Himalayan Rush, that time I went to the hospital, and a visit from friends!

Peace Corps at the triathlon

Well its sure been an interesting last couple of weeks! When I blogged last I think I had 2 weeks to go until the 10k I was running in. The Himalayan Rush Triathlon was a blast. The atmosphere was really fun and it was crazy to watch people complete the entire triathlon. Two other PCVs, Ethan and Amanda, also completed in the sprint triathlon, which was all 3 sports, but all the distances were halved. Nick and I, the other PCV on my team, met up with our friend Manju the day before the triathlon at the briefing session and got to know our teammate a little better. He had traveled all the way from Hyderabad, in the south of India, to compete! I don’t remember if I mentioned it before but he is training to be a Paraolympic athlete for swimming. The morning of the triathlon I woke up with stomach pains but basically attributed it to nerves and anticipation. Although the tri started at 7am, I didn’t end up running until after 10am so I had a lot of time to sit around and watch and be nervous. I tried to eat peanut butter bread but basically gave up after an hour as I knew it was not going to sit well. We did get to chat with a bunch of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who now all work for USAID in Bangladesh though, so that was pretty cool. Peace Corps is everywhere. Once Manju came out of the water from his 1.5k swim, he tagged Nick, who grabbed his bike and went off for his 40k ride. It was pretty amazing.....he couldn’t exactly train at site due to not owning a bike, so he basically cold-turkied the entire 40k. About an hour and a half later he came back to the transition area and tagged off to me! The first half mile was great, really flat and on pavement, and my friends were all around cheering and kids were handing out water to all the participants. Then I reached the hill and proceeded to be experience running hell over the next 3 miles. The route the triathlon people mapped out was insane. The first 3 miles were straight up a hill. And when I say straight up a hill, I mean it. There were legitimately no flat parts for the first half of the rice, minus the first half mile. I kept turning corners while running hoping that I would get a small break but nope, the hill just kept on going. It was also about 90 degrees at this point so I dumped as much water on me as possible. I think every participant ended up walking at one point or another; I did twice, which felt like a failure but it was impossible to keep going. Once I reached the turnaround point though it was great! I dumped more water on myself and then proceeded to speed my little legs down the hill and make up some more time. I ended up completing the whole thing in under 50 minutes, which was my goal, so I was really happy! We stayed around for the awards ceremony (Americans swept the mens podium!) and then headed back to Pokhara to eat some food, take a much needed nap, and celebrate that night.

I woke up the next morning feeling like I was running a fever, but thought it was from my sunburn (I got pretty burnt while running) and being dehydrated. Wrong. The next 4 days were the sickest I have probably been in my entire life. I guess those stomach pains before the race were signs of what was to come. That stomach bug I got when I got back from India? This was about 10x worse. The worst part was that I was in Pokhara so I didn’t have access to my medical kit with all my meds and couldn’t take my temperature. I waited a day to call the doctor to see if it would pass, but then I almost passed out in a restaurant, so I knew it was not going to go away. I literally was lying on the table because I was so dizzy. I ended up at the hospital the next morning to try and figure out what stomach bug I had. It was a terrible experience. The hospital looks like a train station when you walk in, and there were atleast 20 pigeons flying overhead crapping on everything. I waited half an hour just to register, and then got sent upstairs to wait another 2 hours for a doctor to see me. I may or may not have cried to the nurses a little bit to expedite the process, and ended up in the pathology lab 15 minutes later after a hellish experience in the hospital’s public bathroom, which had no soap and no running water. They told me to come back the next day for the results, which also made me mad because that meant another 24 hours of not leaving the bathroom. Long story short, the results somehow came back negative and the PC doctor ended up putting me on antibiotics, which were literally MIRACLE DRUGS. After 2 doses I felt so much better, just in the nick of time, because my friends from school were arriving the afternoon I started my meds.

Baby Riwaj

My friends Daina and Jilli and Daina’s boyfriend Zach came to visit me for a week! I lived with Daina and Jilli my senior year at Bucknell. Daina and Zach both live in Seattle now, and Jilli lives in Switzerland. Because I had just been so sick, we re-arranged our plans a little so that we went back to my village first instead of trekking, since I was just starting to eat again. We had a nice teary reunion at the airport, spent the evening catching up, and then headed to my village the next morning. We got caught in an insane rain/hail storm while getting back so we rolled up to my house soaking wet. Also a shipment of books for the school from the states had just arrived at my local post office so we were lugging that around in the rain as well. The next day we took a tour of my village and I introduced them to people and showed them the collection center, the school, and all the places I normally hang out. When we got back to my house, my neighbor was having a puja for her 6 month old baby. When boys turn 6 months old, and girls turn 5 months old, they have a ceremony where they eat rice for the first time. Everyone gives the baby a bright red tikka on their forehead and then feeds the baby rice. The rice is then wiped off the mouth with money, sort of a good luck. Pretty sure the baby made more money than me on my birthday. They made a huge feast, so Daina/Jilli/Zach got to experience a lot of different Nepali foods, and Zach even tried the goat, which he liked, even though he’s pretty sure there was a tongue on his plate. That night there was the usual dancing and singing and partying late into the evening. My village made my friends dance and in turn, we showed them some American moves. Jilli and I busted out some partner swing dancing, and Zach showed everyone the Bernie. It was great, and I’m glad they got to experience a little of the culture.

