1 year

Ek barsa bhayo. 1 year done. Can’t believe a whole year has passed since I first arrived in Nepal, and now there are 27 new volunteers in country. My group, G-199, are the “old volunteers” now. Sixteen of us have made it this far, and im hopeful the 16 of us will all be together at our close of service conference next year.

Honestly, there were times I wasn’t sure I was going to reach the year mark. Then again, there have also been times when 2 years doesn’t seem like enough to get done what I want to accomplish. This past year has been filled with such highs and lows like I have never experienced. Its crazy to think what has become “normal” for me, and I feel like I struggle more and more to write blogs because my day to day life isn’t that crazy anymore! 

After spending almost 2 full weeks in Kathmandu last month, I was seriously ready to get back to the village. I loved eating awesome food and hanging out with my friends all day in the city, but I kind of missed the slow paced village way of things. I hadn’t read my book in over a week or really had a lot of downtime for that matter. After a week of American type foods, my stomach actually wanted daal bhaat, something it was used to. Most of all, I wanted to sleep. I do not sleep in Kathmandu. None of the volunteers do. I was craving crawling back under my mosquito net and sleeping a solid 8 hours. Kathmandu is extremely fun and crazy, but overwhelming, exhausting, and extremely polluted. This moral of this little story is that I missed the village. I think after a year in Nepal, and 9 months in my village, I consider it home.

I feel that my language still continues to improve, although quite slowly.  I still struggle with work related conversations, but day to day interactions are second nature now and I can laugh and joke with my neighbors quite easily. My clothes are definitely struggling however. A year of being handwashed on a rock and sun dried has left my wardrobe looking less like the REI/North Face store I brought with me and more like the homeless man on the street corner. Kidding, its not that bad, but they are definitely looking a little ragged and need to be swapped out soon when my parents come in November!

This year has definitely been quite a learning experience, not only about all things Nepal related, but about myself as well, and how this experience might fit into my future plans. Believe it or not, I think a lot of us are starting to slowly prepare for whats next. We’ve turned the corner and are heading into our last half of service and I think its finally dawned on us that this experience isn’t forever. The light at the end of the tunnel is approaching. Yes, we have about 14 months left, but compared to the 27 we started with, it isn’t a lot. Not to mention if the second year goes as fast as this first I’ll be home in no time. Us volunteers eventually have to join society as productive human beings eventually. Wearing the same clothes for 3 days and showering once a week just isn’t gunna cut it J I’m signed up to take the GRE the day before I fly out for India this December, and I’ll be finished applying to grad schools when I get home next winter.

Anyways, enough of this future talk. I’m supposed to be analyzing my last year here. Sometimes I look back at the last year and think “what just happened.” Seriously, sometimes I don’t know what I have done in the past year to make it pass by this quickly. Its like when someone asks me what I do each day here. I don’t know, but somehow I manage to pass the time. I think most of the people in my group (including me) don’t particularly like analyzing our last year here, especially since a lot of us don’t have a lot of work-related products to show for it. We have friendships and relationships with our community and host families, but no real “concrete” results that we Americans love to base our work worth on.

You know what I do have to show for 12 months in Nepal? A word document listing the 38 books I have read thus far, numerous empty peanut butter containers,  a bottle of flea medicine leftover from my 24-hour kitten, a closet full of very worn clothes, 10+ badges from agriculture programs I’ve attended, countless Pepto Bismol wrappers, long hair, a pierced nose, and what I feel to be a very good relationship with my community. And that I think, is what is going to keep me going. Knowing I have people who care about me here, want to know where I am at all times, want to know what I’m always up to. At times feeling like I’m stuck in a fishbowl, I realize my frustrations are based off of other people’s genuine concerns. I get frustrated with people because they care about me, and then I feel like an idiot. I cant say Ive really made a huge difference in Nepali agriculture practices here, but I do feel good about the relationships I’ve built in my community and with my family. I have to constantly remind myself that my community doesn’t hate me because I haven’t drastically changed their lives. I most likely wont, and theyre not expecting me to. I sometimes feel that they are expecting more out of me, but then I realize that most of them are very content with me just coming to their houses and having snack and talking with them, not furiously planting a new improved garden in their yard.

My map project, which I had thought would take 2 months max, has turned into a 5 months ordeal due to all the random holidays and exams the students have. Not to mention my being in Kathmandu a lot due to trainings. BUT, I reallllllly think we can finish this thing within the next month. My friend Kerry (also my closest volunteer-2 hours away), came down last week to help me re-do the grid on my map. We locked ourselves in the 7^th grade classroom for 6 hours and erased, re-drew, erased some more and drew some more until we had a satisfactory grid. I think we went through about 8 erasers and 6 pencils, ending with almost half an inch thick of eraser shavings on the floor afterwards. I realized the root of my problem the first time is that the school walls aren’t straight. You cannot assume anything built here is actually straight. I stuck a level against the wall and the little bubble was nowhere near the middle. The first time I based my measurements on the walls themselves which proved problematic. Kerry and I had to devise a plumb line using my room key and some of her yarn to find “true” straight and let gravity do the work. Once we had one straight line it was fairly straightforward after that, just quite tedious.

Anywho, grid is done, now its time to start drawing the countries! Unfortunately school is now out for another week due to exams and Teej, the upcoming women’s festival. The construction and planning of my villages collection center has also been put on hold for a month due to Teej and Dashain. I guess I’ll be doing a lot of GRE studying over the next month…

Want to finish this blog off by just saying thank you to all my friends and family who have supported me along the way, sending me letters, emails of encouragement, and American food! Ma dhanyabaad dina chahanchhu. I want to give my thanks. Couldn’t have done it without you guys. Looking forward to the next 14 months of service!

Love from Nepal,

Alex