Na-ma-stay in Nepal

Goodbye, Nepal.

2009-06-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting in the Doha airport in the Gulf State of Qatar, absorbing camel-shaped magnets and carpet-shaped coasters in the souvenir shop next to me, turbans and burkhas all around and the loudspeaker lady paging Muhammads and Abduls and Tariqs to Please Make Their Way to their the Gates Immediately.

I sit here, under-slept and over-tired and under-deodorized. Indulging in my second cup of coffee and thinking about my past month. A blessed month… first I trekked in the Himalayas (where a nighttime thunderstorm lit up 360 degrees of Himalaya snug tight around us – the most beautiful scene I’ve witnessed) and then I learned about Buddhism at a Tibetan Monastery (where I explored un-explored and under-explored nooks of my mind).

The monastery!

The mountains!

This past month I also said goodbye to my life in Kathmandu. The goodbye rituals started weeks ago and culminated in tearful embraces with my Nepali family. I had a walnut lump in my throat as I hugged them. They’ve given me the most, by any measure – kgs of cooked rice; distance reached across The Cultural Divide; smiles induced through stories and tickles and bowls of from-the-earth-to-the-pot lentils. This lump came from a painful awareness that I’m unlikely to see them again. (All they have to communicate is one unreliable mobile phone. How will I reach them when, or if, I return to Kathmandu? What if their number changes? If they move?)

Mama Anu (Kicking myself now, as I realize I have no good pictures of the whole family together.)

Papa Namaraj

Nisha, elegant oldest daughter

Anisha, the smiley-quiet middle daughter and I

Anish, wily youngest son

But I’ll leave mountain-buddha-family images for now, shelacking them on my mind rather than paper. And will begin from here. From now. From the gritty and soft and slippery stuff that’s floating in my sentimental mind this moment. Reflections. (Did high school and college teachers program me, my generation, to automatically-like-tying-shoes, ask that ubiquitous essay question What Have you Learned from this Experience?) Yes. Reflections…

* * *

11 months and 12 days ago I sat in the same shiny wooden seat in the same eerily Starbuck’s-esque coffee shop in the Doha Airport. I was on the same layover, but in reverse…

Like before, men in white turbans shuffle past, followed close by figures clad in floor-length black burkhas, slits in the eyes revealing beady glances but no skin. Like before I’m bleary-eyed from latenightpacking and goodbyes and travel. Like before, I…

…I’m tempted to launch into an exposé, a sequence of what’s-different about me now. One year later. Because sitting here in this same-same place, I notice how not same I feel.

And I will. With a caveat though, an awareness that I can’t, I’m not, perceiving the deepest tectonic plate shifts. Not yet. Over the next weeks, months, years, as I meet objects and situations from my Pre Nepal life, Ah-Has will happen. I'll think, I would have done that differently before and Wow – I remember I used to have this attitude about that but now…

So before I plunge into my former life – a cozy bubble of family, friends, coastal towns, familiar dogs and routine – what I write is un-tested, wobbly. But it is real hereandnow, as I sit in My Coffee Shop in the Gulf (Ha! What would the stern waiter say to that?), sipping a latte (my first in a year).

I feel older. No gray hairs... yet. But in the bright bathroom airport lights I did notice cracks, hair-width, sprouting from my eyes. Their seeds were likely planted long before Nepal; while scratching my temple with an eraser during a college final or dashing to catch the subway in New York.

Seeds already planted, during the past year they began to sprout. Each time I shuffled past a street beggar and told myself don’t feel bad you work for a humanitarian organization so I didn’t have to look him or her in the eye, the cracks deepened. Every time I sat in Kathmandu’s constipated traffic and let it bother me, let the dust and soot and rotting trash fumes seep in the window and into my brain, igniting the I’m late and I Blame it On the Traffic tension that drips down to my shoulder muscles, the cracks spread. Ice cold winter showers wedged them open, and so did long sunshine-less days behind a desk, days when I stood and my knees cracked. They’ll continue to deepen, and (though hopefully not for some decades) the same causes will turn my hairs one by one, from brown to silver.

But the cracks are just the surface. Under the cracks, wisdom happens, too. As does stupidity, but I’ll get to that. There’s new clutter in the top of my brain… skills and knowledge that isn’t broad or deep enough to be called wisdom yet. But precursors maybe. Unlike the me who sat in this coffee shop 11 months and 12 days ago, today’s me can speak basic Nepali. I know how to balance budgets and write proposals. I can manipulate language, and this is my one marketable skill – a skill that I can take pride in when the ends (projects) justify the means (proposals and reports). And when the ends are worthy. I wish I’d seen more of the ends.

Plunging deeper still. (Am I at wisdom yet? Or still just brain stuff?) I can look a taxi driver in the eye, connect with him (I’d say “or her” but never met a woman taxi driver in Kathmandu), get underneath that thin protective barrier we arm ourselves with (especially in taxis) and tell him, No, that’s not a fair price. (Or, Hoina, dherai mahango cha, dai.) I can be direct and honest without wincing because I’m more confident about right and wrong and even if someone has a million times fewer rupees than I have, I will tell them when I believe something is unfair. That’s new.

Deeper still, another layer underneath. My mind feels looser, less wound, better able to breath and say ke garne ('what to do?') when something bumps into My Plan. More a product of the past one-month than the past 11, after 10 mind-altering days at a Buddhist monastery.

This self-reflection, navel-gazing could go on pages more. And it will in my mind. (It continues now, as I write this…I’m more cynical. And more hopeful. My lungs are sootier. I am more patient…my mind continues.) But my flight boards and in 30 minutes I’ll be hurtling through the sky in a metal tube, catching up with the sun’s spreading clasp around the world. Racing towards a country I feel unacquainted with. A country that’s been through a lot since I last saw it. Its economy burped and hiccuped then fell ill. And a new leader took power who's steering the big, vague, red-white-blue blob that we call America in a direction we’re all meant to feel better about.

Most of you are in that country and I’ll see you within days (parents), weeks (most family), months (most friends). I’ll save the mind searching, the reflections for when I meet you all soon. Over a cup of Nepali tea and a vein-popping hug. (I haven’t hugged – really hugged in 11 months either. Only Namastes and head bows. Pent up hug energy – watch out.)

I can’t wait to see how you’ve changed, too.

Cloudy Times

2009-05-13T01:55:00.000-07:00

For Nepali politics, that is. While I was trekking, Nepal’s Maoist-led government dissolved. Tomorrow I leave for another week out of touch. (Taking a course on Buddhism here.) I’m nervous for what kind of country – and government – I’ll find when I return.

Here are my first impressions on the news:

Red hammer and sickles sprinkle the country, reminding Nepalis of the 10 years when the Maoists ran the jungles and bullied the Powers that Be.

Now the Maoists are the Powers that Be. 13 months ago The People, or three million of them (a plurality), queued and fingerprinted and cast their votes to deliver an outcome no analyst or expert or Kathmandu pants-suit wearer foresaw. The red jungle party, the party of Mao and Marx and Castro won the country’s first fully democratic election. In this country of monarchy and caste hierarchy, the Maoists won on a simple but powerful message: Power to the People.

I arrived in Nepal two months after the Maoist's victory. Now, ten months later, I’m in the woods, tucked close to a Himal, and a Nepali I meet on the trail says, by the way, Prachanda, the Maoist leader and Prime Minister resigned yesterday did you hear?

Walking in the woods that day, I wondered what it means for the Maoists and The Peace Process and Nepal. I wondered what those millions who voted for the Maoists think about their party now. What happened to the hope and jubilation that exploded in the streets in straight marching bands and flags and tears after The People’s Party won the majority of votes?

Democracy takes time. This would be a marketable bumper sticker here. But it’d be a tough sell. Like democracy, bumper stickers are new to Nepal.

Trekking - then and now.

2009-05-01T03:35:00.000-07:00

Leaving tomorrow for TREKKING. Very last minute. Very excited. Headed for the Everest Region. For 2 weeks? 3? Unsure. Off to buy granola bars and toilet paper.

And here are pictures from a trek I did with two friends in October. Never uploaded them!

Lena, Katherine and I, Day 1. Slightly excited. Good stuff ahead.

Off we went. Little Hobbitses.

We stayed in tea houses. Cozy.

Inside.

Lots of Buddhism.

And tea breaks.

Lena developed a fetish for floral teapots. Contagious.

We stayed in this village for 3 nights. High and cold and utterly surreal.

The glacier is coming. The view from our bedroom.

Few things would pull me out of a warm sleeping bag at 5 in the morning. This is one.

This is perhaps another: yak cheese.

Sun + fuzzy chairs = great nap station.

Sun + mountain top = even better.

We did.

The. Future.

2009-05-01T03:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my last day at work. Surreal. What’s next? No answers yet. But here’s a journal entry I wrote last month, when I was starting to reflect on that question.

I was biking down my alley towards my house when I passed a man selling Tupperware on his head. The plastics were all colors and sizes – large maroon bowls for washing babies, rounded turquoise ladles for serving dal (lentils) and every plastic kitchen utensil in between – all balanced improbably on his head.

I wanted to stop and talk to him. I wanted to ask him how many bowls he’s sold today, how he became a bowl seller, and how many children he has. What is it like to carry bowls around on your head all day? and Does your neck ever hurt? I might have asked.

I might have followed my impulse but I had a report due in two hours. A report on how IRC is teaching business skills to Nepalis. If the man were a number in my report, I wouldn’t know.

I wanted to work abroad because I love to steep myself in a foreign place and to discover that it’s not so foreign after all. But traveling and working abroad are two very different things, I’m learning. I can’t talk to the plastic utensil-seller and meet work deadlines. I might choose to work abroad again. But over the long run, I think I'll choose the plastic seller.

It’s spring and…

2009-04-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

…the mosquitoes buzz at night and I have not touched my bag of wool socks in weeks.

…the tourists are back with their dog-eared Lonely Planet guides and European accents and expectations of snowy peaks and cheap cashmere and elephants and 'culture.'

…the electricity is on 12 hours a day instead of 8, thanks to the week of pre-monsoon rain. (Despite the improvement, grumbles continue and they’re getting louder and It's the Government’s Fault they say.)

…the days are longer and that means the restaurant that serves slimy garlic fried mushrooms stays open an hour later which is great because its not just next door.

… I only have 4 days left of work. And that’s crazy because I’ve been here 10 months but sometimes it feels like only 10 minutes.

… my mind is set on May and mountains. And the next 30 days when my main responsibilities will be to drink yak milk tea when I’m thirsty and lean my back against a sunny rock when I’m tired.

… I’m wondering where ill be next spring. I’ve sent out a resume or two but most of my attention is not on the next but on the now. Because now I can say “now or never” and mean it. I'm trying to choose now.

Eat us we're noodles.

2009-04-25T02:07:00.000-07:00

My mom recently unearthed a photo of a plate I made for my Grandma when I was 5. My dad emailed me the picture, and raised the following thought-provoking questions that deserve a larger audience than just me:

Why are the horse and the llama in love (note hearts)?
Is it a llama, or is it a camel (note two humps -- dromedary)?
Why doesn't the horse fall over (note two legs -- other creature has four)?
What is the nature of those orange things above the hearts; vegetable, mineral, or animal?
What is the meaning of the yellow popcorny stuff the two creatures seem to be floating in?
Is 'Grandma' protecting the horse? If so, why not the camel?
Why does the horse have a red shield over itself (note -- same color as hunter's pants)
What exactly is the hunter carrying?
Why is the hunter frowning?
Why is the sun frowning?
Is the hunter looking for noodles?

Profound stuff.

Sometimes I wish I were a Monkey

2009-04-16T00:18:00.000-07:00

Here's one reason why:

I've yet to see a sign like this for humans in Kathmandu. And it's getting hot.

Tradition

2009-04-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was New Year's in the Nepali calendar. To usher-in 2066, I went to my friend Yamuna’s house in Bakthapur, an ancient town outside of Kathmandu famous for its Newari culture. (Newars are the indigenous people of the Kathmandu Valley.) I met her large, jovial family and ate round after round of meat and boiled eggs (Newari festival food). After lunch we went to watch the celebrations in the center of town. Nothing could have prepared me for what we saw. Here's my account:

We walk downhill with a sea of Nepalis in their holiday clothes. (Sparkles and colors for the ladies; ironed grey and hats for the men.)

I see old lined faces leaning out of second and third story windows – windows framed by intricate wood carvings. Not a 90 degree angle in sight – the tiles in the street, the beams holding the roofs, even doorways are crooked and warped from centuries of recurrent frost and soggy heat.

Windows and watchers

We descend with the crowd. Steel symbols and wooden drums beat behind us and I hear shouts and murmurs and hushed conversations all around. They’re speaking Newari and I don’t even know the words for excuse me. We squeeze our way down – hands held, then pulled apart, held, then pulled apart. We round a corner and see The Spectacle below: a pole, the height of a pirate ship’s mast, erected at a slanting angle to the ground.

The pole from our vantage point

I focus my eyes and see a man clinging to the side of the pole. He is three quarters to the top. I gasp. I take three pictures. I watch the crowd watch the clinging man. Old men squint, small children stretch their necks from their father’s shoulders, faces stuff out of every window in the square, like clowns in a VW. Everyone is focused on the pole.

The man next to me

(A small part of) the crowd.

Before I can ask, ‘Why is he climbing the pole?’ and ‘What’s his aim?’ I see his ant-sized figure detach from the pole and free-fall to the ground. The crowd nearby rushes to where his body would have landed. The old men squint harder; kids strain their necks higher; the faces push farther out windows. And the murmurs grow louder.

The man on the pole, seconds before he fell. (He's on the left side. Blue-ish shirt.)

Is someone at the bottom to catch him? I ask.

No, Yamuna says. His only safety is the dangling rope. If he catches it on his way down, he lives.

He didn’t catch it. I imagine the thud of his body on the cobblestone and the shatter of his bones. I hope I’d misunderstood.

Do you think he’ll be OK?

No. He most probably died. Many people die each year during this festival.

Images from history books flash my mind –witches burning at the stake; Jews marching into gas chambers; villagers stoned to death. Encouraging men to climb a slippery pole without safety feels on par.

I learn later that it’s an honor to climb the pole. If you reach the top, you communicate directly with God. You come down a hero and God will forever protect your family.

When I ask Yamuna what thinks of the event, and whether she supports it, she says, It’s our tradition. And then, Ke garne? meaning What to do?

Other random photos from the day:

Sanjeev and Dil! My co-guests at Yamuna's family's house.

Round one: Boiled eggs, papadam, prawn chips and... Red Bull!

Yamuna and younger cousin in front of their home

Chickens! Bound for the pot...

Walkie Talkies and Duffel Bags

2009-04-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Orange tents staked to frozen fields. Snow whipping off steep cliffs. Sir Edmond Hilary with his goggles. Tattered prayer flags flapping in the wind. My images of Everest.

Now I also imagine duffel bags, walkie talkies and my friend Linden. This spring, Linden is helping coordinate an Eddie Bauer-sponsored trip up Everest. From what I gather the company formerly known for it’s high wasted khakis and boat shoes wants to be known instead for gortex vests and polar tec gloves. It wants to move away from golfers and tea to skiers and Red Bull. So they’ve gathered a team of professional climbers, a film crew from National Geographic and Linden’s guiding company (RMI) to launch a new “Expedition Line” with a summit of the world’s highest mountain.

Linden is coordinating the trip’s logistics. He filled out paperwork for their satellite phones and escorted 17 duffel bags of cheese, Snickers bars and other high altitude essentials to Nepal. Now he’s spending the next two months at Everest Base camp.

Infinitely jealous, I’ve been watching his team’s dispatches every day. Linden debuted in yesterday's (April 7th) with some serious walkie talky talk. Not to miss… Over.

Its a little bit hard to look at pictures like this from an office in Kathmandu. More drool-worthy photos on their website.

Colors!

2009-04-07T02:41:00.000-07:00

STATEMENT: Nepal is colorful.

EVIDENCE:

Doors

Street scenes

Teapots
Teapot and door photos taken by the illustrious Ms. Lena Bean(a) Neufeld

Temples

Tikka powder (used during worship)

Carrots

Cloth

Columns

Food

Roommates (on Holi, a Hindu color festival)

Trash

Flowers

Happy Spring.

Potbellies revisited

2009-04-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

I felt mean after I posted the last blog entry. I was unfair to the government men. I portrayed them as all belly and appetite and nothing else. I hate that. They are human.

This guilt surprises me. To overcome it, I’m writing about it. To understand The Minister better, here are some questions I might ask:

Why doesn’t he give a crap? Would I give a crap in his shoes?
What does he give a crap about?
Why does he work for the government? (For the pension? Access to a shiny car? Commitment to public service? It was that or the mafia?)
What keeps him awake at night? (Fear of exposure? His baby crying? Cockroaches scampering?)
How does he stereotype my kind? (Ignorant foreigner? Fresh meat?)
Has he always driven around in a shiny black car or did he grow up riding rickshaws and rickety bikes?
If he steals money (as the stereotype suggests), what does he spend it on? (Cuff links? Shoes for his children? Hemorrhoids cream for his ailing mother?)
What does he talk about with his father? (Indian Idol? The fluffiness of today’s rice? The impact of global warming in Nepal?)
How many NGOs does he visit each week? (Two? Twelve?) Does he get tired of finger sandwiches?
How does he regard his potbelly? (With pride? Affection? Disdain? Loyalty?) Did he work hard to grow it? Or is he trying to lose it?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I bet more than one would surprise me.

