Altering the Status Quo: Thoughts on Africa and Nepal
Elliott Verreault
September 11th 2010
I thought I was finished with my trip, so called WorldTour2010, done talking about it, done posting pictures, uploading videos online… But now I realize I have yet to close the books. This summer has definitely been amazing. Truly, I am thankful for the opportunities I was given and the encounters I have had. It’s been a 4-month trip day for day. I think what made it rather difficult psychologically is the fact that the “assignments” or the legs of the trips were always very intense and fairly short, jumping from one to another, leaving me with no time to meditate on each experience I had been blessed with.
I came back to Canada on the 30th of August and the next day my host family was coming in from Japan for a week to visit. I would take them everywhere during the day, taking the role of a live interpreter as well. Then they would go to sleep sometime late in the evening and I would start working on ItsOneHumanity until 4, 5 am, only to wake up a few hours later to start again. It’s been amazing to have them home, but the many things happening kept me from isolating myself and thinking about what exactly had happened to me in the past 4 months.
I now recognize I do have to write, I do have to talk about it more.
It goes back to late April, when I finished my exams at Bishop’s and hopped on a plane with a backpack, headed for east Africa. I had been brought to Tanzania, a place on Earth where one can find the prettiest kids… my kids. There I was, working as a volunteer, teaching English and Math to a class of 3 to 5 year olds. To the outside world, I was working in an orphanage, but in Tanzania, I was a teacher. The word “orphan” has a bad stigma inside Tanzania so they refrain from using it, referring to it not as an “orphanage” but rather as a “school.” One would expect to arrive to textbooks and everything, helping out the teacher to give the day’s lesson. But it’s no such luxury. School supplies were scarce in every way. I remember replacing a fellow volunteer who hadn’t shown up one day in her class (the one with the older kids), I didn’t want to interrupt the ongoing lesson, so I just stood in the corner and helped the kids do their multiplications once the teacher was done explaining. The kids would break their pencil lead all the time, I spent all morning sharpening pencils with no success. The kids would look at me waiting to get it back while I was struggling to make it work. Was it because of the overused sharpener or because of the low-quality, also overused pencils, I don’t know but I felt terrible not being able to return it back to the kid in better shape than when he or she gave it to me. The material side is one thing (supplies, etc) but what made me worry about the future of the kids the most was the quality of education itself. I remember leaving the orphanage feeling helpless, wondering if any of these kids would have a bright future ahead. It made me feel or rather realize how much we take education for granted back home too. Most kids back home don’t like going to school. Yet for them, school is everything…
I remember a professor of mine telling me, looking at pictures, “but they don’t look so bad, they look so proper, their clothes are nice.” The truth is that’s all they have. They would have the same outfit everyday. One kid, Rachael, came to me once over the break. She had been playing with a skipping rope quite intensively – she was probably one of the best amongst everyone at Nelito – she showed me her left foot. The sole of her shoe had torn up, hanging at the back. She came to me, poking me at the waist, asking me to do something about it. Yet, I didn’t have anything to give her. I think I turned to one of the teachers asking if they had another pair for her or something but they didn’t bother. Rachael looked at me, saddened. She turned around, tore the whole thing away and went back to play with one foot literally touching the ground through the shoe (I felt bad at the time, but I had yet to realize that a child with shoes in countryside Nepal was a rare sight).
The kids of the orphanage are not alone though, thankfully. The concept of family in east Africa tends to be very large and quite inclusive. The orphans, whom their real parents died of HIV/AIDS, now stay at their uncle’s or aunt’s. They have shelter, they are fed. But you can tell they probably don’t have all the attention and the love they would be getting should their real parents still be around. Although I did feel powerless about their education and their future in that sense, I did feel like I made a difference in their lives when we played outside, in-between the lessons. Be it just looking at them when they ask for attention and want someone to see them skip the rope over twenty times or carry them around over my shoulders or walking hand in hand to the main road after school, their smiles , the warmth of their hand, the purity of their laughter… all of this spoke to me and reminded me that my being there actually meant something to them. I miss them very much now when I think of it. Going over photos just now reminds me of their energy. I was blessed to meet such beautiful kids.
…
Tanzania was not all beautiful though. Safety was a big concern. We were told by the organization taking care of us that we couldn’t go out past seven thirty at night because it was too dangerous. I never felt so trapped in my life before. We would go out by cab somewhere for a beer sometimes, that would be fine. But sometimes we wouldn’t. We would be in the small living room of the small house where we stayed at, trapped in a box. That was really hard for me at first. It makes one realize how much we take that freedom for granted back home. Being able to walk around at night and feel safe, was just such an amazing feeling when I got to Spain a month later. Safety is a common good that should be accessible to all. But why not in Tanzania? The answer probably lies in the fact that it’s one of the poorest nations in the world. There’s always a reason behind everything. That’s how I approached everything during my time in both Tanzania and Nepal. One of my volunteer friends got her camera stolen in town, she had it around her neck and some guy came over and pulled like crazy three times until she took it off her neck to hand it over, in pain and scared. Another walked to her placement one morning with her iPod on, she got hit in the face and got her stuff stolen. It would be easy in such situations to conclude that people in Tanzania are crazy, savage and what not, but it isn’t the case. Picture yourself as the father of a poor family of four. You have three mouths to feed, you struggle to make ends meet and to provide for your family. They might be ill, dying of something curable but you lack money to pay for treatment or medicine… Then, all of a sudden you see a year’s worth of income walk by you. The question is what do you do? Easy to say no, but I bet that guy had all the reasons in the world in his mind to do what he did. One needs to go to the very source of the problem. And if you look for it you’ll find that it is poverty. Why is Tanzania a poor country? How is it to lift itself out of it? I don’t know… As I write this, I can’t help but think about the quality of education my kids at the orphanage were getting. I don’t think it helps.
It’s sad to think we have so much here and they have so little there. We’re not in the 15th century anymore, we know what the world is like, we know how it’s like for people in those countries. We know we’re all the same human, living beings. We only look different on the surface. Yet, we still think of the world as a collection of distinct, divided, independent nations and peoples. If one fares good, all the better, if one struggles, “meh, good luck with it.” That’s it. Am I the only one annoyed by this? I’d like to see more equality in the world. Sometimes I think that nothing can be done until we have some kind of supra-national entity having real effective power and making policy in that direction. You would think the UN to be that entity, but the truth is that it isn’t. The UN serves national “clients” and is funded, hence controlled by a few of the more powerful ones. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the core principles of the UN, so much that every time I see its flag I always think to myself “that’s my flag.” But I would like it to work, to really lead the game.
