Re-defining normal

Proof time is passing faster: I literally thought I just wrote my last blog, but then I realized I wrote it right after my mom’s birthday, which was over a month ago. Woops. BUT, I did realize today is my 6-month anniversary of leaving home! Happy 6-months to me. Crazy to think I’ve been in Nepal for almost HALF A YEAR. I am happy to say in this blog that we have not lost any more members of N-199 since my last post, so that is good.

So what have I been up to? Lots! Agriculture wise, I’m making more progress. I went to my first agriculture meeting eklai the other day. Alone. It actually went fine! It was a short meeting and we talked about how far to plant tomato seedlings apart, and then some man took me on a tour of his ket, or vegetable fields. He had over 1000 cabbage plants…it was quite impressive. I am also in the process of making “compost tea” at my own house. Its basically small-scale compost in a bucket; you add a liter of water everyday and there is a small hole in the bucket where water drips out. You collect the water everyday and then pour it on the plants. I’m sectioning off a section of the garden to try it out on and see how it turns out. I’m really hoping there are visible results because then I can hopefully teach it to other agriculture groups around the area! I also attended another mushroom making workshop, where we planted mushrooms in wood. Last time we had planted them in plastic bags with straw as media, so this was a new method for me. And right now at my site, is what I would like to call the “great potato harvest of 2013.” Holy potatoes. My family is in the middle of harvesting our allu right now and I’ve just never seen so many potatoes in my life. My job is to be the “grader” and sort all of them into piles for selling at the market (thulo allu, or big potatoes), use for next seasons planting (biu ko laagi, or for seeds), and naraamro allu, or bad potatoes. We spent all day today doing this, and will spend all day tomorrow too. At the end of the day we carry them all home in dokos¸ which are these big wooden baskets with a naamlo attached. The naamlo is basically a woven strap with rope attached that you put across your head to carry whatever you are carrying. Well, I decided to be like “yeah family, I can most definitely carry those 50 lbs of potatoes on my head.” So they strapped it on and off I went….I made it halfway home and thought I was dying. My naamlo had slipped back too far and so I literally thought my entire neck was going to snap back and break. Good thing a neighbor came to the rescue. I’m scared to see how my body is going to feel tomorrow.

As I write this, I am struggling to remember what I’ve been doing for 4 weeks. I guess I’ve re-defined my definition of normal. Things that used to be weird just aren’t anymore. Except for eating random animal body parts…never going to get over that one. Oh, I did learn to public bathe though and its actually something I will probably continue during my time here…the water is so much warmer. Girls here basically wear a strapless dress made of cloth and you just bathe wearing that. It was hard at first but you get used to it. And its nice to be able to actually stand under a stream of water at the tap rather than bucket bathe.

My baby buffalo got loose today and was running around like a maniac in our courtyard and then spotted me and wouldn’t leave me alone. I had my hands full with things and was trying to run away but he wouldn’t stop following me. He knows I feed him everyday! Then I thought to myself, “theres a water buffalo running around my courtyard” and that was a small moment where I was like my life is weird.

I took a nice excursion with my family to 2 other districts nearby to mine a couple weeks ago. My sister and I were invited to Gulmi district by the ex-agriculture supervisor from my district for an ag program. However, after 85  hours of travel (actually only 7) and wayyyy too much vomit, we found out there wasn’t much of an ag program. I did get to tour a small village that used mouth suction to transport their water from a collection site to their own personal water tanks. Blew my mind..some of their tanks were over 400 meters away from the main pond. Oh also on the bus ride 2 Indian men tried to convert me to Christianity. And I thought to myself, “really? In a country that is almost all Hindu, you are going to choose the one white person you meet, who has a realllllly good chance of already being Christian, to convert?” Anyways, bad choice for them. They gave me a nice pamphlet and I pretended to read it, except my reading level is at the second grade level here and it was all in script, so I understood nothing. Thank gosh (for me) one of them men started barfing and so I could escape. Ok back to my story. Turns out there wasn’t an ag program, and I think the ex-supervisor’s goal in life was to cook me and my sister good food and let me watch TV. Because that’s what I did for 2 days. Somehow American VH1 was on the TV so I didn’t really move for 5 hours. And this man had a cook and so his cook kept bringing my sister and I popcorn in bed and all sorts of delicious things. It was awesome. Both my sister and I were a bit confused on why we were there though. We did also take a tour of a man’s farm who had amazing suntala (orange) trees. I think the orange guy’s goal in life was to feed me a million oranges but after I ate 5 my mouth started bleeding so I told him I had to stop, but I assured him they were delicious, which they were.  After a lovely 48 hours in Gulmi district, my sister and I went to Palpa, which is the district just below mine. My aunt and uncle live there so we spent the day with them. We went to Srinagar that day, which is sort of a big park that has amazing views of Tansen, which is the district capital of Palpa (see my facebook album for photos). The views were awesome and we walked around for a bit. Definitely someplace I’d like to go back to, as it would be a fun place to camp or have a picnic. My aunt and uncle have their own car, so as we were driving back to their house from Srinagar, my little cousin who speaks good English told me they had 1 English song in all of their music. I was excited to see what it would be…was definitely not expecting “My Humps” by Fergie to come on. I almost died laughing and my family couldn’t understand why.

