Monday, October 6th
—Nepalis ask Americans, who live in their community, “What is your Nepali name?” Just as it is often difficult for us to wrap our lips around a Nepali name, they stumble as they attempt to form the sounds that make up our names. Stew and I have simplified our American names to one syllable, but still, it takes a few attempts as Nepalis sound out our names and request that we repeat (“phery bolnus!”), in the hopes of pronouncing the syllable as Americans do. So, it is customary for an American living in Nepal to be given a Nepali name. When Stew and I noticed that more and more of the Peace Corps workers were showing up at Hub Day (the one day per week when we are all in the same classes) with Nepali names, we asked how this naming process occurred. We were told that some of them were given names by host families, some by Nepali friends, some chose a name themselves and some asked Nepalis for a name. Our host family rarely uses given names (they call each other by kinship); our only Nepali friends are Peace Corps volunteers and staff; we had no inclination to select a Nepali name on our own; and it just felt weird to ask someone to give us a name. So, we kinda gave up on the Nepali name idea and when asked for our Nepali name, answered, “Mero Nepali naam hoina”.(I don’t have a Nepali name) But, last week, it happened. We were given Nepali names by one of the language instructors. Stew’s is “Jesz”, which is the name of a friend of the instructor, who always makes her happy….Stew has similar personality traits and reminds her of her friend. Mine is “Kiran”(In Nepali, it sounds like: Key-run…with a little roll to the ‘R’), which means ‘ray of light’. I’m glad it took time for the correct names to appear. It was worth the wait. They hold more meaning for us and were given to us by an amazing woman, who we will remember forever.
Sunday, October 12th
—Respiratory disease is one of the biggest killers in Nepal. Second hand smoke comes in more forms than smoke from cigarettes. In Nepal, the majority of second hand smoke comes from kitchen wood stoves. Most kitchen stoves don’t have chimneys, so as folks cook here, smoke often fills the kitchen and cancers people to death.
Today in technical class, we took part in making of our first ‘Improved Cook Stove’. Our host family received the Stove built for our Peace Corps’ training. Our family broke down their current kitchen stove this morning, and then our cluster (local village training group of five) began work on the new stove at around 11am. The bricks for the skeleton of the stove were made a couple of weeks back professionally, so we made a few for practice (but couldn’t use them because they must dry 5-7 days, before being used on the actual stove. Then we made the mortar, which is made from five parts mud, two parts rice husks, and one part Gobar ….. what’s Gobar, you ask?…. well…..yeah….what is covering my hands up to the elbow and smooshing between my toes? That, my friends, is Water Buffalo shit. That’s right, we have been doused in buffalo shit water. BUT, in two weeks, after the stove dries, our host family will have an improved cook stove and a smokeless kitchen. That’s worth some water buffalo shit between the toes, right?
Stew, caked with buffalo dung, also managed to use a VERY large knife (about 15 times heavier than you’re thinking. Think half a lawn mower blade long, and thrice as thick) to slice his finger. Vee provided excellent first aid. Stew was very happy with the care he received. Now he’s attempting to prevent infection and blood loss by pointing at the sky and keeping his hand well above his heart.
We appreciated the day, but boy it’s been a long one.
In addition to a great learning day, this morning we looked over after class to find the Himalayas out in full view for the first time. It’s pretty crazy to look over and see a looming range filling half the sky, and know how far off it is. This place is insane to look at. Beauty everywhere… Except Stew’s finger… that’s just gross.
Tuesday, October 14th
Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!! (it is Monday, October 13th in the U.S.)
We are all sitting in the dining room of the motel, where Peace Corps volunteers meet once a week for ‘whole group’ training. Nothing was planned this afternoon. Many of us came here in the hopes of internet access; some came to dig cold weather clothes from their deep storage bags (It is getting cooler and our winter clothes are stored here in a motel room); a few came by because they got soaked while doing an outdoor assignment in the nearby Bazaar(marketplace) and the motel was closer than home. We’ve got a big thunder boomer going on outside, so….no internet……no electricity…..but, great company sharing snack-size American candies (care packages from home), eating yummy hot cup-a-soup, and drinking Dude Chia(spiced tea with milk). Lots of wet people laughing together…..sitting at long tables….studying….sharing stories. Good times. Hope the storm lets up before long, though. Most of us have to make quite a hike up muddy paths to get home (Bistaari!! Chiplo!!”Walk slowly! It’s slippery!))….and an early curfew. Picture a bunch of Americans slip-sliding through ankle deep mud, as they rush up hills looking left and right for Leopards, to a chorus of Nepalis standing outside their homes yelling “Bistaari! Chiplo!!”