Sometimes my argument turns into that of a world government. That’s what I’m saying in a sense, some kind of supra-national body, being more powerful than the national parties. But that’s where the question of leadership becomes difficult, or rather scary. How do you prevent corruption on a global scale if we already struggle on a national scale. Global democracy? Billions of voters? Hard to tell whether that’s doable or not. Sometimes I really think democracy is not the answer anyways. I might shock a few but really sometimes I hate the short-term “let us get re-elected” vs. the long-term “let’s make meaningful change” blatant imbalance. Monarchy? It works when it works…! But the risks are way too high. Aristocracy? Who do we pick? A brochette of the world’s best philosophers, spiritual leaders, the enlightened ones would probably lead us somewhere good in the long run. How do we pick them, how to we prevent abuse, corruption? I had a talk with my host in Switzerland about this when I was there and he shared with me his idea of having people vote for anyone in the country, not just the ones who run for election (those are often driven by self interests) and then you have someone knock on the door of the one person with the most votes saying something like “You have been asked by your peers to lead them and run government, do you accept to serve them truthfully?” Hehe! You can laugh, but when you think of it, it’s not that bad of an idea.
All this to say that sometimes I think many places in the world, many people in the world could have so much better conditions if richer countries decided to pour in for real. Hugh Evans of the Global Poverty Project put it bluntly at the “1.4 billion reasons presentation” I had the honour to assist in London earlier this year. 21.5 billion dollars had been promised to eradicate extreme poverty, halve it by 2015 under the UN Millennium Development Goals. Only $7.1 billion have been delivered to this day – world leaders saying they can’t afford to support the world’s poorest nations anymore. Yet the very same people spent as much as $8.5 trillion to bail out failing banks just a few months back. It’s obvious that money is not the issue, nor is food or resources the issue. It’s really a matter of political will. Global unity, connected consciousness…
On a more personal note, I would like my kids in Tanzania to have just as much opportunities as the kids in Canada, or anywhere else do. I’m sure many other places in Africa and elsewhere are just as rich as Tanzania is in smiles, laughter and hope. They deserve the same too.
…
That brings me to talk a little about Nepal, where I volunteered in community development. There was a bit more than a month between the time I left Tanzania and the time I entered Nepal. It was quite a contrast to move from east Africa to Europe at first. I remember landing in Amsterdam where I transferred to go to Spain right after Tanzania. I was just shocked to see so much wealth around me. Even just thinking back, the contrast is so strong it makes me feel bad. I had the same experience but in reverse a month later, flying out of picture-perfect, rich and clean Geneva to land in Kathmandu was also quite a contrast. I remember seeing the shacks from the plane coming in. It’s crazy to think that it can be such a different world just a few hours away…
It’s funny because one would say I moved into poverty leaving Geneva for Nepal and I did in some sense, but really what is poverty? We always think of poverty in monetary terms. It makes sense because back home, in the West or in the developed countries in general, without money, you can’t go far. How are you going to pay for your rent, your food, etc? When I was in the capital, in Kathmandu, the noisiest of cities, you could really feel poverty. People struggling, selling trinkets for a living, children begging, the dirty streets, the overall mess… I remember seeing one 10 year-old kid carrying so much garbage on his back, struggling to keep his balance as he was dashing through the streets of Thamel, the touristy area. I couldn’t believe it… Working so hard at such a young age… But when I was in my village, I couldn’t feel that as much. My host family was not the poorest, it was fairly higher caste, but it was not rich by any means. They struggled to pay for tuition for my brother and sister, that’s a given, but they weren’t begging, nor were they starving. They had their own rice field, their own cow, their house. Not only were they self-sufficient, they were part and parcel of the Dadagaun village, a small but tight community where everyone cares for each other. Other than from the occasional football games where the guys would play for a little bit of money, you would hardly see people pay for anything. Hardly any stores around or anything. Life in the village was so different from what it was like in Kathmandu. Yet all the young ones of the village would leave at five in the morning for the capital where they would attend classes (high-school, university, or even masters level). Why? Because they want to be better off, because education is valued I guess. If I were in their position I would probably still go as well. I would probably, just like them, aspire for more. One would say this is fine, Nepal needs more educated people to develop, but the sad part and the truth is that they’re all leaving. I was once told by someone within the organization I worked for, “there are only two jobs in Nepal, either you study, or you teach.” Walking around Kathmandu, it’s hard to let all the “Study in the UK”, “Study in the US” signs go unnoticed. Nepal has a massive brain drain problem. All the bright kids end up leaving the country. It’s fine to have a great portion of your country’s youth go abroad to get a good education and come back to help develop the country but most simply do not come back. If you’re good, you pass the exams and you end up in some nice place like the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, or even Japan, South Korea, etc, you make some money and send remittances. If you can’t make it to the nice places, you go to India. There’s a reason why everybody leaves though. There are no jobs in Nepal. Why? Political instability most likely. Nepal hasn’t had a stable government since the monarchy was abolished and that doesn’t help to attract foreign direct investment. Neighbouring India probably puts Nepal in the shade with its English-speaking, well educated population as well… In any case it is sad to see. I’ve had the pleasure to meet a fellow OneYoungWorld ambassador when I was there. He told me he wanted to go study in the states and come back to help put his country back on its feet. Not everyone has such good intentions unfortunately. My brother in my host family will probably soon be part of the group of those who leave for good and just send money back. His dad left when he was younger, leaving him, the elder son, with the responsibility of taking care of the family. He worked in a temple for money for a while, but stopped when he realized it was negatively influencing his studies. He had just started a masters programme in business studies when I arrived. Who’s paying for it? The cousin living in Australia who’s sending money back once in a while. He was telling me that he needs to finish his masters, pass the exams to go study in the UK, or Canada and start sending money back as soon as possible. I was shocked, listening to him talking about his duty as the elder son. Being both the same age, we really connected – I really thought of him as a brother when I was there, I still do now – but really, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t help but think that it’s just so much weight on his shoulders, and he’s only 21 too. It reminds me of what I talked about earlier in the part on Tanzania. So many things seem easy to categorize as bad and even destructive in the long-run but when you put yourself in the shoes of the human being living it, you realize sometimes you don’t have that freedom of choice and then what seems completely illogical or immoral on the greater scale makes every bit of sense in the world on the individual level. It’s just the same as the story of this girl getting beaten up in Tanzania for her iPod. However bad and immoral it was, on the individual level, the guy who hit her and stole it probably had all the reasons in the world to do what he did. Whatever it is, we need to dig deeper and solve the problem at the source. The problem we see on the surface is just a consequence of something else much deeper. That’s what eastern medicine practitioners will tell you and it really applies for everything.