Pot bellies and Wusteetees

2009-04-02T03:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a snippet from my work-life and one from my play-life:

Dear pot-bellied minister who doesn’t give a crap,

That’s how I want to start the report I’m writing this week. It’s for The Government, to update them on our work.

Every few months they come around to check on us. Last time, a car-full of pot-bellied men with sweat stains under their armpits shuffled into our conference room. The Big Man, a Minister of such-and-such, sat in the largest chair and read questions from a sheet he’d pulled from his leather briefcase. Our director answered while the other men quietly stuffed finger sandwiches into their mouths and asked for seconds on tea. Tuna and breadcrumbs stuck to the mustache of the man next to me. 45 minutes and three platefuls of sandwiches later, the Big Man cleared his throat. The suits stood up, shook our hands, and screeched off in their shiny black vehicle.

If reading the report I'm to write would result in free tuna sandwiches, someone might read it. But it won’t. The Big Man’s secretary will tuck it into a manila folder which she'll stuff into a crooked cabinet in the corner of her room. Dust will settle, its pages will turn yellow, and one day it will rot in a pile of stinking trash by the river.

This image in mind as I write the report, I take a lot of tea breaks. I clean the dirt from my nails; I watch the lady hanging laundry on the roof next to ours; I organize the paper clips and papers on my desk. I need to breath deep, wiggle my fingers over my keyboard, and Just Do It.

Wusteeteee

That’s the French word for a kid’s climbing harness, as pronounced by Isa the 3-year old. Here she is with her harness:

Isa is a new friend. As is Wendy, her mom. I met Wendy because we went to the same college. (Though 20 years apart.) Wendy wears scarves and boots for her UN job. On the weekends she wears sandals and dirt on her knees though, which is probably why we’re friends. We go climbing and sometimes eat meals together.

Isa says things like: “Guys, I’m not vewwy happy wid you” and “I need to go Ka-Ka…NOW!” When she feels like being a tiger, she crawls on her knees and roars. If allowed, she’d eat only potato chips and strawberries. She ignores questions like, What did you do at school today? and Where are you going tomorrow? But if asked Whats the name of that plastic cow over there? she’ll explain not only his name, but also his entire family history, what he wants for lunch and how he feels about the plastic horse next to him.

Isa helps me focus on what’s in front of my nose – things like plastic cows and potato chips and spring blossoms. Things I’d otherwise miss.

Sweet Rain

2009-03-22T06:37:00.001-07:00

First puddle of '09!

Two days ago it rained for the first time in six months. Since then the sky has been grey and rumbly. It spurts drizzle every hour. Most conversations now start and end with a comment on this rain: About time! Thank heavens! and Hallelujah! people say.

Rain means there’s hope that our well will fill back up, our taps will stop going dry, and I no longer have to clean my armpits with wipees. It means the rain might bring more rain, enough to saturate the cracked soil and raise the sagging crops. It means the farmers can breath again. And that the rivers flowing from the glaciers of the Himalayas, the rivers that have slowed down to a trickle this dry winter, will soon come alive again and spin the turbines that create the electricity that’s been in such short supply.

I’ve never felt so dependent on the weather. When it rained at home my track meet might be canceled or a picnic might move indoors. Here rain means power, food and water. It means life.

My Alley Awakens

2009-03-16T00:04:00.000-07:00

In January, I moved into a small flat with two Australian friends. We live in an alley the width of a sitting lawnmower. Like most alleys in Kathmandu, it has a small temple, a butcher and lots of dogs. I love being part of its living and breathing. I love my alley.

It starts with the ringing. The women of the alley roll out of bed, their eyes still puffy with sleep. Without peeing or eating, they walk, legs stiff with night, to the temple at the end of the lane. They brush their hands over its row of copper bells and leave coconut pieces and flower petals for Kumari, the Goddess that protects our alley. (One of 36 million Hindu Gods.)

The temple

The bells

The Goddess Kumari

“Its like someone’s hitting coke bottles together over and over,” a friend said after a night in our flat.

By 5:30 the bells stop. The women are back home – lighting stoves for tea, washing their mouths, and soaking the day’s lentils.

The white dog wakes up next. He licks the gnatted fur on his bony spine and yawns. He heads towards the corner momo stand, sniffing the gutter as he walks. He stops. Tucked in the edge where the stand meets the ground is a dark, greasy morsel the size of a domino. He chomps, swallows, then licks the spot until he’s scraped the cement for every last gristly molecule. He continues sniffing.

Next, around 7, the shopkeepers slide back the metal doors of their shops. Metal on metal; the sound of business starting. The sound of the hour. The shopkeepers’s wives tidy the entrances – sweeping banana peels and cigarette cartons into the gutter or onto the neighboring shop’s patch of alley. The man I buy bananas and laundry soap from polishes his foggy glass counter until the identity of the chewing gum and tampons underneath is unmistakable. This all goes on while I’m still horizontal, still drooling on my pillow.

When my alarm goes off at 8:35, the children are already in school, the shopkeeper’s milk is sold out and the women are cleaning copper pots that held the morning’s rice and tea. At 8:40 I stretch my arms up, pee, put on jeans, brush my teeth, check for keys, cell phone and computer charger and walk into the bright day.

First thing I see is the yarn. Just over the waist-high cement wall separating our compound from our neighbors, dozens of sheep’s-worth of newly-dyed yarn hangs to dry. Every day is a different hue – green, purple, red. Every day is brilliant. Next I walk under the canopy of softball-sized red flowers and out my creaking brown gate. I turn right.

The Yarn

The huge red flowers

The brown gate

First shop I come to is the butcher. Behind the counter a man in a white jacket hovers over yesterday’s parts – a leg, parts of an abdomen. I hold my breath and think of those red flowers. Across the alley a goat wobbles, his movement restricted by the 1-foot piece of twine tied around his neck. I bike on, try bring my mind back to the yarn.

The butcher's counter

Nearing the corner I ring my rusty bell. “Maaph garnu” I say as I weave between two groups – a cluster of men sipping tea from glass cups and old women with question mark-shaped backs buying bananas and lentils.

I turn right, out of the alley. Into the day.

Women's Day

2009-03-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

It’s Women’s Day. I’m not sure what that means. But I have a better understanding of what Gender Based Violence means now. Until recently it was one of many acronym-y phrases that felt stale to me. It lacked a face.

Then last week I interviewed abused women at a shelter in Kathmandu.

Here is one of their stories, recently published.

Happy Women’s Day from a happy but sober wirl.*

* Sounds better than goman. And it’s still years before I’m ready to call myself a woman.

Highs and Lows

2009-03-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s catch-up time. Here are some things that have made me happy and sad lately:

HAPPY:

1. My wool slippers

I bought these from a small man with leathery skin. Everything he wore was knitted. At dinner last week I said of my slippers: “If I could wear these to work I would.” My roommate said, why not? I shrugged. Now I carry them to work and put them on at my desk. Everyone should own a pair.

2. Tiksha the puppy

Tiksha means OK in Nepali. As ubiquitous as “Namaste.”

She entered my life a few months ago. It was puppy season and little puppy puff balls (or puffy pup balls?) were crawling all over the streets of Kathmandu. One day a soft-hearted lady I work with scooped one off the street and brought it to work. My boss named her “Tiksha” and bought her a collar with a bell. She’s been our office dog and mascot since. When my brain gets stiff I go outside and play with her. She jumps, gnaws, licks, nestles, butt-sniffs and bone-chases. She’s better at waking me up than tea.

3. Visitors!

The highlight of my month (year?): visitors! When Seinfeld George’s worlds collided it was a disaster. When mine collided it felt like the planets were coming into alignment. Kathmandu and home! Family and Friends! A fusion of my worlds.

Family and Friends!

Kathmandu and Home!

4. The Daily Yarn

I live next to a yarn-dying operation. Every morning two brothers dunk 100-ish sweaters-worth of yarn into a bubbling vat of dye. They stir it with long wooden poles, remove it, squeeze the water out, and then, around 8:30, they drape it over sunny laundry lines to dry. At night, my roommates and I guess what color tomorrow will be. In the mornings we walk out and smile. (Except for the two days in a row it was black.)

Here's a sampling:

5. The White Blossoms

With the exception of the sticky orange dessert made for festivals, these blossoms give off the sweetest smell in the Kathmandu Valley. And they’re everywhere now. They cover the wall that lines my alley. They hang from the shop where I buy walnuts and chocolate powder. And best of all, they sprout above rotting street trash. Like potpourri in a smelly toilet.

6. Rupesh the Yoga guy

The width of a carrot and the soft-spokenness of a lullaby performer, Rupesh is my new favorite. He pronounces his r’s like l’s (i.e. loll your head from side to side then leach your light arm up to the sky.”). He adjusts my posture how I imagine a potter would adjust the handle of a teacup. Despite his gentle façade, he runs his class like a military camp. The next day my back and toes and every muscle in between are sore.

If I had a picture of him it would look like this:

7. The Pink Lady

The pink lady lives in the fish tank that’s tucked in the walls of The Blue Fox. The Blue Fox is my favorite restaurant in Kathmandu; accordingly, the pink lady is my favorite lady. What is she thinking? Why does she fold her arms? Is she judging us, or jealous of us? Aloof, or catching every word of conversation? This enigma – and the 50-ruppee Paalaak Paneer – is why I’m a regular at The Fox.

Note: It's true: The Blue Fox is actually purple and the Pink Lady is more of a brown-ish pink. (I would be too if I lived amongst fish poo.)

SAD

1. The Daily Goat

I live 5 houses away from a butcher. His specialty seems to be goat. Every morning there’s a goat tied across the ally from his counter. The counter is empty. By evening the goat is gone and the counter is covered in dead parts – legs, abdomens, and the centerpiece – a head. Faced outward, the goat’s hollowed eyes stare across the alley at the limp rope that held it’s neck hours ago. My daily reminder of death.

A two goat-day. The worst kind.

The Butcher's Counter

2. The White Dog

Can dogs have bi-polar disorder? There’s a mangy white dog that lives near me with all the symptoms. I see him once a day. Here’s an average week of his moods:

M: Indifferent
T: Indifferent
W: Indifferent
Th: CRAZY
F: Indifferent
S: Indifferent
Su: CRAZY

When he’s crazy he’ll rip my roommate’s bag; he’ll hunch his back, show his canines and snarl at me as if I’m trying to kill his babies. Plotting his death is a daily topic of conversation in our flat.

His rear. Wasn't gutsy enough to take his head shot.

3. Darkness

In January the Prime Minister announced an end to 16-hour a day power cuts. He promised they’d be down to 10 hours a day within the week. Two months later and nothing has changed. We’re still in the dark and the cuts are rumored to jump from 16 to 20 hours a day. Lots of grumbling by all, me included. I grumble when:

It’s nighttime and I can’t find my keys. My headlamp’s coverage is never enough
My computer battery dies at the climax of a movie
I hear a word I don’t know and I can’t Wikipedia or Google it
I open my email’s inbox and am reminded of how weedy, overgrown it’s become
I discover green on the cheese I’d put in the fridge two days before

To be fair, there are benefits of having no power: I read more, tell stories with my roommates, and go to bed by nine.

4. Dirtiness

The other day I was cleaning behind my underwear shelf and I discovered a pouch from my June flight on Qatar Airways. Inside was a toothbrush and a pair of turquoise socks. Halleluiah – I’d been wearing the same socks for three days. Like the electricity shortage, there’s also not enough water. It's the dry season and our tap is usually dry. Lots of dirty underwear and unwashed hair as a result. I’m now on day three of the turquoise socks.

The turquoise socks, three-days in

Bouncing

2009-02-10T01:29:00.000-08:00

I feel lucky. The weather is warming. And framily (friends&family) are coming!

These two arrive today, on a big plane from Beijing.

Ms. Stephanie Lawrence & Mr. Crank Reubens

They'll be here for 10 days or 240 hours or 14,000 minutes. (Yes I am counting.)

Then on Saturday this one arrives, fresh from [insert difficult-to-remember-name of North Indian city here]:

(The illustrious) Lizary Yepsen

We'll sweep her up, thrust her into Kathmandu's thumping heart and squeeze the juice out of her until Monday when, unless we can rig a street protest to block traffic to the airport, she leaves for her (I imagine shiny) office in Singapore.

As Liz leaves, Mom and Dad Hughes will be stuffing the last of their things - -wool caps and sheep poop (a gift for the IRC office's new puppy) and hopefully a lot of chocolate -- into their duffel bags. Then they fly to Nepal.

Mom and Pop Hughes

They'll arrive next week, overlapping with Stepho and Crank for two days. I imagine Dad and Crank will discuss the pros and cons of techno gadgets. (Like this one!) Mom, Stepho and I will drool over handmade paper. We will all buy street papaya and at night we'll eat spicy curry.

Then Steph/Crank leave for Tibet and mom, dad and I spend 8 days together eating momos, taking pictures by temples, interacting with street monkeys, etc...

Somehow I'm supposed to work through all this. Interesting. My energy feels explosive.

If I don't write for a while its because I'm hyperventilating or running circles around these visitors.

Ode to Cheesy Cheese Rings

2009-02-02T02:42:00.000-08:00

Photo credit: Timothy (Peabody) Hughes

An ode, in Haiku form, to the ubiquitous Nepali snack food that I loved to hate. Until today.

Part 1

Bags everywhere
Staining fingers of school kids
Lining filthy streets

Part 2

My mind closed, I judged
I hate yellow dye, I thought
I’ll stick to almonds

Part 3

Today I was hungry
And cheesy cheese rings were there
Goldfish on steroids (Yum)

Part 4

I understand now
You merit a two-cheese name
See you tomorrow

Long story...short

2009-01-29T01:11:00.000-08:00

A skinnier version of the story I posted below was recently published.

Part one can be found here. Part two is here.

Long story long

2009-01-18T04:10:00.000-08:00

Here’s a piece on my recent trip to Jajarkot District in Western Nepal. It’s a bit propaganda-ey. (I wrote it for the IRC.) And very long. (Must cut it down!) But here’s the raw version. (I’ll put a link to the shortened, edited version when it’s published.)

I sit overlooking a village in Nepal’s western foothills. My feet are blistered from the journey here but the air soothes my lungs after months in Kathmandu’s chemical fog. Above the dark mountains in front of me looms a jagged white line: the Himalayas.

I am here to follow one woman from this remote village to a hospital in Nepal’s third largest city. The woman, Mandari, suffers from uterine prolapse, a condition in which a woman’s falls out of her vagina. She is traveling to the city to get surgery. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), an international humanitarian organization, is enabling Mandari and 20 other women like her to take this trip, which otherwise they could not have afforded, much less imagined.

According to some estimates, uterine prolapse afflicts nearly one in three women in rural Nepal. Its causes – poor nutrition, multiple and closely spaced childbirths and years of carrying heavy loads – are facts of life in this country of subsistence farmers. Women spend their days fetching water and firewood and gathering grass for their animals, often walking hours with loads that weigh up to three fourths of their body weight. To help ease the demands, they have children- on average five per married couple. When the rains are bad or the soil is not right, they eat less.

The onset of uterine prolapse is gradual. If caught early, Kegel exercises or the insertion of a vaginal ring can help. But left untreated, the uterus can drop entirely outside of the body. When this happens, only surgery, a hysterectomy, can fix it. According to a recent study by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 200,000 women in Nepal are in immediate need of this surgery. Until recently, no one in rural Nepal had access to such treatment.

Pre-occupied with fighting the Maoist insurgents during Nepal’s 10-year civil war, Nepal’s monarchy neglected the country’s already ailing health services. Since the Maoists came to power in a surprising and decisive election in 2008, they have done little to improve the nation’s health system.

Jajarkot District in mid western Nepal, where I currently sit, is one of the least served of the country’s 75 districts. Until recently, most government clinics in the district were without drugs, staff, and in some cases, walls. Not surprisingly, life expectancy in Jajarkot is 50 years, a decade less than the national average.

Last summer, IRC started a project to improve healthcare access in Jajarkot, training health workers, delivering medicine, fixing broken walls and improving water and sanitation facilities in 10 rural clinics. The team also runs reproductive clinics, educating and diagnosing sufferers of uterine prolapse. This week, they are helping women with the most advanced cases travel to the city for surgery.

Mandari is one of these women. It is the day before we are to depart and I have arranged to meet her on a sunny hilltop. Across the valley, houses cling improbably to the sides of cliffs. Smoke rises from one rooftop. My ears, accustomed to Kathmandu’s incessant honks, tinny Hindi music, and the ka-put of ancient engines, are not used to the silence. The bah of a lamb from down below startles me.