Me, Daina, and Jilli in my village

We headed back to Pokhara after 2 nights in my village and then set off for our overnight trek! We trekked up to Panchase, about 6 hours walk from Pokhara. We took a taxi for about an hour to the end of the lake, and I’m actually surprised our taxi made it. It was the bumpiest hour ride I’ve probably ever had, and we kept bottoming out in potholes. Once we reached a small village called Ghattechinna, we set off! It was a beautiful little trek. It was basically stone stairs the entire way so our muscles were burning, but the scenery was great. We trekked through many different villages and I guess word got out fast that a white girl could speak Nepali, because we reached a village and sat down to take a break, and some lady was like “Oh, you live in Syangja?” and I was like how in the hell do you know that. But apparently some lady from a lower village had already told this village who we were. On our way up we also got legitimately charged by a water buffalo. It was terrifying. We were hiking up a particularly steep rocky section when we looked up and saw a water buffalo charging down the hill. Then we quickly realized it was coming straight for us so we ran screaming to hide under a huge boulder and had to grab some big sticks and make a large circle to bypass the buffalo. Whats weird is that water buffalo are normally pretty docile, so I concluded that this one had rabies. The best part of this thing was 3 Nepali women standing high up on the hill with baskets of grass on their heads watching 4 white people scream and run around boulders to escape the buffalo. So that was a little bit of excitement. We reached the top after about 6 hours, muscles aching, and were greeted with absolutely no view whatsoever. The weather was pretty bad when my friends were here, and it was so hazy that you couldn’t see any mountains at all.

Our hostel was an interesting experience. We stayed in a village called Bhanjyang at a little guest house called the Happy Heart Hotel. The guests were quite an eclectic mix. Our next door neighbor was a white guy from Zimbabwe and lit up approximately 4 joints in the 30 minutes we talked with him. We met some Australians and Israelis as well. Everyone had dreadlocks and was doing yoga, 2 things of which I know nothing about. I think some people had been up there for a couple weeks, doing who knows what, as Bhanjyang was only comprised of tiny guest houses. We ate some daal bhat and tea and passed out pretty early as we were tired from our hike. We tried getting up at sunrise but went back to bed after we saw how hazy it was. The hike down was super fast the next day, only about 3 hours even with a stop for snack. All of us were really feeling it in our knees and calves when we reached the bottom though. Its been 3 days and my calves are still extremely sore.

Jilli unfortunately had to fly out early, so we sent her back to Switzerland, where she lives, and then I took Daina/Zach up to the Peace Pagoda, where we had some beautiful views of the Annapurnas for a couple hours. It was the only time that week that they came out from behind the clouds. Jilli actually got a nice view of the mountains from the airport which was good, and I’m glad she got a little peek at them before she left Nepal. Daina and Zach and I spent the rest of the day hanging out and rowing a little boat around the lake. Well Zach mostly did all the rowing, Daina and I attempted it but failed. I sent them off to Kathmandu yesterday, and now I’m back in the village writing this. I had such a good time with them and am so lucky to have friends willing to come visit me all the way in Nepal! Thanks guys!

During this whole trip I also received 2 pieces of amazing news. First, my grant finally got approved from USAID for my collection center, which means we get $5000 to put towards construction and management training!! This was fantastic because it had been in review with USAID for a while, so I was nervous it wasn’t going to get approved. Also, if it wasn’t approved, that would have meant that I would have had to hit up family/friends from donations, something I wasn’t really looking forward to.  I have a man coming from iDE Nepal (an organization started by a RPCV in Nepal) next week to talk to my group about selling our produce in larger bazaars, as well as figure out a time to hold a management training so that my group can more effectively run our collection center once it is completed. I think this next month will be pretty busy now that the money should be here within the next 2 weeks. I have to get receipts and carefully record everything we spend the money on, so its going to keep me busy.

The second piece of news is that my twin sister, Taylor, is coming to Nepal for a whole month this summer! She’s getting her Master’s degree at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland in International Relations right now. One of her friends there is Nepali, who happens to be from a village 45 minutes away from me! Herself and 2 friends applied for and received a grant to build a large library/multi media resource center in her friend’s hometown, so she’ll be coming in either June or August to work on her project. I can’t believe how close she’ll be to me, and I’m already looking forward to seeing her and helping out with her work.

When I got back to my village yesterday from Pokhara, I had numerous people ask me where I’ve been the past week and a half. My neighbor even told me he thought I got lost. I was supposed to come home for 2 days in between the triathlon and my friends coming, but because I was sick I ended up just staying in Pokhara. It was nice to see everyone so concerned.

That’s about it from Nepal…the new Nepali year starts in 3 days, so I’m sure people will be celebrating. I’ll probably be in bed by 9. Its going to be the year 2071! I don’t really have anything happening in the coming months that I have to leave my village for, so I’m hoping to have some really productive weeks in April/May. Check my facebook for more pictures from the triathlon and the trek!

March updates

March is almost over and I can’t believe how fast this month has gone. While the days might seem long, the months seem to be flying by, slightly scary now knowing that I only have less than 8 months left. Peace Corps staff is already planning our COS (Close of Service) conference, set for early July! While its exciting talking about the future with other volunteers, its also terrifying, as in a what- the-hell-will-I-do-with-myself-in-America sort of way. Trying not to stress too much, its still a long ways off and I have plenty of other things to keep my mind occupied right now!