…
Another thing that struck me in Nepal is the caste system. I had read and heard much about it. I understood it intellectually but being there and seeing it live at play was something. It’s as if I had known about it all this time thinking it didn’t really exists. But it does. It’s crazy. My project was to build toilets for the low caste families in the Jitpurphedi village. Walking down from my house to the projects only took three minutes or so, but it was a totally different world down there. From the Devkota (where I lived) to the Balami caste (where I worked), what a contrast it was. You would see very young kids completely naked, one kid with a swollen penis (infection from poor hygiene I imagine), another with a over-swollen belly, etc. You could tell many of them needed medical treatment, but that costs money and it’s far away. I had talks with my host brother on this. It’s crazy, you’re born in poverty and you die in poverty, you’re stuck in it, it says it in your name. I would ask my brother if he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing, he said “I think it’s a bad thing.” The people seem to realize it’s not good, but because it’s so solidly rooted in the culture, it’s hard to change it. It makes me realize that even with all the foreign aid in the world, poverty cannot be eradicated unless there is some kind of education programme put in place to change the way people think and ultimately promote equality between people in places like Nepal. Would it ever change though? That’s one larger question.
At this point, I don’t know if it’s just because it’s late as I’m writing this but I do feel overwhelmed. It seems like there’s just so much on our plate. But we can’t change everything in one day. I had a nice talk with Bhupi, the founder of the NGO I worked for in Nepal. He shared with me his aspirations, what he wishes to see change in his country. He founded VIN (the name of the NGO) back in 2005 and since then it has focused only on one area, Jitpurphedi, aiming at integrative development (meaning not just working for better education in the community alone but better education alongside better health, better hygiene, greater women’s empowerment, etc.). Their plans for the area go up to 2012, he told me that they want to show that they can make a real difference, change that place for the better in all respects and then move to the next project area, hopefully replicating the same successful recipe where it applies and adapting where it doesn’t. I was only there for a month. I couldn’t change Nepal very much. But I do think I made a difference in the lives of the people there. I remember this one kid who was helping us with laying the bricks and cementing the walls. He said something in Nepali looking at me smiling. I didn’t understand but his older brother turned to me, pointed at him, searched for the right English word in his mind for a few seconds and then said “grateful.” It was heart-warming in every way, and it felt amazingly good. The crazy thing is that we weren’t even building a toilet for his house, but for that of the neighbours at the time. Despite that, he was happy, happy that the village was changing for the better. I think he was full of hope that soon his house was going to be have one too.
You really can’t change the whole country in a month, but you can give hope, make people believe in the future through concrete actions however small they may be. What I did when I was there was by no means extraordinary. My actions were small, but they were tangible and they still mean something today. The toilets I built are still standing to this day. Thinking about that makes me feel good about what I did. My actions were by no means large, but they were concrete, a part and parcel of a larger change led by themselves. I am happy to have been able to help. I can’t change the world in a month, but through small actions I can show that the status quo can be altered, and feed hope and inspiration for both the local people and myself.
Now that… is something I can do.
Elliott
Filed under: Humanity, Travel, WORLD TOUR 2010 | 6 Comments
Tags: Emotions, Experiences, Process, Thoughts, Travel, WorldTour2010
Pt.6 Japan, Day 20
In the plane right now, should land in Montreal in a few hours now. I have left my blog aside coming to Japan, now I’m thinking I need to write a little bit and wrap up WorldTour2010 as it is coming to an end.
So yeah, I was in Japan for the past 3 weeks or so. Been moving around quite a bit. I went to Tokyo twice to visit two different schools I was considering for grad school. UN University in Shibuya and ICU in Mikata. I had set up meetings with profs before hand so I showed up and asked questions about their peace studies master programmes. I had applied for the Rotary Peace Fellowship earlier this year, applying to ICU. I did the interviews and everything went very well but because I had yet to receive my bachelor’s at the time of application it was hard to pass it through (given its one of their requirements). Meaning I won’t pass this year but I still decided to go check it out and see if it was worth applying for next year. ICU has a very pretty campus, it’s in the outskirts of Tokyo, big campus with loads of green, trees, etc, making you forget you’re in a huge metropolis. It’s a university with master programmes as well meaning you hear you sports clubs practicing etc. UNU on the other hand is right in the city, 10 min walk for the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, making me wonder could I ever lived there, hehe. But in any case, having gone to both, I must say I grew particularly fond of UNU for many reasons that would take long to list, but yeah, next year maybe?
Aside from Tokyo, I’ve been seeing friends in Hamamatsu, traveling to north-eastern Japan (Touhoku Nihon, a region I had never been before… trust me I’ve been around last year), going back to Yamaguchi to visit friends and my host family (where I lived for a year between 2008-2009, student exchange at Yamaguchi Prefectural University).
Before I carry on with the list, I have maybe just a quick note on Yamaguchi and my coming back. I must say it felt really weird to ride the local train from Yamaguchi’s Shinkansen station (coming in from Tokyo). It felt as if I had been brought back in time. And it’s funny because really… my time in Yamaguchi was amazing, I grew so much as an individual living there, so many wonderful encounters, so many amazing friendships, etc. But to me, it felt like that time was done, a “step” or a stage of my life that’s now behind me. I couldn’t help but think that many people who lived similar experiences would probably be there thinking “man, I had the time of my life here, life is so much better here, I want to be back here again”… but for me, no. I’m excited about the next step, I don’t want to stop there. This might make sense to some people, and no sense to others but yeah, that’s how I felt and still feel now. That being said, being back in Yamaguchi was a lot of fun. Had a blast 
hanging out with friends and doing stuff with my host family. Revisiting profs at my uni and reconnecting with them, etc. It was good for me to consult with some of them on my “academic future” if that even makes sense, hehe.
That reminds me, now this blog post really doesn’t have any structure anymore, but oh well hehe. I flew in to Narita from Delhi airport (coming from Kathmandu originally), it was so funny because everyone in the plane was either Indian or Japanese, before we took off the flight attendants were distributing newspapers, one in Hindi and one in Japanese, she came to me and she was hesitant not knowing what to do, I pointed to the Japanese newspaper (heck I can’t read Hindi…!), opened it and started reading, flipping pages. I felt like everyone around me was staring at me, both from the Indian and the Japanese side hehe. They were probably thinking, “stop fooling around, you’re faking it” but I wasn’t.
It felt so great as well landing in Narita, I couldn’t help but rejoice at the fact that I could finally understand what people were saying. After having been through Swahili, Nepali, etc, Japanese felt like a relief. I also thought it was funny that everyone was Japanese… then today landing at Heathrow I was shocked to see how everyone was so different (funny).
Yeah, okay so Tokyo, Hamamatsu, Fukushima, then Yamaguchi, then what. Okinawa, the southern most prefecture, formally a totally different kingdom (Ryukyu), beautiful place. I tagged along friends who are medical and nursing students or already working in the field and went on a study tour, to this small island of 800 people or less where there is only one clinic and only one doctor, Aguni-shima. We stayed there for 2 days, helping the staff and learning about what it’s like to run a clinic with so little resources, all the challenges involved. It was pretty interesting for me because I knew nothing about medicine and stuff, had never been in a clinic on the “active” side (staff, doc, nurses, etc) but always on the “passive” side (as a patient). The work they do is really impressive (especially given the constraints of the environment they’re in). I was also quite moved to see how the staff cared about the people of the island, treating them with great respect as individuals, not just as “cars” with a problem to fix. I wore a white gown for the time I was there, felt pretty cool although it was way too small for me. It was funny though because when we first got in, we got a patient and the nurse asked me to do something medical, can’t remember what, and I stood there thinking “oh my god, don’t mess up”, hehe. Then we explained I was not a medical student and I took the safe position of observer for the time remaining. Hehe.
