Day 1
I am in a village east of Kathmandu called Dhulikel. Kanchan says it is on the way to Balephi. We are acclimating to the new country by staying in a hotel and learning the language for 4 days before moving in with our homestays and starting school.
The first day here we walked down to a mandir (temple) and did a puja (prayer). We got tikkas (the dot on your forehead) and learned that you can not get one if you are on your period.
Then, we had a safety and security briefing where they told us all the things that can go wrong and how to deal with it. For example, don't go to Thamel, it's a "seedy pit of dispair." It's the touristy district where there are bars, American restaurants (a good pizza restaurant), and scammers.
"Thamel boys" were mentioned. They're young men who hang out in
Thamel who look to have sex with white/foreign women because they
believe they are easy. This is probably from all the movies Hollywood
spits out where one night stands are common.
We were told not to buy hashish because the vendor might turn you in to a corrupt police officer, and the officer will try to get you to offer him a bribe which he shares with the dealer. Ending up in the Nepali legal system also sounds bad. Foreigners can stay in jail for a few years.
If a bad situation goes down, we're instructed to get out. For example a truck might hit a motor bike, but will hit the bike again to "finish the job" because it is cheaper to pay for a funeral than for the medical bills. Then, the villagers get enraged and start harassing the bus driver and even the passengers. Our director also told us about a hospital a couple weeks ago where someone died in an appendectomy. All the doctors in the hospital fled because they were afraid of the the village's potential violent reaction.
Bad stuff aside, we got cell phones. Foreign countries can text and call us for free (on their bill) and we can call/text them for pretty cheap.
We had our first language lesson. The Nepali language is so cool. Gender is not an issue and conjugating doesn't happen. Hallelujah. It is a little hard wrapping my brain around the Subject Object Verb structure (as opposed to SVO in English). I'll get used to it. Everyone was given a Nepali name because the American ones are too confusing. They just gave me Durga because it's already my middle name. Others got names that sound like theirs: Leah => Lina, Jacob => Jiwan.
Immediately after our first lesson, they divided us up into groups of 3 and kicked us out into the village. We had to find a given place and some objects by asking locals, and some groups used their haggling skills. It was really fun. My group had to find Kali Mandir. We discovered that it was the temple way at the top of the hill. We hiked up a few hundred stairs, and came across a 30 foot, golden Buddha. Unfortunately this was not the mandir, so we had to keep heading up a few hundred more steep stairs. There was a great view at the top that was worth the sweat. We thought it was interesting that the mandir (hindu) and the Buddha (buddhism) were grouped in the same area.
There are large spiders here with large webs that are chillin everywhere. I haven't seen one in my room yet knock on wood.
After our adventure, we learned about more Nepali customs/ how to not offend people. Pointing your feet at people is bad because feet are dirty. This means when you sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you, they shouldn't be facing anyone. Also, feet should not touch, kick, or step over people and text books. Even if it was an accident, you must apologize profusely.
Whistling is bad. It brings out the snakes and tree demons.
Juto is basically cooties. There is no double dipping or getting your germs in other people's food.
We eat our dal bhat with our fingers. To avoid juto, we must wash our hands after eating so that we don't accidentally contaminate the table or other body parts like arms, heads and other people.
Day 2
It feels like it has been a week, but it has only been 2 days. We have learned much more vocab and had 2 lectures. The lectures were great. The lecturer was a nationally ranked athlete in 3 sports, owns a theater group, is an Ashoka fellow, and does all kinds of great stuff for Nepal. He's all about hydropower beccause Nepal is the prime place to harvest this type of energy. I figured dad would be into that. There is a huge altitude decrease from the northern part of the country (the Himalayas) to the southern part (the plains). The rivers are strong because they cut right through the Himalayas and carry an incredible amount of water. Also, there are 6,000 rivers draining from Nepal into India.
I think he's one of our permanent lecturers so that is good. He knows everything about Nepal. It was good to listen to him after all the crazy stuff we were told about the day before. Nepal has lots to offer and is not as helpless as the rest of the world thinks. They might be super poor, but you have to put it in perspective. He used this example:
-A farmer harvests the wheat
-A mill buys the wheat and for 2$ to make it into flour.
-The flour is sold for 5$ to the baker who makes bread.
-The bread is sold to a restaurant for 10$
-The restaurant sells the bread with a meal for 12$.
However in Nepal, this process is not as prevalent as it is in wealthier countries. In Nepal, families do all the steps above. Cash is not used as often, so people do not need to make as much money. So they might poor by Western standards, but that does not mean they are starving or even need money to make a living.
Also, there are about 1,800 INGOs and 40,000-80,000 NGOs. The number of zero's is correct.
The same lecturer did a great geography lesson that was super interesting where we were looking at maps and had to find different cities and rivers and look at distance. It put everything in perspective. If something is 60km away as the crow flies, it does not mean you can just drive lah-dee-dah and get to where you're going in a couple hours. The mountains and hills add extra time, plus roads are scarce once you're outside of the more densely populated areas.
Whew! that is it. I will balance all the words out with pictures in a few days where I can get better internet.
Some Nepali:
"My name is ___ "= Mero naam ___ ho.
table = tabul
dog = kukur
