occupied. By the end of the two weeks I was able to cajole them into letting me cut up spinach for dinner and I got to try milking the cow and I could even wash my own dishes most of the time. But I needed something else to do. And I decided since I couldn't do the homestay, I would just go back after 2 weeks with Sarah who needed to meet her mom, instead of staying 3 like I originally planned, and Peta decided 2 weeks would be enough too.

Sarah and Peta were having a good time at the medical clinic- the doctor would explain everything to them in English and let them try to take the names and histories of the patients and even let them take blood pressures and give a shot on occasion. I spent some time at the health clinic with them and saw some pretty amazing things like many cases of typhoid and one of cholera, and a pre-natal examination when an ultrasound is not available. However, the clinic was only open from 10-2 and the flow of patients was usually fairly low. I still needed something to occupy my time, especially since medicine isn't my main interest.

Luckily, there was a government school that the kids in the family attended only about a ten-minute walk down the road, and I had been planning to do a teaching placement later. I went to the teacher's lounge one morning and the principal made up a schedule for me that included four 40-minute classes- 7th grade, 6th grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade. I figured I could watch a class or two, make up some lesson plans that night, and start teaching the next day. Unfortunately I wasn't able to communicate this to the principal so he gave me a box of chalk and an eraser and pointed me in the direction of my first class. I arrived in class seven, hoping that a permanent teacher was already there, and around 50 or 60 kids stood up and said in unison, "Good morning, Miss!" I had no school-setting teaching experience, no lesson plan, and the 7th graders just looked at me expectantly, waiting to learn English. So I made up a lesson that involved teaching them the Itsy Bitsy Spider, including the hand motions, and practicing an introductory conversation. It soon became apparent that the kids didn't really understand much English. They understood a little and they could write and copy well, but giving directions was nearly impossible. Most of them were also very shy and wouldn't do much besides sit and copy down things I wrote on the board. Nonetheless I got them to sing most of the Itsy Bitsy Spider and copy down and recite most of a basic conversation. I finally filled up the time and moved on to class six. Having thought of nothing better to do, I repeated this procedure. I tried again with class four, but they spoke such little English and were so badly behaved at the end of the period I felt I hadn't taught them much of anything. They actually shot spit-balls onto the blackboard. As I was walking among them, trying to get them to sing the song, my hand moved toward a kid's head and he flinched. I guess that's how the teacher usually keeps them in line, but I could never hit a kid no matter how badly behaved. That's too big of a cultural divide to overcome. Class five went a little better, but not by much. At the end of the day I was so exhausted and overwhelmed I couldn't even speak. I acquired a whole new respect for all of my teachers. 

The next day I decided it was best to teach just two classes, to the older kids so I wouldn't get so burned out and so they would learn more. That way I could also go the last two hours of the clinic. I discovered that having a lesson plan helped tremendously. I taught family relations, parts of the body, and reading comprehension and vocab with a little story. The only minor mishap was when I was giving stickers to kid in class six who had done their family relations homework. They were so excited to receive stickers for their homework, and the class was so big, that as I went around checking, kids I had already checked would copy their homework and show it to me again to get another sticker. I eventually caught on. That took me through Sunday, the end of the first week, since The kids got Friday off for Nuagi, the rice cutting festival, and Saturday is always a holiday. 

On Monday Sarah and I went with the doctor to do home visits and dispense vitamin A capsules. We walked to a lower-caste village an hour or two walk away, gave the children at the school the vitamin A capsules, and visited different homes to diagnose and treat patients who couldn't come to the clinic. Many of them had typhoid, something I'd heard about but never thought I would see face to face. The families were all very grateful and gave us fruit off their trees or tea and biscuts. I didn't feel I was much help besides keeping people entertained with my attempts at speaking Nepali, but I learned and saw so much. It sort of made me want to become a doctor, just so I could come to a place like Nepal and really do some good. 

I came down with a little cold after that, luckily nothing as bad as typhoid, but my voice wasn't well enough to teach and control a class on my own so Sarah and Peta started coming down to the school after the clinic and helping me to joint-teach lessons. We taught grammar, punctuation, and animals and animal noises for our last class. The last class was absolutely crazy. Animal noises was perhaps a bad idea.