 My village has been without water the past 1.5 months and its brought quite an increased workload into our lives. The main pipeline was shut down for repairs, so the entire village’s water source is coming from 2 natural taps. Before, water would run through concrete irrigation channels that criss-crossed through the rice fields and ran right by most peoples houses. While most families still go fetch water a couple times a day to use as drinking water, the irrigation ditches are generally sufficient to water everyone’s gardens and crops. My family even devised a method to pipe water from the ditch straight to our house using a long hose and plastic water bottle at the end as a funnel. We then would use this water to fill our giant drum tank used to wash dishes and to fill the toilet and bathroom buckets. SO, suffice to say that when this water all got shut off, problems arose. All of the water for the garden, toilet, bathroom, kitchen, drinking water etc is now carried multiple times a day by my family and I. I carry the gagris, which are large 15 liter metal containers, in a doko, which is a wicker basket that I strap to my head. Then I hike straight down a steep hill to fill the water and hike right back up with it all strapped on. My calf muscles are looking quite nice these days. While most days I make around 5 trips to the tap and back, I think my record is 9. Its exhausting, but even more so for families that are farther away.

 With increased pressure on the tap and little to no rainwater recently, one of the taps actually completely dried up. Thanks to the innovative skills of my neighbor, we now have a new tap with a decent flow, but the hard part is that it is about 1.5 feet off the ground, meaning that showers are really hard. The new tap spot is also in a muddy ditch with plants all around. Today while showering a legitimate tarantula climbed up my leg. I screamed as usual and, as usual, everyone laughed at me. I’ve also had 2 giant snake sightings right next to the tap as well. Really looking forward to the ditch getting turned back on in 10 days!

Getting books at the warehouse in Kathmandu

Besides carrying loads of water each day, I also made a trip to Kathmandu recently to collect all the books for my library! I met with the Asia Foundation to receive my books. The staff at the Asia Foundation were so great and you can truly tell they have a passion for getting kids interested in reading. The books were then transported by rickshaw, taxi, tourist bas, tiny micro van, and jeep back to my village! One of the books was so heavy I had to strap it on my rickshaw driver’s back to get it down the stairs of my hotel in Kathmandu. About 15 kids and my principal came to collect them from my house shortly after I got back and then we installed them temporarily in the school office! It was definitely one of the best days of my service so far. The kids were so excited unpacking the books and reading aloud to each other. Its days like these that make all the hard and frustrating days worth it. The books were about half English, half Nepali and all brand new! In total, I received $1900 worth of books….something I am extremely grateful for and feel very lucky about! I still have 3 boxes of books arriving from the states, so once those get here, we will continue work on making our school library! The kids just finished up their district-level exams and are on a month long break right now, so I am trying to find bookshelves and other means of funding in the mean time.

with school staff and books

While in Kathmandu, my friend Chad and I also had the chance to meet with a Nepal RPCV who now lives in Kathmandu and is the Director of Monitoring and Evaluation for the United Nations World Food Programme. We had a lovely lunch with him and it just gave me even more things to think about for my future now…

The collection center building is looking better and better every day. We have a foundation built now, and structural support for the walls is going up. However, I’m getting increasingly more stressed out by the grant my group and I applied for as the days go by. We originally write our entire grant on an Excel application. However, Peace Corps just rolled out an online system to submit our grants which, while easier for everyone involved, has caused major problems in its early stages. There have been massive IT glitches and the entire website was shut down for maintenance. This caused a 2 week delay in me submitting my grant and because I also had budget issues, there have been lots and lots of revisions to the grant. I was told that my grant could qualify for SPA, which is Small Project Assistance funded by USAID (United States Agency for International Development), but because my budget increased after revisions, its still being looked at by a USAID grants person. Crossing my fingers it qualifies because then I don’t have to solicit donations from friends and family and blog readers.  I’ve also been in contact with a man from iDE Nepal, an organization founded by a Nepal RPCV, that works with communities on irrigation projects and collection centers. I’m hoping to get a man out here to help my group start developing market connections and give a training on how to manage their collection center. The discussions have been going well so that is something to look forward to in the upcoming month.

Collection center

My sister and I, who is basically my counterpart in all things work-related, are also in the beginning stages of trying to hold a mushroom training that would cover all 9 villages in my VDC (Village Development Committee, sort of like a miniature county). We’re hoping to have 3 participants from each village and teach about mushroom cultivation and selling over a 2-3 day training. We’re in the beginning of the planning process, but hope to have a couple meetings over the next couple weeks to get the ball rolling. Its corn planting season here, so everybody has been pretty busy in the village carrying manure and water to their fields.

In other news, I’m running my first 10k in 5 days! There’s an annual triathlon in Pokhara called Himalayan Rush (www.himalayanrush.com) and I’m competing in it as part of a team. Another PCV friend, Nick, is doing the biking section, while a man named Manju is doing the swimming. Manju is from India and lost his leg in a car accident. He’s training to be a Paralympic swimmer and so when the Facebook page for the triathlon sent out a request for teammates, I eagerly signed up! I had heard about this race last year and always wanted to do it, but didn’t think I’d be able to find a team, and I definitely knew I wouldn’t be able to complete the entire thing by myself….my swimming skills are a little poor. I also don’t own a bike. So running was the only option, and even that is hard. Training at site the past couple weeks has been challenging, mostly because I run out of road at a certain point, so I’m doubling back and re-running sections of the road multiple times, causing even more stares in my direction than usual. Theres also been the usual dodging of monkeys and oxen and goats along the way, not to mention the amount of muddy potholes that have cropped up since yesterday’s rain.  I feel pretty confident about it though. According to the website, the first 3 miles are uphill and the last 3 are all down. I’m sure the first half is going to be a struggle.  The entire triathlon takes part at a place called Begnas Lake, right outside of Pokhara, which I’ve actually never been to before. The whole race is basically set against a backdrop of the Annapurnas, around a beautiful lake. I’m stoked. Then I plan on chucking my running shoes in the garbage can because they are dead. They are 3 years old and have holes in them and I'm actually surprised I haven't broken my leg while running in them.