Mandari climbs the hill alone to meet me. We bow our heads and recite the universal greeting “Namaste,” meaning hello, goodbye and, literally, “I bow to you.”

My thin, 5’ 8’’ frame feels huge next to her. Her cheekbones are high, sharp. Her head reaches my shoulders and her snug shirt reveals delicate, pigeon-like bones. If a gust of wind should come up, she might topple, plummet down the cliff in front of us. A stop-sign-red swath of cloth wraps around her tiny legs down to her ankles.

First meeting with Mandari

We sit on a patch of dry grass. Mandari plucks a piece of wheat and hangs it out of her narrow, thin-lipped mouth, chewing slowly. Heavy copper hoops hang from her ears, pulling on holes stretched the width of a pencil eraser. Her eyes squint across the terraced valley, fixed nowhere in particular but in the direction of the hill that separates The Known from The Unknown.

Mandari tells me her fears. Rajan, a thick, clean-shaven public health worker on IRC’s health team, translates for me.

“Cars,” she tells me. “I’m afraid of cars.” She sticks out her tongue and makes a rasped “blahhh” noise. Vomiting. A neighbor told her that cars make you vomit. She’s also worried about leaving her buffalo behind. “She’s feisty,” Mandari tells me. “She doesn’t let anyone but me milk her.”
She leans to the side and spits, then continues chewing on the wheat.

She makes the “blah” noise again, sticks her tongue out. This time she clasps her bony hands around her neck.

“She’s afraid she’ll die from the surgery,” Rajan tells me.

I ask her to tell me about her life.

Mandari thinks she is 35 years old. An orphan at four, she grew up with seven siblings in a one-room mud house. Since she learned to walk, she was busy fetching water, cooking chapatti, and carrying grass for the animals.

She got married at 17 and gave birth to six children – five survived. Her oldest child, a daughter, is now 10.

Mandari’s day starts at four in the morning. She lights a fire with wood collected the day before from a three-hour jungle hike, milks the buffalo, makes tea and chapatti. By eight, she is off to collect firewood and grass for the next day, returning at four. By eight in the evening, she’s cooked dinner, cleaned up and ready for bed, exhausted.

Last July her routine changed. Something started coming out of her vagina. She didn’t know what it was. It became painful to milk her buffalo, walk and lift heavy loads. She could no longer make love to her husband.

Only her husband knew about her problem. She could not tell anyone, since her family, friends and other villagers regard a weakness of a person’s sexual organs as inauspicious. She kept silent until the pain became unbearable.

In October, she sought help. She attended a Reproductive Health Clinic that the IRC organized in her village. Kashi, the young health worker, examined her. Kashi explained that the bulge is her uterus, the sac that carried her five children.

If left unattended, Kashi explained, it will become more painful. In time, as the sensitive tissues that belong inside her body are exposed, ulcerations will develop. They will fester and become infected. Eventually, the condition could kill her.

The only way to fix it, Kashi said, is through surgery.

“You’re lucky,” Kashi told her. “The IRC will pay for you to get the surgery.”

But Mandari did not feel lucky. She was afraid to leave home and afraid of the surgery. But the pain was so bad. Her husband insisted she go. “Who will take care of our children if you die?” He said. So she signed up.

She pauses. She tells me she must go. She must make dinner and then prepare for tomorrow. I ask if she’d like to listen to her recorded voice first. As she listens, flies buzz around her face and people walk by, talking. She is still, silent. It is the first time she’s listened to her voice ever. As I fall asleep that night, I wonder what Mandari is thinking. I cannot imagine.

Mandari listening to her voice. (Rajan next to her)

The next morning over tea, my colleague Rajan explains the journey ahead. Today we will climb over the mountain that separates Mandari’s village from the rest of the world. By nightfall, ten or twelve hours later, we will reach Kholepuzne, the closest town with a road. Tomorrow morning we will take a bus the 20 other women to the hospital in Nepalgunj, a large city to the south. If we’re lucky, the bus trip will take six hours. If protestors block the roads, the bus breaks down, or the road is broken, it may take longer.

After breakfast, Rajan and I meet Mandari on the top of a small hill outside of town. She is with her husband and her 1-year old son.

I feel prepared for the journey. I am wearing quality hiking boots. I have two liters of water and several packets of coconut biscuits in my bag. But I worry about Mandari and her family. She is wearing thin canvas shoes and the same red wrap skirt she wore yesterday. Her husband is wearing plastic sandals, the kind you’d see on a sale rack at Wal-Mart. Strapped to her back is Mandari’s son, who is the size of a sack of potatoes.

The trail heads immediately up. I stop to take off my windbreaker and fleece. I say I will catch up, but I don’t. How are Mandari’s canvas shoes faster than my hiking boots I think. When I finally catch them my breathing is heavy. I wipe the sweat off my forehead and notice that Mandari’s is dry.

Mandari walking with 1-year old son, "Babu" on back

View from the trail

Later in the day, we come across the first, and only, settlement – twenty mud huts spread across a steep hillside. We have tea at a wooden stall and Mandari unwraps a canvas sack. It’s full of roti, chutney and leaves stuffed with rice pudding, which she offers everyone. Leaving my coconut biscuits in the bag, I taste the roti. It is fresh, whole wheat, thick as the sole of my boot. The chutney spices taste like they were ground that morning.

Mandari and "Babu" at rest stop

Full-bellied and re-invigorated, we walk up and up – past trees and rice paddies and clusters of grazing buffalo. The path is rocky. I grunt and say my new favorite Nepali word over and over – ukalo, or steep.

The sun lowers. Men carrying sacks of rice hurry past in order to reach home by dark. By evening, we round a corner and see, instead of more trees and mountains, a cluster of mud homes 800 meters away. Hallelujah. Mandari, who hasn’t spoken in hours, brightens and says something to Rajan in Nepali. “She says she wants to go back to her village!” Rajan explains. Everyone laughs at the joke.

We enter town on the main road, a dirt track the width of a bus. A few dozen shops line the street. Old men sit behind wooden tables, sipping milky tea from glass cups. Next to them, white sacs of rice and potatoes wait to be hauled away.

We pass a truck and Mandari slows down. She peers in its windows, examining a vehicle for the first time in her life. “Thulo chaa, hoina?” I ask, not knowing what to say. (It’s big, isn’t it?) She nods, keeping her eyes on the truck. A distant smile forms on her face, an expression I see again as she encounters other firsts – a stereo blasting Hindi music, fake leather jackets, powdered milk.

The next morning we join the other twenty women who have come for surgery. Waiting for the bus, they sit on cloth sacks that hold the belongings they’ve carried from their villages. Deep rivets line the faces of the older ones, eyes and chin sagging. Two gold-colored rings decorate their noses and heavy beaded necklaces hang from their thin necks. They wear brilliant wrap skirts and flat canvas shoes.

Nose-rings

Our conversations are superficial at first, limited by my pidgin Nepali and, I imagine, an unspoken cultural norm that prevents open conversation about their condition. How long did it take you to get here? How many children do you have? Have you ever been outside of your village? I ask. Most women have walked for days. Most have about half dozen kids. None have traveled this far from home in their lives.

As we wait for the bus, I talk with an older couple sitting apart from the group. The woman’s earring holes are dime-sized, weighted down by thick, gold hoop earrings. The man’s hair is storm-cloud gray. He talks. She bites her nails. “19 years,” he says. “She’s had the problem for 19 years.” The woman looks at the ground. For the first 18 years, they had no idea what was wrong. “We thought she was a mutant,” he says. Then last fall they attended a Reproductive Health clinic run by IRC, the first of its kind in their village. They learned about the condition, and about this chance to have surgery.

Older couple I spoke with while waiting for bus (Deurupa and Datta Shahi)

“And what is it like to be surrounded by other women who have the same condition?” I ask. The husband begins, but the woman interrupts him. It is her first time speaking.

“Before this trip I thought I was the only one in the world who had this problem. Now I see I’m not alone.”

I ask her how she feels about the surgery. Her calloused fingers fiddle with the bead necklace that hangs from her neck. Her eyes moisten.

“I feel nostalgia. I feel afraid I might die.”

I tell her what IRC’s health workers have already told her - that the surgery is safe, that few people have ever died from it. She nods and smiles faintly.

Over the next few days, I hear this same fear repeated. Often the women clutch their necks when they tell me, just as Mandari had days ago. I ask why they’ve come if they think they’ll die. The answer is always the same: “If I don’t have the surgery, I will die anyway.”

The bus trip takes two days. Mostly we wait – for the bus to come, for the bus to leave, for the bus to get petrol, and on and on. I am impatient, wanting to move. But the women seem relaxed – they smile, talk, and sleep. Hours of sitting on a comfortable bus beats days of walking through the hills of Nepal.

The bus

Mandari and "Babu" on bus

The bus trip takes two days, from the narrow winding roads of Nepal’s hills down to the straight roads of the country’s flat southern plains. Outside the window buffalos and rice paddies give way to metal road signs and fruit stands selling pyramids of oranges. As we near the hospital, rickshaws, motorbikes and buses crowd the road. The women chatter, point outside and exchange excited smiles and laughs.

I overhear one conversation. A younger woman points to a bike outside the window. “What is that?” she asks. “A cycle,” the old woman next to her says. She explains that it’s meant for one person but two or three people can fit, too.

But the bike is forgotten behind as the young woman sees a more awesome sight ahead – a multistory brick complex bigger than any building she has seen before: the hospital.

The hospital

Mandari and Babu arriving at hospital

Inside, the hospital is a maze of long, white hallways. It smells of curry and urine and Lysol. Men in white jackets bustle by, clipboards in hand.

We go to the pre-operation ward. White beds line a room the size of a basketball court. Nurses in starched white robes assign a bed and a number to each woman. Against the bed sheets, the women’s pink wrap skirts, turquoise scarves and the colored tassels that dangle from their braids stand in stark contrast.

Hospital's "official" height chart.

Over the coming days, the women are checked and re-checked by doctors in white uniforms. They have x-rays taken and their blood is tested. They ogle over Mandari’s son, tickling his mouse-sized feet and commenting on his chubby cheeks. They doze in the sun and braid each other’s long, black hair. Mostly they wait.

Woman's first x-ray

Waiting with Babu

Lots of waiting --> dress up!

Patient laundry on hospital balcony

The second night, I hear a chorus of giggles as I approach the ward. I enter to see an older woman dancing in the middle of the room. Her arms wave, her arthritic body spins in stiff jolts. The women in her corner clap and cheer. The old woman turns to Mandari who is in the bed next to her. She holds a sack of air in her hands and points to Mandari’s crotch. Dancing, she shows the sac hanging and wobbling between Mandari’s legs. Mandari laughs, the first time she’s laughed since leaving home. The old woman makes a cutting action with her hands and grunts. The room erupts in laughter.

The tension built up from years, decades of suffering in silence, feels released.

The old woman. A gem.

The afternoon before Mandari’s operation, I talk with her on a concrete bench outside the x-ray room. I ask her if she’s afraid. I say I’ve noticed she seems relaxed, happy even. She clasps my hand and looks me in the eye.

“Not afraid at all,” she says. Her smile is easy. “I was never afraid. I feel strong and ready,” she says.

The benefits of this trip are clear – the lump that has plagued these women will be removed. They’ll be able to walk without pain, bend over to milk their buffalos without feeling ill and make love to their husbands again. But something bigger happened during the journey - the women are talking, sharing stories and laughing. They are coming out of what must have been a terrible, isolating condition. They are not alone.

On the eve of the operation, I come to wish the women good luck. Most are asleep, but I see Mandari grinning broadly. She clasps my hand and points to her nose. Both rings are gone. She whispers that the doctors made her take it off. She looks naked, anonymous without them. She asks me to touch her nose. We giggle.

“Malaii kushi laghyo,” she says to me over and over. I am happy.

Fuzzy bubbles

2009-01-18T04:07:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in a bubble this past month. It’s been fuzzy, hectic and literally dark.

After returning from two weeks in Western Nepal, I promptly caught the flu (fuzzy), moved (hectic), and Kathmandu’s power outages reached a high of 18 hours a day (dark).

Finally my mucus has dried, my sweaters and photos are unpacked from their moving boxes and Kathmandu’s power is starting to improve. (At the expense of our planet. See BBC article.)

Now that things are more clear, calm, and light (slash warm!) I will post stories and pictures from my trip. Starting now!

Re-emergence

2008-12-27T18:33:00.000-08:00

I don't know where to begin.

This is the first time I've had access to Internet in two weeks. First shower. First ride in a vehicle. First sight of pavement. It's the first time in weeks where I've had water without adding chlorine. Last night I slept on my first mattress since Kathmandu.

I've been in Jajarkot District in Western Nepal. First to facilitate a report writing training to our health staff based in the district's cozy, remote headquarters. Next to document a journey – to follow two women who suffer from severe uterine prolapse from their village in Nepal to a teaching hospital in a city three days away. Then to witness their hospital stay, to be with them while they get surgery to remove their uterus.

22 women are taking the same journey this week, facilitated by IRC's health program. Over the next several months, IRC plans to support over 250 more women from remote villages to get this surgery.

The stories involved in this trip are more than I can begin to recount now. I've filled 2 notebooks in a week and a half. Here is one anecdote from yesterday, as our bus reaches the city:

Mandari, one of the two women I'm following, points out the window, asks me "What is that?"
That is a bike, I say. I explain that usually one person rides on it, but sometimes two can. Unlike the bus we are on, humans power it.

She nods. Her expression is the same as the day before, when she saw her first car – eyes wide, a faint smile on her face. No words. Just nods.

It may be my first time seeing cars, pavement, bikes, in weeks. But for these women, it's the first time in their lives.

Witnessing this is incredible and difficult to summarize in ten minutes. More to come in time.

Trip Itinerary

2008-12-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

Days 1-3: Traveled to IRC's health office in Jajarkot (1.5 hours by plane followed by 9 bumpy hours by car followed by 4 sweaty hours by foot. Up and up and up.)

Day 4: Acclimatized, met IRC health staff. Felt thrilled by the uninterrupted mountain views, old men playing checkers in the streets, packs of donkeys carrying rice.

Days 5 and 6: Facilitated a report-writing workshop with our 8 Nepali health staff. Collapsed each night, exhausted. Felt more fresh and useful than I have in months.

Day 7: Vomited my brains out. (The culprit – the thistle dish I ate the night before. A village staple, they grind the spiky plant and mix it with oil and salt and potatoes. My stomach said no, all day long.)

Day 8 – 9: Walked two days to Salma village to meet two women with severe uterine prolapse. Walked with Purna and Rajan, two members of IRC health team. On trail, learned the Nepali national anthem. How to say, "steep uphill," and "steep downhill" in Nepali. Taught our anthem. Felt utterly alive.

Day 10: Met women in Salma village. Mandiri and Sangita. Talked to them about their upcoming trip, listened to their fears. Chewed on dried soybeans from Mandari's fall harvest.

Day 11: Walked 12 hours with Mandari, Sangita, Mandari's husband and little son ("Babu") and Sangita's mother in law to bus town. Witnessed them see their first car. First stereo. Witnessed them meet the 20 other women who have also come for the surgery.

Day 12 (CHRISTMAS!): Wait for the bus. Teach 'telephone' and 'who has the rock?' games to the women. Take bus halfway to hospital. (4 hours.) Stay overnight in chicken-poop-smelly town. In middle of the night, step in pile of green vomit outside my room. Swear.

Day 13: (Yesterday!)– Take bus rest of way to hospital. Follow women as they are admitted.

Today, tomorrow and coming days: Hang out in hospital. Talk with women. Take more pictures. Shower.

Christmas morning

2008-12-27T18:22:00.000-08:00

Scritches from my journal Christmas morning (Purna and Rajan are two IRC staff I travelled with last week):

I wake up to a sound like wind chimes. Donkeys passing by.

Purna twists the light bulb on and picks through his blanket. Hunched over, his back lit by the dim light-bulb above his head, he looks like Galam from Lord of the Rings, or like a monkey. His frame is scrawny, his movements jolted.

Rajan questions him in Nepali. Purna nods. Keeps picking.

They notice I am awake.

"Bed bugs!" Rajan explains.

Purna keeps picking. Turns to me. Big grin."HAPPY NEW YEAR ROSIE!"

"Not new year, Purna, Christmas." Rajan laughs. Rajan is the more worldly of the two. He grew up in a town, went to college in Kathmandu, has an email account.

We all laugh.I'd forgotten. It's Christmas Eve at home. I try to imagine the families putting the turkey on the table, singing Silent Night by lit trees, sitting in wooden church pews - kids on laps, huddling by fires at their ski lodge - cheeks rosy, hot chocolate in hand.

But I can't. I am here. With bed bugs and donkeys and Purna and Rajan.

I can't understand it, but I am so happy to be here.

Jajarkot

2008-12-13T23:36:00.000-08:00

In 11 minutes I leave for here:

Jajarkot, Nepal, the site of our health program.

I'll be gone 1-2 weeks. (Going to facilitate a report writing workshop and then spend some days following our staff around - taking pictures and gathering material for a story or two.)