Even with the school and the clinic, we still had abundant free time from 4:30 pm onward and before 10:00 am. Fortunately beautiful walks were in every direction and often yielded fun surprises. We found a little waterfall once, encountered a CRAZY group of children another time who wanted nothing more than to have their pictures taken and to give us every flower they could find and pick along the side of the path, and we discovered a couple beautiful buddhist monuments on a hill with an amazing view on yet another walk. We saw sunsets on the snow-capped mountains quite often, and found an abandoned house. Perhaps my favorite walk was one we took on the Saturday before we left, down to the river at the bottom of the valley. There were big rocks to sunbathe and read on, and the only noise was the rushing of the river. It was slow moving enough at some places to wade in and surrounded by hills of tiered rice. We spent a couple of hours down there, just soaking up Nepal.

We ended up really bonding with our family, especially the grandmother who asked us to call her "Amma" (meaning mother in Nepali). She spoke no English, but she was always laughing and giving us more to eat and would occasionally be able to communicate a thought or two, like 'I want to go back to America with you!' or 'would you like more dahl baat?' When she gave us more food we would always say "Thank you!" and she would repeat "Tankoo!' and burst into laughter. Sometimes she would come into our room where we were reading or doing other things and just sit on the bed and stare at us lovingly. I haven't gotten comfortable with being stared at to the degree I am stared at constantly in Nepal, but for some reason with Amma it didn't bother me at all. Three days before we left she started crying after giving us our tiffin of tea and biscuits and we all ended up in a group hug- three tall foreigners around a tiny Nepalese woman, try to comfort her while she said "Don't go" again and again in Nepali. It was perhaps the most strange and touching moment of my life. 

The kids also wrote some poems and notes for us. My favorite was one by Sushila, the girl:

Life is mathematics

We can solve it

Life is a river

We can cross word

It turns out I really wouldn't have minded staying the full three weeks, but other placements are calling. I just arrived in Banepa to do a placement at a children's hospital. http://www.hrdcnepal.org/main.shtml It does really good work and I'm excited to help by playing with the children who stay there for months and months at a time, undergoing various major surgeries and rehabilitation. It should be good.

The Brampuri Village Experience

Wow. Tihar (known as the festival of lights) at Vinod and Anita’s village in southern Nepal was completely unlike anything I have ever experienced. In the U.S. we’re exposed to a good number of photos depicting people living a traditional village life. Whether it be from National Geographic or T.V. ads asking for donations we see flashes of a life in South America or Africa or Asia that we cannot comprehend. We see the villagers cutting grass by hand or cooking dinner over a wood and cow dung fire or making a religious drawing with a mysterious white liquid on the dirt and we feel removed like that has nothing to do with us. Most of us forget the villager as soon as the picture leaves our vision. All we see are differences.

  Living among traditional villagers in a developing country as a friend of the family makes me see those pictures differently. I saw the villagers doing the things depicted in the pictures, but I also helped to cook and eat that dinner and I used the flour and water to draw in the dirt. And I saw them after they did these things…I saw them bantering and laughing with their extended family over the holidays just like I do with mine and I saw my friend’s little nephew acting and playing and screaming and laughing just like I’ve seen my nephew do and I saw the younger generation playing music on their cell phones and the father of my friend stringing up lights for the holiday and my friend braiding her sister’s hair. It’s much easier to find the similarities when you live among people than it is by seeing a picture of them. The differences are still there but they don’t matter as much. I was engaged in the rhythm of their lives and the beat was the same as mine, even if the sound was different.

The journey started with what was supposed to be an 11 hour bus ride, but given that we were in Nepal it turned into a 16 hour bus ride. We drove through the night, my fleeting dreams accompanied by blaring Hindi movies and the stories of Vinod whose favorite line is “Do you want to hear a funny story?” We arrived to the town around 8 in the morning. We were met by Vinod and Anita’s father who took us to the village via his motorbike and a borrowed one., eliminating the 45 minute walk with our luggage.

The house consists of one two room concrete lodging. One of the rooms is used as a bedroom and the other is storage and the house temple. In the back is a mud hut they use to store things and cook in when it rains. There is a pump between the two houses where all of the water comes from and a small dirt yard in front of the concrete house, which is surrounded by a tall wall and is where the family cooks normally. Already there when we arrived were my friends’ father, mother, nephew by their older sister and Anita’s twin sister Sunita who stays at Papa’s House, but had already gone home for the previous Dashain festival. Their paternal grandfather was also around and their paternal grandmother was in the village but she was very sick so I didn’t see her much.

  My first day there I helped to cut the vegetables for our dinner and paint the design in the front yard leading the gods to the temple in the house where festival offerings would be laid out for them. Thanks to the plentiful dye in the mixture and the use of my hand as a paintbrush my hand would turn from dark to neon to a sunburnt pink over the next five days. I also prayed with my friends’ mother and realized that I’m not used to sitting cross legged for long periods of time. That night Sunita lit a cross of straw on fire. Holding it in one hand she took me by the other hand and led me half-running, barefoot, through the paths between the houses to main dirt road of the village. Every house had candles burning, and when we got to the main road she handed me the straw to move in circles. The people coming together on the main road, illuminated by fire on the otherwise pitch black night created a magical feeling. We were soon joined by the rest of the family armed with firecrackers and balls of old cloth soaked in oil and attached to a wire which were then lit on fire and twirled. My friends’ nephew, Puru, was especially exited by the sparklers. 

The next day was cow day of the festival where they honor the cow goddess Lakshima by putting tikka, or dye, on all of the cows. Anita and her mother also made people figures on the ground out of cow dung and decorated them with flowers. Later Vinod and Anita and I walked to the town where the bus dropped us off to buy vegetables for the next few days. The market was probably the most colorful place I had ever been. It was noisy and busy and I was the only white person in the entire town. Everyone stared at me like I was the first foreigner they had ever seen, and for a lot of them I probably was. Places like this don’t draw the tourists. I have never felt so many eyes on me in my life. It was funny at first but over time I grew increasingly uncomfortable. It was kind of like being the main attraction at a zoo. I felt much better when Vinod and Anita took me to a little shop and surprised me by buying me and armful of green plastic bangles. We walked back to the village and a little later their older sister came with her daughter. The one bedroom was filling up…

Monday was brother’s day. In the morning Vinod took me on a tour around the village. He showed me the one government run school of the village that was very run-down, and on vacation for the holiday. He showed me where the lower-caste bamboo cutters lived and worked, and we saw a man making a basket out of bamboo. He also showed me where the higher caste lives and we ran into one of the richest woman villagers who used to feed Vinod and his sisters when their parents were too in debt to do so. This was followed by a touching brother’s day ceremony where Vinod got tikka and garlands from his three sisters and Puru got tikka and garlands from his little sister Hassina. Then Vinod and Puru gave gifts to their sisters and touched their feet in respect, the way they do with their elders as a greeting. That night when it got dark Vinod and I went on the roof to watch the stars. He started telling me about his life, a story which is one of the most heartbreaking and hopeful stories I’ve heard. The things his family has had to overcome are incredible.

  The next day was our last in the village. In the morning Anita took me to visit some of her friends in the village…an experience that would have been much more rewarding if I had better Nepali or knew any Mathili, the native village language. Some people spoke broken English, but our conversation was limited to “What is your name, how are you, and do you like the village?” Still, it was fun to meet the different villagers. Then we took some family photos and my friends’ father took us all via ox transport to catch our night bus back to Kathmandu. When we got back I gave Vinod and Anita and Sunita the pictures I had taken over the five day trip. They were very grateful because for them these were pictures of family and home that they wouldn't have otherwise had the means to capture. To you the pictures may look like just another village in a developing nation but to me and Vinod and Anita and Sunita they represent memories that will stay with us forever.

P.S. No more updates for the next three weeks-I'm leaving to do a homestay placement in a very remote mountain village. Hopefully I'll know how to cook a good Nepali meal by the time I return!

Sights of Kathmandu and Some Planning

Ever since Felicia left me to go trekking, I've been taking day trips around Kathmandu and some evening trips into Thamel, the tourist district, with Blanca, Sam, and Jill-other volunteers in the house now. 

I went with Sushmita to a young children's orphanage in the city that might become a new volunteer placement to check it out and take pictures. I finally went to Boudha, the main touristy monastery of Kathmandu with Blanca and Sam, a place that every self-respecting foreigner in Nepal must go at some point. I bought fabric for two Kurta Surals (Nepali tunic, pants and scarf sets) and dropped them off to get tailored. I don't know how much they'll help me blend in but they are so beautiful. I  bought the face mask that most of the locals wear to help with the pollution concentrated around the main roads and bus parks. I've been working on learning more Nepali and I've learned a new favorite Nepali phrase- jindagi yestai ho (such is life). and I can successfully buy fruit and vegetables using only Nepali.  I got violently ill thanks to food poisoning from a bad lassi at the neighborhood restaurant, but it only lasted a night and an extended trip to Nepal probably wouldn't feel complete without it. Although Kathmandu is nice and it's good to have time to read and write and use the internet, I'm looking forward to going somewhere new also. 

I've just decided to go with Vinod and Anita, a brother and sister who work for Nepal Orphan's Home and the volunteer program to their Village for the five day festival of Tihar. They live in a remote village down in the Terai, the southern part of Nepal bordering on India. It will be interesting to see a different part of Nepal and to help with all the festival celebrations. Vinod and Anita are really fun, and I'm really looking forward to it even with the 11 hour bus ride and 90-degree weather I've heard about. 