My sister’s husband is coming back from Qatar in 10 days, so I’m excited to meet him. My village (along with most places in my district), seriously lack men from age 25-45. They simply just don’t exist. My village only has young boys and old men. They are all off in other countries working and sending back remittances. All of them stay for 2-year stretches and then come home for a period of 2 months and then repeat it again. Theres seriously a reason why all kids here are 2 years apart in age from each other. I actually had to say my first goodbye in Nepal about 2 weeks ago. My neighbor’s husband was returning back to Dubai where he works as a driver for an oil company. I had really grown to like him over the past 3 months, and he was always around if I ever needed anything fixed in my room. I don’t think I realized he worked in Dubai for a while, so it was sad to have to say goodbye, especially since I won’t be crossing paths with him ever again…I’ll be back in America when he next returns to Nepal.

I have my IST (In-Service Training) coming up in 4 weeks, which is around 8 days of technical and language training PC gives us after being at site for a while. It will be great to be with the whole group again, since we haven’t all been together since Christmas. Before IST however, I will be trekking and white-water rafting for 5 days! I got really lucky. I mentioned this in an earlier blog, but good family friends are coming to Nepal for 10 days, and they so nicely invited me along on part of their trip! I’m stoked to see people from home. My friend Shaeffer is also coming to Nepal next month and is coming to stay at my site for a little, which will be fun, as no one has visited me yet! We sort of met in Winthrop this summer (Shaeffer, I’m copying you on this one), but have been keeping in contact since we both found out each other will be here.

I’m currently trying to learn my Nepali numbers, as I can only confidently count up til 30. I never realized how easy English numbers are until I learned Nepali. Theres absolutely no internal pattern to the numbers…its completely necessary to learn each one. Strugglessss.

I’ll try and be a better blog-writer,

Alex

 

An accurate description of service

2 blog posts in 1 week! I'm really getting it together. just kidding, I actually was about to go to bed but then found the passage below on another PCV blog and felt like I needed to post it asap.

Quick note on my life the past week:
Its been a torrential downpour at site the last couple days, which has essentially left me stranded in my house. I was supposed to walk to town to meet my counterpart and discuss what I’ve been up to, but that wasn’t really an option with Hurricane Katrina raging outside my window. Makes me kind of wonder what in the hell I’m going to do during monsoon season, when it rains EVERY. SINGLE. DAY….one can only watch so many episodes of TV on their computer in a day (I admit, I watched 6 episodes of Dexter in one day). I did let my sister cut my hair though. All I can say is that I’ve made better life decisions before…

My grandma made kir for dinner tonight, and let me tell you, kir is absolutely delicious, but also terribly bad for you. You basically cook rice in pure milk and add a crap ton of sugar until it is a pudding-like mixture. And then my grandma poured melted butter all over it. And that, my friends, is the reason why I will have diabetes when I finish service here.

On a more serious note, in my spare time I like to read other PC blogs from all over the world; gives me an idea of what other PCV’s are up to and sometimes helps me out when I’m struggling with being here. I stumbled across a blog from a PCV in Tanzania, who had stumbled onto another PCV’s blog from Cambodia who wrote the following: (I take no credit for this, and like the PCV from Tanzania, I don’t feel like I could express what Im going through any better than this):

“Dear Person Contemplating Joining Peace Corps,

I imagine that you’re at a transition point in your life. Perhaps you’ve just graduated, perhaps you’re going through a career change, perhaps you have an itch for something more that can’t be scratched. Whatever the reason, here you are: contemplating joining Peace Corps.

But should you? Is it right for you?

Honestly, you might not know that until you’ve arrived. You can research by reading books and official publications or by talking with current/returned volunteers, but everything you read and hear will probably tell you the same thing: every person’s experience is different. Your Peace Corps life will be uniquely shaped by your country, program, and site.

I’d like to think, though, that there are a few things that are universal throughout the Peace Corps world, and those things tend all to revolve around how you yourself will change - for the better and for the worse - because of your time in Peace Corps.

‘Sanitary’ will become an obsolete concept. You will eat on mats that you know are saturated in urine. You will prepare food on counters that also serve as chicken roosts. You will not have consistent/frequent access to soap. You will eat street food that is undoubtedly questionable. You will be dirty, dusty, and sweaty at all times. You will have mind over body battles to force yourself to bucket shower in the winter. Bugs, lizards, chickens, ducks, and mice will crap on everything. These things will be ok. You’ll adjust. The sterile environment of the States will become a distant odd memory or a constant fantasy.

Your body, though, might not adjust as quickly. You will have parasites and infections and illnesses that you had never heard of before training. You will be constantly constipated. Or go the opposite extreme. I hate to say it, but you will probably poop in your pants at least once. You will learn to vomit over a squat toilet and into a plastic bag during a bus ride. You will discuss your bodily functions openly and enthusiastically with other volunteers. No topic will be taboo.

The way you communicate will completely transform. Learning a language from scratch through immersion is a powerful experience. You will learn to have complex communications though expressions, gestures, and basic vocabulary. You will learn to bond with another human being through silence. You will answer the same basic questions over and over and over again. You may never achieve the ability to discuss ideas and concepts. You will develop a new English language which consists of pared down vocabulary and grammatical structures. You will actively think of each word before you speak. Your speech patterns will slow. You will have to define words whose meanings you had always taken for granted. You will learn to listen.

Your concept of money will entirely alter. Paying more than $1 for anything will cause you to pause and question your purchase. You will understand value in the context of a different economic system. You will learn to barter, even on cheaper items. You will consistently feel as though you have been cheated on the price. You will be enraged by all prices upon returning to the States.