I'm beyond-excited. Mountain air. Mountain views. Donkeys. No car horns. No English. Lots of potatoes.

I expect I won't want to return.

It's getting cold and...

2008-12-08T02:46:00.000-08:00

…the men who used to sell mangos now sell blankets. Bananas stay ripe longer. The street dogs have started to sleep in piles.

Its getting cold and I’m adjusting too…

I drink 6 cups of tea a day instead of 3.
I wear a fuzzy hat, a puffy vest and cut-off gloves to work.
I shower less and smell more (my water is solar heated – in the morning the water is too cold, at night the water is warm but the air is too cold).
I sleep with a hot water bottle by my feet.
I used to scoff at the puffy faux North Face jackets that are ubiquitous around Kathmandu; now I’m in the market for one.
I stopped eating salad.
I shape myself into a tightly woven ball when I sleep (instead of a splayed starfish).
I replaced my bedroom fan with space heater.

I miss central heating and fireplaces and the sensation of warmth. But I’m learning that I can survive without these things.

Nepanksgiving

2008-11-30T07:51:00.000-08:00

At 7 pm on November 27th, 15 other displaced Americans, 6 Australians and 5 Nepalis arrived at my door, their hands full of pies and casseroles, roast chickens (no turkey in Nepal) and more-than-we-could-eat potatoes.

We'd decided to have Thanksgiving at my house for two reasons: the toaster oven and the back up generator (that only sometimes works).

It was a hell of a night. And left a lot to be thankful for.

Here are some highlights:

Roast birds!

REAL LIFE PIE!

Macy's Parade on TV

Gobbles

Giggles

Post-meal floor time

Picking at leftovers!

Atmospheric lighting (ie power outage)

First time pie-eaters!

Morning-time

2008-11-29T21:53:00.000-08:00

My dad recently visited. (That’s for another story. SO GREAT.)

His visit made me realize that I’ve not shared much of my daily routine. Haven't shared the little things: The smell of my alley. The vegetable lady (toothless, nose-ring), the fruit guy (smiley, calls me “didi” meaning “older sister”) and the corner shop lady who I buy walnuts and flour from (tight-lipped, wearer of tennis-ball-sized hoop earrings). How these days I prepare a hot water bottle before bed each night to keep my toes warm.

My routine will change soon. I might be moving in with a Nepali family, or at least share most dinners with them.

But here is my morning routine as it stands now.

It feels boring. But it’s real.

‘Eeeeeh-eeeeeh-eeeeeh!’ The high-pitched beep of my alarm jolts me awake. I groan.

The ledge.

I reach for the ledge behind me, knocking over my book and headlamp before I grasp my alarm clock. I click it off, stretch my arms up and squint open my eyes. The sun is bright in my room.

I pull my earplugs out and sounds flood in – dogs barking, a gate creaking, women chattering, birds chirping, an airplane soaring, my refrigerator buzzing.

I have to pee, but I beeline for my kitchen instead. I boil water and take the bag of coffee grinds out of the fridge. They’re warm. So is the milk I reach for next. Just last week we had 12 hours of power outages per day; this week it’s up to 16.

I pour my coffee and bring the steaming cup back to my room. Between sips I shower (45 seconds max –the water is ice-cream-headache cold these days), get dressed (jeans, a sweater, a scarf) and shove a spiral notebook and pens into my dusty backpack.

The caffeine kicks in. I open itunes and press play. The acoustic version of “Dr. Jones” comes on. I sing along as I slide on my socks to the kitchen.

I pour the remaining hot water into a bowl and mix in oatmeal, dried apple, walnuts, honey. It tastes just as good as it did yesterday and the day before and the day before. My comfort food.

My morning sustenance. Walnuts, oats, dried applies, honey and COFFEE.

I look at my watch. 8:50. Yikes, I’d better hurry. I shovel spoonfuls of gooey mush into my mouth, slide back across the floor, swallow, shovel more in. I put my laptop and a bag of walnuts in my backpack and zip it up.

I lead my bike outside, my eyes squinting as they adjust to the morning light. I take several deep breaths as I pass the begonias in my driveway. They are sweet, sharp. I wish I could bottle the scent.

My wheels. My life-line.

I turn onto the road. It smells of exhaust and fermented trash but it hardly bothers me anymore. I ignore the piles of banana peels, diapers, chicken bones, unidentifiable brown clump that line the street.

I pass my tomatoes and eggs supplier, a small graying woman who sits behind a crooked wooden stall. Her toothless grin and leathery skin are beautiful in the morning sun, against her bright red scarf. I smile, bow my head and remind myself to ask her name next time I talk to her.

I gather speed – now I’m riding alongside the cars and the three wheeled tuk tuks. I zoom past the arched entrance of the British School, past the cement house that hosts the ‘secret Italian bakery’ and past the Hotel Greenwich Village, whose name I stopped laughing at long ago. I weave around potholes and cows and through packs of street dogs, who seem oblivious to the bustle around them. They are focused on breakfast. Heads down, they wiggle and push their noses through the trash in search of discarded momos, old rice, anything to fill their stomachs.

Landmarks on my ride to work: the British School, Secret Italian Bakery, Hotel Greenwich Village

I reach the office. Bumila, the guard, opens the gate.

Namaste, san chai cha? We each say to each other, exchanging smiles. She takes my bike.

My breath still rapid, I step quickly into the office. I glance at my watch: 9:06. Not bad.

My day begins.

Election Day

2008-11-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

I thought I’d never go to the American Club in Kathmandu. Run by the American Embassy, the three-square block compound looks more like a high security jail than a recreation center. Armed guards line the perimeter and barbed wire coils decorate the three-story high wall. Only Americans are allowed to enter. (If you’re Nepali, tough luck.) According to a friend who’d been, tiled bathrooms, chandeliers, neatly pruned hedges and a grocery store that sells imported organic tahini can be found inside.

It seemed pompous and hopelessly out of touch with its surroundings – a symbol to me of what our country had become. I’ll never go, I thought.

But on election day the Club hosted a party to watch the returns, and I decided to go. I wanted to be amongst “fellow Americans.” I was also secretly excited to see inside, how an ascetic might feel about trying alcohol for the first time.

I expected to feel like an anthropologist – to observe the scene with distance, even distaste, then leave thinking, “OK, I’ve seen it, I’ll never go there again.”

* * *

At 7:30 am on November 5, 2008 (or 8:45 pm EST on November 5th) I take a taxi with Sweta, my American colleague, her husband Michael, and my American friend Brendan.

The entrance routine evokes memories from airport security checkpoints – we wait in line; a stern-faced guard flips through our passports then enters them into a database; we walk through a metal detector and a second guard pats us down. Finally, guard number three nods approval and we enter.

Inside, we walk past two clay tennis courts, the American supermarket (large, sterile, without people) and little gold-plated signs with arrows pointing us towards the gym, the sauna and the pool. We find the sign that says “restaurant” and follow it.

The restaurant, where the event is held, smells of pancakes, fancy perfume – and Americans, roughly 50 of them. I haven’t seen this many Americans since my flight from Washington/Dulles four months ago.

At the back of the room, people sit around tables– munching on pancakes and sausages, drinking coffee, half watching the TV in the front of the room, half chatting with one another in rapid American cadence.

A quieter group sits in rows of plastic chairs at the front; their eyes are fixed on the small TV tuned to CNN. They clutch coffee mugs, strain necks towards the TV, speak in low tones to their neighbors, careful not to drown out Anderson Cooper.

Half of the crowd is grey and wrinkled. The old men wear khakis and have bald heads; their wives wear gold earrings and pink lipstick. The other half, the youngsters, wear beards, sandals and beads.

We make our way to the front of the room, walking through the round eating tables. I hear bits of conversations: Do you remember which way Pennsylvania went in the 2004 election? When did you post-mark your absentee ballot? I haven’t had pancakes like these since IHOP!

We watch returns come in from Virginia, Ohio then Pennsylvania. I munch on a cream cheese bagel, the first I’ve had in months. Around me wafts CNN election music, the smell of pancakes and the whispers and shouts of midwest, south and northeast America.

During the commercial breaks, Brendan and I comment on how surprisingly comfortable we feel here. We may be thousands of miles away from the counting and the projecting and the voting that will influence our lives more than we can imagine – but we feel close.

Once in a while, I’m reminded that I’m not home. I see the subtle Newari décor that lines the restaurant ceiling. And as the morning sun creeps into the restaurant and I feel the tea jerk my brain alert, the commentators on TV start to yawn, their eyes droop, the night darkens behind them.

Two hours and ten minutes after we arrive, as I am finishing my second cup of tea, the TV screen projects the most important line of the morning, and quite possibly, of our generation:

“OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”

The moments following are a blur – of cheers, tears, gripping my friend Brendan’s leg, hugging the old man next to me and dancing with Sweta’s husband. I felt the world breath, sigh out, jump up for joy, relief.

The minute Obama was elected. Fist pumps and tears all around.

Minutes after. Sweta (grey shirt clapping), her husband Michael (blue shirt and victory fist), Brendan (plaid red shirt, pensive look), me (black zip-up)

This picture says it all. Michael.

I turn around. At least a hundred people are here now, most of them are standing – they’re coming out of hugs, straining to see the TV, pulling handkerchiefs out of their pockets. A young lesbian couple hold hands and stare at the TV with deer-in-the-headlight expressions; a middle-aged man with a scruffy face and a milk jug - sized camera takes pictures of the crowd; a man with grey receding hair takes off his thin spectacles to wipe his tears. The collective emotion in that room was greater than I’d felt. Ever.

Michael and Sweta embrace. Two months ago they had their first child, a baby girl.

As we walk out – past the security guards, through the metal detectors and back into the chaos and soot and color of Kathmandu, I look back at the compound. It looks less ominous, less imposing than it did three hours earlier.

I’d seen a community inside. I’d eaten bagels, chatted about my town in Maine with someone from New Hampshire, exchanged excited glances with strangers after every Obama state victory. And after his national victory, I embraced, danced, cheered and sighed with a roomful of people from my country. I’d felt comfortable. At home, even.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be a regular at the American Club. But I’ll consider going back.

Nepal-oween

2008-11-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

The night started out on track...

Nepali institutions meet: a teeka (the red dot Hindus put on their foreheads), Dal Bat (the quintessential Nepali dish of rice and lentils) and ‘load shedding’ (ie power outages - there’s not enough electricity for everyone in Kathmandu so authorities cut power ~30 hours a week in each neighborhood.)

...and stayed that way for most of the night.

Smiles! Costumes! Fun!

John McCain even made an appearance.

(Fittingly he was thrown into the dump the next day.)

Then, at the end of the night things got weird. I was walking home and…

This is me trying. Halfway out.

…I fell into a manhole!?!!!

Getting out was tricky. Uncontrollable giggles prevented my muscles from working. The two friends with me were useless, too – they hovered above laughing, crying (from laughing) and taking pictures. It took a good 5 minutes to calm down and pull me out. (Five minutes flies by when I'm cleaning up the table from dinner or catching up on email. It slowed to a blurry halt that night!!!)

"The incident" left me with a French-baguette-sized bruise on my shin, mysterious slime on my red pjs (which I’d planned to return the next day) and… a fun story.

Home

2008-11-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

This post has nothing to do with Kathmandu. But everything to do with what's been on my mind lately.

My childhood home was sold last week.

In some ways, it’s easier to be far away. I am not facing the boxes and the empty house. I didn’t have to meet the new owners. I didn’t see my room without the faded sunflower-shaped collage that’s been on its wall since before I can remember.

But it’s also harder, perhaps for the same reasons. I'm far away and I’m not forced to think about it. So when I do, the feelings are sharp.

Thoughts of home seeped into my consciousness at unexpected, often unwelcome times this week:

While cleaning my room. Yesterday the song “Ghetto Superstar” came on as I cleaned my room. It brought me to 14 Ocean Street, sometime in the late 90s. My best friend Maya and I are in my bedroom. We’re wearing flared jeans and t-shirts from the Gap. We hold hairbrush microphones, squint our eyes and dance around my room, careful not to bonk our heads on my loft bed.
While voting. I tear up when I fill in my absentee ballot. They ask for my address in The States. I don’t know what to put.
While Skype-ing. My parents have stress and weariness in their voice each time we’ve talked recently. 25 years of stuff to get rid of, to sort through, to throw out and to pack up. It wears.
While uploading pictures. As I upload my latest pictures into iphoto, I see the folder labeled “Home.” It feels masochistic to click on it but I do anyway. I tear up at the first picture: its a view of the sunrise from our deck - reds, oranges and pinks mirrored in the still morning water. The nostalgia builds as I scroll through the rest – dad sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee in his hand, a book in his lap; my family and the Loxtercamp/McGuires around our dining room table, celebrating one the what-feels-like-hundreds of birthdays we've shared together (the staple cake with Ben & Jerry's, party hats and goofy smiles present); Max sleeping in dad’s puffy chair in ‘the boat shed.’

Why do I care so much about this move? “Home is where the heart is,” right? Why is this physical place – really just four walls and a roof – so important? A few reasons come to mind:

Home provided stability. My life is transient at the moment – I’m living in Nepal, but who knows where I’ll be in eight months; I’m working for an NGO, but I don’t know if it’s what I want to “do” when I “grow up;” I have friends here, but my closest and oldest friends are scattered about The States. Home countered all this flux. If I ever felt lonely or lost, I could come home to our fireplace, to my baby blanket, to pancake breakfasts on our porch. I could come home and find Colonel Bruce next door on his porch, ready with a virgin Shirley Temple and a story from ‘back in Korea.’ “My surrogate granddaughter!” he’d say as I walk across our adjoining lawn. My home represented security, stability, comfort. Now where to run if things get tough?
Home provided identity. “I am a Mainer” and “I am from Belfast” are phrases I’ve been saying since I could speak. They are as automatic and engrained as “My name is Rosie.” I also feel proud saying them. I met a lot of people in college who grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey or in high-rise buildings of Manhattan; I felt unique to be from a small town, from a community, from a place where everyone is connected. A place where my third grade teacher is also my mom’s best friend; where my next-door neighbor was a City Council member and taught my middle school-band class how to march; where my doctor is also the owner of the local diner where I go for pancakes on Saturdays. Belfast and its people shaped me. If Belfast, Maine is no longer my home, who am I? Am I now someone who simply grew up in Maine? As McCain has done so much this past month, I’ll have to change “my narrative.” That feels about as hard as changing my name – maybe harder.
Home represents innocence, childhood. My freshest memories of home are these: racing barefoot along the hot beach rocks with summer-friend Paige, telling secrets with Maya under a sheet-fort in my living room, sipping hot cocoa and munching cookies by the fire after an afternoon of snowman-making, running inside the house dripping wet, pulse racing, after a morning of collecting crabs, swimming to the dock and making floating inner tube towers on the beach, and on and on… My memory is certainly rose-colored, tinged by nostalgia. But it is what it is. At my most melodramatic, it feels like I’ve lost not just the house, but my youth too.

How to let go? How to move on? How to remember 14 Ocean Street without feeling sad, nostalgic? Where am I from if my home is no longer physically in Belfast, Maine?

As these questions float in my mind this week, I read an email from the IRC. The headline: “IRC suspends programs in North Kivu, Congo, following renewed fighting.” It goes on to say that approximately 36,000 people have been recently displaced from their homes. I follow the link to read another article, this one by a reporter who traveled to formerly war-torn Western Congo. The family he stayed with the first night –poor and war affected – insisted on offering him rice and sardines. The man's wife had given birth to a daughter by a C-section earlier that day.

Then I think of Mary, a Liberian woman I met in Ghana who’s lived a third of her life in a refugee camp. She sells donuts for a living and raises her fatherless grand daughter, Lisa, in their little cement house. She keeps a garden in a dirt patch next to their house.

Their stories put my home-aches in perspective. And remind me that humans are good at adapting. Those who survive the current fighting in Congo will continue to gather firewood, to nurse their children and to seek work after the conflict is over. And Mary is still planting flowers and sending her grandchild to school.

I will adapt.

Ode to 14 Ocean St.

2008-11-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

Both self-indulgent and therapeutic, I've documented home, the way I remember it. This is 14 Ocean Street:

The Smells

Mostly, it smells like dog and pine. At dinnertime though, garlic and onion wafts from the kitchen. During the winter, it smells like wood smoke and the pine smell intensifies. When Bern Porter (old eccentric poet) comes to visit, the whole house smells like old un-showered man and old cabbage. We open the windows and doors after he leaves. When the cats or Max are getting their monthly flea treatments, an unpleasant chemical smell lingers. In the summer, the breeze from the ocean carries in smells of seaweed and salt water. Also grass clippings. Summer evenings, the smell of Colonol Bruce’s barbeque seeps in our windows and screen doors. Max disappears. Occasionally, when Max rolls in something on the beach, the house smells of dead seal or rotten fish.

The Sounds

Before dinner, NPR plays loud from the kitchen – I hear the familiar jingle (doo doo dooo) and then, “This is all things considered, I’m Alex Seigel.” The sizzle of onions and mushrooms sautéing fills the quiet moments between segments.