Wednesday, October 15th
We made our first foray out of our village today. We split up, health sector volunteers took a bus to the District Health Center, while the agriculture sector volunteers visited the district agricultural center. Vee’s group discussed the structure of the health system with a Nepali who spoke English. Stew’s group talked with some of the chief agricultural officers through one of PC’s interpreters.
It is very strange to speak English, which is often understood, but not spoken here. Still, it is even stranger to have Nepali spoken, and then translated by an English speaking Nepali. Layers upon layers of communication issues……Kinda like playing a game of ‘telephone’. I’ve always respected translators, but the PC experience has increased the depth of my compassion for their difficult job. People are hard enough to understand as-is, but add a different language to that… ugh.
The trip to and from the district center had extreme curves, steep side drop-offs and tons of breath-taking near misses from busses and trucks passing each other on narrow roads with motorcycles in between zipping in and out of each lane. If you got bored of that, you might watch the Himalayan line up stretching forever across the North. Or the abandoned festival swings (Ping) hanging from long bamboo poles, or the people waiting for busses, or the planted terraces contouring the mountains, or the prayer flags slowly dethreading to heaven…
Such a strange, lovely place.
Thursday, October 16th
Hubday! Today is site announcement. This means that all 30 of us find out where, in Nepal, we will be sent…..after we make it through basic training and are sworn in next month….(around November 17th). Very exciting! Some are going to the Midwestern districts….some are going to the Far West, which is like…..a 3-4 day rough bus ride to reach from here (even though we are currently in the Western part of Nepal and Nepal is the about the size of Tennessee). We are all so very excited!
Later…same day
We now have our assignments. We can’t put the exact locations on-line (for security reasons), but we are very very happy and our new home is not too far from Pokhara (one of Nepals largest cities). A beautiful place….we hear. Vee will be working at a health post and Stew will be working at an agriculture center. We may have an opportunity to work with schools, farmers and mothers’ groups…..we’ll see. But, for now, we have a location for our next two years. Whoa.
We got our first care package today……filled with goodies. The weird thing is that the items I think I was most excited about were the packing material (crumbled paper towels….whoot!!) and a ziplock bag stuffed with those small condiment packs you find in fast food restaurants. Oh mi Gawd……ketchup….mustard….bbq sauces…..vinegar……American things I miss most. I think I would be happy with a care package full of only condiment packs snuggled in paper towels. This Nepali me is odd.
Category: Travel
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Snipets of Carrington diary….
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The Baagh Ate My Letter to You…
Baagh: The Nepali word for Leopards. (which have been seen in our village recently. Sightings have resulted in an earlier curfew for the “Americans”. It is now 5:30 pm.) Apologies for ignoring all of you for so long. We’ve hit the one month mark of living in Nepal. Our internet access has been pretty spotty. But, even if we had non-stop internet access, we have very little free time. We have Nepali language classes, technical training and cultural classes each school day. In Nepal, the work/school week is six days per week, with Saturday being the day of rest (bida). What free time we have is spent studying (vocabulary, verb conjugation, and Nepal script writing), integrating into the Nepali community (seeking out situations to interact with others using our Nepal language skills), and doing chores like washing clothes (lugar dhune….which is done by hand in buckets of water). We expect to have better internet access and more time to blog after the end of our pre-service training. (about six more weeks) The intense-ness of the Peace Corps training cannot be denied. A huge amount of information is poured into our brains each day, with little time to process or practice, then the next day…..additional new information is shoved into our already full brains. But it isn’t all mentally taxing. There are physical requirements also. Our morning classes take place near our homes, but the afternoon classes are normally a 20 to 50 minute walk/hike away from our little village…..around bends and up hills. Late afternoon, we are charged with interacting with people in the village and finally after curfew, we rest, while practicing our Nepali with our host family. The schedule can be brutal. However, every once in a while, we look up from our daily rush and are stunned to a halt by awe-inspiring views. Amazing architecture will catch our eye or sometimes beautiful terraced farmland and of course…..a peek of the Himalayas on a clear day. We are finding it hard to write about our experiences here. We will type something, then reread it