RPCV Nepal (2012-2014) currently interning in Lusaka, Zambia with the State Department for the summer

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Suuahara, a 15 mile trek, and peeing goats...

More excerpts from PST! Sorry for the novel. If you actually read all of this, props to you. Its too hard to write actual entries, hence the excerpts, because im writing this blog over the course of a week and then uploading when i have internet so i hope what I say makes sense!

Its my goal during my peace corps service to finish all of BBCs "100 Books to Read before you die" list. Ive finished 19/100 so far so i have a long way to go. However, in the short 2 weeks i have been here, i have already finished 4 books, so i feel that this will definitely be doable! A PCV in Ethiopia sent us her flashdrive with 1000 kindle books preloaded so all of PC Nepal was able to get a bunch of new books! I now have 150 books on my kindle which is fantastic. It was like christmas morning when I got to download them all.... Call me a nerd but im very excited to start reading all of them.

Had a very busy day today. First, I did all my laundry from the past 2 weeks. you definitely need a good 45 minutes to hand wash all of it. My sister helped me and i now understand why quick dry clothes are better to bring....anything made of cotton is not going to withstand more than 5 handwashings. its brutal! you wring out your clothes and scrub them so much I think my sleeping t-shirt might be an XL now. I also helped my Language and Cultural Facilitator teach English to my younger cousins today. It was hilarious to watch them do their English homework..not matter how many times I tried to get Sunil to say "YELLow", he kept saying "ELLow." i probably repeated it 45 times but he still didnt pronounce the Y. That will be my goal by the end of the week. I also got henna today!! its on my wrist and hand. My friend marvin's younger sister did it for all of the trainees in Chhap. Will try and upload pics to Facebook so you can see. It should stay for around 10 days.

We had 2 Hub-site days this week. Very early mornings because its a 45 minute walk from Chhap (my village) to Chautara where the PC hub-site is and we normally arrive around 7. The days are completely filled with all sorts of lectures, from talks about diversity, how we are perceived as Americans in Nepal, accomplishing Peace Corps goals, and important medical information. Us Trainees also enjoy these days because we get to each things other than rice, such as noodles or apples or these weird shrimp flavored chip things...at this point, i'll take what i can get. This week we had people from USAID (US Agency for International Development) and Suuahara come and talk to us. Suuahara is an organization funded by USAID that tries to improve and sustain the health and well-being of Nepali people. They specifically focus on women/childrens health in the first 1000 days of life, as this is an important window in order to prevent stunted growth. Stunted mothers give birth to stunted babies, so it is a vicious cycle Suuahara is trying to stop. As volunteers, we will be working with this organization at our various posts. As I am an Agriculture volunteer (10 of us are Ag, 10 are Nutrition), I probably wont work directly with Suuahara that often, but it will still be a very good resource for me to use, as agriculture/food security and nutrition are intertwined. We finished up our first hub day with a nice hour lecture on the various types of diarrhea you can get in Nepal. Our PCMO (PC medical officer) is this hilarious Russian man who tells us that although we might feel like we are dying of diarrhea sometimes, we aren't, it only feels that way. Thankfully 19/20 of us have not gotten sick yet. Only 1 unlucky one who had to be the first to get sick. For once it wasnt me! My digestive system has been adjusting nicely, and i've been taking my probiotics religiously. Im actually hungry all the time because I think the rice only fills me up for an hour or two. We're also all adjusting to eat 2 meals a day: one meal at 9am and another at 7pm. Because us americans cannot handle that large of a break, we go to the corner tea shop and get milk tea and biscuits to satisfy ourselves inbetween daal bhaat.

