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        Today I'm taking my third and final bus from Kathmandu out to my village in Nepal's Far West. I have been away for almost a month, two weeks in pokhara for a peace Corps training,  a week in Thailand with my beautiful girlfriend Melaina King that really can't be summed up via modern word,  and a week altogether in buses.  My village, which lies on the face of a mountain, has been a perfect match for me. The difficulties and living conditions that characterize a village in a developing country's "far west"  clash with the loving and inviting tendencies of the area's villagers to create a balanced harmony.  In the thall of this harmony I find myself dancing to a busy but inspired beat. These last three months I've become a part of the family I was planted in,  a member of my community comprising of around six hundred households spread through a half-dozen villages.  My overall mission, titled Food Security,  encompasses any projects to improve livelihoods through health and agricultural work.  While I've been assessing my sites needs, working with several schools to teach nutrition, and getting to know the individuals I'll be tackling projects with, the bulk of my work has been in making stoves.
     The traditional Nepali method of cooking involves a small fire in the corner of the house.  The smoke from this fire is a huge health issue to all family members, especially small children. The sudarieko chulo,  or improved cook stove, channels smoke outside,  and is made from available resources such as cow dung, mud, and corn husk. Training villagers to make the stove is simple and often fun, especially hammering holes through walls for the smoke to flow.
      Although I have plans to start fruit tree and coffee production once I return, I find myself focusing on the bigger but more difficult roots to strike in development work.  Mountains like facilitating behavior change,  fighting caste discrimination, and working towards gender inequality,  which has cast a wide shadow over my site, are the ones that I want to look down from once my time is done. So yes, I am excited to get back to my site, I've missed running through the woods to the villages im working in, herding goats with my little brothers, and being confused by the local dialects. Although these mountains may prove to high to climb in my time, I  plan to start slowly,  and certainly not alone.

Work and Play

Work and Play: Life

About 6 weeks have passed at my new village.  These six weeks I've been just as much a student as a teacher.  I haven't learned what I'm getting myself into each day; but I at least I know that I don't know. This was a few weeks ago but it's a good example:
I was going to be making a chicken coop with my Ba (host father) but the bamboo guy was sick.  My Bad says he is going to carry Compost so I go with him to check the process out.  We depart on a jungle road, the roads in my village can be described as either jungle or mountain roads, and 20 minutes in I am remembering this road from before.  We come to a small community and school and I realize that is the school I said I couldn't teach at today; I was making a chicken coop. The teachers usher my Ba and I to sit outside with them and a couple of men from the community join.  A discussion on why Nepal is so impoverished ensued. I disagreed with the general consensus that not enough money was being produced or given by other country's. I am not a defeatist, and now that I have some experience in Nepali development argued the issues are fueled by behavior and inequality. One of the biggest issue I've seen is the mountain of laborious responsibilities women and young girls face compared to the opposite sex. I pushed this point, stoking the coals and blowing the conversation alive. Trying to drive my passion for the topic via the poorly assembled vehicle of my Nepali language was a comedic train wreck that ended teetering on the edge of trauma and comedy.
Immediately leaving with several of the men in the conversation and my ba, I saw the compost pile at an adjacent house. It was 20 feet high and judging on the smell and position to the backs of 3 massive oxen, it was not the compost I learned to make.  If you add layers of green organic materials, browns, ash or a nitrogen source, and manure, something to speed decomposition, and keep it nice and moist, a dark and rich soil is produced which can really improve your yields. A far cry from this compost, in front of me was 20 feet of shit and straw. Next to the pile was 12 women and 12 Dokhas (big whicker baskets that carry an assortment of things) lined one next to the other. Downhil, really down a mountainside of unsure steep rocks was a Gahu (wheat) field far off in the distance. The land was being plowed by two oxen barely in sight; terraced land ready to be mixed with a layer of compost before wheat is spread. The men with me and my Ba would be using spades to scoop the compost in the dokhas, the women would carry them down the field, which I measured a third of a mile. This was a perfect example of the inequality I spoke of. The job delegations were either 5-10 minutes of work at a time then waiting, or walking up and down all day with compost on your back: physically demanding and very messy work. My lesson on equality was only starting for the day, it was time to put my mouth where, well…
And so I did. It was a crude mixture of determination and a stubbornness that I realize comes from my genes all to well. A crude mixture, but it gave me an intoxicated little smile uphill and down. A feature of the Dokha is the Namlo, which is a strap that goes around your forehead and allows you to carry it. I don’t know if Dariwn has anything to do with it, but my skull was not naturally selected to carry like this. It was a humbling day, some of these women were in their later years, but would work harder than you might believe. Towards the end of the day, sore and plenty dirty, I could no longer put up a fight when it was mentioned to me that I should probably stop for a while. At this point, the stones were caked in compost and I was like an idiot trying to find a bathroom in the middle of the night with a slippy slide in my way. I title the day a success for three reasons.