We made it back to main island and carried on our “study tour” but in fields outside of medicine. Okinawa has the largest American military base in Asia, and its presence or over-presence on the island forms a strong debate in both Okinawa and the rest of Japan. Not only is it crazy noisy with all the fighter jets flying out and stuff, it’s a foreign country’s army placed in your country. I understood that before going, but hearing people speak about it saying, “these fighter jets are flying out to Iraq today, were flying out to Vietnam during the war, they are going to war, going to kill, all from our homeland” that really struck me, I understood how bad people must feel about that. It’s really complicated though, after Japan’s losing WWII, the constitution was rewritten with a very special, unusual article, article 9 that states that Japan forever renounces the right to war and to have an army, leaving its security in the hands of the US. For some people there, they think this is good because it makes Japan a peaceful nation without an army, frees the children of Japan from ever having to enroll in the army as young adults and fight but on the other hand, it leaves Japan in the hands of US in terms of foreign policy, etc, making it entangled in the US not always so great international relations. In any case, more than ¾ of US bases in Japan are located on the island of Okinawa, taking up a great deal of the land and resources. Okinawans are arguing this is unfair, in some respect a case of discrimination (Okinawa having a different people, different culture, being remote, etc). It’s really a complex issue but really interesting. The US-Japan deal really is peculiar. Definitely something I’d like to study further in grad school.
We got to meet two really interesting people on the main island, Shouichi Chibana and Minoru Kinjou, two anti-war political activists who are fighting for the rights of Okinawans and for the withdrawal or displacement of US bases. So much to write about it. In any case, we got really lucky because Chibana-san took us to two caves, where Japanese would hide during the war in fear of being captured by the Americans. Although the general war principles or rules of war of not attacking civilians etc did apply back then, and were respected by the US, Japan taught its people that the Americans were terrible and that they would rape, torture and kill everyone they captured. The Japanese were told to commit group suicide if the risk of being captured was too high, as suicide was “better” than being captured by the Yankees. Chibana-san showed us two caves, one with 85 something people hidden inside back then and one with a whole lot more (can’t remember, thinking it was close to a 1000 or something). In the second one, two Japanese who had just come back from Hawaii convinced everyone that the Americans were not going to do such things and therefore people were saved. In the first one however, no one knew, they all relied on the information they had been given by their government, and when the Americans approached, committed group suicide. This is where the picture gets really rough, because there were a lot of children in there, and they can’t obviously kill themselves being so young, so the mothers had to do it… Can you imagine? And then when they tried to kill themselves sometimes they wouldn’t succeed and in despair would run outside the cave hoping to get shot by the Americans, but they wouldn’t… how terrible is that. When you walk in the cave you can still see bones and stuff… it’s really terrible. Imagine the moms, the scars on their souls… it’s really sad. Chibana-san is saying that those deaths could have been avoided, that it wasn’t group suicide but rather murders, the killer being the government and the education it gave or didn’t give to its people. He would like to correct history and rewrite the textbooks Japanese kids read for history. Really interesting stuff, but yeah, being in that cave was really gloomy. You could still feel it somehow.
Enough sad stuff, hehe. The rest of Okinawa was great, the sad stuff was great too though because I learned a great deal. But yeah, I just don’t want to finish on that so let me repeat again how beautiful the southern islands are, it really is crazy, paradise on earth. Transparent turquoise water, being August I was a bit concerned about the weather and everything, everyone saying it was going to be crazy hot. Well turns out Tokyo was much hotter, humidity comes in to play here. Being by the seas you get refreshing breeze, etc. It was amazing.
Let me post a few pictures here:
Welcome home in Japanese
Shibuya, Tokyo
United Nations University
UNU
Obon in Hamamatsu
Minori and Kanta-kun, Fukushima
Me & Kanta, Fukushima
Akaza, Minori, Taichi, Me, Fukushima
Fujikawa
Host dad & mom in Yamaguchi
With Mayuko & Mina in Yamaguchi, by Rurikoji
Home in Yamaguchi
Host family party
Me & Basu
With Beth & Mayuko, Yamaguchi
Rurikoji
With Basu and small Aya, Yamaguchi
Habushu, habu = poisonous snake … Sake.
Minori and Kayoko, Aguni-shima
Minori & I at Nagahama Beach, Aguni
Okoshi-san & I, Aguni
Habushu, Habu no awamori… It’s sake… with a poisonous snake inside. Yup I did drink it.
The group in Yomitan, Okinawa – Okoshi, Megumi, Minori, Elliott, Kayoko, Chihiro, & host staff
Okinawa
Good times… !
Anti-war, pro-peace activism by US Marine Corps Facility, Okinawa
That pretty much wraps up Japan, had a wonderful time there. Love it. Coming back a second time I must say I now see it from a much more objective eye than when I first came last year. I now see the similarities a lot more than I did before. I guess my experience in Tanzania and Nepal had an effect there as well. But all in all, I really love it, it’s funny because, now I just finished the video so I realize how much footage I had and how hard it was to fit everything into 10:59 (YouTube’s limit length for videos) but when I was there I felt like I took so much fewer pics and videos than the other segments of my world tour this summer. In some respects it didn’t feel like I was “traveling” being there. I was visiting schools, driving my friend’s car, hanging out with buddies, studying about Okinawa, the war, US relations, etc, I don’t know, totally different feel. I could understand what people say, make myself understood, much easier than Tanzania or Nepal, or even Spain for that matter, hehe. Yeah I don’t know, was great to be back and hopefully I’ll be back again soon. September 2011? United Nations University? Who knows. In any case, I had a great time and I’m really glad I made Japan my last stop on this tour, for many reasons.
Attaching the YouTube Video: (Should be up and ready within a few minutes)
Enjoy!
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I should probably write a little bit to wrap up the whole thing too. I’ve been gone for 4 months now, running around, going places, doing things (wow, that’s vague, hehe). No but really, from taking care of the cutest kids in world in an orphanage in Tanzania to building toilets for low caste families in Nepal, from going on Safari in gorgeous national parks to climbing to Everest Base Camp, from learning about International Relations in Geneva to presenting my research in Multicultural Management in a conference in Barcelona, I’ve been busy, doing really interesting stuff. I no doubt grew up in the process a lot. But I guess what I am most grateful for is the encounters, the human faces, the new friends, the common stories. I can think back of my fellow volunteers in Tanzania, we had such a cool group, really fun bunch of people, to my host sister Ana and grand ma Bibi in Arusha… my host family in Nepal, my host sister Susma and my bro Diwakor, the people of the village, my fellow volunteers again on that side of the world too. The cool group we had in Switzerland, studying together for 3 weeks, watching the world cup together in pubs, hanging out, walking by the lake talking about life. Really every step along the way has different faces, making the experience so much richer. One can travel to touristy locations, the most beautiful places in the world, but when you pass by as tourist you don’t really get a chance to integrate into the local environment and discover its true richness. That’s why I’m glad I did what I did, the volunteering, the study programmes, etc. Really puts you there, connects you with the place and with people. Would recommend to anyone… such traveling.