You will embrace the thrilling dichotomies of thrift versus splurge and ration versus binge. No one knows how to budget like a Peace Corps volunteer. And no one can binge like one.

You will be discontented with your work. You will wonder – and scream to the heavens – about the benefit of your presence. You will feel lost in unstructured expectations and crushed by promising ideas fallen to the side. Your expectations will fade into an unexpected reality. You will learn to celebrate small victories. You will look at mountains and see mole hills. You will try to tackle the impossible. Maybe you’ll succeed. Maybe you’ll just pick yourself up and take aim at another impossibility.

You will learn to do all of this through pure self-motivation. You will be the one to drag yourself out of bed and out the door. You won’t have anyone holding your hand or pushing your forward. Just you. You will become a stronger person for yourself, by yourself.

You will be a celebrity in your community. That status comes will hardships and benefits that will ineradicably change you. You will be the exception to the societal rules. You will be the foreigner, the one set apart. You will receive privileges and have special attention/status because of your nationality. You will always have eyes on you. You will have joined as an agent of culture exchange and understanding, but you will still find yourself falling into an ‘us versus them’ mentality. Use it. Consider it. Contemplate the value we place on people because of arbitrary characteristics. You will come away from your experience more attune to your own merits, to those that are deserved and to those that are given.

Your culture of personal space, one that maybe you have always taken for granted, will be challenged. You will wonder why you need an entire room to yourself while no one else even has a bed to himself. You still won’t want to give your room up. Privacy will be a privilege or a rarity, not a right.

You will lose all control of your emotions and be on an unpredictable roller coaster of extreme ups and downs. You will go from happy and confident to sullen and tearful by things as simple as ants in your candy or yet another child saying ‘Hello!’ Your highs will be high, but they will be fragile. Your lows will feel inescapable. Your family and friends in the States probably won’t understand this. Your isolation will force you to become your own support system. You will become aware of yourself in the context of solely being yourself.

Your government-issued friends will be your reprieve. The love and closeness you share with people back in the States won’t change, but it will be your fellow volunteers who understand. They will be friendships forged from necessity, and they will be deep and fervent.

You will witness a whole new way of life, and you will question your notion of necessity. You will consider your personal wealth, and people will constantly remind you of it. You will discover what your ‘needs’ are to live a productive, satisfied life. I hope you will remember that when you return to a culture of plenty.

You will be the biggest product of your Peace Corps work. You will change. And you will bring that change back with you.”

I’ll leave you to ponder the above passage, blog-readers! I personally feel that it sums up my experience thus far in PC Nepal.

And to end this little blog, I am proud to say that I haven’t pooped my pants yet, but I fear the day when that time will come.
Also, who follows my blog from Mexico???

Peace,

Alex

 

 

pictures!

helping feed my baby buffalo!

 new picture of my room

my favorite little nugget sitting by the fire (Aastha)

sunset in my village 

 almost finished seedling nursery bed

 only picture of me riding a camel!!!! 

 my sister Bishnu and I on the ferris wheel

5 months in

Hello loyal blog readers (aka mom).  Sorry I’ve been MIA the past month, but lots has been happening! Also the fact that I have internet at site makes me semi-lazy because I feel a lot more connected with the world so my blog has been suffering. Anyways, this is going to be a long one. Also I wrote this blog about 2 weeks ago but I realized I'm about 4 days away from my 5-month anniversary here in Nepal!! Time really has flown by.

So lots has happened since I last posted, which was right after New Years. This month has certainly had its ups and downs. N-199 isn’t doing so hot right now…we’ve had 2 volunteers ET (Early Terminate in PC lingo) in the past 2 weeks. Sadly, these 2 people were also people I was very fond of. Statistically, 20% of PC volunteers don’t finish the full 27 months of service, and for a group as small as N-199, who started with 20 volunteers, we’re halfway to fulfilling that statistic. Because we are such a small group, any one person leaving affects us all, as we all got very close during pre-service training.  I didn’t think them leaving would affect me that much but it really messed with my head for a good week and a half. My friend who left is back in the states now, and sometimes I just catch myself thinking like “hey, I could be back in the states too.” Like 2 weeks ago she wanted to go home. And 2 days later she was. I hadn’t thought about leaving at all until she left. We all know as volunteers we can terminate service any time we like. Yes, we took oaths to do this experience for 2 years, but when it comes down to it, I could be back on a plane to America tomorrow if I wanted. This experience isn’t for everyone, and although I DO feel that this experience is for me right now, it was strange to see someone take that option of terminating service early. It reminded me of how easily I could just go home. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on that much at home; at first I was but now its different…When I feel homesick its not like I really want to be home, but more a place where I can actually have real conversations with people. I don’t have that craving to be in America quite as much anymore, which I think is good? Anyways, Peace Corps staff came to my site for a visit right after all of this happened, which was very helpful as they also brought all of my Christmas packages from home! I probably consumed a pound of chocolate that week they visited. Also, my 2 friends who are back in America now…if you are reading this, I miss you both greatly and wish you luck!

