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 |
No comments:
Post a Comment