If you read this and you have been part of my tour, somewhere along the way I say thank you for having been there and for what we have lived together, if you weren’t there but have followed along the way reading this blog, I say thanks for reading and I hope I may have had some positive influence on your life, my experience being an inspiration for you to go out and live your dreams… or on a more factual, objective level that you might have learned something interesting, hehe.
That’s about it, really grateful for everything. It’s been an amazing trip in so many regards, opened my heart…
…
Will be busy in the next couple of days, my host family coming to visit for a week starting tomorrow (yeah! I know), ItsOneHumanity.org launch Sept.3 (www.ItsOneHumanity.org), our technical brain unfortunately had to leave us because of an injury and changes in workload at her real job so it’s quite challenging but we’re on it, and then Bishop’s starts again Sept.8. One more semester and then graduation. Will probably be working full time on the FOOD (www.beginswithfood.com) project from the time I graduate to the time I start grad school. Lots of stuff in the works but it’s all exciting!
Thanks again for having followed me throughout this 4-month period.
Thankfulness is what makes your heart see how rich life can be.
All my best,
Love & light,
E
Filed under: WORLD TOUR 2010 | 1 Comment
Tags: Grad school, Hamamatsu, Japan, Okinawa, peace, Pt.6, Tokyo, WorldTour, Wrap-up, Yamaguchi
Pt.6 Japan, Day 1
Just landed in Tokyo this morning. Spent most of the day working on ItsOneHumanity and uploading videos of Nepal online. Will post more later about my time here. Meeting with UNU tomorrow (United Nations University in Tokyo), looking forward to see what it’s like on the inside. Went to see the building tonight just so as to figure out where it was. Got some cool time lapses of Shibuya for the ItsOneHumanity launch video as well. Loving the fast internet
So different here from Nepal though… Crazy.
Here are the videos!
Nepal:
Everest Trek:
E
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Tags: Japan, Nepal videos
Just came back from 12 days trekking in the Himalayas. We had a fun group, Maria from Ireland, Chris and Sarah from England and I… 12 days. It was really fun, we had a great guide (Hari), would recommend him to anyone interested in Trekking in Nepal. It was great, unbelievable views. Although I don’t like how noisy Kathmandu is, being back in the capital now, I do appreciate the warmth and the internet 
…. as well as the free showers and free battery charging. Everything is so expensive up there… understandable though (supply and demand right).
I already finished the video, did it yesterday, showed it to my group and they loved it. Can’t wait to put it online but being a High Definition video I need high speed internet to upload it on YouTube, no dice here in Nepal. I’m flying out to Japan on Wednesday. I’ll do it as soon as I hit Tokyo.
So yeah, trek. We flew from Kathmandu airport to Lukla (2860m I believe) and then trekked for 8 days up to Everest Base Camp (5360m) and then 4 days down back to Lukla. We would wake up between 4 and 6 am every morning, we got lucky a few mornings with clear skies and saw beautiful peaks, then eat breakfast quickly… and start walking. Being monsoon season it would often get cloudy in the afternoons so walking most of our day’s trek in the morning was always a good idea. It was fairly warm during the day, until we got to 5000m, but at night… man it got cold! We all slept with so much layers on up there haha.
I got cold coming back from Base Camp because it was raining. It was quite something to try to breathe at night at over 5km above sea level when your nose is blocked… aww well Experience.
I do feel better now, really happy to be back in warm weather, doing some shopping before I fly out to JPN. Came back to loads of e-mails though, and work to be done for ItsOneHumanity.org. Got some filming done for the launch video (Sep.3) in the Himalayas which I’m really happy about, you should be able to see it at launch.
And yeah, the video will give a much better idea of what it was like so be patient but in the meantime, here’s some (amazing!) pictures from the beautiful Himalayas…
Man… Nepal is such a cool place. Love it.
Kathmandu Airport
Tibetan Mantras
Cows crossing suspension bridge
My bag
Love of my life haha, such a cute kid. I swear she was destroying that dog though.
Me & Chris
Jumping in the air
Mt. Everest
Playing with the kids.
Inside Buddhist Monastery (highest in the world they say)
Beautiful clear morning, Everest in the background
Mountain Goat
Baby Yak
Me, Maria, Chris, Sarah
5:30am
With the porters, Lopchan & Sangei
In the window
At Everest base camp.
Lukla airport, shortest runway ever.
Celebrating in Kathmandu last night.
That’s it, a few of the pics for you to see. We walked over 120km in that trek. It was amazing. Nepal is amazing. Love it, love the people.
Will post the video very soon, more later!
E
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Tags: Everest Base Camp, Nepal, Trek, WorldTour2010
Pt.5 Nepal, Day 14
Everest base camp tomorrow! Trekking for 14 days.
I don’t have much time to write so I’ll just upload loads of pictures. You can get an idea from the images!
Night in Kathmandu with other volunteers:
Flight around the Himalayas:
UN helicopter
Mt. Everest
Last night in the village:
With my brother Diwakar
Susma, my sister.
Bua
Aama
Susma
The whole family
Morning I left my host family:
Susma, my sister, making me a flower necklace for departure
My host mom.
Receiving Tika
Beautiful right?
Off to the mountains tomorrow. Can’t wait. No internet for a while though so sorry in advance for the lack of updates. I did finish the Nepal video, will post it on YouTube once I get fast internet (Japan probably). Will keep you posted!
You guys take care !
Much love from Nepal.
E
Filed under: WORLD TOUR 2010 | 1 Comment
Tags: Dadagaun, Host family, Nepal, WorldTour2010
Pt. 5 Nepal, Day 10
7:42 AM. My bag is almost ready, leaving for Kathmandu at around 10. Will be there today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday). I should be back Saturday evening ready for work on Sunday.
Looking forward to this break from work, muscles / shoulders kinda sore right now. Wanted to post a quick update about yesterday. It was still raining like crazy in the morning so I got a call from Om of VIN saying I would go to nearby Tinpiple village to help with women’s empowerment programs. So I went, “fruit plant distribution” they call it. They give plants to women for them to grow, produce fruits and sell them. We were giving out 3 plants for each member of nearby women groups: orange, lemon and sweet orange. I was given the task of taking note of who was given plants, names, address, plants given, etc.
