The Uncertain Life of a Traveler

I feel like I am on an emotional swing set.  One moment, I feel shocked, confused, and scared.  The next moment, I feel happy and alive, full of love and amazement for beautiful Nepal and its beautiful people.  The following paragraphs have been written over the past week, and I think they show my mood swings very clearly.

Getting to Nepal was like being shot out of a cannon. After two weeks, I finally started to feel comfortable and at home in my traveling life when it all had to change again.  Now, I'm starting to realize that this is what I signed up for:  Once people and places start to become familiar, I will have to move on - I will be shot out of another cannon and end up in another foreign world.  I spent two weeks visiting places and making strong friendships with some special people.  Re-assembling yourself after being shot from a cannon is not an easy task, and the people who surround you and offer you love and support at that critical moment become friends who hold a very special place in your life.  When I think about Kathmandu, I don't think about Swayumbunath or daal bhaat - I think about Mexican cousins who laugh uncontrollably when they get tired and Nepali teachers who pause awkwardly in the middle of class.  It's a little bit sad and a little bit reassuring to realize the transience of it all.  In the end, everything and everyone that I could depend on fades away, and I'm left naked, all by myself.  I understand now that this trip is about revealing the hard truth about who I am when I have nothing familiar and no one to support me.

Now, here I am in Chitwan.  No one told me where I was going or what was expected of me.  They told me to get on a bus, and then they told me to get off.  This is the Nepali way of dealing with tourists: Just herd us around because we wouldn't understand what we should be doing on our own anyway.  I got off the bus and went to the school.  They gave me a book and said "teach."  So, I did.  I don't understand the kids, and they don't understand me.  Somehow, it works out alright.  Mainly, everyone is happy that I am here and that they can look at me and gain their own type of "cultural experience."  They say things that could be offensive, and they teach things that might not be quite right.  Men stare and point at me, and women grab me and pull me into a new world that I don't understand.  Everyone is loving and judging, and life is seamlessly bittersweet.  I've learned how to smile through the confusion and hope for the best as I get pulled by strangers into their homes.

I'm really not exaggerating.  Since the first day I got here, women have been taking me home and making me food.  I'll be walking down the street, and someone will start talking to me with a few English words and a few Nepali ones.  Then, they will say "My home is here.  Come."  They give me tea, coffee, popcorn, pickeled lemons, bean-looking things, chicken, rice, vegitables, and lots of things that I can't even guess the names of.  There are so many lovely hospitable women in Nepal that I haven't had a single moment to myself.  Even my "rest day," Saturday, was full of non-stop activity.  5 of the women from the school (Mina, Bimala, Niru, Denu, and Saku) took me on a picnic by a temple on a hill.  When we got there, they dressed me up in a sari, put makeup on me, gave me a lot of jewelry, and finally added a veil, so that I would look like a bride.  Even better, once I was all dressed up, they taught me Nepal's national anthem and added a tikka.  I felt like a doll being dressed up and paraded around, but it was lots of fun.

Last night, I went to the temple with my host mother, Susila.  I wish I could have captured the colorful piles of people, but my camera is broken.  There were people of all ages dressed in bright colors sitting, dancing, singing, and drinking tea.  An old man had a microphone, and many more old men had bells, drums, and tambourines.  The man with the microphone seemed to be telling a story, and some younger men were acting it out.  As if he were just continuing his sentence, the old man would slowly start singing, and all of the people would start laughing and dancing.  As subtly as it started, the singing would stop, and the man would continue his story.  Even though I was trying to be as invisible as possible, some of my students found me at the temple and brought attention to me.  The other women became interested in my presence, and they pulled near middle of the group, where I sat under a huge spotlight.  I'm getting very used to being stared at, so I just smiled happily and enjoyed the dancing.

At the school, I am known as "Aashaa-ma'am."  The one thing that gives me a moment to feel like I belong in Nepal is when I am walking down the street and a kid yells from their roof-top "good morning, Aashaa-ma'am!" or comes to walk next to me in a proud "look-at-me-I'm-walking-next-to-the-teacher" way.  Most of the time, I feel like the adults are afraid of me, but the kids have no trouble running up and asking me millions of questions.  When a kid acts like I am important to them, I feel like the adults are a little less afraid of me.  Isn't that silly?  What would the world be without childish ignorance?  I thank God that these kids don't understand how to discriminate.

