In the mountains

I am beginning to fully arrive! I have spent the last few days in the mountains in a village called Dhulikhel, going through orientation and beginning our intensive language study before moving in with our host families. I have learned so much since my coming to Nepal, and I cannot even begin to express all of the thoughts that have roamed through my mind.

I am beginning to really appreciate Nepal for all of its uniqueness and I am so grateful that I am here and that I chose this program. I really like all of the people on my program and I have had some really wonderful conversations! It is so refreshing to be amongst people that are likeminded. Nepal is such an interesting place, the culture is so rich and the people are so lively. The opportunities for personal growth here are endless, and I am so excited to begin delving into the academics. We went over the syllabus today and every single week holds lessons that I am so intrigued by and interested learning more about—both in a Nepali context, and in a cross-cultural context.

We met Anil Chitrakar, our head teacher, yesterday and I was completely transformed by his words. He may be one of the most brilliant people I have ever interacted with. His bio is absolutely incredible, but amongst all of the brilliance, he was the first Ashoka fellow to come to Nepal—how exciting that I will be learning from an Ashoka fellow, himself!! When I expressed my interest about the Ashoka Foundation to him, he said that there is actually a large network of Ashoka fellows in Nepal now, and I am sure he is very well connected, so again, the opportunities are bursting at the seams at this point.

Throughout the semester we are working toward an Independent Study Project (ISP) where we will spend 4 weeks on our own at the end of the program, conducting independent and original research. Throughout the semester one of the main components of the work leading up to the ISP is an intensive language study, where we are expected to become intermediate within the next few months! This way we can interact with the locals directly and really engage with the culture. At first I was not really looking forward to learning the language this intensely, because really when will I ever use Nepali again, but I have come to understand and accept a new purpose for learning the language. So much can be unlocked with an understanding of the language, I will have a better understanding of the culture, my research will certainly be more fruitful and people will be willing to engage with me more when they see that I have made an effort to learn their native tongue. Plus, knowing Nepali will take me from tourist to student/ resident.

My thoughts regarding my ISP are running rampant. I want to be able to take my work this semester into next semester back at Wooster where I will complete my Junior Independent Study (IS), which will then percolate into my Senior IS. With that said, I want to engage with concepts from both political theory and comparative politics and of course relate it to social change. Nepal has tens of thousands of NGOs, and there are so many possibilities for research, so I expect to come up with a project that I am really passionate about.

Anil spoke about turning knowing into doing, and the process of creating that space. I am really interesting in this concept, because I love researching and studying, but I feel fulfilled when I can turn that knowledge into action, something tangible that I can engage with and work through. We need to translate our intellect into action in order to begin creating change, and it is not until we transform that doing to being that we can create behavioral changes.

We also spoke about understanding your comfort zone and the process of leaving your comfort zone when you go abroad, especially to a place like Nepal… often times in search of this mystical “magic zone.” It is somewhere in the middle, between your comfort zone, and your search for the magic zone that you enter the learning zone, where the fear lies and where you are forced to confront those fears.

Anyways, I have already learned a lot and I am happy to be here. It is a wonderful place and I am getting along with my peers really well. I wish I was able to better describe my experiences thus far, but I am sure it will come. It was really hard to get myself to write this evening, in fact I told my roommate that she had to force me to write before I went to bed. My roommate’s name is Louisa and she is from Copenhagen. She is so sweet and I am really glad that we are getting to spend time getting to know each other.

Oh and some fun facts about Nepal: 1/3 of the water for the human race comes from the Himalayas (yet somehow there is not enough water for the Nepali people). 22% of the country is made up of National Parks, 18% of the country is made of community forests, not to mention all of the unlivable land in the high altitudes of the Himalayas. To top it off, Nepal is 30x smaller than Australia and Canada (including all of the unlivable land) and has the same population of each of those countries.

PHOTOS TO COME

I've arrived

I have finally arrived. I am still working on fully arriving, but after 40 hours of travel I can finally say I have physically arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Getting here took a very long time, but nothing too crazy happened. After meeting up with Kelsey (a fellow College of Wooster student) at LAX, we flew to Shanghai, China for a brief 4-hour layover. The Shanghai airport is really dingy, the air was heavy and wet, the mosquitos were hungry and the drinking water choices were warm, warm, or hot. Kelsey encountered her first squatty potty experience!

After another flight we landed in Kunming, China, for a 14-hour layover. Sadly, we arrived around midnight local time and were not able to leave the airport beyond the entry doors. Kelsey and I set up camp outside the Starbucks on some surprisingly comfortable benches and slept there for the night. The Kunming airport was much nicer than Shanghai’s. There were countless people hustling and bustling around—I felt like a little fish in a big pond, and I liked it. I also got to witness the Chinese lack of personal space, all of the permitted smoking indoors, and the men who just spit or snot rocket right on the ground INSIDE!

After Kunming, the next stop was Kathmandu, Nepal! Flying in I was completely overwhelmed and awestruck by the vast greenery and the natural beauty that is Nepal. Amongst the rolling mountains, covered in trees, and a rainbow of green it became blatantly clear that this is exactly where I am supposed to be.

The views from the flight in are the most beautiful I have ever witnessed. I am completely humbled by the giant mountains and deep valleys all covered in green! There were houses, followed by communities (as we got closer to the landing) delicately placed amongst the lush hills, seemingly not upsetting the ecosystem of bountiful trees and greenery.

As I approached the airport, it became obvious that Kathmandu is the exception to all of the natural beauty. The city, and it certainly is a city, is tucked in a valley surrounded by towering mountains. Kathmandu itself is shockingly similar to Bangalore. Granted I have only been here for one night, but the taxi ride from the airport to the guesthouse where I slept brought back so many memories, and felt shockingly familiar. I expected similarities, especially after reading the history of Nepal and understanding the Indian and Hindu influences, but I could never have guessed just how familiar this would feel, for better or for worse.

I think it will be difficult at times, living in a polluted city (again), littered with people, beggars, and poverty, but beneath the outer shell, I still have complete faith in Nepal and Kathmandu. Last summer, is was exciting and challenging and fun to have to face life in this way, and to adapt to a home so shockingly different than my own, but the mystic that I felt when I got off the plane last year did not carry over this time. Don’t get me wrong, Nepal and India are completely different countries, and I am eager to uncover those differences as my time here progresses.

When leaving the airport, just after Kelsey and I gathered our bags and purchased our visas, we were confronted by a lot of people trying to help, give us a hotel, offer a taxi, etc. etc. etc. and just as I was getting ready to turn my sass on, a huge sigh of relief came over me. Maria, a Wooster alum who now lives in Nepal and is studying Buddhism here, was out front to pick us up! She rode with us to Boudha, a hideaway within the city of Kathmandu.  Boudha is a Tibetan quarter and it is truly a diamond in the rough. It is so beautiful here and I could not be happier that Maria introduced us to this area. It is calm, the people are nice, the air feels cleaner, and I am at peace. We spent last night getting dinner, tea, and experiencing the beauty and magic of Bouhda.