Was a good change from manual work but heck… women’s group, really. When I work in construction, it’s me and Gopi (old man) for one project and me and other men (uncles, teenagers, etc) of the household. We don’t really talk, we dig, we build, we mix cement, move stones, etc. We don’t really talk much. I don’t there’s the language issue. But still, the locals don’t talk that much between themselves. But the women’s group. Mannnnn… We were in this little room, and they just wouldn’t stop talking… so loudly too. I know this is stereotypical (men/women), but I’m not kidding haha. I thought my head was going to explode.
Finished around 3, came back home and changed, went to the construction sites but no work on that day. Shubba Balami had yet to buy the pipe, and Gopi was busy on something else, saying he would work on it again from the next day. Came back home and did some washing. Some of the kids were playing around me and the water tap. One of the girls said she wanted to do my washing. Haha I said no, but then she insisted so I gave her my work gloves and she washed them. I thought it was so nice of her. She walked away not asking anything in return afterwards. I went to the soccer field after to watch people play (too tired to play yesterday). Played with the kids though. My host sister then showed me the roof of the house, there are stairs to it. You can just walk up like this. It’s so cool. Played with some of the kids on the roof. Flipping them around like I used to do in Tanzania. Haha, I love kids…
At dinner today, Diwakar my host bro was telling me “Out of all the volunteers who came to my house, you are the best, you’re friendly to everybody, you play with the kids…” He said he was talking with the other people of the village earlier about me and that’s what they said. I felt really touched Happy to know the village people appreciated my being there.
Too bad I don’t have pics of Diwakar and I together. Will make sure to take some before I leave. But yeah, if I had to describe him in a few words I would say he’s a genuine friend.
…
We talked for a bit about caste system, where it came from, etc. He told me his caste was top 2nd. It was historically for security people. Known for strong people… thought that was kinda cool. We talked about how you know, here you’re born in one caste and that’s it, you can’t move up. You’re born in poverty and that’s it. I asked him whether he thought that was a good thing or bad thing, he said bad. He didn’t understand why people were “automatically poor” he said. It really is bad, they don’t have access to medical care. I saw a few people around the village where I work in, the Balami section (lower caste), and they could seriously use medical care. Some pretty bad swellings I saw, amongst other things. A great deal of that must come from hygiene problem I reckon, but still yeah, pretty bad…
…
That’s it for now, will post a few pics from yesterday. Off to Kathmandu in 2 hours. Looking forward to meeting the other volunteers and hearing how their placements are going. Looking forward to connect to the internet again and get some work done. Just posting all of these blog posts will probably take forever…
We should go back to Boudhanath in the evening for a proper dinner and to get shots of the Stupa lit up at night, can’t wait!
More soon!
Cheers,
E
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Tags: Caste, Jitpurphedi, Nepal, Nepalese Culture, VIN, Volunteering, WorldTour2010
Pt. 5 Nepal, Day 8
Pt.5 Nepal, Day 8
Skipped a beat in updates yesterday so I’ll try to cover both today and yesterday in one post.
Yesterday was a rather relax day. I only started at 12 instead of 10 because the family for whom I’m helping in construction had to go to the hospital or the clinic in the morning. So we worked from 12 to 2 maybe. Then I came back home for lunch and then I went to see the second family Shubba Balami. They had yet to go buy a long enough pipe to connect the toilet to the septic tank so no work. They said they would get it the next day, but “tomorrow” here in Nepal is a very vague concept. So now work in the afternoon, went back to check on first family, Gopi, they were gone to work in the fields for rice planting (monsoon season), no dice. Came back home and went to get water up in another village close by with Diwakar, my host brother, went to see one of his friends Raza it was good fun. He was studying for his upcoming exams. I asked what he was studying and he told me auditing. He’s business major, he seemed to have a lot of accounting classes (and he seemed to enjoy them… which was surprising in and of itself). We talked about the differences in education systems, etc. The passing grade for bachelor level in Nepal is 35/100 ! I couldn’t believe it. But they told me the tests are really hard, apparently. …
Then we came back home, dropped the water, watched some TV (they’re crazy about Hindi music here it’s pretty unbelievable). He told me Indian TV imitates American TV (Indian Idol, etc,), Nepali TV tries to imitate Indian TV.
Went out to play football with them afterwards, it was really really fun. Brendon, the guy from Ireland also tagged along. I managed to score a few goals in the first game. I let the pros do it for the second game though (only the elders 15 yrs old + maybe, playing for money, pretty funny).
I have a few shots I should share. I let some of the kids play with my camera. They love playing with it it seems. Everyone asks for their “single photo” like they say.
Today was quite a different day. Worked all morning at Gopi’s. We’re almost done with the septic tank. The stone wall is almost done, all that’s left is to put a bit of cement, connect the pipe and then put the cover on. Confident we can finish before I leave. Came back home around 2 again, got lunch and then went down to the family’s farm (family where I’m staying at right now). Diwakar, my host brother had to take a day off from college to work in the fields. I walked all the way down, beautiful scenery all the way, but then it started to rain… I mean really a lot! We made it down to a small house near the fields where we got shelter for a while. I had an umbrella but I was pretty soaked nonetheless. I asked them how long they thought it would take for the rain to stop they said 2-3 hours. I was like, hmmmm…
Then one guy from another family came back and asked me if I wanted to go back, I said yes and went with him. It kind of sucked because I didn’t get to see the family’s rice fields very well, but it was raining so hard, I just couldn’t go further. The way back was crazy… the path turned into a river. Almost bailed twice (haha). I tried my best not to step in water too much to keep my feet dry but it really wasn’t feasible. I came back and my shoes were soaked, which I knew wasn’t good. I changed, dried, put on warmed clothes and took a few natural health booster pills, went to bed and slept for like two hours. I didn’t feel good for a bit but now I just came back from dinner and I feel okay. Hopefully I’ll be fine.
Really starting to enjoy being part of this family and the village. It really feels like a family, Diwakar, Susma, Aama (mother). They’re really welcoming and a lot of fun. Really grateful for having ended up in this family. Diwakar feels like a brother to me really. He’s the elder of the youth of the village (21 like me), pretty crazy to see how every other kid looks up to him and everything. He’s the first one of the village to make it to master’s level. I’m proud of him haha
Here’s a few pics from today. I’ll finish preparing that post and then dodo (sleep).
Sore muscles and shoulders but still smiling.
E
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Tags: Construction, Jitpurphedi, Nepal, Volunteer, Work, WorldTour2010
Pt.5 Nepal, Day 6
Day 6 here in Nepal. Pretty big day for me today. I was at Gopi Balami’s house pretty much all day. We finished digging the hole for the septic tank. It’s pretty big really. 6 ft down, 1.50m in width. Getting the earth out of the hole when it’s over 5 feet deep is quite something I must say. I’m really not the tallest guy at 5’11 but I was the tallest of all the men there (me, Gopi (55-60 years old maybe), and a young 17 years old from another house), so I felt compelled to do that job. We finished in the morning by 1pm maybe. Then I left for lunch, came back and we started building the stonewall at around 2. Today wasn’t the best weather-wise either. It started to rain when I went to bed last night at around 11. Everything was muddy everywhere in the morning and it didn’t disappear in the afternoon, ‘cause it rained again. I was pretty disgusting by the time I came back home at 6:30pm.