and delete it. There are occurrences that happen to us often that words can’t seem to express. It is similar to what people experience, when they attempt to replicate a gorgeous view with a camera…..only to realize the beauty and emotion invoked by the view cannot be translated to a photograph. And yet, we want to document and share our experiences, so we will write and photograph our life here. Hopefully, some will see past our clumsy writing to the beauty of Nepal and her people. However, a disclaimer must be provided. The description of our experiences here should not be taken as what others would experience in this land. The people of Nepal are diverse. What we experience daily in our pre-service training here in this part of Nepal will most likely be different from what we experience over the next two years at our permanent site in a different part of Nepal. Even in this small area where the Peace Corps group 201 live close together, each volunteer speaks of different host family behaviors. So, if you speak of what you read here, please don’t generalize the description or behavior as, “Well I’ve heard that in Nepal….the people are….(fill in the blank)”. What can we say about the land, the people, our experiences as foreigners in this lovely country? Nepalis are a people, rich in culture, steeped in tradition, who we find utterly fascinating. Apparently they find us fascinating also. They stare at us constantly, while we try to
stare back, but can’t. Our Nepali is still so elementary that the majority of our interactions begin and quickly end with only the greeting, “Namaste”, which everyone we pass on the road seems thrilled with. As we walk down the road, the adults we ‘Namaste’ often stop us and ask where we have been or where we are going. As we walk down the road, the children yell at us from far away and come running up to follow us asking, “What is your name?”, “Where do you come from?”, or just “Hello…hello….hello!”. Now that most of the children know our names, they yell, “Hello Stewart! Hello Vee!” During our walk home from class each day, we will look back every few minutes to see a growing crowd of children marching behind us. Many of the school kids want to practice their English with us. Many, who know we have cell phone cameras, want to have their picture taken, so they can take a peek at the photo and giggle with their friends. We, may, hopefully, have better internet access from now on. Our host family is working on getting dependable internet here in the house. That would be utterly amazing. (course we would still be limited by the number of hours per day we have electricity, which is kinda undependable….but I’m excited anyway) Without internet…..not only have we been out of touch with family and friends…….we have had little to no information about world events…..which has been a very, very strange experience. -
It Takes a Village (No Goat Left Behind)
The first week we came to school, our tiny classroom sat surrounded by corn fields and was accessed by a claustrophobic tunnel under towering cornstalks that were bracketing an old house and barn. We would arrive, unlock and draw the door bolts (there are no doorknobs here), take our shoes off in the hallway, and enter the concrete room. The initial musty smell would mostly dispel when the glassless/screenless windows were opened, and inevitably someone would be walking by so you could catch a quick, “Namaste” or groggy, “Morning” as the shutters were pushed out.
In the few weeks we’ve been here, the corn has been cut down. Now the classroom entrance is exposed, and the trail leading to it is just a seemingly random path jutting from the road. The monsoon is receding and the roads and paths are drying.
Regardless the weather; hot, humid, rain, or clear……. children and goats bleat and chatter with one another outside our class, screaming, crying, and laughing until an odd silence hits. Then, we’ll hear a small scrape behind us, and then a sniff as first one child, and then another climbs up to sit in the windowsills. When our teacher (known as ‘Master’ in Nepal) asks us questions in Nepali, the children murmur answers in our ears while coughing on our shoulders.
The teacher tells them to get out of the window, and they scramble down… just in time for the goat to meander in, sniffing a few students before meandering back out again. By the time the goat disappears, new children have established territory on the windowsills. These interuptions are welcome distractions from the incessant pounding of Nepali verb conjugations. Every once in a while, the teacher pauses in his lecture to stop one of the hajuramaas (grandmothers) passing by the windows, a quick question about the content of his lecture, to which they provide a rapid-fire response and typically leave him laughing. Someday, perhaps we’ll understand the joke.
The monsoon is receding and the roads are drying. Winter is coming. Namaste, friends and family. -
We’ve Been Given a Home Where the Buffalo Roam…
It is 4:20 in the morning. A gentle rain has been holding steady since 3, and I have reason to believe that one of the many pigeons outside the window is snoring… as I should be….