Work has slowly been picking up here in my village and I actually have days where I feel like I’m not completely worthless. I think that is the hardest emotion for me to deal with here: feeling worthless. Just because you have those days where you feel like shit about your language and you just think ‘how the hell will I ever get anything accomplished here?’ But then I have days like yesterday which were simply fantastic. My sister and I met my counterpart at a training he was giving about mushroom cultivation. My village had recently undergone some training about it (I had blisters for a good week after from chopping up media for the mushrooms to grow in), so I got up and spoke about what I had seen and learned. It was half in English/half in Nepali, but I still felt good about it. My sister and I have also been going around to different farmers groups and giving trainings about making seedling nursery beds. We’ve been planting different varieties of gourds, squash and cucumber. Yesterday we spent almost 4 hours with one village and started with a giant pile of dirt and plastic and ended up with a neat rows of plastic bags filled with dirt/fertilizer and seeds that we then covered in mulch and plastic to let them grow. I also attended a meeting in my district center (districts are sort of like counties here) at the District Agriculture Development Office and met up with the other agriculture volunteers as well. My counterpart wanted me to speak so I gave a short speech about who I am, what work I am doing, and what I have learned so far. It was all in Nepali and I hate public speaking even in English but it turned out ok. Its honestly the simple achievements here that can make a day so much better.

The other day I was home alone with my grandma who had gone off to cut grass for our water buffalo, so when I received a call from my sister telling me to go to town, I simply left as I had no way of telling my grandma where I went. Well, on the way home with my sister, she decided to play a joke on my grandma/neighbors and call them and pretend not to know where I was. My poor grandma was on speaker phone and started crying because she said she lost me! My sister was peeing her pants laughing and when we hung up I had 5 missed calls from neighbors. I got home and my poor grandma said she had looked all over for me and because I had left my water bottle at home (which I rarely do, but I forgot), she had absolutely no idea where I could have gone for 5 hours. I then got lectured by my neighbors about how I need to let people know where I’m going from now on. Anyways, good to know my family and community cares!!!

Others happenings: our water was shut off for 2 weeks so my family and I were making multiple trips to the nearby water tap for bathing/washing purposes. Even though the water tap is down a very steep hill, my house is very close and I felt bad for the other families who trekked halfway across the village just to fill up their buckets.

My extended family came for a 5 day visit last week and like any family reunion, it was chaos. There were 12 people in my house at one point and because we cant all fit in my kitchen, we had to eat in shifts. Because of this rotational system somehow my 9 year old sister forgot to get fed which was actually hilarious because I feel like it was a Home Alone type of story. She came wandering into the kitchen at about 9pm saying she was hungry and everyone just looked horrified because somehow she never ate. We also slaughtered a chicken one night and had a huge chicken roast. We marinated the meat in a garlic/ginger mixture and I helped fry it in a huge pot of oil. It was delicious and when I was able to get pieces of chicken that were actually meat, it tasted like chicken from home! I’ve still been getting a lot of goat meat at various events I go to and I swear to god I had a windpipe on my plate the other day, so when I am able to eat actual meat it’s a very good day.

Besides helping wash dishes and clean around the house, my new favorite chore is feeding my baby water buffalo every night! He makes cute little buffalo sounds when he sees me coming with his milk. Because we use the milk for our own cooking purposes, he’s not allowed to nurse when he likes it so he gets very riled up around feeding time. I also learned how to make milk tea the other day which makes me feel that I can help out a little more, considering we have tea about 4 times a day.

Spent 2 days in Pokhara with friends last week as well, which was exactly what I needed after my first rough couple weeks of the month. I essentially spent 48 hours consuming pizza and beer and lattes but it helped recharge the batteries and I came back to site feeling very refreshed. It’s a blessing and a curse that Pokhara is near to my site. Its still 4 hours by public transportation so its far enough away I cant go for the day, but close enough for a weekend trip. Its bad because I spend so much money when I go, and for someone who makes the equivalent of around $150 a month its rough. Sometimes you just need pizza and beer though.

Think the 3 week cold spell at my site is over…back to being cold in the mornings but around 65 degrees during the daytime. When PC came to my site they told me im only at 500m above sea level…so much for my adventures in the mountains of Nepal! It explains the monkeys/hiding tigers though. Also saw a scorpion the other day which was disturbing as I was hoping those creatures didn’t live here.

This past week I attended a wedding and a Nepali fair!! Unfortunately, one of the days at the wedding was without a doubt my worst day in Nepal thus far. My sisters and I had started our small family vacation with a nice 2 hour bus ride with my little sister barfing up cabbage the entire way there. 3 of us slept in a bed that night, and it was one of those nights I wasn’t entirely sure I actually slept at all. I woke up with a raging head cold the next day at 5am and spent the entire day getting asked to dance by Nepali women. I was exhausted and freezing cold and was sick and tired of telling people I didn’t want to dance over and over again and its really hard to explain but it was just an overall shit day where I wanted to be as far away from Nepal as possible. I told my family I had a headache at 7pm and went to the room where we were staying and crawled into bed. Unfortunately, every single lady at the wedding who had a baby had put their children in there to nap, which was fine until one of the 2-year olds fell out of the bed it was sleeping in and started screaming. So I picked it up and headed back to the wedding in the pitch black and had to run around asking every single Nepali whose child I was holding. I eventually found its mom but then I got captured by the women and got force-fed rice but I eventually managed to escape and slept maybe 3 hours that night. FORTUNATELY, bad days are generally followed by good ones, which is good for me to remember here. As shitty as one day can be, its never permanent and I know I will feel better soon.