Today was...interesting. Every day here never ceases to amaze me. Since Saturday is holy day here in Nepal for Hindus, we have saturdays off and are free to spend our time as we choose. My village, Chhap, decided to walk ALL the way to Pipl Daadaa (where other trainees live), which is 5 miles away. It took about 2 hours and wasnt too bad because most of it was downhill. Once there, we then decided it would be a good idea to go to the river, which was another 2.5 miles away. This time we decided it would be a fantastic idea to take a shortcut down a rocky creekbed and trek through a mile of rice paddy. By the time we reached the river, all 16 of us had soaking wet muddy shoes and were sporting some nasty sunburns. The river was cool though, and a couple people went swimming. The way back to Pipl Daadaa and my village was brutal. Because the entire way there was downhill, the ENTIRE 7.5 miles back was uphill, over dirt paths, creekbeds, and roads covered in uneven stones. We ran out of water halfway back and most of us looked dead; we were covered in sweat and our faces were red. By the time I reached Chhaap, a nice 3 hours later, I was ready to collapse. We ended up walking FIFTEEN MILES. I have never walked 15 miles in my life! Especially not straight up a creekbed or through rice paddies. Then, when I got home, my cousins randomly took me down the road and into a dark room where I was fed some random plate of food and given a "tikka" on my forehead (the red paint that Hindus wear). Then this man placed some flowers on my head and gave me 10 rupees, which is about 9 cents. It was the most confusing thing ever and apparently they were blessing the new house they had just moved in to and wanted me to be a part of it. Most confusing of all was that many of the women were speaking Newari, a completely different language from Nepali. Well I didnt even know they were speaking a different language considering my Nepali is poor at best, so I just sat there the whole time thinking I just couldnt undersand any of their Nepali. Then I went home and they fed me more food and kept trying to sneakily tell me that the water buffalo I was eating was chicken, when it most definitely was not. And now, as im sitting in my room typing this, a lizard is running around on my ceiling (UPDATE: an hour after going to sleep i also discovered a ginormous frog running around my room), I have discovered a lovely rash all over my legs, the entire back of my neck and arms are a deep shade of red, and I have a massive blister on my toe from where my sandals rubbed.n Good thing our medical kits are stuffed with every medicine ever invented! I covered my blisters with some Neosporin and a bandaid, slathered myself in hydrocortisone cream, and popped a Benadryl. Still not sure what to do about the little reptile lurking on my ceiling though. Heres to hoping that the rash and lizard are gone by the morning...

(UPDATE: rash and lizard were gone by morning. hallelujiah)

Today I was in my room during a break in class and I had just gotten off the phone and all of a sudden a goat pops its head in the doorway. I wasn't too surprised, as this happens quite frequently because I live literally 10 feet away from the goat pen and my room opens up into the goat area. Normally a tiny black goat wanders around my room while i do homework or read and its a fairly normal occurence. However, this goat was one i hadnt seen before and before I could do anything it stepped into my doorway and popped a squat and peed all over my shoes and my rug. Not something that happens to me everyday, having a goat pee in my room. Then it just looked up at me questioningly while I sat there shellshocked because I had just watched this animal urinate all over my shoes. On a different note, I discovered momo's today. They are these delicious vegetable filled (or meat filled) dumplings, kind of like a potsticker which you dip in a spicy sauce. mito chaa! that means quite tasty in Nepali.

My shower is finally finished in my house, which means I get to stop showering at the neighbors. They also installed a sink!! This is great because i have been washing my face with my waterbottle until recently. Language is going well, I can finally speak some small paragraphs to my family about what Im doing/learning or where im going. Yesterday our country director Andrea came to one of our sessions and talked with us. Last time we saw her was in Washington DC so it was weird to actually see her in Nepal. We had millions of questions for her and it was nice to get them answered and hear a litle more about our permanent sites. Even though we're only going into our 3rd week of PST out of 12, all of us are antsy to get out there and start working.