Got a good, well-deserved shower and then I went back to my room. That’s when I heard English spoken outside. My mate Brendon from Ireland was back from a Safari in someplace called Chitwa or Chitpur, can’t remember and no Internet / wikipedia to bail me out so sorry for that. It’s good to know that there’s another non-local in the village for the next 2 days or so, before he leaves. It was nice to share our experiences so far living in the village, good regular English conversation too.
Then came dinner time. It’s funny though because usually they give me like a bag of sand to sit on, while they sit on a 6 inches tall wooden bench, they give me two of these benches to use as a table for my plate, and then they give me a spoon to eat my rice/curry. Mid-dinner I go screw this I’m doing this Nepali style. I lifted my plate and put the two benches I was using as a table to my side, put my plate on the floor like they do, got rid of the spoon and there I was trying to eat with my right hand again like a true Nepali.
They all laughed and taught it was great hehe . Then they taught me again, and this time I truly got it… how to eat rice and whatever comes with it properly with one’s hand. You mix it up, grab some of it on the tip of your fingers and then, here’s where the magic happens, you push it into your mouth with the back of your thumb. Works great! I didn’t quite get that last night when I tried, but everything was so much easier now Good fun.
—
Just a few words on caste maybe. It’s funny, I know most people know about it and everything, but it’s crazy to think that such a system still exists you know. Like I understand it intellectually, but now being here makes me go … wow.
I guess in some respect it’s just like social classes back home, but it feels as if in Canada, Japan, etc it’s the “middle-class” most people are middle class. If it were to be represented in a graph you would see a bell-shaped curve. Few people in poverty, few extremely wealthy people and many many many middle class. But here it’s quite different, the whole caste system makes those social classes so evident. Much more so than back home, when it’s just based on what? Income level… Where no one can really tell unless someone shows off with Ferrari’s and big villas you know.
Here people meet me sometimes and ask me “What’s your caste?” I go … Hmm, I don’t have one. But for them it’s actually derived from the family name, so when they ask me that they just mean “what’s your last name?”
My host brother here, Diwakar, was telling me how everybody in the part of the village where I work in either smoke (women and men) or drink (men), they eat meat (while my host family and probably most people in this part of the village (this caste) is purely vegetarian. It’s crazy though. I know in India the untouchables were generally the ones slaughtering the animals and everything, historically, putting them in such a position in society (lower caste) and then it stuck, still like that to this day. My guess is that Nepal is no different. But yeah, feels like I’ve been brought back to the Middle Ages in so sense. The house where I live is just a few steps up from the houses where I’m working at building toilets. Literally two-minute walk down I’m there, and in a sense it’s a completely different world. Again, one might argue it’s the same in America, Europe, etc, where some districts are for richer people, etc… here it just represented on such a small scale (this village, 500 people) that it makes it palpable somehow.
—
Going back to Gopi Balami’s tomorrow to finish the septic tank hopefully. He has to go to the clinic with his wife in the morning, which means I don’t get to start until 12. Which is great because I probably need that rest, and I need some daylight time to wash my clothes. Will do that tomorrow.
That’s it for now, not a great deal of photos to share today but still, let me share a few shots:
The hole we dug.
Gopi at work.
My host mom, I never got her real name but I just call her Aama, which means mother in Nepali.
More soon!
E
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Tags: Caste, Jitpur, Nepal, Nepalese Culture, WorldTour2010
Pt.5 Nepal, Day 5
Pt. 5 Nepal, Day 5
First work day done. It was really fun. Woke up around 4:30 or something when Diwakar and his sister Susma were getting ready for school (Crazy, eh. They have to be there at 6:00 I think, in Kathmandu which is 40 minutes away by bus. They only seem to have classes in the morning though 6 to 9:30 or something like that). I thought of going to greet them but I ended up going back to sleep until 7:00. Got some milk tea, been drinking so much milk tea and hot milk here it’s crazy. I can’t say I crave for the hot milk when I get it usually haha.
Then my friend Bijay came to visit and we talked for quite a while and then went out for a walk. Ate breakfast (I guess) at around 10, then Om from VIN showed up. She took me around all the houses we were building toilets for, then I started to work at Gopi Balami’s house. An old man who lives alone with his wife, who lost his son and whose daughter is living in a different house because of marriage… meaning he’s by himself for a lot of work.
We dug down the hole that had already been started, for the septic tank. 6’ deep, 1.6m wide. Hopefully we can finish tomorrow, really tough job. Then we’ll have to build the stone wall inside it, cover it and then connect it to the toilet with a pipe and everything.
Then went back home for lunch (wasn’t hungry much, thankfully it wasn’t too much) but boy was I thirsty!
Then went back to work, second house, Subba Balami where we built the actual building (cement, stones, etc) It was really enjoyable, much less tiring than digging, hehe. Plus there were more people around, the whole family (direct and indirect, families grow so large here, cousin’s brother’s wife kinda thing). It was pretty funny though because when it came time to install the pipe between the toilet and the septic tank, they realized that they had built the two at a greater distance from one another than the length of the pipe they were given by VIN to connect them. I thought it was pretty late to come to this realization, but oh well. Good laugh, they’ll go get a longer tube tomorrow.
Thankfully one of the younger kids spoke a little English because when Om of VIN left (project manager for construction work), I was by myself with the locals. And I mean I’m definitely not in the most educated area of the village. You must have heard about India’s caste system, well Nepal pretty much works the same way. And obviously we’re not there to build toilets for those already wealthy enough to have one. This one kid who spoke a bit of English showed me his house and he said “toilet, help” I hope to talk to someone in VIN tomorrow to ask them whether their house is on the list. I know VIN has for goal to have all households in Jitpurphedi have a toilet by 2012, so they should be, but yeah, it was something, when he showed me the “toilet” they had behind their house… Really makes you realize how important toilets are, and how much we take them for granted back home.
His younger brother looked at me and said something when I was cementing. I looked at his older brother and he said: “grateful.”
I felt very touched by it, it wasn’t even for his house, for his family, but he was just grateful for my being there and giving a hand to make things better in his surroundings, probably gives him hope that someday his home would have a toilet too. 8-9 years old probably… You realize.
I could tell the older guys felt very grateful as well. They asked me many times if I wanted to eat something, I declined the offer politely many times saying I was full “Pugyo cha.” The people at VIN had warned us that people in the lower castes tend not to worry to much about hygiene when it comes to food and everything, and that can be a dangerous thing for us. I felt bad saying no though, I know they were doing it for good reasons. Then the guy looked at me and said “Chiya” which means tea in Nepali. I asked whether it was going to be hot, the younger kid who knew a bit of English said yes so I accepted thinking it would be fine if boiled.