… On the last leg of our flight to Nepal, we reviewed our extraordinarily limited Nepalese, visited with tourists from Indonesia, and slowly woke from our jet-lagged stupor. Twenty-two hours in the air with in-between times spent in airports since Friday had been taking its toll. However, when we descended close enough to catch glimpses of our home for the next 27 months…..it made up for all the travel torture. Thirty-one friends who were strangers just a few days earlier squished together to peek out the small airplane windows. There was a stunned silence on the plane, broken every once in a while by a whispered voices saying, “Oh my God”, “We’re finally here.”, “I can’t believe it.” There was cheering and clapping upon landing and thirty-one tired, but enthusiastic smiles broke out.
A staircase was wheeled out to meet our small plane as we all fought to see, smell, and hear our new home. Nepal does smell different, similar to Southern Louisiana, but … well… more Nepali. Musty and humid heat greeted us between the plane and bus that taxied us back to the airport building. Upon entry, we were given Khatas (a ceremonial scarf) and met by the United States’ Nepali Ambassador Peter Bodde, his wife, and the staff of Peace Corps Nepal. As the dignitaries welcomed us, we were surprised that they seemed to know who all of us were and details of our background, such as where we were from and what schools we went to.
The airport was small for being so busy, and had a great feel of historical preservation with gorgeous woodwork everywhere. We posed for pictures, and then nervously waited at the baggage turnstile for our bags (last seen in Chicago, well before the transfer between United and Silk air lines). Luggage gradually appeared, and relieved Peace Corps Trainees (PCT) were shepherded through customs and out into the bright Nepali air.
We filled one small bus with our luggage before filling two more with PCTs. Some of us pulled cameras out, while the rest of us stared, eyes wide, out the bus windows traveling through the Kathmandu streets with little interplay between us and the Peace Corps staff riding on the bus with us…these strangers to whose care we had blindly entrusted ourselves and our belongings. It was awesome.
The bus trip was short but intense, providing some of the best ‘opportunities lost’ for picture after picture, due to window reflections, sudden swerving, abrupt stops, and enormous potholes. The people are gorgeous here. The architecture is unreal and spectacular in its decay, growth, and detail. The area is also verdant in super greens, glowing in the healthy plants growing from balconies and vacant lots jutting from overworked constructions. Sometimes we could see these spaces occupied with cattle, goats, or the occasional harried looking chicken.
The bus dropped us off at a training compound for the duration (five days) of orientation in a ‘suburb’ of Kathmandu. We have a room above the mens’ dorms, overlooking a small green space (with up to 4 cows), a beauty school, and a number of houses. One building across from our room window provides morning dance exercise… starting around 5A.M. every morning, and is very loud. So far, however, I’ve been waking up well before they start, so have been groggily watching them arrive before sun up, joining in a few motions before heading into the shower, and then watching them leave in the early dawn.
The crickets sound strange here and the corvids are not the same at all. They have grey hoods and are very (Very) large. Possibly Jack-Daws. We’ve also seen lizards, small spiders, many different birds, goats, chickens, cattle, and small white nocturnal animals that are jumpers. The rest of our group has seen big snakes and rats…..one that emerged from the toilet just as the volunteer entered the ‘charpi’(bathroom) There are a great many doves (pigeons) that roost around our windows, and we constantly hear them when in our room.
We’re hoping they keep the spider population down.
The Nepali people are as curious about us as we are of them, we have been exchanging stares, smiles, and “Namastes”, while observing and listening to this culture, so new to us. I think I see a strong relationship evolving with these wonderful people in the future.
This first week, we’ve learned how to use an eastern toilet, how to discretely bathe at a public tap, and how to wash tons of laundry by hand. Our awareness of the value of clean water has increased tenfold as we’ve learned to avoid letting any unfiltered water pass our lips. No drinking tap water, no eating fruit that might have been washed in tap water, and…..no brushing our teeth with tap water (tap water can’t even be used to rinse our brushes). We are adapting as quickly as possible to the Nepali world. Progress seems slow at times (especially learning the language), but we are actually moving at a quick clip toward integration. Today’s accomplishment was giving up silverware. We will often eat with just our right hand fingers during the rest of our stay in Nepal.
Today we also found out where we will be living for the next nine weeks and who will be in our cluster (the five of the 31 Peace Corps Volunteers who we will work closely with, through the rest of PST). On Friday afternoon, all of us will travel on the winding mountain road to our training site (it has been suggested that we take motion sickness pills for the trip if we even think we might need them) and meet our pre service training host families. Our particular host family consists of six family members, some who are vegetarians( a lottery win for us). Their home is 2.5 km from the training site. They own four water buffalo and five goats. We’re hoping to be able to say a few sentences to them by the time we meet. In our present state….that’s a very high hope.