In the mornings, I hear coffee perking; dad clicking at his computer; Max’s toenails tap on the wood floors.

During the day, I hear the “shake-shake” of Max’s kibbles as he pushes them around in his bowl. I hear the phone ring and ring – no one gets up to answer it.

In the summer, I hear a lawnmower most days (Dick and Bruce obsess and compete over their pruned lawns.) I hear a boat engine; sea gulls cawing; kids laughing on the beach; Max barking at them. I hear “NUMBER 42, YOUR ORDER IS READY,” the muffled woman’s voice broadcast from the Lobster Pound Restaurant across the bay. During the Bay Festival every July, I hear rock music, the clank of metal and girls screaming from down the beach.

In the winter, I hear logs drop as dad piles wood next to the fireplace; I hear the click-click-click as our heat comes on, the hot water filling up the cold pipes. Some nights I hear howling wind and waves crashing outside.

The Sights

View from the deck

Summer after first year of college. Lawn catch-up.

Delicious rainbow. Our dock. Big boat that's parked there every summer. Sigh.

Summer morning view from the deck. No words.

View south on cold winter day.

Mmm.

Goodbye.

Momentum.

2008-10-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Life in Kathmandu is speeding up. More work, more play, more travel.

Here’s a glimpse of what I’ve been doing:

Mountain-related – Last week was Nepal’s biggest Hindu holiday, Dasain. I got the week off from work and spent it "trekking" with two new-but-feel-like-old friends, Lena and Katherine. The week was full of sweet and wild moments. Highlights included breathing deeply the cold morning mountain air after coming out of my hot sleeping bag, singing 90s songs out of tune as we pummeled downhill, sipping steamy yak tea at every meal, eating finger-fulls of peanut butter at most stops, mingling with yaks, peeing at 16,000 feet and most of all... BEING AMONGST THESE BAD BOYS (see below)!

Shoot. I thought I had a better picture. This one is from the drive there, which ended inside of those white giants in the distance!

Office-related – I end this work week feeling dry and cracked and longing to be back in the mountains. The last 4 days I've been writing chunks of a proposal for a project that targets “Violence Against Women” in Western Nepal. (Or "VAW ," another fun acronym.) It's due next week to "The Belgians" (their Embassy) but I'm ready to be finished with it now. The guidelines, which were translated from Flemmish, leave me scratching my head alot. (For example, one question asks us to "Motivate the financing request under the Peace-building budget line while taking into account its supplementary character. " HUH?) I send regular emails to my boss saying, "what do you think they mean by THIS?" (On the upside, I'm learning from it - for example, I learned today that 80% of women in rural Nepal report being abused by their husbands. Yikes.) Next week should be a good work week though. I’m supposed to travel to Jajarkot, a hilly district in the West to facilitate a 2-day report-writing training to our Nepali staff there. I'm excited. Excited for the hills and for the chance to do a project that feels fully "mine." (I held my first report writing workshop the week before last. Went well! Hope to post pictures/ snippets from that in coming days.)

Miscellaneous-related – Things are good on the friend front. It's taken some time, but my 'circle' of friends here is growing larger and cozier. Fun activities on the rise. In the last two weeks friends and I have: played charades on a dusty rooftop, watched the final US presidential debates over chili and cheap wine, biked around the Kathmandu Valley, tried (and failed) to make chapati, a naan-like flat bread, practiced Nepali from a weathered old book, gloried in aforementioned mountain trip.

Biking the Valley

2008-10-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some snippets from a bike ride a couple of weeks ago. (Up and along the northern rim of the Kathmandu Valley.)

View from halfway up

Today was a pinch-myself day.

A 7:10 wakeup.

I stock my bag with chocolate covered lemon peel (yum) and pesto/cheese/tomato sandwiches (double yum) and drag myself out the door. Drag is an exaggeration. I feel remarkably awake for pre-8 on a Saturday.

I meet Jarrod (American neighbor) and Amra (friendly Australian) at Epic Bikes, the bike shop around the corner from my house.

We zoom through town to meet the others. Through the pollution, we zig zag past taxis and cows and children in the streets, past papaya hawkers and ladies on their way to the temple.

We meet Rob (another friendly Australian) and two Austrians (Ulie "like Julie without the J" and her scrawny/fit fiance, Flo). We say our hellos (I'd met everyone but the Austrians before) and zoom off towards the road out of town.

The pollution and traffic thins. Lone buses and motorbikes pass every few minutes. For the first time in Kathmandu I breath air that is crisp, fall-like.

The road tilts upwards.

Early view from the road

The climb is steady but manageable.

30 minutes into the ride, views emerges on either side. We're balancing on a ridge - on either side of us, valleys down below - GREEN, GREEN, GREEN. All green, rice paddies. Pea-sized brown dots (homes) punctuate the green.

Now the road is mostly ours. Every few minutes a bus passes. Glazed faces, perturbed chickens and sleeping babies press up against the windows. A pack of men sit on the roof. They shout to us, "Helloooo!" "Good biking!!"

The buses whoosh past us, leaving a puff of sooty smoke in our face. The horn - a 3-second ear-deafening jingle - plays before it turns the next corner.

We pass moss-covered walls, kilometers of stepped rice paddies and the occasional cluster of mud houses. Groups of bouncy, snotty-nosed, half-naked children outside most settlements. Playing jump rope in the street. Untangling a kite rope. (Lots of kites up here.) Braiding each other's hair. When they see us coming, they jump, scream, temples pop out of their faces, snot pours out of their noses.

"NAMASTEE NAMASTE NAMASTE NAMASTE" chime the little voices.

Giggle, giggle, giggle, giggle.

A favorite game.

At the top, we dance.

And eat...

And pose...

And envy the kite kid....

Then we zoom down.

I sleep like a bug that night.

Immigration fun

2008-09-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

Highlight of my day was going to the government’s immigration office to extend my visa.

Behind the counters pot-bellied men wearing button up shirts, shiny badges and khaki pants sit sipping tea, chatting. Their feet are propped on desks. A few lady administrators sit behind large stacks of money. They yawn, look at their nails. Meanwhile, a handful of young scruffy westerners sit on plastic waiting-room chairs, vulnerable.

As I wait, I jot down a list of ingredients that must be universal to immigration offices, particularly in the developing world:

yawning ladies behind desks
pot bellied men with mustaches
scrawny men in blue uniforms by door
2 -5 flies buzzing
peeling paint
young westerners with large faded backpacks, sandals and sunburns. seemingly malnourished.
a few older tourist couples – man wears Hawaian-type shirt, pants that can zip off into shorts, woman has a fanny pack, short hair, guidebook in hand
cracked plastic waiting room seats
foggy/stained plexi-glass barriers at each counter
exorbitant visa fees (to pay for all the salaries)
drips in the corner
rusty, crooked filing cabinets
smell of must

Please add any I’ve missed. There are bound to be more.

Flood snapshots

2008-09-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here are some reflections from two days of my trip to Saptari District:

Day 1:

Today Pawan and I travel to Rajbiraj, the headquarters of Saptari District and the hub for the coordination of relief for around 25,000 people displaced from the recent floods.

The presence of the UN, government officials and aid workers is immediately evident in this otherwise sleepy place.

Driving into town, I see two white UN Land Rovers bump down the main street, their drivers swerving to avoid rickshaws, cows, potholes and children. I see five or six smaller but equally new cars advertising various organizations – Concern, Médecins Sans Frontiéres, Caritas. Men and women in khaki pants walk rapidly through the streets, fidgeting with cell phones.

“Shall we get tea?” Pawan suggests when we arrive. I agree – after two hours in a hot car, I’m hitting my afternoon slump.

But every teashop gives us the same response: “Chiya chaina.” Pawan shakes his head, says he’s never heard of a Nepali town running out of tea. (Tea to Nepalis is like cheese to the French.)

Before evening, we ask five different hotels before we find one that has room. My room smells of urine and mold; the communal toilet is clogged; the fan does not work.

Just last week, Rajbiraj was a remote city of 30,000. Rickshaws, a handful of rusty cars, and the occasional bus crammed with people, goats, chickens, were the only vehicles on the town’s dusty, rutted main street. The Star Hotel, the largest in town, had not filled its 25 rooms in over a year.

Now the town swells with aid workers and government officials. Men with walkie-talkies stride past half naked kids running after rolling tires; UN vehicles drive past men with bike baskets full of mangos; women sit on curbs with blankets of spices laid in front of them, gossiping: “did you hear, the shops have run out of tea?”

* * *

Disaster coverage, rightly, focuses on the victims. The people forced to flee their water-logged homes, those caught in the cross-fire, now living out of tarps.

Today I saw the other side – the people who benefit from the swell in relief after an emergency. For the managers of the Star Hotel, the tea suppliers and the rickshaw drivers of Rajbiraj, business has never been so good.

Day 2:

“We’re going to the breaking point,” Rajan of OCHA tells me as he gets up from his desk.

My eyes must light up because he follows it with, “Would you like to come?”

OCHA is the UN body charged with coordinating humanitarian relief. Rajan, a round man with a small mustache and a large smile, is leading OCHA’s mission in Saptari.

Five minutes later, Rajan, his colleague and I are headed for the site where the now infamous Koshi embankment broke less than three weeks ago.

It should take us 2 ½ hours to drive from Rajbiraj to the breakage point, Rajan says. The last hour of the trip we will drive along a narrow road that sits atop the remaining embankment.

After half hour, I start to see clusters of blue tarps packed, sardine-tight close to each other outside of my window. SUV-sized, the tarps are dome shaped and held by bamboo sticks. They sit together between rows of bright green rice paddy fields.

Tarps and Paddies

Underneath the tarps I see glimpses of interrupted lives. (Most are open with no door.) Some house bikes, a few sacks, a bed and cooking utensils. Most though, house just a bed and a few blankets.

I also see people. Under most tarps are bodies splayed out on blankets, sleeping. I see a naked boy crying outside of a tarp. He holds an empty metal bowl. I also see women carrying bundles of firewood on their heads – their eyes sunken, clothes stained.

When we reach the embankment, Rajan explains to me that two weeks ago the embankment separated the river on the left from villages on the right. Now it is flip-flopped – the Koshi’s dry riverbed and clusters of displaced people are on the left and flooded villages on the right.

As we drive north along the embankment, the water on our right flows faster. Milk chocolate colored, it carries pieces of wood and bits of tattered plastic faster than I could run. Crooked outlines of straw roofs peak from the surface, as do tips of trees and a line of the raised East/West Highway. All else is under water, buried.

Some pictures from the drive

We reach the breaking point and the driver turns off the engine. There are roughly two dozen people in the area – some with construction hats and boots, others in khakis and button up shirts.

Outside of the car is surprisingly quiet. I mostly hear water flow, gurgle and clanks of a bulldozer. I hear peoples’ voices too, but they are hushed, soft.

Rajan and his colleague take GPS measurements, I wander towards the tip of the break, past groups of men speaking Hindi and bags of concrete that an Indian work crew has put as a temporary measure.

I squint to see the other end of the breakage point across the gap – it must be a kilometer away. Muddy water flows through the gap. If I fall in I would not be able to swim against the current.

Above: Rajan and I standing where the wall broke. You can see the other tip of the broken wall at the top of the picture. The water to the right is flowing towards the flooded villages. Below: Another picture at the breaking point. A group of Indian men ask me to join their picture - eager for a token female, it seems. I was the only one in sight.

Most of the people with button up shirts are taking photos. I take out my camera too, I feel compelled to document this moment.

We get back in the car and drive home as the sun goes down. We pass the thousands of tarps again – against the darkening sky, dark figures scurry with buckets of carry water and bundles of firewood to get back to their tarps before dark.

The drive back is mostly silent – we each look out the window, watching the figures, reflecting.

Re-emerging

2008-09-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

A good day.

I learned that Reuters published an article I wrote about my trip to the floods.

Here is the link to it.

I’ve been back for a week or so now. But I still have not:

caught up on email
unpacked from the trip
washed behind my ears
done laundry

Instead friends and I:

cooked banana pancakes for dinner
watched tapings of the Dem/Rep acceptance speeches over cheap wine and expensive chocolate
rode bikes to the northern rim of Kathmandu Valley
spent 1.5 hours at Kathmandu's "Casino Royal" (where I felt like a cross between a lost puppy and an anthropologist)

In sum, lots of FUN as of late. Some good friends here now! Social life feels vibrant, full finally. A good feeling.

This weekend I intend to wash my clothes, clean my ears and.... post pictures/more stories from my trip!

Out the door

2008-09-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Likely this will only be of interest to my parents and maybe my great aunt (hi auntee!) but here is a nuts and bolts description of my upcoming trip. It also provides more background on the floods. Written by our country director, it's utterly (can I say exceedingly?) official-sounding.

Leaving in a few minutes. Rain coat and mosquito net packed.

Packing my raincoat

2008-08-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

My September will be more exciting than I’d expected.

Friday afternoon I was sitting at my desk typing a curriculum to train our Nepali staff in report writing. I was thinking about going downstairs to make a cup of tea when Denise, our country director, came in, worried look on her face:

“Rosie, it looks like we’re going to have to use you in the flood emergency. Is that OK?”

I suppress my smile, my excitement, say calmly, “Yes, of course, what would you like me to do?”

“I’d like you to accompany Pawan (IRC's new deputy director) to coordinate and assess our flood response in Saptari District,” she says.

Saptari is one of two districts that’s been heavily affected by the recent floods in Nepal and Northern India. My main job will be to communicate – with Denise, with media, with other INGOs, etc… Ideally I’m sure she’d have someone with more experience than me to go. But in emergencies, you cant be picky.

The background: On August 18th, the Koshi River in eastern Nepal broke through its retaining wall. The waters flooded, putting dozens of small villages underwater and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Since then the flooding has only gotten worse. The river – which flows to India – continues to swell, killing cows and crops, separating children from families and leaving people hungry and homeless. It’s displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Nepal so far; millions in India. (You can read more about it here or here. BBC also has a photo album of the flood.)

It’s expected to worsen. It's raining heavily. And the political response has been slow, especially in India. (The Indian district most affected, Bihar, is one of the poorest, if not THE poorest districts in India. The ethnic group that lives there - Bihars? – have little or no representation in government.) “Experts” are predicting that large numbers of displaced Indians will travel to the make-shift camps in Nepal to get the support they are not getting in India.

IRC normally does not respond to natural disasters (it focuses on conflict instead). But since we are already in this country and the need is so great, our director decided to join in the relief effort.

The past few weeks we’ve been working with UNICEF to distribute blankets and children's closing to the victims in Sunsari District, one of two affected in Nepal. But this week we’re expanding our support to Saptari, the second drenched district.

With our staff already strained to capacity and my September flexible, Denise is sending me along with Pawan to coordinate our support in this second district. I’ll learn my specific job tomorrow, but essentially it will be to communicate. And above all, to be flexible, available.

I’m excited.
I didn’t imagine I’d get such a hands on opportunity in Nepal. (Using the word “opportunity” feels funny in this situation. That’s the irony of humanitarian work, I guess: one person’s disaster becomes another persons’ opportunity.)

We leave tomorrow. I don't know when we'll be back - could be a week, could be a month or two. Whenever it is, stories to follow!

Some images from the floods:

Frogs at school and Pakistanis at work

2008-08-29T01:16:00.000-07:00

At 1 pm today, Meera (our office cook) starts to ferry large metal dishes of curry, paper bags of roti and little side dishes of chutney up to my room. (My desk is the largest open space in the office where we host events, lunches.)

10 minutes later, a stream of mustached men file in my door. I get up from my computer, greet them.

"Hello, I am Dr. Hassani." Firm handshake.

"Hello, I am Dr. Dharker." Another firm handshake…

…and on and on. 8 men, 1 woman. All introduce themselves as Dr. such and such.

They are from IRC's Pakistan office and are passing through Kathmandu for a few hours. They're in Nepal to learn about a rural health program similar to one they're implementing in Pakistan's Kashmir and the Northwest Frontier, regions hardest hit by Pakistan's 2005 earthquake.

Since most of our Kathmandu staff are away at meetings and in the field, there are just three of us from Nepal to entertain the 9 of them.

Having JUST read the chapter in "Three Cups of Tea" on Pakistani political history last night, I feel primed to engage them on their country.

I sit next to Raza, a white-haired, smiley man with glasses. He'd lived in Syracuse NY and Michigan many years ago and had traveled to Maine. We talk about Maine foliage and New York sports teams for a few minutes. (He knows far more than me about the latter subject. I nod and smile as he references the Giants and the Mets current star players.)

Then I ask him (and the others in the circle) about their health program. A big part of it, they say, is to introduce the idea of "community participation.”

"This has never existed in Pakistan," Raza says. "It's a new concept."

Perfect segue to ask about what I’ve been reading.

I tell him about my book (he's never heard of it but is interested) and say, smiling, speaking rapidly I'm sure because I'm excited, that I just learned about Pakistani history last night.

"Can I share my impression with you to see if I have it right?" I ask.

He nods, stuffing a piece of naan in his mouth.