 And today I got to go to a Nepali fair!! It was like a normal carnival in the states, except without any sort of safety regulations whatsoever. I thought to myself instead of Peace Corps making rules about how we cant pierce our ears during service or ride a motorcycle, maybe they should make a rule that we aren’t allowed to ride on carnival rides. This one ride was a giant swinging hammer and people were standing and hanging on to the metal bars while it swung higher and higher. Naturally, I went on this ride 3 times. I also saw a Nepali magic show and was boggled because I seriously couldn’t figure out how this dude managed to make someone disappear 5 feet from my face. The best part about this whole carnival is that I GOT TO RIDE A CAMEL. Instead of normal pony rides, they had camel rides! I randomly ran into another volunteer at the fair and I made her ride the camel with me. It was awesome. I really wanted the camel to get rowdy and start running around but sadly we just walked, and had to duck our heads every 5 seconds so we didn’t get strangled by electric wires. It was super fun though and I also got to eat ice cream so it was a good day.

Alright, I realized I actually have a lot more to say but im going to save it for another post, hopefully which will be written sometime in the next week or so!

Namaste,

Alex

my first holiday season in Nepal

Happy New Year everyone! Today is not only January 1^st, but also marks the end of my first full month at permanent site. I survived! 1 down, 23 to go J  Nepalis do not celebrate the New Year, as they are on a completely different calendar than us (it’s the year 2069 here and the 15^th of the month), so I watched some Lord of the Rings, ate a little peanut butter, and passed out by 9:30. Such a party animal. Anyways, looking forward to what’s in store in 2013! I have my first visitors coming to Nepal in March from my hometown (hello Wathen family!) and am very excited to see some familiar faces while they are on their spring break here.

Also, I now have internet!!!! Yes, the rat bedroom has joined the 21^st century. I bought a small internet USB stick that I use to check email and facebook now. I load minutes onto the sim card just like my cell phone here. Its both a blessing and a curse, mostly because I fail at having any sort of self control while on the internet. Its also hard seeing what people are up to and not being able to partake in any of those activities back home, but its been great at keeping in better contact with people. I can even Skype on it! So…send me some emails and I will respond to them!

I spent Christmas in Pokhara with the other volunteers and like my internet stick, it was both awful and great. Awful because Christmas day was really shitty. All of us were extremely homesick and I didn’t expect to get that upset about not being at home. I skyped with my family and started bawling when I saw my dog. Star and I were best friends earlier this summer when none of my friends were home yet, so I got very sad when I saw her with her cute Christmas collar on. For an animal lover like me, its hard not to have a dog and a cat in your bedroom at all times like I did at home! However I’ve come to realize I have essentially no control over my emotions lately, so I let myself cry on the phone with my parents and then had a celebratory Christmas dinner with the other volunteers (I ate enchiladas). We did a small white elephant gift exchange at dinner and I ended up with 5 rolls of toilet paper. Whats sad is that I stole that gift from someone else. Other gifts included a tree branch (good job Chad), a “no-pooping” sticker, mint tea, a hat and some kama sutra playing cards.  Christmas eve was fantastic though…I got to go horseback riding and have amazing views of the Annapurna mountain range. Pokhara is beautiful…its Nepal’s tourist destination and outdoor adventure hotspot. Its situated right on a lake so at the end of the horseback ride, the nice Nepali man who took us let my friend and I canter our ponies along the shore and it was so much fun. I could barely walk the next day however. I was happy I was even able to go horseback riding though, as my first day in Pokhara I was about 90% sure I had gotten giardia and spent my day eating saltines and drinking oral rehydration salts and making 45 trips to the bathroom (no shame about these things anymore). Nothing about 25 pepto couldn’t fix though! Anyways, Pokhara was filled with lots of pizza and pasta eating, beer drinking, and lots of quality time spent catching up with the other volunteers. We also rented a boat on Christmas eve and rowed it across the lake and hiked up to the World Peace Pagoda. It was an hour straight up of stone steps but the view at the top was amazing. I put pictures up on facebook. Leaving Pokhara was sad because we wouldn’t see each other again until April for our In-Service Training, but each of our districts are still trying to get together every six weeks or so.

Going back to site after a couple days of speaking pure English was a bit rough but after about 2 days I settled back into the small routine I have developed. My water buffalo had a baby while I was gone so we have tons of fresh milk and I drink about 7 cups a day now. I’ve been busy going to lots of farmer’s meetings and have started speaking a bit at each one now that my Nepali has gotten slightly better. Each day I understand more, but its still hard because people talk so fast. Highlights of the week include: learning to carry about 30 lbs of firewood on my head! I had eaten shit down a mountain trail the week before so while my sister and her friends carried about 50 lbs of firewood down the mountain, I wasn’t even allowed to carry the knife because they thought I would kill myself if I fell again. And there they were with 50lbs strapped to their back. But, after much persuasion they finally let me carry a small load the other day and it made me feel very accomplished.

Not much else to report! The things that I once thought were strange or unusual are getting more and more routine here. Its weird that its January 1^st. I’m sitting in a t-shirt. Its like living in the friggin’ desert here. So cold in the mornings and at night but it gets to about 70 during the day. I want me some snow. Peace Corps is coming to my site in 10 days for a visit and I’m super pumped to get mail from the past month and get specific language questions answered. Its weird because sometimes I get very frustrated when I cant understand people here and I just want to yell at them to speak English or I magically expect English to come out of their mouths, but then I realize they cant and then I have to make myself really concentrate on what they are saying. It takes up so much of my brainpower especially when I go to Nepali programs where people are talking so fast. Its definitely getting easier though .I also love my family so much. They are awesome..I feel that I really lucked out. I stupidly realized the other day that my grandma actually lives with us and wasn’t just visiting for the past month…it was very confusing because my aunt has been here the past 2 weeks as well but she lives in the district south of me so I thought that my grandma did too. Nope.