My Ba made a few of the earlier trips with me, something extremely uncommon for a man to do. The house that owned the fields cooked a huge meal of Dhal Bhaat. The men served the women first, and only after they were finished did they eat. This was significant. In rural Nepali practice it is only until everyone has eaten and is satisfied that the woman will eat. She has the responsibility of making sure that there is enough food, if not, she will go without. This counterculture was beautiful to see. It's struggles and behaviors like these that compel me and keep me walking the steep, slippery steps of development ; that and my favorite memory of the day.

After half days past I am the last to toss my dokha on the ground and deposit it's contents.  Most of the women have taken a rest and are sitting looking off the valley where I am standing. One of the women I know better asks if I'll sing or dance. This is not uncommon in Nepal. I didn't have too many songs on my phone, none Nepali, but I chose one that spans language and culture, maybe space itself. It was somewhere belting out the second chorus of Rupert Holmes's "Pink Coladas" that I caught a look in a woman's eye that really expressed the better part of my experience so far.  Deep behind her eyes her mind was forming, as I have been myself, "I don't really know what this guy is doing, but it's sure something to watch."

A Step

A Step,

            I’ve been at my new site for two weeks. My home, community I will continue growing up in for the next couple of years. My expectations, although I try to avoid them traveling, have shifted with the currents since I first started applying to the Peace Corps a year and half ago. Going to Nepal: “There will be mountains. Getting to Nepal: “Oh it will be green and friendly.” Going Far-West: “Oh its going to be wild.” My thrill for my new home rose as  my bus began its ascension from the Terai, (Southern Nepali Flatlands) where we journeyed from Kathmandu, up North now to my District. I was with 4 other volunteers, and got to see their sites on the way to our district center. Mine was past. The literal last stop.

            Saying goodbye, I was taking a jeep across a beautiful mountainous ridge to my site. I could finally see it, the driver pointing it out. I had always been lucky in life, but I didn’t know I would be given a mountain. My area is, ranging from ward 1 at the base of a river to 9 just past the peak, literally the face of a mountain. My home is well placed on a footpath between a small rural hamlet and the more centralized part of the village, where my agriculture office and community post are. This plants my role as the facilitator between the people and the resources quite well. As awkward as the first night was around a fire in the corner of my house, I relished how quickly my family and I would evolve from that. There was a lot of staring. I am different here; for a few, the first of my kind that they’ve seen.

            I quickly met a lot of great people. I didn’t know I liked people that much. I saw future projects, friendships, and general activities that would make me smile as I traversed my new playground. Much like a traveler in the sun, I came across a nice lake and jumped right in. A week into this lake I found myself teaching English to a group of 30 kids in the morning, helping my agriculture office start a mushroom growing project with a women’s group, made my bricks made for a smokeless cookstove for my family, and was re-reading the Great Gatsby to help a friend pass an English proficiency exam. I was swimming fine, but it dawned on me that I still had my shoes on, and I never bothered to check the depth. The next daw I was too sick to leave bed, a lesson in humility. I have, since recovering, taken a step back, small step, to understand my community before throwing all my ideas at it. So for now, I am learning names. I am learning who does what where. I am learning to teach. Teach what exactly, I don’t know. I’m learning that too.