Life in Nepal is painful and amazing.  Most of the time, I don't know what to think.  The gender segregation/inequality makes me want to leave this country and pretend that such a life doesn't exist.  People's welcoming attitudes and happiness with their place in life makes me want to buy a house and settle down here forever.  I think that I will be confused the entire time that I am here.  The cultural differences make it fundamentally impossible for me to understand life here.  The more I learn about the way people think and behave, the more confused I become.  I'm seeing so many new things - half of these things horrify me, and half make me happy.  However, no matter what I feel, I cannot share my true feelings with the local people.  We don't understand eachother, and we never will.  I really don't mean to sound negative - I think we are all learning a lot from sharing our cultural perspectives, but after all the sharing is done, we have to respect our  differences and move on.

This is the cycle of my travels: just when start to feel alone and think that I made a mistake in coming here, I find some beautiful people who offer me friendship and support.  Sometimes, I feel a huge distance between myself and the Nepali people.  Then, when I'm in my bedroom about to cry myself to sleep, I get a call or a text from someone who cares.  Just now, my Nepali friend Mina writes "I'm worried about you.  Are you ok?"  If I would say "no," she would probably be here any second.  Why am I so lucky to find such caring people in these unlikely places?  Similarly, Santos (the guy who I went with to get his tattoo) found out that I was planning on coming to Sauraha for the food festival.  Instead of letting me take the bus, he came and picked me up, took me to his family's house, and came up with entertaining things for me to do while I was in town.

The biggest thing that I've been struggling with in Nepal is knowing when I can trust people.   The day I arrived in Nepal, a man at the airport cheated me out of a lot of money.  I just realized that I've been holding a grudge against all Nepali people because of that man.  I haven't really trusted anyone since I got here, except for Santiago and Maria.  Every time a Nepali person has given me something or started a conversation, I've been holding my breath and waiting for them to take my money or kidnap me or something.  As I've been mentioning, ever since I got to the school, the women have been taking me into their homes, giving me gifts, and taking me on excursions.  I've been so ridiculously stressed out because I've felt like I had to weigh every word I said to them and keep a careful eye out for the moment when they would turn on me.  I thought the friendliness of these women was just too good to be true.  I think that I'm being obnoxious and that I have to relax and try to trust people.  My friendship with Mina is helping me do that.  It's strange, but this is how I decided that I can trust her:

I had a bad day.  I woke up at 4:30 am to review my notes, and then I headed over to a college to give some lectures to English literature classes about the poem "To His Coy Mistress."  The principal of the school I am volunteering at also teaches at the college, and he asked me to teach about this poem.  After some conversations with the principal over coffee after class, I realized that our personalities and views on life really clash.  Waking up so early combined with trying to be pleasant through our conversation drained most of my energy before I even started the day.  At 7:30 am, I returned home, had breakfast, and prepared the lessons for today's classes at the grade school.  Though I usually love the "good morning, Aashaa-ma'am's" and the flowers and chocolates that the kids give me, this morning it was really hard gather enough energy to act happy and excited.  To make things even more difficult, today I started wearing Nepali clothes.  Everyone was telling me how beautiful I am and that I'd look Nepali if only I were a bit darker.  All the compliments were really nice, however, one of the male teachers kept looking at me in an admiring way, and that made me sort of nervous.  I had a really hard time avoiding eye contact and trying not to smile directly at him.  The two things that I do understand about Nepali culture is that people like to gossip and that flirting (even if it's not on purpose) is not allowed.  Maybe I'm over-reacting, but better safe than sorry.  Finally, when classes started, they went horribly.  The kids wouldn't listen to me, no one had done their homework, and they were all screaming.  Everyone seemed to have their own agenda, and there was no way for me to figure out what was going on because I don't speak Nepali.  After class, I told Mina about it, and I almost started crying.  I went out for a quick walk to calm myself, and when I got back, all of the teachers were lined up and looking at me.  Poor Aashaa-ma'am.  But that's when I realized that I have a friend.  Mina and I talked for a long time, just like we do every day.  In addition to a little bit of "it's ok, kids are kids," she just said the same kinds of things that she always says.  I really don't know what happened, but I suddenly realized that the reason that she's talking to me is because she likes talking to me - even when I'm in a bad mood.  It's nothing more, and nothing less.  I wish I could describe the relief I felt when I realized that I can trust her. 

Anyway, now I'm in Sauraha, which is 20-ish minutes by motorcycle from where I live.  Last night was a big food festival, and it ended with a dj playing mixed pop/techno music.  The Nepali teens/college kids were more excited about dancing than anyone I've ever seen.  We ate, we danced, and Santos got another tattoo.  I'm starting to realize that hanging out with Santos is just asking to be put into really awkward situations.  He thinks he's helping by telling people that I should be treated like a Nepali, but it just turns out to be really confused and awkward.  I'd rather pay more for things and have people stare and poke at the strange American girl than argue forever about how much things should cost and whether I should be let into places.

Now, I'm about to head back to the school in Bharatpur, where I will be for the next two weeks.  I probably will have internet next around February 28th, when I return to Kathmandu for the Shiva Ratri festival and for visiting the Mexicans at the Pharping monastery.  Hopefully this long post holds you over until then.  If not, you can call me on my cell phone through Skype or google talk.  I hear that Skype costs like 35 cents per minute, and google talk is like 16 cents per minute, but I receive the calls for free.  If you call from a real phone, then I think it charges both of us a lot of money and the phone will probably cut out pretty quick.  You can try, though, if you want to test what happens.  Anyway, my phone number is 977-981-346-7502, and I'd be happy to hear from you guys if you ever think of me.

Love you all!

My name is Aashaa, and I live in the jungle.

It's not as bad as it sounds.

First thing: The five of us were given Nepali names by the guys at the hostel.  Santiago, Maria, and I are all starting a long period of travelling, and we decided that these would be our "travel names."  The name I was given is Aashaa, which means hope.

Next thing: Nepal has three main regions.  The north is the himalaya, which is obviously mountains.  The middle of the country is hills, and the south is jungle.  Chitwan is one of the jungle states, and this is where I will be volunteering.

I feel infinitely happier since I left Kathmandu.  You can't breathe in Kathmandu.  The air is black and the chaos suffocates you.  Now, I'm sitting in a hammock next to a grass-roofed house in the jungle.  There are birds chirping in the banana trees and kids wrestling with goats in the mustard fields.  I feel happy.

Getting from Kathmandu to Chitwan was an adventure all on its own.  If you go straight by bus, Chitwan is a 5-6 hour drive.  We started our trip to Chitwan in a "tourist bus," which is labeled with "TOURIST" in huge letters and is much nicer than the local buses.  People are not subtle in Nepal.  After a few hours, we got off the bus and did a 2 hour river rafting trip.  The river runs along the road, so Keshav took our bags and met us a little ways down the river.  After that, we got on a local bus for the rest of the way to Chitwan.  This picture is me and Abby on the bus.  Like, ON the bus.  There was no space inside, so we sat on the roof with our bags.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.  We spent two hours lying on top of the bus driving between hills next to a beautiful river.  Every time we passed through a town, all of the kids would start yelling and waving.  It was sort of like being in a fairytale.

This is a picture of the town we are currently staying in.  It's a tourist town called Sauraha on the edge of the Chitwan National Park.  It's a really nice town, and they have a ridiculous amount of wildlife.  The most abundant are elephants, goats, buffalo, ducks, camels, chickens, and crocodiles.  In the jungle, there are also rhinos, deer, peacocks, and lots of birds and bugs.  

We're staying at the Chitwan Park Cottage which is run by two brothers named Krishna and Santos.  Last night, we hung out with Santos.  It was by far the most awkward and confusing night of my life.  First, we went to a cafe by the river and drank tea while waiting to see some rhinos walk by.  As we sat there, it started getting extremely foggy.  Apparently, dense fog is the norm at night when you live in the jungle.  After our tea, Santos convinced us to come with him to his friend's house to watch him get a tattoo.  His tattoo was something like this: [picture of jesus's face] SAYS ! WHO R U ? [picture of girl's face]  ... I'm not too sure what that means.  In any case, when we arrived at his friends house, the whole family stood up with horrified looks on their faces.  I think they were really confused about why Santos had brought over a bunch of white people, but he didn't seem to notice that everyone was terrified of us.  There really wasn't much that we could do about it, so we hung around until his tattoo was done and tried not to look too scary.  It was a very awkward experience, and it made me realize the extreme cultural differences between us.

The next day we went sightseeing around Sauhara.  We went on a walk through the jungle, a canoe ride, an elephant ride, to the elephant breeding center, to a Tharu dance show, and to a really creepy museum.  This is a picture of one of the elephant fetuses at the museum.  I just wanted to post it to show that people here care about science in their own special way...

And now, just to end on a happy note: This is a peacock!  During the elephant ride through the jungle we saw lots of different birds and animals.  I thought this was the coolest.