I recap what I remember: So first was Bhutto then Sharif then Musharraf. Musharraf took power after the Kargil (sp!?) incident with India. Although Musharraf took the power in a coup, he was more effective than the other ‘democratically elected’ leaders. Under Musharraf, teachers were paid for the first time, money started to filter down to local government. Bhutto and Sharif were elected, but they did not devolve their power in the way Musharraf did.

I am interested to hear his perspective. Last night's reading was the first good news I’d heard about Musharraf. Despite all the bad press about him, it sounds like Musharraf made the most strides in terms of the local participation they’re trying to engender.

Raza nods when I speak. The he says, "YES! Although I am very against Musharraf, definitely some good things came out of his reign - as you say, local bodies started to have power." Raza is not in favor of Bhutto either, "but at least he is elected. He has the legitimacy and that is very important."

30 minutes later (their visit was very short), their leader announces its time for them to leave. They pull out their wallets and hand me their business cards. "You are most welcome to visit us in Pakistan. Please come anytime - we will take care of you."

They shuffle out the door. I sit at my desk, in a daze. I feel energized, connected.

In high school biology, we read about muscles and organs and the respiratory system. Then one day we showed up to our classroom to find dead frogs on our desks.

Last night I read about Pakistanis; the next day, 9 of them come to my office!

Stuff in books is real!

Pajamas for Obama

2008-08-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

My roommate Jenny and I woke up early this morning to watch Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Voice of America TV.

She is a better waker upper than I, so she catches the whole thing; I only catch half.

But for 20 minutes, we both sit on the floor of our living room, munching on leftover pizza in pajamas, raptured by Obama’s speech.

We cheer when the crowd cheers, laugh and conjecture when the seemingly-out-of-place country song plays at the end and wonder out loud if his wrist ever gets sore from waving.

For those minutes, we are in that Denver stadium.

Then we brush our teeth, put our laptops in our bags, and walk past the mango stands and the black smoke emitting cars and scrawny dogs to work in our cement office in Kathmandu.

Meanwhile, Americans also brushed their teeth, then let the dog out for a last pee, and are now turning the pages of the latest John Grisham novel in bed as their lids turn to steel.

Nepalganj vs. Kathmandu

2008-08-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Day 1 of my trip last week: I was alone in my hotel room in Nepalganj, Nepal. It was dark and hot. (The power just went out, third time that night.) My bed was floorboard-hard and something was biting me. By the light of my Petzl, I wrote this list:

Differences between Kathmandu and Nepalganj:

Nepalganj restaurants don’t give you a fork. Or a spoon or a knife.
Nepalganj’s ratio of rickshaws: cars: cows is 10:1:8. Kathmandu’s is more like 1:10:1. (Although #s vary by neighborhood.)
Toilet Paper is not a given in Nepalganj.
Nepalgunj’s temperature produces many beads of sweat more than Kathmandu’s. To live in Nepalganj is to be perpetually sticky.
Veg momos cost 40 rupees in Kathmandu (KTM); in Nepalganj (NPJ) you can get them for 20.
In KTM, everyone speaks a little English. In NPJ, “how are you?” or “how much is this?” evokes blank stares.
There are three ATMs within walking distance of my house in KTM; Nepalganj, a city of over 60,000 (I think!?) has no working ATM.
Most restaurants in NPJ make roti and saag paneer. (It’s 5 minutes from the Indian border.) In KTM, you only find these in “Indian Restaurants.”

You get the point.

Surkhet pictures

2008-08-22T00:13:00.000-07:00

Last week I was in Surkhet district, an hour-long plane ride and half-day bumpy car ride west of Kathmandu. I was there to “monitor and support” IRC’s child protection program. (Although I probably needed more monitoring and support than anyone.)

Some background: IRC helps former child soldiers re-integrate into their communities in 10 districts throughout Nepal. Jenny, my roommate, overseas IRC’s work with child soldiers and tries visit each district once every few months. This month she was too busy to make any visits. I offered to go in her stead.

Before I left, I spent a few nights reading and highlighting the reports and proposals related to the project. And Jenny briefed me on our program and the purpose of my visit.

Here is some of what I saw. I took notes, wrote some stories in my journal, but I’m just sifting through them, transcribing them now. I plan to post the more interesting ones in the coming days.

View from the plane. NOT clouds in the distance! I may have drooled on the window.

A barrel of diesel, Dev Mandal (IRC's Child Protection Officer from Jajarkot District) and half a Rosieface. Although Dev lives in a district with no roads (they use donkeys instead), no running water and no electricity, he keeps his hair and beard trim, wears pressed button-up shirts, and shiny black shoes. He helped me tremendously, translating and answering my relentless questions with the patience and thoroughness of my grandma doing puzzles. Dev starts most sentences with the word "definitely” and nods his head a lot.

Drawn by a former child soldier named Gurav, this hangs in the hall of IRC's office in Surkhet. In the upper left is a group of Maoist cadres meeting by a school (notice the small children in the circle). Bottom right, a government soldier surprise attacks them. In the middle, kids on the way to school are caught in the cross-fire.

Another drawing by a CAAFAG (ie former child soldier – IRC/UNICEF term that stands for Child Associated with Armed Forces and Groups). Harder to see - but depicts a bomb in the hands of a boy. The bomb destroys a school (upper left) and the boy's face.

This is Punam, a CAAFAG supported by IRC. Shy and smiley, Punam now raises goats. We visited him in his home. He fought for two years with the Maoists, as a spy then a combatant. After the peace accords in 2006, IRC officers found him in cantonment and helped him return home. They trained him in business skills, covered his fees to join the local Income Generating Association (like a credit union) and bought him some goats.

IRC has helped almost 2,000 former child soldiers like Punam. Most go back to school, but a handful, like Punam, are too old or have been out for too long and don’t want to be in class with younger kids. IRC trains them in skills that will help them make a living – animal husbandry, sewing, carpentry, electrical wiring. And when they have psychological problems, IRC Officers connect them with counselors.

I feel like I'm giving a PR stump speech for the IRC child soldiers program. There are problems, glitches, which I go into in some of my writing that I'll hopefully post. On the whole though, I do believe it’s done remarkable good.

A women's group who showed up (unexpectedly!) at a meeting with an IRC-supported school. I don't fully understand why they were there. But they were sweet. And very excited to take pictures. We took about 12 like this.

One of many anti-violence paintings that dot the side of this school. 33 of its current students left and fought for the Maoists during the conflict.

Instead of paying for CAAFAG school fees directly, IRC gives the schools they attend money for projects. In exchange, the school must waive the CAAFAG's fees until grade 10. It works pretty well - schools get new benches and books; kids who fought, most of whom are too poor to afford school, get an education.

Without 4WD, we'd still be in the river!

Visiting a school group supported by IRC. (5 or 6 of these kids fought and/or acted as spies in the conflict. Maoists often used the smallest children as spies because they're quick and look innocent. ) This was my favorite visit.

This is Anita, another IRC-supported former child soldier. She was away from home for three years, as a combatant and a cook for the Maoists. 18 years old, her first child.

Yet another CAAFAG! We're supporting her to take a 3-month course in sewing.

Same place - sewing training center. Left - teacher. Right - two CAAFAGs IRC is supporting. Behind them are dresses they've sewn! This was another favorite visit.

Saturday was big Hindu festival. At 7 am I joined the IRC Surkhet staff to worship at a cluster of temples. Magic! This is inside one of the smaller temples.

When I asked co-worker Keshav, "do you think the Hindu Gods actually lived on Earth or are they just ideas, stories?" He said - "they were definitely real, definitely on Earth" and brought me to this rock. "Here is how we know." Goddess footprints. Four of them. Lots of people worshiping this rock.

Two note-worthy items from my hotel in Surkhet

2008-08-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

1. This poster above my bed:

!!!

2. This trivia question that I saw on TV (on one of two english channels):

Q: Who came in 2nd place in the 1996 BMW Golf Championship Round?

(Did anyone from Nepal phone in, I wonder? Golf and BMWs are to Nepal as Skyscrapers and casinos are to Belfast, Me .)

Temple-time

2008-08-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

Today was Raksha Bandhan, one of the (many) Hindu festivals held each year. Hindus celebrate the day by attending an early morning Puja (worship), wearing a protective band around their wrists and feasting on special (tasty!) beans. I joined in with the IRC staff in Surkhet.

What follows are raw, immediate impressions from the morning:

Sounds:

Bells – simultaneous, offbeat.

Kids laughing, babies crying, Nepalis talking. Nepali public voices are more hushed than Americans. A sea of hushes. Murmur murmur, pray pray, talk talk.

Next to me, Keshav narrates the event: “Now the priest will give you a band to protect you.” Keshav, Yamuna, Dev ask periodically, “Rosie, what do you think of our religion? Are you having fun?”

Smells:

Incense. Close to the temples, strong enough to make my eyes water, my nose twitch. Women hold the burning sticks, wave them around the temple then leave it for the gods before they leave.

Toilet smells ring circumference of temples. Raw human waste, undiluted, not covered up by sprays or air fresheners or flushing.

A few steps outside the complex, fried samosas, roti, hot oil with garlic, onions. Calories to feed the empty bellies leaving the temple. (Nepali tradition to worship on an empty stomach.)

Sights:

A layer of small shops lines the dirt road leading to the temple. Rice paddies sit, soggy, behind the shops. Cows, goats and scrawny dogs mull in road. No cars.

Streams of people move in both directions – young children bounce and chase each other with reeds; grey-haired men in colorful fabric walk with stiff gaits, steady themselves on a nearby shoulder; the generations in between amble, chat, support elders, nag. The foreheads of people coming towards have red dots in the center - tikkas. Made of yogurt, rice and red dye, tikkas symbolize prosperity; you mustn't leave the temple without one.

The scene reminds me of driving down a freeway at night – the red backlights in one line of cars, the white headlights in the other. On this Saturday, its red tikkas in one direction. Blank foreheads in another.

Dozens of small tables line the entrance to the temples. Beads, glitter sashes, incense and coconut sit on display, items for the Gods. I see a hunched over women hand precious rupees to the vendor in exchange for some coconut and incense.

Through the gate, a mass of people prevents smooth walking. Stop-go, stop-go. The first temple we come to is the size of a large doghouse. A flock of people hover by the entrance, incense smoke billows out. I stay outside the flock, watching.

Inside the temple is how I imagine the inside of a womb– tight, steamy, red, hot. A wooden statue of a God at the center(I forget which one – there are so many) and at its feet a pile of offerings –beads, photos, incense, candles, dripping and crumpling on each other.

The other two temples (there are three) are similar – the crowds hovering outside, people (mostly women) nudging inside, the womb-like room, the incense, the pile of offerings.

Between temples people mingle – neighbors exchange “namastes,” kids chase each other around trees, families take pictures.

I remove my shoes and enter the main temple. (Heavy, cumbersome hiking boots, my shoes look funny and oversized next to all the sandals). I join the crowd that buzzes around a statue of a four-armed God. Yamuna, who I observe nudging and elbowing to get closer, instructs me to bow my head, say a simple prayer in my head. I bow, then exit the temple to join the ‘boys,’ whose worship is much more ‘in-and-out.’

Keshav places a tikka on my forehead, saying, “May all the gods protect you.” We hover outside while Yamuna continues to buzz, place her offerings, touch the statue, murmur, nudge.

After we visit the big temple, we take a slough of photographs. I’m conscious of the tikka on my forehead but I don’t feel weird about it. As Keshav says, “Aren’t we Hindus flexible? We are happy to have a Christian worship with us.” I explain I’m not a Christian but he’s right, I feel welcome and comfortable at the event – no stares, jeers. Just a few smiles, hellos, namastes.

Tummies grumbling, we plop ourselves at the first samosa stand cum restaurant on the road. We enjoy an elaborate meal of fried roti, sweet tea, beans.

As we order, I see the grimy clock behind the counter – 8:55 am. It’s before I’d normally be awake on a Saturday and my day already feels complete.

New Prime Minister

2008-08-15T03:38:00.000-07:00

"Breaking news" – Maoist leader Prachanda elected Prime Minister of Nepal.

This is on all the news wires (by all I mean BBC and the local Nepali TV stations).

As I get key from hotel lobby, four people cluster around the TV, watching the live coverage of Prachanda delivering his acceptance speech. I ask, “Is this good news or bad news?”

“Very good news,” says the man who’s behind the desk. I want to ask more, but there's not much more we can say between my Nepali and his English. (Except maybe "where's the toilet?") 30 years old, baby in his lap (his daughter, Elena), middle class for Surkhet standards. Is he the typical Maoist supporter? Did most middle and lower class people in Surkhet vote for the Maoists in April? It seems like it.

What I don’t understand is how Prachanda – the man who led the Maoist insurgency that caused the 10-year civil war where 13,000 people lost their lives – can be so popular. How people who live in towns whose infrastructure was destroyed by Prachanda’s army, who’s women were raped by his soldiers and who’s children were taken for “the cause” – often by force – support this man.

Here in Surkhet I have a burning desire to ask people more about their allegiance to him. Just one conversation would teach me more than any internet search or UN report or International Crisis Group analysis.

I want to loiter where people are watching his speech – in a hotel lobby or outside of a shop – and casually strike up conversation. I’d ask them if they’re happy, if they think his election is good for Nepal.

But for now I’m limited to asking, “Tapaiko naam ke ho?” (What is your name?) and “Tapailai san chai chaa?” (How are you?) and “Charpi kaha cha?” (Where is the toilet?) Arg. More motivation to learn Nepali.

"CP stands for Change of Plans."

2008-08-14T00:02:00.000-07:00

That's what Amar, Child Protection Manager, said when we learned the flight to Jumla yesterday was cancelled. (CP usually stands for "Child Protection.")

Instead of Jumla, I've come to Surkhet. Not as remote or mountainy, but still very beatiful, and more rural than anything I'd seen so far. Didn't require a flight. Just a 3 hour drive.

Today visited two different IRC-supported schools and met two children (former maoist soldiers) who IRC has provided goats and sewing training.

Just had my 4th tea of the day here (can't get by in rural Nepal without accepting the tea - hot, milky, and sweeter than candy). Nevertheless exhausted. Ma araam garnchu. I will rest.

Mountain-maa janchu

2008-08-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

"In the mountains I go."

It feels like the night before Christmas: I'm excited, nerved up.

Tomorrow I leave for Jumla, a remote district in Nepal's mountain-ey midwest. I'll be there for 6 days to monitor and support IRC's child protection program in the district.

My bag is packed. It includes:

hiking boots
bedsheets
diarrhea medicine (!!)
granola bars
satellite phone
iodine tablets
warm jacket
rain pants

Shoot, office closing down. Time to go! I expect I'll have stories to share next week, when I return.

Here are some pictures from Jumla. Peter Biro, a communications officer for IRC, took them this spring.

Stupa night

2008-08-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

Just came back from a colorful night. I'm afraid I won't do it justice now - I feel both sleepy and glass-of-wine-silly. But I'll try to paint a few pictures.

The setting: Bodhnath Stupa, the largest stupa in Kathmandu. I remember seeing it weeks ago as I flew into the city – an immense, white UFO shape with a pointed gold top and prayer flags sprawling out from the tip to the base. It is, without question, the most prominent structure in the valley.

A blurry view from the air

Today is a Buddhist Holy day and thousands have flocked to the stupa to worship, celebrate. Prayers are said to be 10,000 times more potent today. (Or is it 100,000?).

Birbal, our driver, drops Jenny, Denise and I at the main entrance. As I exit the car, I collide with a short Tibetan woman wearing a maroon robe. Her head is shaved. The first of many Lamas I'm to see - and bump into - tonight.

We walk through a narrow alley lined by ancient, European-looking apartments (colorful shutters, well-maintained). The ground floors host shops that sell cloth mandalas and Tibetan prayer flags. Every shop burns a different incense. My nose twitches.

The stupa is at the end of the alleyway. Several football fields wide and a few flagpoles tall, the white sphere appears to have its own gravitational pull. At the top, a set of large painted eyes stare down, directly at me.

My first stupa-picture of the night

I take out my camera and start taking pictures. A gut reaction. Denise and Jenny do the same. After a few pictures we look at each other, Jenny asks what’s on all of our minds: 'Is this appropriate?' We aren’t sure (so much sacred-ness), but find out later that pictures are fine.

Hundreds (maybe thousands) of people are circulating the stupa. Most of them are holding white candles and are chanting sounds that are low, deep. Half wear maroon robes and have shaved heads. A few white (sunburned) tourists dot the crowd – cameras around neck, fanny packs at waist. But the vast majority are Tibetan and Nepali. A lot of “Free Tibet” t-shirts.

I see lamas wearing bright plastic Croc shoes under their maroon robes; old women dressed in traditional scarves talking on cell phones; thousand year-plus-old stupa next to coffee shops advertising "lattes" and "fast internet."

Monk waiting in internet cafe

Jenny and I circle the stupa while Denise waits at the entrance for the woman we’re to meet. Chanting, candles, robes all around us. We walk in a dazed wonder, clockwise, around the structure. It reminds me of the Dartmouth homecoming bonfire – the mass of people and energy, circulating, worshiping this central relic.