Oh I also celebrated Holi with my village. In a nutshell, Holi is this great festival where you run around attacking people with brightly colored powers and water. Its extremely messy but really fun. I think they have those color runs in the states based off of Holi. My hair definitely still had traces of green and purple in it the day after even after a thorough shower. Then I got a little bit sad realizing it was my last Holi in Nepal.

celebrating Holi with my sister and bhauju

 And last but not least, the lovely Daina Allison and Jilli O’Mara will be arriving in Nepal in exactly 8 days! We all lived together our senior year at Bucknell and I am beyond excited to be reunited with them. We only have a short time together but plan on doing an overnight trek and exploring Pokhara as well as my village. I’ll post pictures of their visit on my next blog. Also, I just finished book #60 of service. So many books!

Wait, not done yet. I forgot I gave an interview for this website called International Relations online about my experience as a PCV. If you want to read it, heres the link: http://internationalrelationsonline.com/a-glimpse-into-the-life-of-a-peace-corps-volunteer-alex-clayton/

Raamro sanga basnus (literally “sit well”),

Alex

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 5^th 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 11^th 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

Untouchable

I had a spectacularly boring day today. I read all of David Sedaris’ “Lets Explore Diabetes With Owls” and ate 9 mini candycanes this afternoon for lack of other things to do. I have work projects going on right now (im starting a school library!), but they don’t exactly require me to spend every day doing them. While I was reading, I thought to myself, “its cold out, what would go nice with this book is a giant steaming mug of coffee.” So I jumped out of bed, got my little packet of instant Starbucks coffee and was halfway through the kitchen door when I remembered, I couldn’t go in the kitchen. Or touch any metal plates/cups/spoons/kitchen ware. Or wash my dishes in the sink. Or go down to the tap to shower or fetch water. Or sit on the same floor mat with a member of the opposite sex. And I definitely couldn’t heat up water to drink coffee. Why, you may ask? Because in Nepal, when a woman is on her period, she cannot do any of the above things. This includes me. I know this is probably a weird/taboo subject not commonly discussed at the dinner table during American family dinners but it weirdly is in Nepal. So since I accomplished nothing except reading an entire book and consuming massive amounts of sugar today, I figured I could accomplish part of Peace Corps Goal #3 (share host country culture with Americans) through this blog.

Periods are a weird thing here. They are openly discussed with all members of the family, female or not. For 4 days, women are untouchable. Literally, the verb used to express this means “untouchable.” In Nepali “Ma nachune bhae” translates to “I have become untouchable.” Which is what one must say during these times. I should also mention I am not speaking for all of Nepali culture here. This is largely a caste-specific thing. Brahmins and Chhetris (the two highest castes) are the strictest about this. I live with a Brahmin family and so must follow their cultural rules. Other female volunteers have no issues when it comes to that time of the month. My first homestay family I was with, Newaris (another caste), even let me cook. For 4 day in a Brahmin household, females on their period are not allowed to cook or fetch water. In a way, a lot of them like this time each month. It’s a decreased workload and they often sleep in because they are not allowed to do the work that normally requires them to rise at the crack of dawn. Normally, this doesn’t affect me that much. Since the arrival of my uncle’s new wife into our house, I have been doing practically no work. She has taken over all the cooking and cleaning. But come meal time, I am still required to sit on my tiny straw mat in the corner of our outdoor kitchen and eat, making sure not to touch any of the metal water jugs or other peoples plates. Even while being served food, others must make sure that we do not touch the food at the same time. The plate is put on the floor before I can pick it up. I must wash my dishes separately and set them out to dry in their own place. Male volunteer friends think a lot of this is demeaning, and I must admit it takes getting used to, but its mostly just very different from what we experience at home. At times yes, you do feel like a leper, when a family member mentions to a neighbor not to touch you, since you are on your period. When anyone comes over for tea, I must mention why I am sitting far away from everyone or why I am not partaking in chores. Its not even uncommon or weird for a visitor to ask “What day are you on?”meaning are you on your 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, or 4^th day of your period? Basically, how many more days of being untouchable do you have?

Additionally, women must shower on the 2^nd and 4^th days. Normally I don’t care about this, except for when it is winter. LIKE NOW. I have been showering once every 4-5 days because of how cold it is. Side note: I think Nepal and Mongolia may be the only Peace Corps countries forced to shower outside in cold water when its cold enough to see your breath. So as you can see, showering twice in four days becomes largely an issue of mind over matter, as I must force myself to dunk my body in freezing cold ice water in a concrete room. Sometimes they do heat up water for me, but I often feel bad for asking because someone else must perform the task for me. I actually even had coffee today, but I had to ask my little sister to heat up the water on the stove. I hate when people have to do menial chores like heating up water for me, so this is my largest complaint. I also can’t heat myself by the fire during these times which is also hard during the winter. Fire in Nepal is believed to house a god, so it is considered “sacred” in a way. So a lot of the winter here involves me hiding in my sleeping bag, crawling out for mealtimes, and going straight back to the sleeping bag. Normally I sit in the mornings by the fire and drink tea and or hang out after dinner but its too cold in my corner of the kitchen so I just make a mad dash upstairs and crawl into bed.