Tourist

  We get off the bus in Bhaktapur at the entrance to some of Nepal’s oldest palaces. Right off the bus there are several women lying Dhaan, unprocessed rice recently reaped, so it can dry. This is a process most of us have aided in, one of my finest days here was deep in the paddy’s with my family and neighbors, taking a sickle to some Dhaan. As we weaved in and out of the field smiles were exchanged for laughs; some guffaws even. Before my mind could question why one would bring Dhaan in the middle of a city to dry, my eyes met the tourist covenant of neon colored quick dry clothes and panorama hats. In my village, I learned the process of growing and harvesting rice because it was a part of my family’s life, my country’s life, therefore it became integral to mine. Here, walking past, I saw these Dhaan stacks through several new lenses. Some of these scopes were high powered, some point and click even a couple of iPads. In this digital and mechanical scope I saw myself too. Seven weeks of life in Nepal were photoshopped off. I was a tourist.

             I’m sitting in a restaurant looking at a menu in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Around me are my friends, fellow volunteers. As our eyes slowly and distainfully digest the menu there are joking cries of “casto mahango” and “melai Swyamsewak ho.” “How expensive,” “we are volunteers,” these are things you learn quickly in language class and nobody lets you forget. The final straw is placed when we make it to the traditional Nepali meal. The meal, falsely imitating what you could find in rural Nepal, what we’ve been eating with our host families for weeks now, was about a fifth of our stipend for the next 6 weeks.  We leave

            Kathmandu was fun though. Our tour of the Peace Corps office was an affirmation of the resources that back me. I have the best of the best in my corner. There are also a lot of maps. One of them put me in the far west; I really liked that map. I got this assignment, my permanent site, about two weeks ago. We are leaving for our sites when we’re ripe for the plucking. I think we’re supposed to be at the point where we’re ready and don’t know it.

            Leaving Kathmandu, we gazed at the now powerfully visible Himalayas, most of ready to be back with our host families, back in the Nepal we were birthed into. This was on the first day of Tihar festival. It was only a couple of days later that I would be sucked in by this Christmas/Halloween hybrid: the festival of lights.

haircut

            After traversing the streets, balconies, and the narrow expanses of broken cement called sidewalks, we failed to find the barber. Through directions in English half as broken as they were asked for in Nepali, we found ourselves a small barbershop overlooking the city of Mahrajgunj. My company, Emily and Lyle, left to get power converters, and I waited patiently as the barber cut the little hair that his current client entered with. He finished. Despite the dirty looks that I received on the half-mile walk down, due to my hair not nationality, I was not prepared for what was in the barber’s eyes as I approached. I was a pain. He was a writer, and I was a book burner. I began pointing to pictures and drew invisible lines in my hair like a cutoff section of a children’s book. After a couple of minutes I sat down and gave into the fact that he was going to do whatever he wanted with my hair, it was almost like we were speaking different languages.

            Last afternoon, one of the Pre-Service directors and I talked about Nepali business, where it came out that my now shoulder-length hair isn’t professional in Nepali culture. I’ve suspected this of the culture after a few conversations with Nepali’s and past volunteers. I’m an ambassador, and even though I’d often shrug off the question from friends with something like “it’s the Peace Corps, you have to look like a hippie to get the interview,” it takes professionalism to succeed here; and to succeed here I would do anything.

            Still, hair is a powerful symbol, from the biblical Samson, to certain cartoon characters who’s hair grows and becomes blonder as they increase in strength and kung-fu might. For me, it is a simple nod to the wild inside that I so appreciate. After a quick call to Melaina I was relieved that this wouldn’t end our relationship, and I set out with my new friends Lyle and Emily, thinking that two years in rural Nepal would prove better fuel for my wild side than what then hung heavy from my head.

            A flurry of concentrated chaos ensued, as his hands became his comb and scissor. The deep snarls in my head denying his comb kept his irritation palpable. Thirty minutes later and I passed judgment that this was the best haircut I’ve received. I gave up words with this man long ago. Thinking it an opportune chance to practice Nepali, I said “Mero naam Luke ho. Tapaiko naam k ho?” His only response to my stab at introductions was a deep exhale. After that, I didn’t even bother asking how many people were in his family, even though I just learned it. He moved the small hand mirror and “Ramro cha” very good, I agreed.

