I apologize for the lack of posting this past month! I’ve
actually been quite busy, sadly not with as many work projects as I would like,
but mostly with traveling back and forth between Pokhara and Kathmandu for
various trainings.
All of us volunteers and Nepali counterparts we identified
attended a Project Design and Management Training earlier in July in Pokhara.
It was a crazy 5 days jam packed with various sessions, but really helpful for
designing potential projects we can implement in our villages. I brought my
sister and we designed a collection center, or sankalan kendra in
Nepali, for our village. Collection centers are where people can bring their
vegetables and produce for sale, where they are then picked up for transport to
larger markets. Currently, my village’s nearest collection center is a solid 45
minute walk uphill, where women and men have to carry their produce in large
wooden baskets strapped to their heads. The work is exhausting and
time-consuming, and they can really only sell as much as they can carry. By
building a collection center in my village, agricultural outputs will hopefully
increase since they will be able to carry the produce only a short distance
away from their homes. Additionally, surrounding villages will also be able to
use this collection center. The catch? The project costs roughly 8,000 USD.
This is a small fortune in Nepal, especially in the village. So, I’m trying to
work with my ag group and identify possible sources of funding and help them
work on a grant when the time comes. Due to rice planting and torrential
downpours, we were forced to start one of our ag meetings at 10pm the other
night! By the end, at 1am, 2 small old men were full on asleep on the floor.
Ridiculous. We also developed an entire proposal to take to our district
agriculture office, and after 3 hours of travel to get there, were told we
needed to hire an engineer to make building plans and an official budget and
turned around after a 15 minute meeting. Lots of setbacks so far, but I’m
hopeful we can actually get this project off the ground.
Some of you might be wondering what happened to the world
map project? Its still going, but school just got back into session after a 40
day break, and I left 2 days after the re-opening to attend a training in
Kathmandu. When I finally get back to the village, that is my number 1
priority! I actually am inviting 2 other
volunteers to help me finish the grid for the map when I get back; its slightly
off scale (not surprised as I had a 12 inch ruler to work with) and I think it
might be easier for us to just get the grid done in a day or two for the kids,
so then they can just focus on drawing and painting. Still looking for a
funding source on this as well…
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| making the grid |
Currently in Kathmandu right now for training called TOT:
Training of Trainers. All the new Language/Cultural Facilitators as well as 13
of us volunteers gathered in KTM this week for a solid 5 days of 8-5pm training
at the PC office. Exhausting. Us volunteers had the opportunity to apply to be “resource
volunteers” for the incoming volunteers, and I got chosen to teach on nursery
development. We also got to see the full name list of the incoming volunteers
for the first time and go over their resumes. We have 1 new volunteer coming
who has been in PC THREE times before this! This is his 4th country
and 4th service. Crazyness.
Although we were busy all day with
sessions, we also had time to relax and see a little more of Kathmandu. This place
grows one me more and more everytime I come. I’ve drank more iced coffees than
I can count, and I’ve eaten so much good food…Vietnamese pho, delicious veggie
pizza, American beer (hellooooo Blue Moon), smoked salmon salad,falafel wraps
with hummus, and we discovered this place right across from the US Embassy run
by a Nepali woman who lived in New York for 9 years who serves the best food
ever. We even ran into the US Ambassador one day there after lunch who invited
us to Thanksgiving at his house! Actually I think running into various embassy
workers during this trip has really made me think more about what I want to do
post-PC life. Can’t live the village life forever. Its been very interesting
talking to our PC staff about how they got to their positions today, and I
think it got the wheels turning for us. We’re about 2 weeks shy of our 1-year anniversary
in Nepal, and I think a lot of us are realizing we have 1 year left and are
starting to think about where we might be next Christmas. We were also fortunate
enough to meet Rajeev Goyal, who is a an RPCV from Nepal from 2003-2005. He was
in town on business and came by the PC office to give a talk and sign his book.
His book is called the “Springs of Namje” and describes his PC service in a remote
village in eastern Nepal, where he constructed a water pump system for his
villagers who previously had to carry water almost an hour up a mountain.
Rajeev was also responsible for lobbying in Congress and getting an almost 60%
raise in the worldwide PC budget. He came out to dinner with us afterwards, and
it was fantastic to be able to talk with him about post-pc life, graduate
school, jobs and peace corps. Not to mention he has amazing fluent Nepali that
left us all very jealous. He’s currently working on a biodiversity project in
the eastern region of Nepal that focuses on environmental conservation in
schools and cataloging the local biodiversity. Prettyyyy interesting stuff…wouldn’t
mind asking him for a job post PC…
This morning my friend Tia and I got up early and headed to
Durbar square to watch the US Embassy flash mob! The embassy had partnered up
with Nepali Youth to do this flash mob to celebrate International Youth Day,
which was last week. It was really fun to watch and we also met some another
returned peace corps volunteers from other countries who now work for the
embassy in Kathmandu.
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| Durbar Square |
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| in the rickshaw! |
Oh I also pierced my nose this week! My Nepali family and friends are going to
freak. In a good way. Most castes here in Nepal pierce their noses by the age
of 10 (women only). I even got mine on the Nepali side, which is the left. Most
people I meet here ask why my nose isn’t pierced, but now I can show them! One
of my friends got it done with me and we found a very legitimate piercing/tattoo
parlor in Thamel that pierced it for about $4. It hurt, a lot, but im really
happy with how it turned out!
Headed back to Pokhara tomorrow and then back to site
shortly after, but Im back in Kathmandu exactly a month from today for my
Mid-Service Peace Corps training! I’ll write a blog then about how I feel at
the 1 year mark.