Additionally, when girls here first get their period, they must be isolated in a room for 3 days where “sunlight and men” (apparently the world’s 2 evils) cannot see them. They cant go to school or even outside. My family is lucky because we have a side building where we store chairs and mats, etc. Others are not so lucky. Their daughters often sleep in the barns because there is no where else for them to go. It sounds barbaric, and yes it might be a little, but its also their culture.  I had issues respecting it at first. Maybe not so much as respecting but I more just had issues with how demeaning it felt to me at first. I had shared with my sister that we don’t exactly share these things in the United States. I don’t go around telling my neighbors when its that time of the month. But now its weird because even if I was home alone and needed soap or water out of the kitchen, I still wouldn’t go into the kitchen to get it. No one would see me, but I realize how disrespectful that would be to my family and maybe even a little part of me has been brainwashed into thinking I am “impure.” I’m not surprised I guess…its been almost 16 months in this country.

Anyways, just wanted to share my experiences with this subject. I realize it’s a fairly uncomfortable subject but it’s a cultural thing I experience every month, so I figured I should share it with my blog readers. 

Heres a picture of me and baby goat from my first month in Nepal to look at if you are feeling awkward

Baby goat and I in Chaap, circa September 2012

Off to curl up in my sleeping bag and watch some episodes of House before bed. I am particularly unhappy with Biraalo right now. He escaped into my room and crawled up into my tarp ceiling but ripped through an entire corner and fell onto my mosquito net, which then collapsed and showered rat feces, rice, and dirt all over my bed. Guess I’ll be doing some cleaning tomorrow! I’m also going to my first Nepali “engagement” tomorrow afternoon. I’m mostly excited for the food. They make sel roti at these types of events, which is my favorite kind of roti.

Love from Nepal,

Alex

Christmas in India

I wish more photos would upload but this is all my internet will allow. You can check my Facebook for about a hundred more.

Trainin' it from Agra back to New Delhi

Taj Mahal with Tia and Voranan

Riding a camel in Agra

I sit writing you all this blog from my deathbed. Well not really, I’m exaggerating, but seeing as my toilet and I had about 25 dates over the past 48 hours with a 101 degree fever, I think I’m allowed to exaggerate. Welcome back to Nepal, Alex! At least this didn’t happen while I was in India, but maybe this is payback for the 3 different times I went to McDonalds while in India? Anyways, not the greatest past few days. And to top it all off, my Nepali grandma is leaving for AMERICA tomorrow. For 5 months! Her daughter lives in Maryland and just had a baby, so she’s flying over for a while to help out. Being in the already fragile state I am in, I will probably cry. I’m very excited for her but I seriously love this lady and will miss her a lot. I also thought Biraalo died earlier this evening but turns out his stupid furry butt got his front leg caught through his flea collar so he was unable to move. Small little brain in that one. The past few days have also been a lesson in how to teach a cat how to eat cat food. Which you wouldn’t think would be that hard but apparently Biraalo is a real Nepali cat through and through because he much prefers rice. So now he eats rice and cat food mixed together which I guess is better because cat food is really expensive in Nepal.

Ok so to recap my past couple weeks..I think I last wrote when my parents left. Shortly after they left my friend Andrea came to my site to visit! We both went to Bucknell together, but she graduated a year ahead of me and we actually didn’t know each other that well while at school. However, we have a mutual friend in common and when she contacted me and told me she was coming to Nepal, I jumped at the chance to have a fellow Bucknellian here with me! She came to my site for 2 nights only and unfortunately I had 2 meetings during that time, but I think she actually got to witness my most productive meeting yet. Small tangent here: the meeting was about the collection center, which actually feels like its going to happen! I’m applying for a grant right now through Peace Corps. Its 56 pages long so its taking me quite a while but its really good experience. The hardest part has been organizing meetings and also translating hard grant-language into Nepali. I lucked out though and there is a man in my village who can read English really well and has experience in these things, so he was a very large part of the writing process. I then met with Peace Corps to go over it before I left and I think my village and I can turn it in within the next couple weeks, hopefully by end of January! I just have to track down our budget, which is harder than one might think because our group only has one copy, which is currently (hopefully…) 3 hours away in our district capital. It’s a work in progress but I feel really hopeful about it. Once I can actually get out of my bed I need to get myself a bus to the district center to go  collect the budget.

Anyways, Andrea got to witness this lovely but probably pretty boring meeting, and then we were off to Kathmandu…her to return back to the states, and me to India! Oh and before I left for India I also took the GRE which went pretty well. Mostly just glad its over with and I can get back to reading actual books instead of Math. Currently on my 50^th book since getting to Nepal.