Happy Holidays! (which I guess are now over)

-Alex

 

 

life at perm site

I have a new address! I also posted it under a new link on the top of my blog, but here it is:

Alexandra Clayton

Agriculture Service Center

Galyang, Syangja District

Gandaki Archal, Nepal

Hope stuff gets there. Don't send any more mail to the Kathmandu address because it is 9 hours away from me and I would never get mail otherwise!

                As I write this blog, its my 1 week anniversary of being at site! It feels like when I just came to Nepal...I feel that i've been in my new home much longer than 7 days. I absolutely love my family though. My sister is amazing...she's so patient with my language and takes me everywhere she goes, which is great because shes a very active member in the farmer's group here. I think my sisters are still a little scared of me as they dont often speak directly to me, but theyre warming up. I taught them how to frat-snap the other day (Daina/Jenni you will most appreciate this) and they help me with my language. I've been using tenses in Nepali that I rarely used in Chhap, so its been a daily struggle to train my ears to respond to various forms of a verb that I'm not used to hearing. In addition to the I, you, he/she/it, we,you all, they forms of verbs, Nepali also has different conjugations for someone who is older or younger than you, as well as an informal tense. As you can imagine this gets very confusing and I keep addressing my younger sisters in the formal "you" tense which they essentially won't respond to. Its a work in progress.  Otherwise I've been very busy attending farmer's meetings and introducing myself to my community. Ive been running in the mornings which has proved much scarier than usual as there is a large troupe of monkeys living right below my house. I was sitting by a water tap trying to catch my breath after my run when about 10 monkeys came out of nowwhere and scared the shit out of me. They're actually quite a nuisance here as people are constantly chasing them out of their gardens. I'm not sure what kind of monkeys they are (language is not advanced enough to ask this question), but they look to be some sort of baboon to me.

Today was actually particularly hard. I have these days here where I feel that my language progress is fantastic, and then days like today where I feel like I couldnt understand a word of what people were saying. I have yet to find anyone in my villlage who speaks any English.  I was sick of saying "Maile bujhina" , which means "I dont understand" like 95 times in a row at my relatives house so I peaced out and headed home where I proceeded to bury myself in my bed and read Bridget Jones Diary for a solid hour before I finally felt like being social again. It is so true that in Peace Corps you can be surrounded by tons of people yet still feel so alone. I decided to drag my butt out of bed and go to the local chiyaa pasal and get some tea and study my Nepali. Of course like 10 people came over to see what the white girl was doing so i didnt really get any studying done, but then I made a friend! Her name's Rita and shes 21. She started talking with me at the tea shop and even though I could barely undersand her she invited me to her house for tea and biscuits. Her husband works in Dubai and she told me she was really lonely so that we should hang out a lot. Then she painted my nails and put CNN on the TV for me! I havent seen any American television since I left so watching CNN was like crack to me, even though it was about some sailing race in San Francisco. Solid day afterall.  (Update: my new friend is now pregnant! Not much we have in common obviously but it will be cool to see her kid grow up a little!) I feel that mornings are always a little rough here but things tend to progress throughout the day. Reading has really been my savior so far. I’ve always been an avid reader but never found time at school to read for pleasure, and I've missed it. Its nice to unwind each day in my bed with my kindle. I'll say it a hundred times, but if you bring one thing to peace corps, bring a kindle.

Update: I’ve now been at site for 2 weeks. Its both flown by and also dragged on. Some days are good, some not so good. I finally cracked last week and called my parents crying. There wasnt really a particular reason, and all i could basically say was “I’m sad.” Felt much better afterwards. Some days are just frustrating because you feel like you can’t understand anything/are worthless. I do feel like I've hit the jackpot with my family though; I absolutely love them. Two weeks in I was able to see other volunteers for the first time! I had a great 24 hours in the district capital with them just catching up and chatting about our crazy lives at site. It was weird to return home that night and switch back to speaking only Nepali.My bus ride back was less than fun as the didi behind me was violently throwing up the entire 2 hours back into a plastic bag. Nepali women are notorious for getting sick on public transportation. Not that I can blame them, as the roads are so windy that its enough to make anyone sick.

Today I watched 19 goats get slaughtered. NINETEEN. I was still not able to figure out the reason why even after asking numerous times, but apparently they do this every 5 years, and someone’s son had also recently gotten married so that might have contributed to the large number of goats being killed. They would lead each goat one by one into a small clearing blocked off by trees, then there would be a loud “whack” and then a headless goat body would go flying through the air and land on the ground outside. I learned today that headless goat bodies will thrash around for a solid 5 minutes afterward and will kick you if you are in the way. An hour later 19 headless goats were tied up on the ground and ready to be cooked. And then we ate them. They gave me organ meat again and thats really just something I am never going to eat in Nepal or any other country for that matter. I’ve been really flexible otherwise and will basically eat anything someone gives me. That butter that sits on the shelf in a jar for the whole week? Sure, give me some of that. Those potatoes that you are literally preparing inside of the cow shed? Sure. But no, I will not be eating organ meat anytime soon.