Greetings from Nepal, y’all! Namaste!
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We’ve Loaded 16 Tons
We’re currently 20,000 feet above Montana. I can smell the deer and antelope from here, despite the altitude difference. Coffee has just been served….which we hope does a better job of keeping us up than the last cups consumed with this morning’s rush through one of the Seatac airport’s popular breakfast spots. We’ve both been dozing throughout the flight after running on last night’s 3 hours of sleep.
Packing finally peaked last night after a rough month. Early on, the accumulation of potential “must takes” piled up fast. It was hard to find a clear floor space to step on in the office that Tom graciously let us use for Peace Corps ‘pre-stage staging’. (we’ve been at Liz and Tom’s over the last few weeks). Backpacks and duffle bags lay in heaps in one corner (changing their contents on a regular basis). Boxes from Amazon, REI, and other stores that might contain reusable packing material cascaded across another. In every square inch of the rest of the room were piles of items, each pile, if stared at closely, could be discerned as belonging in a particular room of a house. This was a weird hybrid….move….pack experience. Packing for twenty-seven months is not packing for a vacation.
To make things a little more difficult, the Nord office is a no-cat zone, and Desmond was not a happy cat…. meow-ing incessantly in his broken, smoky voice while staring through the French door window panes separating him from his human servants (us)…… as we struggled with sorting and deciding on whether to keep or get rid of our dwindling possessions.
This morning, we finally finished packing two 50lb military duffels, two larger hiking backpacks, two smaller carry-on sized backpacks, and one laptop case….all to the breaking point. This is not a good place to be, really. Packed is good, finished is good, but when you are looking at your wrist and it says, “2:30AM”, but you need to be out the door at 5:50, things might have been planned a wee bit better.
Added to this is we can barely carry everything. Here’s some advice for those Peace Corps volunteers coming in March 2015…. Get things done early. Pack. Practice loading. See if it’s what you want to carry. See if it is something you *can* carry.
After the airport shuttle dropped us off at Seattle airport, we rented a cart to get the stuff to the airport ticket counter, where we had a really odd interaction. The counter lady charged us an extra hundred dollars, and almost rerouted our stuff to New Orleans. It’s going to take some time to get our money back, which sucks because they almost overdrew our checking, but at least everyone was nice about the situation and we were too exhausted to kick butt.
One hour, 40 minutes till landing in the Windy City. We’re going to find our hotel and check out the beds. You know, to make sure they work. Looking forward to meeting our new Nepal Peace Corps family tomorrow, people who will experience heaven and hell with us, support us, and keep us sane (relatively speaking) over the next two plus years. We hope they will kinda realize that this out of shape, stressed, exhausted shape we are in…..is not all we’ve got to offer.
And while we are thinking of future family/friends, let us send a thank you to all of our ultra amazing family/friends in our lives right now, who have taken care of us over the last couple months, reminding us of things we should have already done, clearing our cloudy brains when necessary, making sure we eat when we’ve forgotten, sewing things for us, sending things to us, providing support and distraction when needed. You are appreciated. Love all of you. -
From the Mountains to the Prairies to the Oceans…..
You know when you are dancing and suddenly realize you have been looking at your feet through the whole dance?
This is the way our world has been spinning recently … through those days and nights and the rises and sets of the sun that fall between. Each spin has flung a few more material things off into nooks and crannies of loved ones, or off into the wilds of the whirring world. Each step is deliberate, weighted with consideration, timed with the partner, and paced to the beat of the world around. But, through it all, is an unsettling lack of awareness of the ‘dance floor’ as we ‘stare at our feet’ in disbelief.