Tomorrow, I'll finally be with my host family.  I'll be living in a town 15 minutes away from Narayangarh, which is a big town in Chitwan.  This means that I should be able to find internet quite often, so I'll be in touch.

How to Cook Daal Bhaat

Nepali people eat daal bhaat 2-3 times per day.  Daal bhaat is rice with lentil soup poured on top of it.  It's a wonderfully balanced food that can be adapted for many different tastes.  Here is my take on how you should go about learning to cook daal bhaat.



STEP 1 : Go to Nepal
 ... and a good way to know that you're in Nepal is to visit some of the main sights, like Kathmandu's Durbar Square.  This is where the kings used to be crowned and where Kumari Devi lives.  Kumari Devi is a little girl who is a reincarnation of some goddess, and she is known as the "living goddess."  She's chosen when she's something like 4 years old based on things like her physical appearance, horoscope, and ability to stay calm in a dark room full of scary masks and loud noises.  Once she's chosen, everyone has to treat her like a goddess (even her family) and her feet can't touch the ground (like, she can't walk).  Then, when she hits puberty, she goes back to being a normal person and someone else is chosen to be the Kumari Devi.

This is a picture of me at Durbar Square.  So, step 1 accomplished: I'm in Nepal and can continue the process of learning to cook daal bhaat.

STEP 2 : Go to a Temple and Pray for it to Taste Good.


This is probably not a critical step in the process, but because I'm such a bad cook I didn't want to take any chances.  A good choice for a temple is one dedicated to Ganesh, such as this one.  Ganesh is the elephant-headed god that brings good luck.  As far as I can tell, popular things to do at temples (as part of praying) are lighting incense, ringing bells, and putting red tikka powder on the god-statue's forehead.

This is me and Maria at the Ganesh temple, hanging out with Ganesh's mouse.  The story is that Ganesh rides a mouse for transport while his brother rides a peacock.  I'd hate to be the sibling that ended up with a mouse instead of a peacock.  Maybe that's why I'm not a god.

 STEP 3 : Find People who are Hungry.


This step isn't very hard.  I found lots of them.  From left to right, these hungry kids are Keshav, me, Rachel, Santiago, Maria, Abby, and Julia.

STEP 4 : Find Someone who Will Teach You to Cook.

This step might be a little more tricky than the last.  Even if you know someone who can teach you, you have to get to them.  There are many wonderful transport options in Nepal, one of them being overflowing buses.

This time, instead of riding in one of these crazy buses, we opted to take our own van.  Our van has holes in the floor and the mirrors fall off without warning, but it's been a pretty trusty ride so far.  For our daal bhaat cooking lessons, we went to a town called Lamatar to visit Sulav and his family.

 STEP 5 : Make a Movie


Or not.  Your choice.  On the way, we happened to run into a filming of a Nepali comedy movie.  It was extremely over-acted and really pretty entertaining.

 STEP 6 : Pray to More Gods.


We already hit up the Hindu gods at the Ganesh temple, but just to be sure that our meal wouldn't be terrible, we decided to stop at the Pharping Buddhist monastery.  This is where Maria and Santiago will be volunteering.  Doesn't look like they're terribly needy people to me...

We happened to stop by when the monks were reading the Tibetan scriptures.  It's really cool!  They sit in front of that big gold Buddha, and they chant together while blowing horns, clanging symbols, and hitting drums.  It's overwhelming and amazing sound.  It's the craziest kind of praying I've ever heard (in a really good way). 

In reality, the reason we stopped here was to pick up another volunteer who would also come to Lamatar with us.  Her name is Laurel.  She's from Canada, and she's the most annoying person I've ever met.  She's extremely rude and unappreciative of anything that is given to her.  For example, when we got to Sulav's home in Lamatar, she looked inside our room and said "wait till you see this place - it looks like a cellar and has cardboard ceilings."  That's definitely not what I'd like to hear if I invited a stranger into my home...

STEP 7 : Dance.


Some of the girls in Lamatar put on a show for us.  Afterward, we all got to dance together.  It was a really fun time, and a really good way to work up an appetite for dal bhaat :-)

 STEP 8 : Rest.


The road to becoming a good cook can be long and hard.  It's OK to take a break here and there.  Nepali people are never in a hurry anyway.

 This is me getting excited to rest.

STEP 9 : Pray Again.


Gods can be pretty busy, so you can never be too sure that they'll remember your prayers.  We were really serious about making some good daal bhaat, so we decided to visit as many holy places as possible.  The great thing about Hindu temples is that anything that reminds you of a god can be holy.  If someone thinks that a rock resembles some god, then they put it into their temple and bless it with red tikka powder.

 Of course, praying has to be loud and exciting, so you must ring as many bells as possible.

 STEP 10 : Work up an Appetite.

The best way to do this step is by walking up mountains and through big fields of food.  This is Sulav walking through the mustard fields in Lamatar.  The whole time I was in Kathmandu I felt like I was suffocating in the pollution.  Once we got to Lamatar, I remembered what it's like to breathe.  Kathmandu is a necessary evil, but rural Nepal is a true heaven.

 STEP 11 : Connect with Nepal.


Nepali people eat daal bhaat, so understanding Nepal should help us to make some good daal bhaat.  According to Sulav, Nepali people like nature.  This is me and Santiago feeling happy to be out of the city and connecting with Nepal's wonderful nature.  The fern plant that I have on my head is called uniu.  Uniu was a great plant, a great friend, a very important part of our time in Lamatar.

 STEP 12 : Have a Snack.


Yes, we are going to cook daal bhaat, but there's no shame in having a quick snack along the way.  This was a nice shop somewhere up the mountain where we had some noodles.  At this point, I was kind of glad to have a break, because the Canadian girl kept complaining about how she hates walking and has a million medical conditions that could make her die any second.

STEP 13 : Locate the Ingrediants


Sulav is a mushroom farmer.  He grows mushrooms by putting bags full of hay and wheat inside a dark and humid area.  After the bags have been hanging for about 3 months, he cuts them open and mushrooms grow out of them.  Then, every morning at a ridiculously early hour, he cuts them from the bags and brings them into Kathmandu to sell them.

 Mushrooms weren't actually involved in our daal bhaat, although I'm sure you could put them in if you wanted to.  I took a taste and let the team know that the mushrooms weren't quite ready to be picked yet.

 STEP 14 : Locate the Correct Ingrediants.


One thing that we actually did use in our daal bhaat was potatoes.  Here's Maria cutting up the potatoes.  The method of cutting potatoes was to kneel on this metal thing with a sharp knife thing sticking in the air.  You just push the potato against the knife.

 This is a picture of Julia's brilliant cutting skills.  She was the best potato cutter out of all of us.

STEP 15 : Play with the Kids.


If the Nepali kids don't like you, it means that you have no chance of ever understanding Nepali culture enough to make a good daal bhaat.

Luckily, Aruna and I got along wonderfully, so there's still hope that our daal bhaat will turn out alright.

STEP 16 : Fry the Potatoes.

The potatoes are fried in mustard oil with chili, fennel, and turmeric.  This is just one of the many "side" things that you can put into daal bhaat.  So far, it seems like other popular vegetables to put into daal bhaat are spinach and cauliflower.  The kinds of vegetables they use depend on the season, though.

STEP 18 : Make Some Rice.

The "bhaat" part of daal bhaat is rice, so it is definitely necessary to cook rice for the daal bhaat.  This can be a very difficult task, so it is important to have supportive friends to comfort you while stirring the rice.  Sulav has a fire pit area in his barn where we boiled the rice in a metal pot.  It makes a lot of sense to cook your food on a fire or with propane, since you don't get power every day at the same time.



STEP 19 : Make Some Lentil Soup.

I don't have any pictures of it, but the last thing that you have to do for daal bhaat is to make the "daal" part, which is lentil soup.  Basically, you boil lentils in water and pour it onto the rice.

STEP 20 : Eat and Repeat.

I could be here my whole life trying to finish this step, and that's not really a bad thing.


Now, a final note:  Tomorrow morning we are leaving for Chitwan.  That's where I will start my teaching project.  I have no idea when I will have internet again - it might be tomorrow, or it might be in a month.  I want you all to know that my extreme culture shock is over, and I no longer hate my life.  I'm very happy with where I am and what I'm doing.  I'm loving the people that I'm meeting, and I'm amazed by the things I'm seeing.  I feel like I'm learning a lot about myself and how to be strong in hard situations.  I'm also learning about others and how life can be so dramatically different from anything I've ever known.  Every minute, I realize again how unique these experiences are.  Our world is developing very quickly, and I believe (or even sometimes hope) that some of these places and experiences won't exist in the near future.  Anyway... I love you all, and I'll be thinking of you during my 6 hour bus ride down south and during the long days in the village.