            Then something happened, I choose to view this as the man’s self proclaimed service to his country. It was the initial conversion of a longhaired foreigner into someone acceptable in Nepalese society. As the cutting of the hair concluded, he began grabbing my hair and quickly running through it with unrelenting force and rhythm. He would beat the back of my head with his fists, and then massage the perpetrated areas. Some of it hurt, some was undeniably pleasurable. As he whacked my head odd clicking sounds emitted from his hands. I stared in the mirror with bizarre amazement as my vision distorted then focused at each impact. He held my chin and shook me side to side until my newly cut hair stood from all ends, almost electrocuted like my mystified mind, my baffled brain. The process concluded after half an hour with a deep face massage, centered around my eyes. He pulled my eyelids in a final crescendo; as I opened them I saw the Nepal that maybe he wanted me to. I got up and paid what we agreed on, two hundred rupees, around two American dollars.

            Going into a barbershop, you can predict how you’ll look and feel as you exit, and the steps that took you up there. Here in Nepal, I was enchanted and stunned as I was smacked around and altered. Some of it was good, some bad, some familiar, some foreign, some hurt, some the opposite, I witnessed the most bizarre of simple feats. I imagine I will look back and say something similar of my years here

Dhaal Bhaat

Daal Bhaat, is the irrefutable national dish of Nepal. Lentils and rice, every meal, always together. The lentils are usually a soup served in a different dish, but inevitably poured and mixed with the bhaat, rice. The daal isnt solid enough to grip by itself, the Nepalese eat with their hands, and the bhaat alone sits tasteless. Together, is the only way to experience this meal that the nation subsides on.

I once had a language teacher named Godson who would say "language is culture." Starting with English, I've always struggled. As a traveler, I think I can now call myself that, I've seen language as an obstacle; the overweight bouncer at the door of a poppin party that doesn't speak a lick of English.

Being here, being in a small village off of a small village, at a place that no road or number could claim, old words find new meaning. Sitting on a mud floor, eating Daal Bhaat with my Nepalese family, and laughing over my broke but not crippled Nepali, I wish I could finally let Godson know I understand.

It's been about a week now with my Nepalese family. I find myself, and the once five now four volunteers around my village, walking the better part of two hours to language class and peace corps information seminars. I spend early mornings and evenings with my host family, a harmonious and extensive group of over 15, the count is still out. Activities range from embarrassing myself in dance to songs half sang from laughing mouths, to having a counting contest with my bahini, little sister. I count in Nepali and she, in English. She wins. These people are just as much my guruhuru, actual Nepali for teachers, as my language instructor, Sanjay. With these teachers, I am thriving.

Language is culture. Without one, I might not experience the many tastes of the world around me. Without the other, the words just might slip from my fingers.

Landing

Landing,

I’ve taken to visualizing certain things throughout my life. If I am starting a new challenge, I see it completed. Applications range from seeing myself completing a lift in the gym, to seeing myself in good conversation when I begin learning a new language. My reasoning is that if you’ve seen your task completed, your body and mind must follow. Several months ago, after trying to understand the Peace Corps mission in Nepal, Nepali culture and language, and acquiring items that I’d bring along with me, I still wasn’t ready for my service. So I began visualizing myself in the vacuum of space, slowly being pulled into a massive, mysterious, and raw world: Nepal. As days passed, I saw myself closer and closer, gravity taking effect. Just days ago, following a few days of travel, I found myself descending upon Kathmandu. I closed my eyes, and felt the landing.

 Arriving in Kathmandu, we met the U.S. Ambassador, who greeted us and presented us with ceremonial Nepali scarves. The Ambassador’s words fell on me like armor, reviving me after my travels and fortifying my spirit for the mission ahead. What I, what we were doing in Nepal was important, and appreciated. We have been in Maharajgunj, Nepal for 4 days of training since arrival; the change from “I have been” to “We have been” since my last entry signifies the membership that I have gained through the thirty volunteers with me. There is much to share about this time, days where you can see your roots thickening as the branches above you climb and reach.  But for now, know that you could see the amazement in my eyes realizing what I have gotten myself into with the Peace Corps. The organization is impressive and extensive, recruiting Nepali experts in the field of safety and security, health, and development. To work with these people is an honor, but humbling when they make it clear, they are here because of you.