After I get back I'm going to hopefully start a homestay- learn how to cook Nepali food, help with the household chores, and do some language immersion, maybe in Trisouli (a village 3 hours north west of Kathmandu). After that I might work at a children's hospital and then I might go back to my orphanage to teach in a local school and all that will pretty much take through the end of my time here. This is all tentative, of course, plans don't really get set in stone until they happen in Nepal. Jindagi yestai ho.

Three Incredible Weeks at Guarishankar Boy's Home

I could not have imagined a better first placement.

An Australian volunteer, Felicia, and I went to a boys' orphanage in a small village called Mati near Charikot in the district of Dolakha. Since we were there during the Dashain Fesitval, the biggest festival in Nepal, the boys didn't have school for most of the three weeks. We taught a couple fun and optional classes each day in oral English, arts and crafts, and American/Australian culture. 

Since their school classes are taught mainly in English they already knew enough that we could focus on pronunciation. We taught the boys how to pronounce 'th' and 'sh' using tongue twisters we made up. We taught them the lyrics to Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet, I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, Don't Matter by Akon, My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion and When September Ends by Green Day. We taught them the Hokey Pokey and the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Old MacDonald Had a Farm (Their favorite part was EE I EE I OH and their animal noises were extremely authentic). We taught them the Heel and Toe dance and the Cotton Eyed Joe dance and Red Rover. We taught them how to make friendship bracelets (they loved that) and contour drawing and oragami and how to make paper snowflakes. By the end the wall was covered in all kinds of art projects.

Although we taught them all that, I think we learned even more. We learned so many new Nepali words, half of which had to do with food (Nepali hanna mito cha, Nepali food is delicious and malai pugyo, I am full). The boys were overly helpful in teaching us words, occasionally we were a little overwhelmed. In one half hour sitting I wrote down over 300 vocabulary words that they were yelling out all at once. We learned how to eat properly with our hands and how to write our full names in Nepali. We learned how to bathe with just a bucket and a scoop and we learned all the words to Resham Firiri, a popular Nepali song. We learned the Nepali national flower (Rhodedendron), national animal (cow), geography, dances, movies, dress, and about the new government. We got Tikka multiple times (rice, milk, and red dye that sticks on the forhead) and walked barefoot over freshly sacrificed goats blood at temple. We had tongba, a strong fermented millet drink, and learned how to swing on a Dashain swing. It's a lot harder than it looks. 

The boys were so sweet. They were so excited to learn and so excited to share and more than anything they loved to sing and dance. 

The boys and the cooks and Uncle and Auntie and Sir were all so incredibly hospitable. They told us when we came that one of the Hindu stories is about a visitor that turns out to be a God in disguise, so you're supposed to treat all of your guests as if they were Gods. And they did. Three cooks grew all the vegetables and cooked all the meals for the whole orphanage, and every meal was delicious. For Breakfast and dinner we had a big pile of rice with two different vegetable curries that changed every meal, some sort of acchar (spicy pickle of tomato or vegetables) and a bowl of thick perfectly spiced dhal (lentil soup) We also got cucumber and fried egg sometimes. For tiffin (lunch) we had freshly baked chipatti bread or alo chips (fried potato slices) or sweet puffed rice. And we were served the most delicious tea three times a day. It was heavenly. 

The boys would also take us on exploring walks through the area, showing us all the different plants and views and animals. It was cloudy a lot of the time, but on the clear days the mountains were absolutely stunning. on the partially cloudy days the sunsets were the best I've ever seen. 

I also got extremely lucky in being placed with Felicia. We had only known each other a day or two when we decided to go, but we ended up getting along really well. We were endlessly entertained by comparing the slang words and accents of Australia and America. I, for the life of me, cannot say 'Oh' in an Australian accent and Felicia cannot pronounce 'R' because in Australia "We say 'R' silently, inside our mouths" We had some great adventures killing multitudes of spiders and flies and mosquitoes that found their way into our room. Although Felicia is terrified of and grossed out by all birds, she's very adept at killing bugs. She made my 19th birthday in Nepal totally sweet by buying me a huge pile of cookies from the local bakery and sticking a fat candle in the middle and having all the kids sing. She was great at helping to come up with ideas for classes, and great at teaching them with me. We worked really well together and were always on the same page. The placement would definitely not have been as great without her.  

Time has an entirely different consistency in this country. The past three weeks seemed to pass so quickly, but at the same time I feel like I'd been there for a year. Saying goodbye was so hard and I have a feeling I'll be pulled back there before my time in Nepal is finished.