Hope everyone is well at home! I've heard the valley has gotten fairly cold, and I miss fall back in Washington! I've also been reminiscing daily about vanilla lattes from Rocking Horse and a nice cold beer, since women here don't drink in public. A common topic among us PCVs is food and what foods we miss. We're all looking forward to spending our last week of PST in Kathmandu, because the tourist district Thamel offers all kinds of western foods and foods from all over the world. According to my guidebook, Thamel also has a Barnes and Nobles and a North Face store! You can get paninis, lattles, gelato, sushi, pasta and lots more in Thamel so we are all quite loooking foward to discovering mini-America. Today I also ate an entire packet of Ramen dry since that is a common practice here in Nepal, and the kids in my family are always offering it to me. They called it "chow-chow". I dont recommend doing this in any country as it is quite disgusting.

I miss everyone at home! If you feel inclined, send me snail mail! :) Its so fun to receive mail here, and I promise I'll write back!! Props to Paul for sending me my first letter!

Namaste,

Alex

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

1 week into training

All is well here in Nepal! Here are some small excerpts from Pre-Service Training:

I am literally in the most beautiful place on the planet. I thought the North Cascades were breathtaking (not saying they are not beautiful, because they are) but Nepal is something else. I'm only at 1400m, but i feel like im up in the sky. my homestay town, Chhap, is directly on a mountain ridge. I will try and upload pictures to show, but I feel that they wont even do it justice. I don't think I will ever tire of sticking my head out my window and just staring at the countryside. The hills are all terraced, which must have taken hundreds of years to finish, and most mornings you can barely see around you because of the fog, but when it clears up in the afternoon it is amazing. In the distance I can see two huge mountains covered in snow. I now realize why I received a blank stare when I asked my family if i was looking at the Himalayas. Himal simply means mountain in Nepali, and himalaya means mountain range.

My homestay has been great so far. I walked into my room for the first time yesterday and it smelled strongly of paint...they had just painted my room turquoise and purple just for me!!! They are also in the process of building a new charpi or pit latrine. This seems to be common among all of the trainees families; these people are so welcoming and are putting so much time and money into making us feel comfortable, even though im sure most of us would have been perfectly fine with less. I will say though that going to the bathroom in a hole in the ground and only using water to clean yourself takes some getting used to. Still cant get over the "just wet your pants" feeling that I get afterwards. I also have 85 spiders living in my bathroom and bedroom. The spiders here are massive. I hate spiders so this is an issue for me. they are literally as big as my palm.

We've been learning Nepali slowly, and today we learned the beginnings of Devanaagarei, which is Nepali written script. It is one thing learning a whole new language but another learning to read and write all over again! Google Devanaagarei and its a form of Sanscrit...completely different from anything I am used to. Its like we are in first grade. I'm not used to not being able to read. Communicating has been extremely difficult but my homestay sister, who is 20, has been very helpful as she can speak some English words, basically enough to tell me what words are in Nepali. I have an aamaa (mom), baa (dad), 2 bahini (younger sisters), and 1 baai (younger brother). however, my uncle lives across the street so my cousins are in and out of the house all day. Right now my best friend is Sunil. He's 9 and hes alwways waiting for me in my room and helps me read and write, except hes way more advanced then me. My LCF (language and cultural facilitator) lives directly across from me which is nice because I have been bathing over at her house since mine is still being built. Showering is now my least favorite activity, as i have to psych myself up just to get under the water. its FREEZING. really not sure how im going to deal with this once winter comes. will update you all on how my hygeine is doing later.

UPDATE: I have now learned every consonant and vowel used in Devanaagarei!! so technically i can read any sign i come across, except the problem is that even though i can now read i still dont know what it means. Also, fun fact: this script is also used in India so if I travel there at least ill be able to read and communicate a bit. The language is very similar in India too, except for how they conjugate their verbs.

