We'll we've entered into week 3 here of PST in Nepal. Still have infantile language skills but its getting better. The most confusing part of Nepali is the word order. For instance, if I said: "Ma bholi sattiharu saanga Kathmandu jaanchu" it means "I am going to Kathmandu tomorrow with friends." However, it literally tranlsates into "I tomorrow friends with Kathmandu go." SO basically half the stuff I say is in the wrong order. You have to almost translate backwards in order to get the correct meaning of sentences here. Other exciting happenings: i went to the temple today with my sister. Its very different than anything in the states; theres no service or anything and its basically this open air brick building in the middle of a field. I was told the huge tree nearby was the god Puja. You take your shoes off and go into the temple and place flowers and tikaa (the red paste you can also put on your forehead) all over the statues of the gods. My sister also lit a candle and sprinkled water on the statues and rang the bells inside the building. The whole process only took about 15 minutes so we werent there very long. I think Hinduism is very individual...it doesn't seem like they worship with others. In the food storage room in my house my family also has a small corner devoted to worshipping Hindu gods. I'm not entirely sure I'm allowed in that room because of it, but I am always woken up by them ringing the bells each morning while praying. After going to the temple the other trainees and I in Chhap had a relaxing afternoon. We decided not to walk into Chautara to meet the other trainees so we hung out and watched Bridesmaids on one of our laptops instead. It was great and my friend Brandon's mom kept bringing us food! She made us tea (chiyaa), bogote (this type of fruit similar to a grapefruit), macate (corn), and chow-chow (basically noodles). It was a nice change from daal bhaat, which I just finished eating for dinner about 5 minutes ago. It still boggles my mind that Nepalis eat daal bhaat 2x a day every day for their entire lives. Also I'm now an expert on eating with your hands. You have to sit hunched over your plate and use your right hand to mush your lentils and rice together and then you form a huge ball of it using your fingertips, and then you shove the entire thing in your mouth, finishing your half pound of rice in about 5 minutes. They eat SO fast here I am always served first and I am always the last to finish. Belching loudly after eating is considered completely appropriate as well.
I also got a kurtaa suurwhaal made! Google it for a picture. Its the everyday dress Nepali women wear, but I got a slightly fancier one for special occasions. Desain, a huge Nepali festival, is coming up so i wanted to have it for that. I picked out my fabric and took it to the tailor yesterday so it should be ready next week. The design is hard to explain but the bottom pants part are blue, while the top is this sort of rust color with blue flowery designs. I felt ridiculous picking my design out because I have no idea what is "in" in Nepal or what colors Nepali women dont wear as much. I think I picked well though and im excited to see the final product! It set me back about $16, which doesnt seem like much, but right now we get $45 per month so it is kind of a lot considering my financial situation.
quick interjection: two minutes ago a SPIDER THE SIZE OF MY ENTIRE HAND JUST RAN ACROSS MY ROOM. it was literally a tarantula i am not exaggerating. I screamed like a little child and then my hajurama (grandma) just picked it up and tossed it out of my room. it was humongous.
I was thinking to myself earlier this week that nothing super exciting has happened since my last blog post, but then I said to myself "hold up alex..." you brush your teeth in the goat pen, you eat approximately two lbs of rice per day, you have lizards and tarantulas in your room, and you are LIVING IN NEPAL. I guess maybe it is good that my life has gotten more routine here though! I think i have days where nothing of major importance happens but then I have nights like tonight where I actually spoke a lot with my family and then my sister had me try on her clothes and is having me wear her "kurta" tomorrow. A kurta is kind of like a tunic, but the one my sister is having me wear is atrocious. I feel bad saying that but it is literally a top that a 5 year old would wear. Its a bright baby blue and has a silver jeweled design all over. The bottom layer is satiny, while the top is this blue netting. It looks like a dress up Disney princess dress. She told me i could wear it tomorrow since she knows I'll be in town for our group training day and wants me to look nice. Shes 20 and she wears it a lot so i guess it is in style. She also just gave me a reverse manicure and painted all my toes and nails purple, but left the bottom half of my nail natural. Never seen anything like it before...
We had a half-hub day today where we learned all about resilience during our two years here. The acronym used was LIMB because you will feel Lonely, Isolated, Miserable, and Bored throughout service. Our country director Andrea gave us this talk and it was actually really helpful to hear different ways of dealing with the emotional rollercoaster we are currently on. Afterwards we learned about earthquake safety. You're not going to like this mom but Kathmandu is the #1 earthquake prone city in the entire world. Nepal is smack dab in the middle of the Indian and Tibetan plates. Ive actually already felt one earthquake since ive been here but it literally only shook my bed and I barely felt it. Unfortunately, Nepal seems to experience a major earthquake (+7 on the Richter scale) about once every 70 years and right now, they're overdue, as the last one happened in 1934. SO, in order to keep ourselves safe we went over our emergency action plan and what would happen in the case of an earthquake. its actually better for us trainees because Kathmandu will be the least safest place in an earthquake because of the overcrowded buildings and narrow alleyways. At site, we will be rural and out in the open and there wont be tall buildings around.
In other news, please send mail if you're inclined!. Its like christmas day when we get mail here. Also I posted pictures on my facebook page from the first couple weeks here! I can attempt to load some on my blog but it seems to take forever and is way faster on facebook. Thanks for reading!
-Alex
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