Sun-up at Willow’s Court Apartments Our leap into homelessness turned out well. We spent the last night packing and moving until sun-up, taking this last picture from the apartment before dragging the last load to the kids and grabbing a short nap on their couch. The next few days we spent sorting through all kinds of stuff. It was very difficult to look at an item and decide if it should go into the small ‘Nepal’ pile, the small ‘storage’ pile, or the huge ‘sale’ pile. The items hopped from one pile to the other…..and some…back again, often ending with yet another disgusted toss in the “Sale” area. Unfortunately, we ran out of sorting time before we ran out of stuff to sort last week. So, when we return to Seattle from our current travels, there is more purging and repacking to do…the goal to make our two-year footprint smaller. (Right now it’s more an overweight “leg-print”)
Gus and HarLee have moved in with some fantastic ladies in Salem, Oregon and seem to be doing well. We’re very happy to have such a safe welcome home for them and feel lucky their foster parents send a daily feline adjustment report. We’ve left Des with the Seattle family, and will be returning to check in with him soon. We hope he is behaving himself.
Our current travel began last Sunday morning when we left Seattle for the Meeting of the Moms (Denver Mom and Nashville Mom). The first leg of the trip from Seattle toDenver was overall uneventful, although we were able to see interesting scenery and one cute antelope along the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rp1r7lAxN4&feature=youtu.be
Once we arrived in Denver late Monday night, we collapsed at Stew’s Mom’s house, stirring long enough to read an incoming e-mail alerting us that our Nepal Peace Corps group would Stage in Chicago. We also managed to spend a few hours on some intense brother, sister-in-law, nephews, and niece quality time.
Wednesday morning, we took to the road again, this time with Stew’s Mom at the wheel. Stew’s Mom is a driver, enjoying long cruises across the country, so we were happy to have her solid help with the helm, as well as the wonderful companionship she offered. This portion of the trip was much more difficult. We hit a number of storms and road construction that made driving difficult and dangerous. Luckily, we escaped unscathed. During this Prairie leg of the trip, we passed through St. Louis, where Vee spent her grade school years, as well as Southern Illinois, where she graduated from high school. Ahhhh….memories…
We arrived in Nashville late Thursday night, and Friday morning the Moms got to meet, thus, a successful trip. Now we’re chillaxing in the beautiful state of Tennessee, watching feral cats slowly wander by the windows and enjoying the cool evening breeze……of the AC.
We will be here until early tomorrow morning before heading back West, stopping in Denver for a few more days of visiting, and then picking up the pace to get back to Seattle for our final approach, leaving for Staging on the 3rd, registering on the 4th, and shipping out to the toughest job we’ll ever love on the 5th.
The trip through the western portion of the country this time has been extra enjoyable. Knowing we will be away from our United States is making us appreciate our American cultures, our American environments and our Americanisms much more than usual.
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Carrington Migration Begins
(C) James Hammond, https://www.flickr.com/photos/jameshammond/ Last night we packed up Desi, his bed, brush, treats, catnip, etc…and moved him to his new temporary home here in Seattle. I spent last night with Des in his new digs and will spend one more night here while he is adapting. Meanwhile, Stewart has been successfully ensuring Gus and HarLee have parental supervision to keep them from making prank calls and TPing the neighbors.
Gus ‘n HarLee Monday afternoon, Stew and I will cat-herd Gus and Harlee to the car and head south to Oregon, where they will vacation and spa for two years with some lovely ladies. We’ll spend one night with the kids there to help them become accustomed to their new world, before we come back to Seattle for the final push.
By August 1st, this branch of the Carringtons will find themselves depending on the ‘kindness of strangers’……..well….actually the kindness of friends and family. We will essentially be homeless until we arrive in Nepal on September 7th. Wagons Ho!!!!!
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Collective Vees Have a 100 lb. Luggage Limit
(C) https://www.flickr.com/photos/ilker/ I feel so self-absorbed right now. Even more than my last year spent seeing, hearing, talking, living graduate school every second of every day(and that was major self-absorption). Now this sorting, packing, and preparing has me focused on the past me…the current me….the future me…and all of her needs/wants…..me me me. What should I take that I won’t be able to get in Nepal? Is there anything I should buy here that will make my adjustment to a different climate, culture, comfort level….easier? Where will I sleep? How will I sleep? Will I sleep? Etc…etc…etc…The advice I get is very very helpful….sometimes too much so. I still remain confused.
