daily life and LPI results...

So I've found that I've really discovered a rhythym in Chhap, and it makes me sad that all of this is once again going to change in about 4 weeks. I am very excited to come back in a year or two though and actually have full conversations with my family, so we can finally talk about real things. I also realize how important living in a small community is to me. I've grown up my entire life in small communities: Winthrop, Lewisburg, and now Chhap. I've never really lived in a place, that I can remember at least, where I dont see familar faces everyday. I'm not entirely sure I'm cut out for big cities. The other trainees and I have developed a schedule here: go to class each morning at 7, get some dudh chiyaa (milk tea) after class from the same chiyaa pasaal (tea shop), eat daal bhaat with our families and go to class in the afternoon. We usually return to the same tea shop for afternoon tea as well, and the family who owns it knows us by name (as do most residents of Chhap) and knows that we like a lot of sugar in our milk tea, but very little hot peppers in the fresh samosas they often make. I'm used to getting home from class each day and helping my younger sister cook dinner while listening to music and chatting about our days. In the mornings I'm greeted by chickens and cows the second I step out my door, and I'm used to Namaste-ing atleast 3 people in the morning on my way to the bathroom. Once I discovered a routine, the days started flying by. Then of course there are days like today that take me by suprise and are not routine at all, such as when my cousin Sunil (who is 9) decides to drink some water out of the toilet cup used to clean yourself after going to the bathroom. He's still alive I guess....

I feel like i've also gotten very good at just doing nothing. While another trainee was in a private language class with our teacher and I was waiting for my turn, I napped on a wooden bed I found on the balcony, listened to some music, and just looked out at the mountains for a good 2.5 hours. I think there is an art of doing nothing, and the Nepalis have it down. Not saying that they are lazy, but I think that when you spend your entire life working hard from dawn to dusk once you reach a certain age you enjoy not doing anything with your day. My grandma spends her days napping in the sun and waiting for her grandchildren to cook her food. At first I was like come on woman, you must be bored out of your mind. But then I realize that she probably married young, had kids young, and worked 50 years of her life taking care of her family and animals. So now she can finally enjoy not having anything to do. Plus I think shes probably highly entertained by my attempts at language and other American oddities. She's always trying to feed me more food and I'm actually scared when its just us two for morning daal bhaat because she feeds me half the pot of rice and I have to lay down for a solid hour afterwards. My grandma is probably only 4'8" on a good day but I'm scared of insulting her by not eating all the food she gives me!

Chhap is FRIGID in the mornings and evenings now. I've taken to sitting on my roof after eating morning daal bhaat as it is the only way I can get warm. Sorry for continuing to reiterate how cold showering is here but I actually want to cry when its time to shower. Its gotten to the point where other trainees will be like "oh, you look really nice today," and then another trainee will be like "yeah, I showered today." Basically sums up showering in Nepal in the winter months.

We had our mock Language Profiency Exam last Saturday and I scored as Intermediate Mid! We have to reach Int. Mid level of Nepali by the time we swear in as volunteers (Nov 30), so I was really happy with my results. I was really nervous before though...it was a half hour of one-on-one language with testers from Kathmandu and they voice record the whole thing so they can listen to it later with other testers and decide your score. I was asked about my Nepali and American families, to describe Nepali culture, what I do in my free time, what my degree was in, how my twin sister and I are different, how I felt the first time I rode a horse, and then there was also a mock situation I had to respond to. Mine was that I had bought a bunch of groceries and then realized I had no money. Its just nice to know how the final LPI will work now and since I already scored where Peace Corps wants us to be, I dont need to stress as much this last month.

And now, for a small Nepali lesson containing some of my favorite Nepali words, mostly because they sound so ridiculous when you say them:

raangichaangi- "colorful"

chijbij- "items" (prounced cheez-beez)

ukusmukus bhayo - "I'm full/satiated"

waripari- "walk around"

wokwok- "throw up/vomit" (one of my favorites; us trainees went around saying we were going to wok-wok about 50 times a day during Dashain due to the copious amounts of unidentifiable meat we ingested)

Also, not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier blog posting or not, but I've had a Nepali name since I got here! Its Neha (pronounced nay-ha). I either get called Neha or didi (older sister) here by everyone. Its weird that I've gotten so used to responding to such a foreign name, but only other PC trainees call me Alex. Its great when you dont know/cant pronounce peoples names though: everyone calls each other didi (older sister), bahini (younger sister), daai (older brother), or baai (younger brother). So i just go about my day calling everyone didi and daai and its great because i cant pronounce half their names anyways! Also every single persons last name in Chhap is Shrestha. I'm not joking...id say about 90% of the families in Chhap have Shrestha as their surname. Its because we are a Newari community (Newars are one caste in the Nepali caste system) and its one of the most popular last names. As you can imagine, this gets very confusing.

We have permanent site announcements next week! We just had our interviews this past week in order to get a feel for what sorts of things we would prefer to have at our permanent sites in order to be the most effective volunteers we can. Its crazy that in a week I'll know where I'll be living for the next 2 years...I guess my next blog post will reveal that all to you as well!

Hope everyone had a good Halloween!! I explained the holiday to my Nepali family and they were very confused (just tryin to accomplish Peace Corps Goal #3 here: sharing American culture with Nepalis!).

Dherai dhanyabad (many thanks),

Alex