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.
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys travelling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Nepal? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Nepal in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez