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

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Kaam

Kaam means work in Nepali. I figured I haven’t really talked that much about the projects I’m currently doing/trying to do so read on if you wanna find out how I spend my days! I also recently bought a new camera since my last one broke so I can post pictures again on my blog.

Collection Center
Collection center building grounds
Not too much to report on here. My grant has been turned in and I’m awaiting feedback. My grant is actually a PCPP grant, which stands for Peace Corps Partnership Program. Because of the amount of money I need for this project (~$3,000), I opted to raise my funds through donations from friends and family (stay tuned for the live link where you can donate soon!) since the other grants max out around $1,500. We have however, broken ground for the center with the little money we have available and materials have been collected. I’m really excited to see the building process begin soon. Otherwise I continue to go to my weekly meetings with my agriculture group and weed our communal potato field.
Potato fields outside my house
The Library
After experiencing positive feedback from the school staff about the world map project, I asked what else they needed help with. The principal immediately took me to a classroom and said he wanted help building a library. This was great, because this was always a project that was in the back of my mind as something I wanted to accomplish before I left Nepal. Over the past couple months I’ve been sending countless emails to various Nepali and American organizations asking for library resources or book donations. My work finally came to fruition yesterday when I received an email from The Asia Foundation (www.asiafoundation.org if you want to learn more about the work they do) saying they could donate books for my project! I was so excited. Its also fantastic because this organization has an office in Kathmandu, meaning communication is so much easier and I don’t have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for shipping costs! I’m heading to Kathmandu in early March to pick up all the books. I also have a box of English books coming from an organization (Darien Book Aid) in Connecticut that gives free books to Peace Corps Volunteers. A family friend who also happens to be a Returned PCV from Mali is also sending me books from my hometown. She teaches 5th grade at the elementary school I attended and her students collected books for my school. Thank you Jennifer Duguay!

 The principal of my school would also like to find computers for the school, so I told him I would look into that as well. Hit me up if you know of any organization that donates computers to these sorts of projects… J I just met with the school staff today, and after feeding me a large snack of chowchow (ramen noodles), they told me how excited they were about the library and how much they felt I had improved the school since coming. I felt embarrassed a little about all the praise they were giving me, especially since I feel like I haven’t done that much, but I do really feel my best when I work with the school and kids. Its the one area of my work in Nepal where I truly feel needed and where I can put my skills to use.

Room where the library is to be built

G.L.O.W Camp
G.L.O.W Camp is a worldwide Peace Corps Projects that stands for Girls Leading Our World. Its basically a girls empowerment/leadership camp. Its been hugely successful in numerous African countries, especially in spreading HIV/AIDS awareness. This past week, 9 of us volunteers got together in Pokhara to plan a camp of our own! We realize how much work we have to do after just 1 meeting, but we’re all really hopeful this can be a success. Each of us will bring 4 girls between the ages of 12-16 and one Nepali chaperone. The chaperone is to ensure sustainability after the camp is over…we want the girls and the chaperone to go around and give a presentation to their classes and communities about what they learned and hold discussions. We planned 4 major topics to touch on during the camp, so over 4 days the girls will learn about Health, Gender Issues/Roles, Empowerment, and Life Skills/Future Careers. We have teamed up with an organization in Pokhara called“Empowering Women of Nepal” who have agreed to help us organize and run the camp, as well as give the daily trainings. Each day, 2 volunteers are responsible for making sure everything runs smoothly, as well as planning the activities that follow the sessions. Myself and another volunteer, Ethan, are running the Life Skills day.  Lots of planning to go, but we’re hoping to hold the camp in July when all of the students are on a break from school.

Last night we celebrated my little sister Aaastha’s 11th birthday. I bought a Funfetti cake mix and frosting when I was in Pokhara and made it last night….on the gas stove. I had been planning to cook it in the rice cooker, but as luck would have it, we had no power yesterday, so the gas stove it was. It turned out deliciously but let me say that it was probably the ugliest cake I have ever seen. I epically burned the bottom of the cake and smoked out my kitchen and had to cut a lot of it off. Adventures in cooking baked goods on a stove are not over yet…have to make another cake for my others sister’s birthday in a month.
Terrible looking but tasty!
Birthday girl, Aaastha!
Winter seems to be about over here, and we just had 4 days of heavy rain which gave everyone a nice little sneak peek of what monsoon season is like again. Im trying to get in as much running on the roads as possible before I’m restricted to P90X and my tiny room for exercise when the roads inevitably become washed out. Its also almost potato picking season…then comes corn planting and then all the snakes come out of hiding and invade the village.

 I also seem to have developed a really unfortunate reaction to some sort of insect here. Whatever is biting me must have some sort of venom that dissolves flesh. That sounds terrible and bad but every bite I am getting from this insect is creating a massive red circle around the bite that then turns purple and itchy and then it all falls off. Its disgusting…#nepalproblems. I think it’s a spider. I tried to go to the doctor in Pokhara to get it looked at but of course the day I went, all the hospitals in Nepal were on a 4 day strike and were only accepting emergency patients. A hospital strike. I swear this could only happen here. Additionally I find that I scar extremely easily here (probably due to the lack of nutrients in rice/potatoes) so now I have purple scars all over my feet. Hope I just painted a nice visual for you all.

I had visitors earlier this month! My best friend from Bucknell, Jenni, and her friend Dana from grad school came to visit me! They had been in Thailand for a couple weeks before coming to Nepal and I felt so incredibly lucky that they chose to fly up and see me! It was so wonderful to see Jenni and meet Dana and we had a nice teary reunion in the bus parking lot. I was a bit worried about meeting them because they had missed their original bus and we had no way of contacting each other but Jenni eventually called me on her American phone and it all worked out. We spent the next week catching up on each others lives from the past year and a half and freezing our butts off in teahouses while trekking, reminiscing about senior year at Bucknell over endless cups of milk tea and egg noodle soup We spent a couple days in my village being lazy and wandering around, mostly due to the fact that none of us could walk after hiking. They got to meet little Biraalo and eat daal bhat with my family and see my life here! I was sad to see them go but also felt so fortunate that I have friends like them, who were willing to spend so much money to come visit me and bring me Goldfish and other American delights. Thank you guys!!

Jenni, Dana and I in Ghorepani