How much clothing should I take? The current volunteers say not to bring too much in the area of clothing….enough to keep you going between wash days. (and laundry is done by hand, so you don’t want too big of a pile of dirty laundry….less clothes…better) But, on the other hand, Nepalis are of smaller stature than an average sized American, so you might not be able to find clothing sizes that fit you….should probably have enough quality clothes that will last the two years. OR…..you could have family and friends send clothes to you…course…it costs an arm and a leg to ship to Nepal. Ah….and make sure your clothing choices are quick dry (as well as towels) The humidity here makes it really hard to dry anything. (At this moment, I’m looking at my plush cozy American towels and shaking my head)
Electronic advice from ‘those who have gone before’: You’ll need your electronics for book reading, picture taking, music listening, and internet access or you’ll go insane. But….don’t bring so much electronic equipment that you look like the typical rich American or you’ll be pestered never endingly about giving things to the natives….wait….you’re going to receive a never ending amount of pestering because you are a rich American anyway….just try to keep your shit hidden. Oh….and all of your electronic stuff will die over here due to climate and unpredictable power surges, so don’t bring expensive stuff…but, do bring quality stuff that will be durable.
And about food: Some of the Peace Corps volunteers in Nepal experience malnutrition issues while in country. Makes sense when you consider “Food Security” is the umbrella we are all working under over there. Lack of technology puts our American ‘eat local’ campaigns in a whole new ballpark, eh? Not much in the way of refrigeration in Nepal. And food is cooked over a fire. (Wood stoves were a recent project worked on by the current Nepal Peace Corps volunteers. Meals are cooked on open camp fires in the houses without cook stoves ….smoky smores, anyone?) So, should I use half of my luggage weight for dried food? Wait….can I dry food over there? Ummm…humidity is really really high, I don’t know what resources they have to dry food….I’m not confident of that. But, seriously, maybe I should be researching food preservation, right?? Or should I take a two year supply of nutritional supplements with me….will two years of nutritional supplements make it through customs? Even the crops that are growing have some major pest issues. A friend of ours serving in Nepal just this morning mentioned that over 200,000 monkeys have moved into his area and are decimating the corn crop. 200,000 monkeys? *shudder*
I think my biggest current concern revolves around how I’m going to deal with the change in hygiene opportunities and what I can take to help me out in that area. I’m a little on the quirky side compared with most Americans in the area of hygiene. To the point of worrying that someone will notice the number of times I wash my hands and shower….and I dunno…turn me into the water conservation police? But, in Nepal, hygiene is not always easily accessible. Water can be limited and bucket showers are a strong possibility. I’m sure bucket showers get people clean, I’ll just have to learn how to do it correctly and….learn to shower with cold water and less often. (bucket showers involve wetting your body down, soaping it up, and pouring water over your body to rinse…. but, what happens if you use all your water for rinsing…and still have soap on you?) In Nepal, I’ve heard, bathing is done while clothed. While clothed? Huh?…..how is that even…? Never mind, I’ll figure it out when I get there. I’ve also been told I should consider leaving the toilet paper at home, cause it would have to be burned in Nepal after use…..and it really isn’t needed. Not needed? Huh?….how is that even…? Never mind, I’ll figure it out when I get there. Should I pack tons of baby wipes and containers of hand sanitizer? Soooo…..yeah….a different world ahead in the hygiene department.
Different world altogether ahead. And to be totally honest, I don’t know which of my numerous “Vee personalities” will show up in Nepal…..trust me….they would all pack differently. And the collective Vees have a 100 lb. luggage limit. All about me me me….
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Ekdam Raamro
The cat stretches, and then curls up like an otter, covering his eyes.
He has been watching us pack, warily, and with great trepidation. He has tired himself out by running to and fro, on things and off, sticking his nose under hands and running amok. His brother has also been watching us, although Gus is a bit more laid back, wide eyes in disbelief… we’re doing this again….not again…
Their sister, however, is the most relaxed… or is providing the best counter to all the commotion and turmoil. She has burrowed under the covers of the bed. If not aware, then at least asleep or ignoring the chaos ensuing around her.
We’ve entered the power phase. Drastic things are happening. DECISIONS are being made. I remember…I purchased that portable brass plumb-bob for my field archaeology class… We used it during the remodel of the Portland cottage… It looks cool…It has a lovely weight… It goes … away! *sobbing* “Not the plumb-bob!” … and so it goes.
We are tired. We are irritable. I say this feels an extension of the reducing of our material life during the farm exodus two years ago, finishing what we started. Vee says this cleansing is something different. Something new. Something with a little more acute pain attached.
100 pounds to each to carry. A small square of space to keep things here for return in two and a half years. The rest of your life … gone.