Eating with your hand takes lots of practice too. Its super messy and feels so unnatural but kind of fun as well. You basically mush all your daal (lentils) and bhaat rice) together and shove it in your mouth. Manners don't exactly exist, and its not uncommon for everyoone to burp and spit all the time. They feed me enough rice for 5 people so I never finish my food but I think they are slowly learning that I physically cannot eat that much.

my family also has 5 goats and 1 buffalo which I highly enjoy petting, even though all the baby goats try to headbutt me all the time, probably because every other kid here smacks them over the head with a stick when the walk by. The tiny goats reject my love but i will keep on trying!!! I also discvered a baby buffalo in the back of my house (how i did not notice it was living there is beyond me) and I was petting it and my host father came up and asked if i ate it. That is literally the only interaction i have had with him.

Today we observed "Teej" in our homestays. Teej is a woman's festival that celebrates the god Shiva and his wife Parvati. My family is Newar (Nepal has a caste system) so we dont technically celebrate Teej, but all of us PC Trainees got to go into town and observe the festival. All the women/girls wear red saris and dance and sing. Some trainees who are in Chetri or Brahman families (other castes) were all dressed up with red saris. I however was in my blue pants and a tshirt, but I still received tikaa, which is the red paint/dot that is placed on your forehead. its basically for good luck. I also got to eat 3 donuts in town today which was a nice treat away from the 5 lbs of rice i consume daily. The donuts cost 5 cents and theyre more breadlike than sugary but they are still good, and even better dipped in milk tea.

That's about it from Nepal!!! My language slowly gets better each day, although its still a struggle to communicate my basic needs and I mess up all the time. For instance, I saw a root looking vegetable on the floor and wanted to know its name, but ended up asking if it was a dog because I accidentally added an "r" to the end of my word, and then yesterday I asked if my grandfather's name was "grandchildren" in Nepali because thats what I thought he said when I asked him his name. I also showed my family all the pictures on my iphone...didnt realize how many pictures of my cat and dog are on there, so they probably think im insane, especially since i told them my cat sleeps on my bed. Animals here arent beaten or anything, but they arent highly regarded, and they certainly dont sleep indoors.

Thats all for now!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

beginnings of pre-service training

Peace Corps is truly a time warp. We've been in country for not even 3 days now and I feel that I've been here a month. I suspect this is due to the near 48 hours of travel it took to get here, but its weird. For example, I keep thinking Im all adjusted to the 13 time change, but then today I woke up at 4:30 am feeling completely rested, and if you know me at all, you know I am NOT a morning person. The days here have been completely packed. We are constantly learning. In the past couple days we have covered everything from basic language skills (Mero naam Alex ho...my name is Alex), how to eat with our right hand, how to use a charpi (pit latrine), how to bathe in public, and how to construct/clean our water filters that will protect us against water borne pathogens. We are really children, considering people are showing us how to eat and use the toilet. But, its all very helpful and necessary considering we head to our homestays on Thursday! We've also been receiving lots of medical training, including too much information on bodily functions. We've also been receiving daily immunizations, so now I am protected from Japanese encephalitis and Rabies, yay!! On a different note, the food here is quite delicious, if not repetitive. Today for breakfast we had curry potatoes and rice, and for lunch and dinner we had daal bhaat, which consists of rice, lentils, and vegetables. We will eat daal bhaat 2x a day every day for the next 12 weeks. SO, if any of you are at all inclined to send care packages, please send granola bars or other delicious food items so i dont die from rice overdose. Dhanyabaad (thanks). for the rest of our PST (pre-service training) Peace Corps uses a method called community-based training in order to teach us all the cross-cultural, technical, and language skills we need to know. Four of us live in a cluster with an LCF (language and cultural facilitator..PC loves their acronyms) and attend class from 7-5 everyday. About once a week all 20 of us get together at our "hub" site for group training. This repeats every day except for Saturdays for 12 weeks until november 30th when we are officially sworn in as PC Volunteers!!! So much to learn! Tomorrow we find out who will be in our cluster, as well as what village we will be in!! Our hub site is Chautara, which is in the central region of nepal, about 3 hours northeast of Kathmandu. our five villages are spread out in the district, with some of us only 15 minutes from Chautara, while others might be up to an hour. I'm really ansty to find out who im with and where i will be living for the next 12 weeks. A pleasant surprise is that we all will have electricity and some form of running water in our homestays! I had very low expecations and was expecting neither of these things, so its nice that we will be able to charge some electronics and bathe on a fairly regular basis.

