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.