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.

Wake Up

I woke up at 630 this morning to the sound of a foreign alarm. The lack of sleep over the last week or so was hanging over me. Still confused, I hear Lisle, my roommate for the night who set the alarm, say "time to go." It was time to leave for nepal.

My name is Luke Johnson and after a few long flights I am going to be landing in the country that I will serve for the next two years. Yesterday, I met the other 30 Peace Corps volunteers that I am told will become my new family. So far, after exchanging stories of our longest flights and all the airports we've been in, getting a sense of the morals and interests that have compelled these people here, and a impromptu yoga session in an airport, they more or less fit the description I concocted of Peace Corps volunteers. This is a good thing. I am lucky to be joining them.

I have also been told, several times, that things will be tough. And during the last 15 hours between chicago and Hong Kong, I have been able to process this more after leaving. At the airport I hugged my Mom and Dad whom I've been living with for the better half of the summer after graduating college. I also said a goodbye to my girlfriend and best friend for many years, Melaina. The peace corps really does advise against signing up and planning on continuing a relationship through service. The reasoning is that either the distance and nature of service will end your relationship, or the other way around, and you will terminate your service to go back to your loved one. Personally, I think I'd be more inclined to quit without Melaina, she is a force of conviction to be reckoned with. Being without her would just be a dumb choice.

I have traveled a bit before. For the longest of my trips I spent 4 months in Tanzania. I now remember the feeling of acclimating to a new world. Walking through the airport now, taking a moment for myself and by myself, I see the structure around me shifting. Like dough in a bag being flattened out, the world around me will soon shift, and  I must too. I can see some of my characteristics changing shape and some perhaps immaleable, pressing uncomfortably against the walls shifting around me. These shapes are culture, society, geography; these are the thrills and challenges of travel.

If I ended here, I would be doing myself a disservice. When I walk around the airport I am smiling and have a subtle jump in my step. When I talk with my fellow volunteers it's with excitement in my eyes and enthusiasm in my voice. In my mind I am processing all of this. But somewhere else there is an immeasurable fire of naive excitement. I am finally on my way to doing good things.