  India was a whirlwind of a trip and one pain in the ass getting there. I went with 3 other volunteers: Tia, Chad, and Voranan. Our original plan was to fly Kathmandu to New Delhi, New Delhi to Mumbai, and Mumbai to Goa. And because nothing ever works out, we missed 2/3 flights that day. Basically our first flight got moved later, and our second flight got moved earlier so we basically landed in Delhi knowing we already missed our other 2 flights. We then proceeded to spend the next 3 hours yelling at Air India for a refund (which we got thank gosh) and wandering around the magicalness that is the New Delhi airport. I’m not even being sarcastic here, I felt like I was back in America. It was a REAL aiport. With Starbucks, Coffee Bean, sandwiches, McDonalds, and the Body Shop. Also if you have ever been in the Kathmandu airport you know it is literally a brick waiting room for all flights (and I also don’t think earthquake safe, no matter what people say). we eventually made it to Mumbai at 9pm after eating my second round of paneer (Air India only feeds people paneer, I swear). Then we found out all flights to Goa the next day were booked so basically we were screwed. So we ended up hiring a private car to take us the 7 hours to Goa. Our driver didn’t speak a lick of English so when we said to take us to American food we found ourselves on a classy downtown street in Mumbai at McDonalds at 10:30pm. I ate chicken nuggets for the first time in 10 years I think (Also, one might think I am a supporter of McDonalds here, which I am NOT but I didn’t have a lot of choices and sometimes chicken nuggets are really good). Fast forward 14 hours later and we finally reached Goa. I’m surprised our driver didn’t die. The poor man didn’t sleep for 14 hours. We left Mumbai at 10:30pm and got to Goa at 12pm. It was terrible and obviously did not take us 7 hours as expected. However, our hotel in Goa was a little slice of paradise, as was Palolem Beach, where we were staying. We had beach cabanas about 50 feet from the ocean, there were tiny puppies everywhere, we got to see dolphins and drink delicious things out of coconuts…it was great. I did however get the nickname of “Alby” while on this trip due to my skin resembling that of an albino. I didn’t even disagree…I haven’t seen sun since I left the states.  Goa was basically what we all needed after a year in country. It was beautiful weather, really good food (I treated myself to an $18 lobster our last night, oops), and it was great to just relax.

We left Goa all wishing we had booked another week there, but were excited to get to Agra. We flew back to New Delhi where we met Voranan’s sister and then all of us headed to the New delhi train station for our overnight train to Agra. We definitely got hit smack in the face with “real” India in the train station. Never before I had ever been so aware of my white girl status as then. Goa was India yes, but it was also the beach and there were tons of foreigners. The train station was what you think of when you think of India, and to quote an RPCV “a tasty assault on all 5 senses.” Our small group was the only foreigners in the entire station, there were people sleeping everywhere, it was dirty, smelled of urine and feces because people open defecate on the tracks, and there were rats everywhere. We had no idea where to get on our train car but a nice Indian lady helped us. That’s another thing, Indians speak very good English! Just random people on the street would turn out to speak almost fluently. It was really helpful because Nepali and Hindi are very different. They have some phrases/words in common but we essentially couldn’t communicate, which was very frustrating.

Our train ended up being really fun! I had never been on a sleeper train, and we all had our own little bunks and I ended up sleeping for a while. We reached Agra at 1am and the 5 of us crammed ourselves into a tuk tuk and passed out for 5 hours before waking up. We spent Christmas day seeing the Taj Majal and the Agra Fort. The Taj Mahal was breathtaking. We had a nice sunny day to explore the grounds, and the Taj Mahal is always one of those places I’ve thought would be amazing to visit, but never thought I’d actually see.  We took a camel taxi (yes those exist) to the Agra Fort, a little over 2km away. Our camel was straight up on the highway and I rode him for part of the time so it was a little bit frightening.  The Fort was beautiful, but I wish I knew more of the history behind it to fully appreciate it. Afterwards we may or may not have gone to the golden arches for lunch, and then it was time to hop a train back to New Delhi. Our train was delayed and so we got back to Delhi at 10pm, starving and exhausted. Everyone else passed out but Chad and I were starving and decided to find food. Which was an adventure because nothing is open at 10pm on Christmas day. Our tuk tuk driver, who had a bad case of road rage and who we think may have been slightly inebriated, dropped us at a hole in the wall Dominos where we had a veg pizza and coke for Christmas dinner. Fail. Then I attempted to skype with my family at 2am but the Clayton family was experiencing some technical difficulties in both Switzerland and Washington so we called it quits and I passed out.

We only had 1 full day in Delhi to see things so we decided to book bus tickets on a HO-HO bus (hop on hop off bus.) We had breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (I swear to god I don’t eat this way in the states on a daily basis) where I got to eat a bagel for the first time since leaving the states. It was great. All of us were majorly struggling from sleep deprivation over the past week so even after I chugged a latte and an americano, I still fell asleep on our bus. We did get to see some cool stuff though, including: The Red Fort, Rajghat (cremation site of Mahatma Ghandi), the India Gate, Humayun’s Tomb (Chad and I opted out of this one because we were starving and found a vendor selling chips instead), and the Lotus Temple. Our last night in Delhi I also got to meet up with an old friend from high school! I don’t think I had seen her in about 5 years, but it was great to reconnect and talk about the Methow together.