We’ve come to meet Maura Moyhihan, a friend of the IRC’s president who is visiting Kathmandu for the week. I’m excited to meet her – she’s supposed to be “eccentric” and “feisty.” And I’d read about her dad, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in American history classes.

After Jenny and I do a loop, we wait for Maura by the entrance with Denise. Minutes later, a middle aged woman bounces up to us, smiling. She looks like an aging teenager - she is thin and wears flair jeans, a bright blue shirt and dangly earrings; she also has wrinkles and thinning hair.

She hugs each of us, introduces us to the Tibetan man with her, takes Denise by the hand and walks swiftly with the crowd, motioning for us to follow. Unsure where we are going, Jenny and I tag along, make small talk with the Tibetan man along the way.

I'm getting sleepy so must stop here. But in a nutshell, she brought us to visit an old, tantric Lama – one of the last of his generation still alive. He was performing a ceremony near the stupa. We entered his temple, bowed to him, sat with his followers on red cushions. Lots of chanting, prostrating, colorful hats, drum beating. After, we had dinner with Maura and a handful of her Tibetan friends. I sat next to a grey-haired Tibetan man who came to Nepal when he was 9. The year was 1959, the same year China invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled for India. He left with his two older brothers and father in a group of about 300 others from his village. Luckily he knew how to ride a horse. Six months and many mountain passes later, they reached Nepal. Many, including his father, died along the way from disease, malnutrition, and occasional fights with Chinese troops.

The Tibetan Drama has always been distant, academic to me. Tonight at the stupa it came alive.

Denise (my boss), Jenny (my roommate) and Maura (lady we were meeting). This picture is characteristic of Maura - her hands were flail-ey and expressive most of the night.

Good old Birbal!

Momos and terraces

2008-08-04T03:46:00.001-07:00

Buff momos, up close and personal. Not very photogenic. But sure are tasty. (I've left out the cross-section shot. Looked even more like cat food.)

View from a rooftop café overlooking Patan's Durbar Square. (Patan is where I live, a sub-city of Kathmandu.) A 10-15 minute walk from my house, this square is the center (spiritually, physically, everything else-ally) of Patan. I spent most of Sunday afternoon here - doing work, writing letters, taking in the smells (momos), sounds (crying baby, occasional rooster crow, tourists bargaining) and feels (breeze, caffeine buzz). It was a pinch-myself kind of afternoon. (I live here I kept telling myself, with a smile.)

Another rooftop shot.

Temple meets Macbook.

THIS WEEKEND I LEARNED OUR GUESTHOUSE HAS A TERRACE! I had no idea. To make up for lost terrace-time, I spent most of Saturday afternoon up there. This is the view to the south.

To the west.

To the north.

Office pictures installment 1

2008-08-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from where I work. More on the way - still missing some key characters!

This is the IRC building, where I live from ~ 9:10 to 6:30 most Monday through Fridays. My office is on the third floor.

Neelima is the first person I see when I walk in. “Good morning Rosie” she says, while she’s stuffing an envelope or un-jamming the printer or dialing a phone number. She is efficient and always busy.

25 years old, Neelima recently finished 3 years of college in Bangalor, India. One year during college, she worked at a phone bank selling credit cards to Americans. They taught her how to speak with an American accent and told her to never talk about the weather. If asked, she was to say she was in Texas.

Neelima is becoming a good friend. Unfortunately though, she lives an hour and a half from the office/my house. Tricky. We're planning a sleepover next week so there’s time to do something fun after work.

This is my roommate Jenny, from the UK. Jenny is the IRC’s "Child Protection Coordinator." In a typical week, she’ll have three donor reports to write, a teacher-training curriculum to design, a government coordination meeting to attend, and 5 or 6 other things to do. She easily works 75 hours each week and still comes home smiling.

At work we help each other edit tough emails and at home we cook pasta together and make fun of each other’s accents. This week she is on vacation visiting her Fiance in Chicago. She comes back today – I’m excited.

This is my other roommate, Tienle, from China. She was a journalist for many years, but is currently doing a Master’s in New York in International Relations. She’s in Kathmandu for the summer as an “Information Intern.”

I learn alot from Tienle. She answers my (many) questions - about Tibet and Mao and Chinese dumplings - with patience and clarity.

At home, Tienle is a bit more private than Jenny and I – she spends a lot of time behind her computer and in front of the TV (often both at the same time). And she’s less vocal about her frustrations, fears, excitements. But she definitely joins in on communal house dinners, outings and movie-nights.

I'm not good at sitting at desks. Instead I like to lie on my back (pictured), lie on my stomach or sit cross-legged on the floor. Thank goodness for laptops and wall-to-wall carpeting.

This is the view from my window. Day-dream friendly.

This is the view from the 3rd floor balcony. (On clear days the mountains are drool-worthy.)

The office vehicle. It needs a name - something cute, small.

I don't have any more pictures from the office. But what follows are pictures of office-people at a going away party for Christina, our former Country Director.

Christina has been IRC's Country Director Nepal for a year and a half. Yesterday she moved to Australia with her husband and 2 1/2 year old son. (Her husband is Australian and was offered a job there.) She seems sad to leave Nepal. But family is important.

Pictured above is Christina giving a goodbye speech at the party. She said goodbye and welcomed the new Country Director, Denise...

This is Denise! Denise arrived a week and a half ago. Before that, she worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a year. She's lived in more countries than I've been to (including Rwanda, Liberia, Jordan, Malawi and a bunch of others.) I like her ALOT. She confessed to having a dance party by herself the other night and sometimes has lipstick on her teeth. When I tell her about the lipstick, she laughs and thanks me.

This is Deepak, the Deputy Director. I wrote about him in an earlier post.

This is Reese, Christina's son (tickle-friendly), and Mira, the office cook. Mira is always smiling. She has become my unofficial Nepali instructor. Every day she gives me one food-related word to learn. I repeat it to hear ad nauseum until it sinks in. Last week she taught me the words: tarkari (mixed vegetables), alloo (potatoes), kankro (cucumber), gorbera (tomato) and bhat (rice).

I hope to post pictures of the rest of the people I work with - Rita, Shivani, Sanjay, Bagwan and Birball - in the coming days/weeks.

IRC blog link

2008-07-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

IRC recently published a series of articles I wrote last summer, when I worked for their school for newly arrived refugee children in New York City.

You can find them here, on the organization's blog.

(They should have been published last summer, but a steam pipe blast disrupted IRC’s headquarters, putting the communications/website team in disarray. When I was recently in New York training for this job, the IRC's website lady encouraged me to re-send the articles. She just emailed me this morning to say they’ve been posted and that they’ll be featured in IRC's Monthly Update newsletter!)

Scribble-scrabbles

2008-07-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

My parents and I keep a blog to stay in touch. In it, we write sloppy, reference our pets, talk about the new paint job on our neighbors’ garage and write about other things no one else would care about.

This week dad recommended I post some of my family-blog writings here. I hesitate because they are mostly about me (ie boring) and poorly written (ie confusing). But maybe, like he says, some of you are interested in messy, stream-of-consciousness stuff. Below are a few entries from this week. You've been warned ☺ (I’ve added some parentheses to clarify things that might not be obvious).

July 28, 2008

Met a lot of “humanitarians” tonight. I went to a birthday party for the director of OCHA (UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) with Christina (IRC’s outgoing Country Director), Denise (IRC’s incoming Country Director) and Christina’s fun friend Layla. The youngest and least experienced at the party (by far) I noticed absurdities and quirks that I wouldn’t have as a seasoned “insider.” I felt like an anthropologist…!

The party is held at Club 1905, a remodeled old palace in Downtown Kathmandu. On the outside it has a lagoon with swans; on the inside, white tablecloths and expensive art.

It is raining when we arrive. We run from the car (Christina drove the IRC-mobile), across the bridge and into the club’s restaurant. I feel sorry for the swans (soggy feathers looks miserable).

The only Nepalis at the club/restaurant are men in pressed white uniforms serving pieces of chicken on toothpicks, mini quiches and glasses of wine. The attendees are all Western. (I hear mostly British, American and Australian accents.)

Three minutes in, the old British guy I met on my first day in Nepal buys me and another lady a drink. Nice of him, but now I’m stuck, obligated to talk to them for a while.

Both him and the lady have gray hair, well into seemingly successful careers. She heads the UN’s Political Such-And-Such Unit here. He is in charge of “turning out the lights” on the UN mission in Nepal. (Which is due to phase out in the next six months.) He talks about his time as a commander the British Army (where he “did quite well” he says) and the lady and I nod, “ooh” and “ahh” on cue.

Beneath my nods, my attention drifts to the conversation behind me.

“When I was in Darfur…”

A lot of tonight’s sentences start this way. Darfur. Chad. Somalia. Liberia. Most have lived in places I’ve only read bad news about.

Since Nepal is now peaceful, humanitarian workers are becoming redundant, unnecessary. A lot of talk at the party is about looking for jobs, next assignments: “The world is actually quite calm now,” the British guy says to the old UN woman and I. He sounds bored, or disappointed. “Just Darfur as usual – but I’m not going back there – 4 years was enough. And then of course there’s Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s always Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Rodolfo, a burly Spaniard who pops multiple mini quiches in his mouth at once, tells me how bored he's been in Nepal. He works for the UN Mission as well. “There’s no action here anymore,” he says. He’s headed to Chad in two weeks, where he hopes to find more excitement.

* * *

Stuffy British guy could afford to buy me a drink because there is civil unrest in the world. He (and everyone else at the party) makes his living from conflict. Not all are as bold as Rodolfo, but I think many of them get a thrill, pleasure, excitement from being near conflict. (Can I exclude myself? I’m not sure.)

What motivates Alex and Lief [two people I hit it off with – young, sarcastic, but didn’t seem to have lost all their idealism & hope] might be different from what motivates Rodolfo and British guy. The latter seem more motivated by action, money, prestige than a desire to “help.” But at the end of the day, all of them get paid, put food on the table, because there continues to be suffering in the world. When conflict is minimal, the job market is tough.

July 29, 2008

Lying on our burgundy couch (looks like something from one of Ames' old lines - department store-print, made-in-china-feel to the upholstery), I can feel my upper back muscles call out to me. "Rub me!" "Soak me in hot water!" "Take me to a yoga class!" they say. "Anything but another day behind that god-fersaken desk."

Sorry guys, hard to escape the desk this week.

Outside of work, it's been quiet. Tienle and Jenny are on vacation. And even Boo has stopped barking. (Although he'll probably start soon now that I've written that.)

The first few days alone here were nice. I like time to myself - I can walk around in my underwear and leave the cutting board unwashed cuz I know I'll use it again in the morning. And I like evenings without noise from the TV. (Tienle always has it on, even when she's doing something else.)

But I've had plenty of alone time now. My needs for pantlessness, messiness and quiet have been met and now I have new needs: conversation, laughter, noise.

I'm anticipating Jenny and Tienle's departure at the end of August. This week has shown me that however nice living alone might sound in theory (although actually it doesn't sound that nice at all now that I write it out), I will need roommates.

I met a few potential future roommates this weekend at the OCHA birthday party. Most of the people I met were older and NOT potential friends. But a few were - in particular a girl named Alex who works for UNCDF (I think it stands for UN Capital Development Fund - so many acronyms) and a guy named Jarrod, who works for the NGO Mercy Corps.

By the end of these days, I don't have the energy - or desire - to be social, to meet up with people I don't know well. But I also don't like going home to an empty house. When Jenny and Tienle are around, they provide enough social interaction to satisfy that need after work. We're comfortable enough around each other that it's not exhausting. Having them away this week has reminded me they won't be around forever. And that I'd better start preparing for their departure now. Jarod and Alex might be a start.

On that note, it’s off to bed for me. Tomorrow - my night, your morning - might be a good time to try and talk, no? And, the elusive morning in Nepal. There's always tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up in time to call you. He! We'll see...

July 30, 2008

Good day; really fun night.

Good day because I received more positive feedback about the DFID proposal (Someone in NY sent an email saying we have the go ahead to submit it – without any changes or concerns; Charlotte in UK sent her revisions saying she thinks it looks really great; I overheard Christina say to Denise “Rosie is so on top of DFID – she’s got it all under control.”)

I finally feel proud of this grant. For weeks this DFID proposal has hung on my shoulders like a dead weight. But the feedback from the past few days has been encouraging, surprisingly positive. So that feels good. And just the relief of being (essentially) done with it puts me in a good mood, too. Ready to move on to other things.

Which brings me to dinner.

(Some background: This month I'm going to design a curriculum for a report-writing training program that I'll give to senior IRC Nepali staff over the next several months. Christina suggested I talk with Deepak, IRC Nepal's Deputy Director, to understand what staff writing needs are and to work out the logistics of the program.)

First, I need to describe Deepak.

Few Nepali have pot-bellies. (The nation's diet (rice and lentils), geography (walking intensive) and poverty (limited money for food) are not conducive to weight-gain.)

Deepak is an exception. His belly is the size of a large couch pillow and he carries it with pride. He struts about the office (or does he swagger?), his chest erect, swinging his belly from side to side. Confidence and authority ooze.

Despite my natural aversion to people with swaggers, I really like Deepak. He impressed me from the first staff meeting I attended.

“Shall I take notes?” he said before we began. Christina laughed, “Oh boy, Deepak’s back. Now we’ll get back in line.” (He had been away for a month helping his family move to Canada. He will join them in three months.)

After every discussion he asked, “so what will the action point be on this? I’d like to assign someone to take the lead on that or else it will never happen.” He was right.

Five minutes after the meeting he sent out draft minutes. They were well written and next to each point he'd written who would follow up and by when. In his email, he welcomed feedback on the minutes and said he’d finalize them and re-send them out by days end tomorrow.

Efficient. Action-oriented. Well organized.

He’s also surprisingly nice. (Again, with his swagger and belly and official-sounding title, I’d expected his demeanor to be more severe, distant.) When I asked him if we could talk about the report writing training, he said, “why don’t we talk about it over lunch sometime – that would be fun, no?” When lunch didn’t work out today because he had to return home to pay his plumber, we agreed on dinner.

Getting sleepy so will cut this short. We went to Thamel and ate at a (ready for this?) Indian/Mexican/Continental/Nepali food restaurant. We got dumplings for appetizers and he popped them like M&Ms.

I learned a lot from him. We talked about the report writing training, but also about the other places he’s lived and worked (Laos and Zambia mainly), about his feelings on the school systems in Canada versus US (his children will be starting school in Canada in September), his analysis of the IRC’s big problems in Nepal (a topic for another time) and his analysis of Nepal's political situation (he's an optimist).... I’m fading so fast now I’m about to drop. To bed!

New President

2008-07-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

Addendum to last post:

New President today... finally.

The headlines and news reports are worrisome. And hopefully wrong.

The next few days will be interesting.

More later. Bedtime here.

Political Fragility and Chocolate Milkshakes

2008-07-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend revitalized me. Highlights included a yoga class taught by a giggly British woman, a double-thick chocolate milkshake, and my first Nepali language class.

Saturday night was also a highlight. My roommates and I went to Thamel, the nightcluby/expaty/cover bandy/knick-knacky part of town where you can get a good salad and expensive beer. I’d avoided it until now. But Saturday was indulgent and fun. We saw a cover band that played all sorts of awful 80s music (including “Play that Funky Music White Boy” and “It’s Raining Men”). I bobbed my head a bunch, laughed and drank a couple of "Everest" brand beers. I want to write about the taxi ride home from that night. I’ve been thinking about it.

* * *

It is raining, a downpour in Thamel. After a night of giggles and screaming to hear ourselves over the tinny live music, Jenny, Tienle and I make a run for the corner where taxis wait down the street.

Screaming over the pounding rain, Jenny lowers her head to the first taxi driver in the line: “250 rupees to Sanepa?” This was 50 rupees more than we’d paid two weeks ago for the same distance. The fuel shortage and rising prices continues to push taxi prices up.

The driver shakes his head, says he’ll do it for 400. As we walk away, he calls out to us, “OK, 300, get in.” I am relieved to put my soggy body somewhere dry.

The driver is young and chatty and I’m in the mood to engage. He’s from Western Nepal but came to Kathmandu four years ago for work. Kathmandu is bad, he says, hard work. Taxi business has been especially tough recently because of the fuel prices.

We pass a line of parked cars – the petrol line, easily 400 meters long. He nods to it, says he will wait in the line tomorrow. How long will you wait? I ask. If he is lucky, a day. But more likely he’ll have to wait two. I see shadows of heads in the cars lined up, leaning on their car seats for sleep.

He shakes his head, sighs. “Things were better under the king,” he says. He goes on to explain that when Nepal had a king, gas prices were stable.

This is the first time I have heard someone attribute the recent fuel crisis to Nepal’s political changes. But I have heard increasing grumbles about the new government’s capacity – and will – to affect change.

In April, Nepalis voted in a historic election to disband their 200-plus year old monarchy and elected a Maoist majority to lead the new government. After the elections, the mood was hopeful, jubilant. The Maoists Party won a legitimate majority on a campaign to uplift Nepal’s disadvantaged and marginalized.