Well, its 8:15pm here and i am about to fall asleep. Ive been asleep before 9pm every night here. This is probably my last blog post for a while :( because we wont really have internet at our homestays, except for when we are in Chautara for group activities. until then, send me snail mail please or an email or a facebook message so I know what is happening in peoples lives!

Sunday, September 9, 2012

safe and sound in Kathmandu!

We've arrived! It took a full 2 days to get here but we finally made it. Our group left our hotel in DC at 4:30am and flew out of Dulles to Chicago, where we then took a lovely 15 hour flight to Tokyo, followed by another 6 hour flight to Bangkok. not entirely sure what i did on that 15 hour flight because i was so out of it, but i tried to sleep a lot. Thankfully we overnighted at a hotel in bangkok, because I think i had slept approximately 6 hours over the past 2 days. A group of us went out near our hotel to get some thai food and then headed back to the posh Best Western that Peace Corps put us up in. They take quite good care of us while we are en route to our country.This morning we woke up bright and early and flew to Kathmandu!! Nepal is beautiful....flying in over the mountains was awesome. We were met at the airport by Peace Corps staff and quickly led into a VIP lounge where we met the US Ambassador to Nepal as well as all the Peace Corps staff and took some pictures. We then cut through everyone else in line for customs and proceeded to get our bags. Thankfully all 40 of our bags made it!! We were then all loaded up into vans and drove to our training center, where I am writing from. Kathmandu is busy, to say the least. I thought traffic and driving in Tanzania was bad...this is about fifty times worse. Motorcycles and buses and cows filled the street with no apparent order whatsoever. Cows are sacred in Nepal though, so it was interesting to see an entire road stop to wait for a cow to cross. The air pollution here is terrible, so it wasnt uncommon to see people wearing face masks while walking around. Once we got to the training center we had a couple hour orientation where we met the rest of PC staff and did some brief orientation activities. We basically have the rest of the evening free except for some quick medical interviews. The 20 of us are here for another 3 days full of training and then head to Chautara to begin our 3 months of training!! Its quite hot and humid here, which I wasnt expecting. We aren't really allowed out of the area where our training center is, so i'm excited to head to Chautara in a couple days. Hope everyone is well back home...I miss all of you!!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

last post from the US of A

this is going to be a quick entry because I have to get up in approximately 5 hours to fly off to Nepal! Meeting everyone here at staging in DC has been awesome. Aside from my long day of travel yesterday including a delayed flight and mid-air panic attack when i realized i forgot all my registration forms, DC has been great! The 20 of us in N-199 are all awesome...we come from all over the US with very diverse backgrounds. We spent the majority of today turning in forms, doing icebreakers and going through mock scenarios of things we might experience as PC volunteers. We got to meet the Peace Corps Director and a lot of senior staff as well as the Ambassador to the US from Nepal! It was great to see the support we have behind us and to realize that a lot of people are expecting lots of great things from our group!!! Kind of intimidating but also very motivating as well. After staging we were all starving so we got dinner as a group. I'm back in the hotel now and will try to sleep for a couple hours before getting up at 3:30 to go to the airport! I should have a phone set up within a week and will post my number on here when i can, but for now, send me mail at the following address:

Attn:  My Name
c/o US Peace Corps / Nepal
Post Office Box No. 15150
Kathmandu, Nepal

Thanks to everyone to who helped me in my preparations for nepal, especially my family and Paul...couldnt have done this without you guys as well as all the support from friends. I'll miss you all and will try to post soon! I should have internet the first 3 days we land!