As I write this update, its December 19, and I feel like I should be getting in a Christmasey mood, but its hard when its 70 degrees out everyday and I walk around in a jungle with monkeys everywhere. Not complaining however! Lets see...other notable happenings this week: my entire pinky nail finally fell off. I had cut it back during training on my razor while packing and it finally ripped off while I was washing clothes the other day. So that was fun. My sister is teaching me how to dance Nepali style because we end each agriculture meeting by dancing and singing and I really need to learn so i can stop making a fool out of myself. OH I FORGOT: I made Nepali television last week!!!!!! I attended a big program for my VDC because we had just been declared Open-Defecation Free. This is a big deal as this means that every family in my VDC has a working toilet and no one is pooping out in the open anymore. Sanitation is one of Nepal’s millenium goals so this is a big step; this also means I wont be building any charpis during my time here. (not complaining) Anyways, the guy leading the program immediately spotted the only white kid in the crowd and made me come sit up with all the district officials. It was going great and they were feeding me tea and biscuits and whanot but then THEY MADE ME DANCE. In front of about 200 people. Nepali style. Not that I can dance anyways, but still.  It was atrocious and they filmed the entire thing and I had to re- live the same hell the next night when I watched myself on TV. My family was ecstatic however and my sister thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Other things I have learned/discovered this week:

When Nepali women get very excited and happy they like to slap you in the face. This was very shocking the first time. I’ve met a woman who has 8 grown sons and no daughters so she told me I can be her daughter which is fine except that she won’t stop petting me/slapping my face when I go over for tea.

Nepali women like to put oil in their hair immediately after showering which is really great because after not showering for 4 days its the same effect for me and everyone thinks my hair looks fantastic.

My water buffalo is about to give birth any second now so maybe I will adopt a baby buffalo as my first pet in Nepal. There are also 5 adorable kittens running around the attic of the barn but they wont let me near them which makes me sad. I’m also a little bitter about it because there are approximately 100 rats that live in my ceiling and the cats seem to be useless.

Hope everyone is doing well at home. This is my first non-snowy christmas in a while so I hope that everyone in Winthrop is taking full advantage of all the snow I have been hearing about.

Love from the Asian continent,

Alex

 

 

im a real volunteer now!

So this blog is basically separated into 2 separate ones, the first part is from my week in Kathmandu, and the second is from when I got to my permanent site! The power was out our entire last day in KTM, so I didnt have time to post a blog or put up pictures. its long as hell, sorry.            

Week 12: Kathmandu has been a whirlwind of activity since we arrived here last Friday. Leaving Chhap for KTM on Friday was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever had. Our community put on a program for me, Marvin, Andrea, and Brandon to say goodbye. Everyone in the whole community came out and they gave some speeches and proceeded to give each of us 5 shawls and about 10 flower necklaces. We also had red tikka smeared all over our cheeks and face for good luck. I had red dust all over my clothes and rice in my hair, and on top of it all, the 4 of us were crying heavily. I did not expect to get that sad but it was hard not to...these people had become our families over the past 3 months. The saddest thing to see I think were my little cousins crying...Sunil was sobbing in a corner and wouldnt let anyone console him. Marvin's mom was clinging to him and would barely let us go, and even the lady who made us our milk tea every morning was crying. I think it was very emotional for us volunteers because we were not only leaving our families but we were also leaving everything we had ever known in Nepal behind. Everything I knew about Nepal I had learned in Chhap and it was scary to think about starting over again.

                Right now we're in a hotel in Kathmandu completing our last week of training. The hotel is fairly nice...hot water is sometimes available and we have our own private bathrooms. I have woken up with 4 extremely large spider bites however. Saturday we had our final Language Proficiency Exams in the morning and had the afternoon free to explore. By some miracle of god I managed to pass my langugae exam at the Advanced Low level which was quite shocking to me. All 20 of us managed to get Intermediate High or over, which is required of us to become volunteers, so we went out that night to celebrate. We went to a few bars in Thamel that night, which is the tourist area of Kathmandu. The second bar Peace Corps completely took over. THe 15 of us who went out took over the dance floor while all of the Nepalis just stared at us. Thamel was a crazy experience in general; they have legitimate North Face and Mountain Hard Ware stores and it was so weird to be in those stores and feeling like I was back in America. My friend and I also discovered Wal-Mart in KTM! Not really but it was basically a Wal-Mart. It was called Bhaat Bhateni and you could literally get anything you wanted there, including more toiletries than I have ever seen in my life. I stocked up on some snacks (they had Nature Valley granola bars!) and bought a veggie burger for  45 cents, which was awesome. Ktm also has a Pizza Hut and KFC which is so strange to see. The air pollution here is absolutely terrible and just walking along the street you see people left and right wearing face masks. Its so dusty and smoggy and even walking across the street results in all these tiny particles in my eyes. Not exactly a city I will miss that much at permanent site.

                We've been receiving lots of training the past week on how we report our work with in the peace corps and other information that is necessary for us once we get to our permanent site. We've also been doing these sessions with our Nepali counterparts! Its weird to meet these people and realize you'll be working with them for the next 2 years. My counterpart only calls me by my Nepali name and already told me I'm his daughter, because he has a daughter my age as well. He's a funny dude and his English is decent so we generally get by speaking a mix of Nepali and English. The sessions have actually been really challenging because we are doing lots of one on one talks with our counterparts about our work plans and other projects our villages are working on, and some people's counterparts dont speak any English at all. We're getting by though!

also: I AM NOW A REAL PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER! We had our swearing in today at the US Ambassador's house. Over 200 people were there to come watch us take our oath, including around 12 Volunteers from some of the earliest groups in Nepal (we're Nepal 199!) Stacy Rhodes, Chief of Staff for Peace Corps, also flew all the way out from Washington DC to watch our swearing in as well as the Country Desk officer for peace corps asia. Not only were we the first group to re-enter Nepal since 2004, but it was also the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps being in Nepal, so it was a very special day.  We watched about an hour of speeches and then the US Ambassador to Nepal had us repeat our oath, and then we ate a giant cake afterwards. Myself and 2 other volunteers were chosen to do interviews with the US Embassy's Public Relations staff, so when the video goes up on youtube I will post the link! afterwards we were all taken to a play called Nepali Aamaa which was written by a former Peace Corps volunteer.