But now, three months later, the government is still “sorting itself out." Each of the main parties in the new coalition government - the Maoists as well as the National Assembly and Communist Party Nepal-UML (more old-boy, status quo parties) - claim they should hold the posts of President and Prime Minister. None will budge. Everyday the newspaper headlines reflect the political stalemate: “Maoists threaten to back out of government talks;” “Dozens hurt in Maoist-NC Clash;” “No Consensus Yet.”

While this happens, people are becoming impatient. Most political talk I hear these days – in the office, at the vegetable stand, in taxis - involves grumbling, frustration. Why cant the government act as adults? Will the losers ever accept defeat and bow down?

If the new government takes much longer squabbling over who gets what seat, more and more people will come to the conclusion of our taxi driver – that life was better under the king.

Neighborhood Tour

2008-07-19T21:07:00.001-07:00

These are my two roommates, Jenny and Tienle, outside of our apartment in Lalitpur, Kathmandu. I did not expect my home in Nepal would have potted plants, big wooden doors or a patio. I can't complain. But I do sometimes feel cloistered living here, removed from the "real" Nepal.

If this pictures had sound, you would hear:

A chorus of dogs barking (including Boo, our landlord’s shiny black dog who was not present for the picture taking)
Construction sounds - hammer clanks and large pieces of wood hitting the ground (a house is going up across the street).
An imperfect, off-tempo rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the piano. Over and over and over. Last week's song was "Twinkle Twinkle." I don't know the culprit but I have a feeling it's the little girl who lives across the alley.
Distant car horns.

Intruders beware. I love this sign outside our gate.

The main intersection by our house that I pass when I go anywhere. A gathering point for bored taxi drivers and ladies who sell peppers and spices on blankets. To get home from here, I turn right, walk for 15 seconds...

...then turn left down this alleyway. I walk for about a minute (minding the puddles after a rain) then turn right into our driveway. I hear Boo at this point and know I'm home. (His bark is higher pitched than the other neighborhood dogs).

To get to work in the morning, I walk past the intersection pictured above and head down the street pictured below. Motorbikes, chuk-chuks (three-wheeled vans stuffed with people), school buses, and large white UN SUVs usually fill the street, all jostling to make it in time for that 8 o'clock meeting, or the first bell or the next drop-off. I walk defensively.

Once I've reached Red Rose Newari Cafe, I'm getting close. This is my favorite spot for fresh buff momos. I don't have to tell them what I want anymore. (I need to learn how to say "I'll have the usual" in Nepali.)

5-7 minutes after leaving home, I come to the end of the street. I follow the IRC sign to the left...

...and a minute later, follow another sign and turn left into the driveway. I'm now at work. I'll try to post pictures from the office this week.

Tough Week

2008-07-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Sunday night before bed I get an email from my dad:

“Rosie, we need to talk NOW. If you don’t get this, we will call you.”

Before I finish reading the message, my cellphone rings. Dad’s voice: “Rosie, can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

I can hear him fine, and tell him so, but he continues:

“Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Rosie?”

After a few more frustrating hour-long seconds, the connection settles and we can both hear each other, in real-time.

“Rosie – Pop passed away last night in his sleep.”

My throat goes lumpy and my eyes well. I’ve been half-anticipating my grandfather’s death for the last 5 years. He was 95 this year; anything can happen at that age.

But half of me thought he’d never die. Two years ago doctors diagnosed a tumor in his lungs as fatal and gave him a few months to live; six months later, he was still alive. The doctors scratched their heads and took it back. And so many times I have said goodbye to him thinking it might be the last – before I left for months in Ecuador, then Switzerland, then Ghana and New Zealand. But he was always there when I returned.

This time though he really is gone. At first I was pretty shaken up. On Monday, I jotted these notes in my journal:

“…It’s been strange to feel this here. In Kathmandu. Light-years away from family and home and Pop’s little apartment in New Hampshire. Far from his cupboard full of oatmeal and prunes, the dandruff on his blue armchair and the stacks of Wall St. Journals that clutter his coffee table.

I want to talk to someone about him. But with someone who knew him. Explaining Pop to friends here would be like explaining “green” to a blind person: hopeless and exhausting...”

That was four days ago. I’m feeling much better now. Talking to friends here has been surprisingly helpful and I’ve been able to talk to my parents a bunch, too.

This morning I looked at a picture of him and instead of crying, I smiled, laughed, remembering the moment: I was sitting next to him on his hard couch (close enough to feel his bony elbows in my side), showing him my new computer and its built-in camera. He was fascinated and the picture reflects that – he looks confused, curious, his nose right up to the lens. (Internet's too slow now to upload it. Darn.)

And now I can focus on the comforting, rational thoughts that didn’t get through the emotions a few days ago: He lived a long life (he was 95); he was happy, extremely loved and remained sharp as a pin until the day he died. He died peacefully, in his sleep.

In other news, this week has also been tough because of the grant proposal I've been working on. It’s big, and has been hard to do with a distracted mind that’s halfway in New Hampshire.

But even that is looking up. Last night I sent the Second Draft (duh duh duh) to IRC’s Technical Units –senior staff in UK, Thailand and New York who are “experts” in programming related to governance and rights. I feel relatively good about what I've done and now I have a little breathing room until they send comments back. Next week I'll finish the final draft...and wipe my hands clean.

Tonight I’m going to a yoga class that I’ve heard wonders about from a friend of a friend. Afterwards, my roommates and I are going to a restaurant that specializes in milkshakes. Supposedly they have the best ones Kathmandu. (Perhaps the only ones? Unclear.)

Things are looking up.

Some pictures from my trip to Bardiya

2008-07-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Buddha Air over Kathmandu (ie temples)

Buddha Air over Nepalganj (ie swamp)

Driving from Nepalganj City to Bardiya District (rice paddy central)

2 hours later, we reach a river. What to do?...

Take a boat!

Lots of reminders of the war still:

Left: The town center of Rajpur - when the Maoists captured the town, they tried to hack the center pillar down. Instead they made a nice dent and put up a big red flag.
Right: A former police station in a small town we drove through. Again, Maoist attack. Ruins like this dotted the countryside.

Curry and Rickshaws

2008-07-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Left: The Nepalganj Airport. Makes Maine's Bangor Airport look like The Ritz.
Center and Right: Meeting with a group of Badghars, traditional leaders in Bardiya's Tharu Indigenous communities. Needed more estrogen under that tree!!

* * *

“As the main administrative centre for the Mid-West region, Nepalganj is a popular target for rebel attacks. The center of town is heavily fortified and it’s wise to check the security situation before attempting to cross the border here.”

Fortunately my Lonely Planet is out of date.

This past week I traveled to Mid-West Nepal to gather information in order to write a grant proposal for a “Community Driven Reconstruction” project that will, pending funding, take place in Nepal’s Bardiya District.

Jungley, inaccessible during monsoon season, and far from the capital Kathmandu, Bardiya was a hub for Maoist rebels during Nepal’s 10-year civil war. More people were killed here than in all but three of Nepal’s 75 districts. Two years after the war has ended, hundreds are still displaced…

…Darn. I wanted to write more but I realize I don’t have energy. My spine is drooping and my eyes hurt from too much computer time. (This grant is sucking my brain juice this week.)

Below is an excerpt from my journal though. Its raw and mostly unedited, but it gives a snapshot from my trip. More next week.

And I'll try to add more pictures later. Internet is slowwwwwwwer than usual tonight.

* * *

(Remy is a co-worker – IRC Nepal’s newly hired “Protection Officer.”)

From July 2nd

Tonight Remy and I have curry from the Kitchen House, a bright restaurant in the middle of Nepalganj. We eat from a tin bowl of “vegetable curry” – a few peas and some diced onion sitting in pool of orange, oily goop. The Kitchen Hut’s yellow walls and tinted windows hide the fact that it is raining with ferocity outside. We dip pieces of garlic naan in our spicey, oily goop and forget what we’ll soon have to face – a thunderstorm, a long ride home and no umbrella.

After we wipe our greasy paws, sprinkle some of the anise seeds and sugar crystals into our mouths (sanitary? probably not. but at this point as long as I haven’t seen it touch a dirty floor or poop, ill eat it), we pay the measly bill (200 rupees or $2.50) and step outside. Wet. Dark. Wind. Thunder. Lightening.

Where have all the rickshaws gone? On our way to the restaurant, swarms of them seemed to occupy and jostle every inch of road. Now their numbers have thinned – only the strong, or the desperate, or the adventurous rickshaw drivers, I imagine, remain.

After a few unsuccessful minutes of waggling our arms at the passing shadows, one finally stops.

I wish Remy goodnight as I get in and inside cheer when she agrees not to accompany me (her hotel is in the opposite direction – she has an umbrella and was going to be “nice”). I like her but I am ready to be in Nepal, just me, experiencing it without the barrier or the cloud or the distraction of another westerner to filter and analyze and discuss and color what is around me. Just me and my rickshaw driver. By the time I sit down my linen pants are already clinging-to-me-drenched. A blessing, really – drenched, I can let go of any attempt or desire to remain dry. Acceptance.

As we wobble and weave the rutted streets, his legs pumping, my abs clenching to keep my body upright, I smile, want to laugh, pinch myself. The lightening and occasional headlights light him up and I can see his bandana flapping in the wind, see a soggy cow pick up his head to look at us.

‘No ride at Disney world could bring me this feeling,’ I think.

As we near my place, I pull a soggy 50 rupee bill from my bag and cradle it until we stop. I usually resist paying more than the going local price for services, but he deserves it – I’ve paid taxi drivers in New York 20 times as much for driving the same distance on a street in New York; my rickshaw driver just pulled a belly-full-of-Indian-food girl on a wobbly cart in the dumping rain over rutted streets avoiding animals and carts and vehicles all while a lightening storm was taking place above our heads.

I hand him the crumpled, drenched bill and practice my newest Nepali word: Dhanyavat, or thank you. He holds it up to the flickering fluorescence of my hotel sign to see the number. I await his response, not knowing. His face lights up, the look of a man who’s just been told NO, you DON’T have cancer. Thanks me many times and then bows the ritual “namaste.”

As I walk back to my hotel, I feel soggy and alive. I hope my rickshaw driver has a dry place to spend the night and that he buys himself something yummy or crucial or indulgent with the 50 rupees I’ve given him.

Some Truths I've learned in Nepal so far

2008-06-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

Nepali people are, on average, a lot shorter than me. Doorways reflect this. I’ve bonked my head on three occasions. (Last time left a bruise!)
Kathmandu was not modeled after NYC. An aerial shot might look something like a Jackson Polluck; chaos and squiggles.
My favorite thing so far is to wander the squiggles. I get lost in their crooks and then ask for help to get home. Everyone I’ve asked has been really nice. One guy even gave me an orange.
When it rains in Kathmandu, it pours. It’s monsoon season. It’s only rained twice, but both times rivers appeared in the streets that weren’t there before.
When Nepali people shake their head (American for NO) they mean YES, or OK. They do it all the time. I hope I never get used to it – it keeps me on my toes and causes some funny misunderstandings.
“Buff momos” are the best. They are dumplings stuffed with buffalo meat and they are my favorite Nepali food so far.
International NGO language is as foreign as Nepali language. I’ve learned how to say “thank you” and “hello” in Nepali but I still don’t know half of the acronyms in a report I read yesterday at work.

A note about my job

2008-06-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

An explanation of this sort feels in order. I didn't know much before I left; I now know some more.

I’m working for the International Rescue Committee, an organization that provides support to people affected by war. The organization works in 25 countries, including Nepal. Last month a reporter from the IRC’s communications department traveled to Nepal and wrote some good stories on what the IRC is doing in the country. You can read them here.

I work in IRC -Nepal’s main office in the capital Kathmandu. My title is “Grants and Information Fellow” meaning my job consists of writing, writing and writing.

My first project is to write a grant for a Community Driven Reconstruction project in a region of Nepal called Bardiya. It’s in the Midwest, near the border with India. The 10-year civil war between Nepal’s government and Maoist rebels impacted this district more than most – although the war is over, many in Bardiya are still displaced from their homes and infrastructure remains in rubbles. Bardiya’s average life expectancy is 40; in Kathmandu it’s around 70.

The upside of all this writing is that I get to travel, too. In order to design grant proposals I need to meet the people they will affect. Tomorrow I will travel to Bardiya, an hour plane flight from Kathmandu on Buddha Air. (The Gods are with me!)

I’ll be there for five days. The first two days I will go with Virendra, the head of IRC’s field office in the area, to visit some of Bardiya's remote villages. To get to them we will:

drive for two and a half hours
take a ferry boat (monsoon season cuts these communities off for three months of the year)
then walk for a bunch of hours.

I’m excited to get to know Virendra (he’s from the region) and to see some of the countryside that I’ve been reading so much about. After that, I’ll spend three days in Nepalganj, a hub city near Bardiya, to meet with some official people from the UN about this project. I’m also to meet with two of our “partner organizations,” local NGOs who work in the area.

After this trip, I’ll supposedly know enough to write this grant proposal. I feel a little silly doing all of this, like a kid dressed up in grown-up clothes. The grant is for a lot of money and, if the IRC gets it, it will affect people I have never met. I’m not sure I feel qualified and that makes me nervous. But I’ll put on my mental high-heeled shoes and pink lipstick and try my best.

First moments

2008-06-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

As soon as I place my hand on Ratan’s shoulder I remember the first item on the Lonely Planet’s list of “Dos and Don’ts” for Nepal:

“Don’t place your hands on Nepalis’ shoulders, as it is a sign of disrespect.”

The first of many cultural taboos I will break during my ten months in Nepal, I’m sure.

Ratan is the driver for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and has picked me up from the Kathmandu airport on this humid Saturday morning. He is, like most Nepalis I’ve seen so far, short and very smiley. He wears a British-style plaid cap and a bright yellow t-shirt with the IRC insignia.

My first moments in Kathmandu are vivid. Bold yellows, oranges and pinks jump out from women’s dresses and coffee shop signs and doorways; smells of sun-baked tarmac, musty cigars, ripe armpits and leaking diesel storm my nose; and the sound of incessant horns, mopeds with muffler problems, loud flute music from store-fronts and roosters crows clatter against my ear drums.

On the 20-minute drive from the airport to the IRC guesthouse (my new home) Ratan tells me that there’s a big strike today over rising fuel and transport costs. Public transport is grounded and in the center of town, students are burning tires and throwing rocks at government offices.

“That is why the streets are so empty,” he explains. Meanwhile I see mopeds, goats, cows, walkers and bikers weaving to avoid the potholes and each other. I try to imagine what it would be like with buses and taxis added. Yikes. Empty is relative.

I see a line of mopeds on the side of the road. It is at least 200 meters long.

Ratan motions to the line; “they are waiting for gas.” Today he says, the line is short – usually it is twice as long and people have to wait hours to fill up.

I ask him if the lines are new. “Oh no – not new at all,” he says, as he turns off the main road into a narrow alley lined with high walls. This puts America’s four dollar a gallon gas “crisis” in perspective – at least we don’t have to spend half a morning waiting to fill up our tanks. (Yet.)

In the alley, Ratan honks his horn at every turn to alert the oncoming walkers, goats, mopeds and bikers. Fifteen minutes and many honks later, we turn off the narrow alley onto an even narrower, ruddy path.

My new home.

Ratan insists on carrying my two elephant-sized packs into the house. I say “Namaste” and bow my head, relieved I've remembered to not shake his hand or put my hand on his shoulder.

Robes, dust and veils

2008-06-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

Cafe-mates in the Doha airport.

Doha, Qatar

The sun is setting as we fly in. The captain announces our descent and the plane tips down, poking through the blanket of white cloud. All white outside for a minute. Then, slowly, it turns to brown and I see outlines of sand dunes. My nose steams to the cold window. This is what soldiers who fly into Iraq or Afghanistan must see – the brown, the dust, the emptiness.

More shapes appear. First, a row of tall metal structures – oil wells. Then a few buildings, all sand-colored, flat. Soon we pass rows and rows of California tract houses grafted onto a true desert and lacking the lawns, SUVs or pools I've seen flying into LAX. Even as we reach the city, everything is the same color – brown, faded, obscured by dust and the dusk’s creeping cover.

Inside the airport is a sea of robes and veils and headdresses and facial hair. What is the difference between the black robes and the white robes? And between ones whose pants match their robes versus ones whose don’t? Does the variety signify different degrees of religious faith? Or different regions? How little I know.

The variety of women’s veils also impresses me – some are colorful, with sparkles or lace or other flashy features. These are usually draped loosely around the woman’s head, sometimes revealing (intentionally?) pieces of hair sticking out. Others are austere – black, simple, covering all but the eyes.

I feel like I’ve landed on another planet, whose creatures I’ve only seen on TV - riding camels in Hollywood movies or posing austerely on CNN's terrorist watch. I’m almost surprised that they, too, have arms and legs, drink coffee (I’m in a coffee shop now), and use the same sign to find the toilets.

Then I see a man pick his nose at a table across from me. I smile. Underneath our veils, robes, jeans or down jackets, how human we all are.