We flew back to Kathmandu early the next morning and were greeted with the usual chaos that is Kathmandu. It was weirdly nice to be back and to be able to speak the language and not get ripped off over a taxi. The disparities between Nepali and its neighbor to the South are extreme though. New Delhi/Mumbai are about 30 years ahead of Kathmandu, in terms of infrastructure. I think all of us wondered if Kathmandu would ever reach the point of having overpasses or skyscrapers. Personally, I felt that Kathmandu is more chaotic than New Delhi. To me, Delhi felt like any large chaotic city. The traffic was bad and horns were blared unnecessarily, but it had nice wide paved roads and sidewalks. It was also unnerving seeing so many American luxuries and stores that I haven’t seen since September 2012. I think that also maybe having lived in Nepal for over a year now somewhat “lessened” the effects of India upon us. Not saying it wasn’t crazy or stressful, but I think all of us were more prepared for India, having lived in Nepal. And now, I’m back in village where all of that is so very far away and my biggest concern is getting run over by any water buffalo that get loose.

Side note, how is it already 2014? I leave Nepal in 2014. When I left the states in September 2012, I thought 2014 would never come. I think every PCV  gets excited when they enter their COS (Close of Service) year. I’m almost in the single digit month countdown. Less than 10 months seems like so little time to accomplish the things I want to do.  I also think I may have reached the point where going home seems more scary than exciting, if that makes sense.

Happy New Year and sorry for the longest blog ever!

The parentals come to Nepal!

I sent my parents back to the states today L We parted ways at the Kathmandu Airport today, me off to the domestic terminal, my parents off to the international to begin their 3 day journey  home. My parents so nicely flew me back to Pokhara, which was a 25 minute flight! The bus I normally go on takes 7 hours… So now I’m hanging out in Pokhara for the day, doing laundry, writing Christmas cards and catching up on emails. I’ll head back to site tomorrow.  Oh also my camera decided to crap out on me literally the day my parents got here so the only pictures I have are from my mom’s iphone.

halfway up to the Peace Pagoda

Dad and I at the Peace Pagoda

12 days flew by, but we had a great time and I really think my parents had a good glimpse into what my life was like here. I picked them up in Pokhara and we spent the first 2 days hanging out in Pokhara and hiking up to the Peace Pagoda and just catching up from the past year! It was so surreal just seeing them in Nepal with me. We headed to my village on public transportation and my parents were real troopers about it. The trip went fairly smoothly but in general the buses are always way overpacked and some lady started throwing up next to my mom. We were welcomed into my house by no joke, 90 people. I might have mentioned in my last blog, but my uncle was getting married at my house during my parents visit. So it was quite overwhelming walking into that many people, not to mention that my entire house/courtyard had been transformed. They had strung up banners and a massive tarp over the courtyard making it into a sort of tent. Due to the 20 people sleeping in my house that night, my parents and I all squished into my tiny room and I curled up on my cow-shit floor. Literally 3 days before my grandma re-coated my floor in cow poop so it was nice and fresh for the parentals arrival. So nice. The next 2 days at village were a whirlwind. The wedding party left early the next morning so it was just me and my parents about about 30 women at the house cooking up a storm. My parents and I took a 3 hour walk through my village where I showed them the map and all the kids at the school and my agricultural group’s fields. We had 3 little boys follow us the entire way. When we got back my parents and I made a donation to the women’s group who had come to dance and they went crazy! They made us all dance for a good half hour, smearing us in red tikka and weighing us down in flower necklaces. The wedding party came back with the bride that night around 11 and the next morning the big feast began. All of the men slaughtered two goats and cooked massive amounts of rice and vegetables. My parents and I headed back to Pokhara after the feast. It was great having them in my village, but I told them it was definitely not a “normal” couple days for me. The wedding made everything that much crazier and it was hard to get some alone time, but I’m glad they got to witness a Nepali wedding!

Receiving tikka upon arrival

We spent the next 2 days in Pokhara having Thanksgiving with everybody. All of the volunteers in 199 came in and cooked a huge feast! Seriously, it was legitimate Thanksgiving food except that we had bbq chicken instead of turkey. I was amazed at the pies, casseroles, cornbreads, and mac and cheeses that were cooked up from scratch. I donated wine to the party but unfortunately my Nepali script reading isn as good as I thought as I ended up buying Nepali cooking wine. It tasted like crap but in true volunteer fashion we drank every last drop. This Thanksgiving was actually the first time in 5 years I spent it with my parents, as I never went home during college because it was too far, so I was really thankful to have them there.

199 volunteers at Thanksgiving in Pokhara

Sadly my dad ended up getting a bit sick for a couple days so he missed out on some things. My mom and I watched sunrise at Sarangkot which was beautiful! We left Pokhara at 4:30am and hiked for almost an hour to reach the top of this small mountain where you can watch the sun come up over the Annapurnas/Himalayas. I had never been and it was definitely worth it. My picture below doesn’t do it justice.

After Pokhara we headed to Chitwan National Park for some safaris! My mom and I left my dad in Pokhara for a day (sorry dad) to recover a bit and sadly he missed out on all of our activities in Chitwan. My mom and I ended up doing an elephant safari, elephant bath, and half day jeep tour! The jeep tour was the best, as you get to go deep into the jungle. Didn’t see any tigers, but we did get to see one rhino, which we tracked on foot and then all went running (me screaming) back to the jeep because we thought it was going to charge us. We also got to go to a gharial breeding center ( a type of crocodile) which was probably my favorite part of the trip. My mom’s was getting to bathe the elephant. We both rode the elephant into the river and then it lays down with you on it and you fall off and get to bathe it and then it sprays you all over with its trunk. It was pretty neat. My dad joined us the next day after we got back from our safari and we headed to Kathmandu to begin the final journey of our trip. Also, small small world but my mom and I were talking to some Americans around the fire at our hotel in Chitwan and one of the guys there grew up in Seattle and his mom lives in Winthrop! My town of Winthrop doesn’t even exist on a map I don’t think. It was just crazy. Him and his girlfriend are actually going to Winthrop in 3 weeks for Christmas so my parents are going to meet up with them again and share pictures. We had shared an elephant with them in the morning and they got much better pics on their camera than we did on our iphone.