The next morning we departed for our districts on separate buses. my district, Syangja, was on 1 bus, while Parbat and Baglung were on another. I can't even describe to you how weird it was to get on these buses without any Peace corps staff. It was just us and our Nepali counterparts. A lot of us were crying as well while saying goodbye to each other. Although we knew we would see each other in a couple weeks for christmas, it was more a sadness that we were done with training and setting off on our own. The bus ride to our district centers took about 8 hours, which the other 7 volunteers and I basically slept through as we had gotten zero amounts of sleep the night before due to it being our last night in KTM. We overnighted in our district centers at a guesthouse. I might as well have slept on the floor as my bed felt like a concrete block. We attended meetings at the district ag and health centers the next morning and then set off for our individual sites after purchasing various last minute items. Kerry (the volunteer nearest me) and i were shoved into a clown car (aka taxi) with our counterparts. Somehow 5 people and the probably 200 lbs of luggage we had fit into the car, except that Kerry and I rode with our water filters and backpacks on top of our laps. Not fun. Again, I cant even describe the feelings I had when I left Kerry, who is my nearest volunteer. We had eaten lunch with our counterparts but had to set off in different directions after lunch. It was terrifying to leave, knowing I was going to be by myself. All day I've been on an emotional rollercoaster.

And now, I am eklai. Alone. My site is beautiful though and I cant wait to explore it. it's called Dimik. I think my entire village greeted me and I was once again smeared with red tikka and given about 10 flower necklaces to wear. All the men helped carry my stuff to my house, which was not an easy feat considering I think my one purple suitcase weighs around 70 lbs right now due to the small library Peace Corps has given us. My homestay family is great so far. I have 2 younger sisters who are 11 and 9, and 1 mom, who is 29, so we call each other 'sister.' My "dad" lives in Qatar and sends back remittances, but I get to meet him in 3 months when he comes back to visit. My house is definitely a step down from my last one, but its very cozy. I do have a TV this time though! I spent a large part of my evening with my sisters watching terrible Nepali music videos. My room is about half the size of my last one, but I have 2 beds now, which is actually a problem because there is no room for anything else. I need to go on a search for a dresser and desk. my whole room is made of clay and is covered in newspapers with a tarp roof. As I type this I hear the little musa (mice) run around upstairs. I will be bucket showering for the next 2 years, and we ate our food sitting cross-legged on the floor this evening. So many changes from my last family. I have a great little courtyard between my bathroom/house though, which looks like a great place to sit in the sun and read or talk with people. I'm a bit screwed on the bathroom situation however...if I am ever sick I have to go down a precarious ladder to get downstairs, then cross the courtyard and go to the bathroom. I shall be purchasing another bucket soon....All in all, what I've seen of my site looks great, it is just weird to be starting over again in such different circumstances!

Update after being at site for 3 days: I've been so busy that I havent had time to have an emotional breakdown yet!!! THe first day my sister took me around to probably 50 different houses where I met a bunch of people and ate tons of food. My sister also took me to the local school where I almost started a riot, due to all the children running out of their classrooms straight towards me. The second day I was here I kind of did the same thing but I had more time alone, which was nice. My sister took me to the local health clinic, which was inconveniently located on top of a small mountain. The doctor wasnt there though so i couldn ask questions about what kind of services they had. I've already had to explain numerous times that even though I studied Biology at college, I am not a veterinarian. I had some man come up to me yesterday and tell me that his water buffalo had diarrhea and if I could come look at it and see. helllll no I am not going to go look at your water buffalo's diarrhea. Then i got asked how far apart to plant potato seeds and again I could not help them. I think that most of the villagers don't know that my Nepali is still pretty limited and that I need to learn a lot more before I am really able to start projects here. My town also has a fish hatchery! Dimik is apparently quite advanced, and also quite large. Even though the town has about 3 little shops, there are over 150 houses here, and its kind of broken up into small neighborhoods. Physically my site is also very different from Chhap as well. Its very jungley and i'm not on top of a mountain this time. Theres a massive river at the bottom of the valley that I want to explore soon, and its been about 70 degrees out each day!!! The nights get cold but during the day the weather is beautiful.

 Yesterday Nepal 199 also started our marathon training! Kidding, kind of. theres a marathon in Pokhara next fall that some of us want to run so we decided to get our butts in shape. Ma moto bhae, kinabhane Nepalmaa dherai bhaat khaainchaa. I have become fat, because a lot of rice is eaten in Nepal. But its actually true. After very limited physical activity the past couple months, I could barely make myself run for a half hour straight. Which is depressing considering the summer before my senior year  and all through my senior year at Bucknell I was running every single day for over an hour. Ke garne?

Alright, well thanks for reading the small novel I wrote.

Love from Dimik,

Alex