Elephant bath!

Made a new friend

Since my dad missed basically all of the Chitwan activities, the 2 of us got up nice and early in Kathmandu and did a mountain flight! We got to see around 7 of the highest peaks in the world, including Everest! It was great…the plane flew parallel to the mountain range and they let us go into the cockpit for better viewing. We lucked out and had a completely cloud free day as well. The rest of the time in Kathmandu was spent visiting the monkey temple, the Peace Corps office, and wandering the narrow streets of Thamel. My parents were pretty wiped out at the end of our trip and I didn’t blame them! We packed a lot in. I’ll see them again in a bit under a year for Clayton family Christmas after PC service in Switzerland (time to visit Taylor this time).

Kind of living the high life the next month…I have about 10 days at site in which I’ll be cramming for the GRE, then a Bucknell friend comes to visit for a couple days, then I head to India for Christmas vacation! I take the GRE on the 19^th, then head to India the morning of the 20^th! Looking forward to some beach time.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

election shtuff

The upcoming elections are causing problems. Not just for me, but for everybody. The politics are extremely complicated and I don’t really understand it that well but the skinny of it is that Nepal has no constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Nepal explains this better than I can.

These elections (to take place on November 19) will hopefully give the country a shot at developing a constitution for themselves. Although how Nepal will all of a sudden elect a leader and develop this within the next couple years is beyond me. Moving on….I believe in other blogs I have mentioned that Nepal loves its bandhs. For those that forget, these are transportation strikes that can shut down certain roads/areas of the country or the entire country. Well for the elections, there are TEN DAYS of entire country wide bandhs. This literally means no transportation. At all. No buses, cars ,motorcycles, rickshaws, pony-carts, nuthin. From November 11-21^st, the entire country is essentially shut down. This also means that all Nepal PC volunteers are on standfast, which basically means don’t leave village (not that we would have any way of getting anywhere anyways) and that all other PC country travel to Nepal is restricted. Additionally I might have mentioned in my last blog that my parents were supposed to come to Nepal right smack dab in the middle of the elctions? That’s right, they were supposed to arrive in country on November 15^th, a day when no transportation is running and I had no way of meeting them anywhere, unless I wanted to walk to Pokhara, which I guess would take me 3 solid days. Thank the lord almighty they changed their travel plans but I had a sad 3 couple days where I thought I wouldn’t see them until March. I guess it sounds a little ridiculous looking back, but I had my heart set on seeing them middle of November  and then to all of a sudden have their entire trip cancelled was just really sad. Its still going to be extremely iffy, as they are now coming on the 22^nd, the day after the bandhs are finished. Hopefully. Otherwise I need to rent a horse or something and get my self to Pokhara somehow. I got off my bus from Pokhara the other day into a 400 person Maoist rally in my bazaar town and the police are everywhere. Its gunna get a little rowdy in the larger towns I think. Additionally, the new volunteers are supposed to get sworn in during elections, so Peace Corps has been working around that as well.

Other things I’ve been doing at site: Map names are all done! Somehow we missed 5 countries in the process of painting so we had to go back today and add those and tomorrow we will write those names. Its almost doneeeeee. Need to border the whole thing and then paint a clear finish on top to set it all.

My cat came back! Biraalo is now around 4 months old I think but he’s super friendly and now I have a little cuddle buddy. I tried to find him cat food in Pokhara last time I went but had no success, so he eats a lot of milk and roti and daal bhat and the occasional spider. He actually somehow climbed up into my ceiling the other day and ate a dead rat, so hes being useful and I haven’t heard the rats since.

My neighbor had her baby! He just got named today. In Nepali culture the baby doesn’t have a name for the first 11 days and on the 11^th day it receives a name, usually from an elder in the community. They named him Pranjul (which kind of reminds me of pringle). Hes adorable though and I’ve spent a lot of time recently at my neighbors house holding him. We had him at our house last night to rub cooking oil all over him….Apparently this makes the baby strong and a hard worker later in life. So baby got covered in cooking oil. They had a puja for the baby naming ceremony and we had snacks afterward: some goat meat and a vegetable dish. I swear to god if I had known the sorts of meat/meat parts I would in eat in Nepal a year ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. Well mostly I eat the meat because I have very little protein in my diet but sometimes I actually really like it.

Other random things:  Got offered a whole pineapple on my run the other day. Allergies are still out of control, accidentally took a nighttime cold medicine this morning, so was out of commission for a couple hours. Watched part of Pirates of Caribbean on my Nepali TV the other day which was a nice treat. Started a small oil fire in my kitchen the other day and almost blew it up. I fell backwards off my tiny wooden stool which was good otherwise I think my face would have gotten blown off.

 Happy Halloween!

Biraalo and I

Just climbing into my ceiling

Aamaa and biraalo take a nap

Cooking oil covered baby!

Baby Pranjul and I in my kitchen

tail end of saarpa!

....and we have names!