He took me in to his house a few steps away. I came in, there were quite a few people inside, one naked kid running around. Then I saw him wash the cups and I thought oh my god… He washed the cups in a bucket that had dirty water, cigarettes butts in it. I drank the tea from it, hopefully I’ll be okay. I’m fine now so hopefully everything should be ok but yeah tells you how low hygiene levels are in that community. Where I leave is definitely better I think, families here on top of the hills seem to have more money, though it’s not really a lot more. Makes you think about how much work VIN has to put in to educate people about the importance of hygiene and all. Otherwise VIN has told us that families who don’t thoroughly understand the need for hygiene and toilets just start using them as storage rooms.
I think most people now start to recognize the need for greater hygiene, that’s good Hopefully I can leave my mark by leaving Nepal having helped a few families have proper facilities.
….
On a side note, just walking around the village, going from house to house, is a wonderful experience. True village life. The people are beautiful and the kids are uber cute. I have to post a lot of photos I took today.
Went back to the football field again tonight. Bringing my camera was probably the worst idea to show up without attracting to much attention. The kids went berserk. Good fun.
Will post more tomorrow. Really tired from today. I’ll try to set up the photos to make them ready for upload on Friday/Saturday when I go back to the capital.
They have TV here in my room, pretty crazy, over 70 something channels on cable, not satellite or anything. Nepali, Indian (loads… I mean LOADS), Chinese, Korean, German, British… I even found NHK World Helping me put my mind back to Japanese before I go in August.
Got my mosquito net installed, had originally bought it for Tanzania but never actually used it there because they were already nets installed in the homes there. No risk of malaria here where I am but man did I get bitten last night, hopefully tonight I’ll be fine.
More later!
You guys take care,
E
Filed under: WORLD TOUR 2010 | 1 Comment
Tags: Daragaun, Nepal, VIN, Volunteering, WorldTour2010
Pt.5 Nepal, Day 4
Made it to Jitpurphedi. No internet here so this post won’t be uploaded live but I am writing this as of the end of Day 4 of my Nepal adventure.
We went sight seeing today. I was amazed to see Boudhanath. Seeing pictures of this place online is probably one of the factors that cause my interest for Nepal to go through the roof. Its such a mystical place, the eyes of Buddha, all those colourful little squares of tissue flowing in the peaceful breeze. It’s surreal really.
We also visited a few other temples and key landmarks. Patan Palace, Pashupati.
Then they took us to our host families in the afternoon. I just got here a few hours ago, it’s soooo beautiful here. It’s like in the movies you know. You should see the mountains, everything is so vertical. The views, the sunset today wow.
You see all the young boys playing football in the small field in front of the elementary school of the village, the whole village is gathered. Apparently it’s like that everywhere. Everyone knows each other, a true community. It’s funny though because when the ball goes out of bounds… they sometime have to go down 40 feet to get it back. You just see it roll down continuously until it hits a plant or something that stops it. And while you watch the ball rush downhill, you see the women gathering leaves to feed the cows. They have a huge basket on their back which is held by a headband on their forehead. It’s pretty impressive to look at given how vertical it is. They all wear similar clothes, red clothes too, which makes the picture even more perfect. (Though I didn’t have my camera with me when I went to watch Football, too bad will try to take another shot this week if I have the chance).
But yeah, Samadth and Bandita of VIN (www.volunteerinnepal.org) took me down that long path that lead here to this village. I was welcomed into a charming little house by Diwakar (the elder son of my family, 21) and his friend from the village Biijé, as well as his grand father, that we call Bua and another girl neighbour Jointi. I got very lucky because Diwakar speaks great English. He’s studying Business Management in Kathmandu right now and he would like to study abroad in the future (UK or OZ probably). He’s the one who took me to see football and meet the other young ones. It was really different than what it was like in Tanzania. In Tanzania I was in a city really, Arusha, taking a local dalla-dalla (microbus) to the outskirts of the city where my school/orphanage was. Then I would interact all day with kids from 3-5 years old in very basic Swahili and then with the teachers in English. Here, it’s a remote village, in the middle of beautiful luxurious green Nepalese mountains, the “kids” playing football this time were much older, probably from 7 to 20. With two sessions of 2 hours of Nepali under my belt I couldn’t do much more than to introduce myself and say where I am from (maybe drop in a few numbers and body parts in there but that was pretty much it). Made me realize again that without communication abilities, you’re not worth much. The most intelligent person in the world… if he or she is taken to an environment where communication is none or limited to very basic levels, there’s not much you can do. With kids of 3-5 it’s different but this time I really felt it hehe.
But everybody was so nice. It was amazing to walk around the houses, no clear boundaries between them, it’s not like back home at all… seeing people, sitting, working, kids playing, wandering… Joining palms together, saying “Namaste” (originally in Sanskrit it means “I bow to the God in you”), people would automatically respond with a smile and do the same. So welcoming…!
Real sense of community in the village, we were sitting here in my room (Diwakar’s room but he’s kindly letting me stay here), looking at photos of previous volunteers and their family and people would pass by the window, ask us what we were doing and jump come inside and check the photos with us. Would that happen in NYC? Tokyo? London? Not a chance… true village life. Goats, chickens, cows wandering about. It’s great haha! J
I had dinner with the family upstairs, we ate Kiir (rice-milk pudding, delicious!) something with beans can’t remember the name but it was good too. It’s great for me because the whole family is vegetarian (maybe the village too? I don’t know, Nepal is a mix of many cultures) so yeah, I’m not being a pain for the cooks you know, feels great .
It was great, we talked quite a bit, about my home, my family back in Canada, the differences in the way we live etc. All sitting on the floor, eating either with our hands or with a spoon. I was thinking of dropping the spoon and eating with my hands like a local but when I saw that the host sister (18) and the grand-pa were both using spoons, I decided to keep using it, hehe.
The mom, Aama (mother in Nepalese) told me she was surprised to see how talkative I was. She said the former volunteers were very shy in the beginning. She says I was like a Nepalese, haha. It’s funny though because it’s true, for Nepalese, you meet, boom, you’re friends, and the questions they ask you can get quite personal. The people at VIN, the NGO we’re working for told us all about that so I was prepared if I can say but yeah, how old are you? Are you married? Got that many times from girls here. Question is, do you reinforce your ego with it saying wow they’re really all after me or do you just tell yourself that they’re simply interested in a free ticket to the West and all it implies for them, education, higher standard of living, etc. Chances are it’s No. 2.
…
But yeah, looking forward to the next 2 weeks working here. I hope the families do show up to help me build the toilets because that would be pretty rough for 2 weeks by myself. Brendon, the guy from Ireland who quit my job after 2 days said the second day no one showed up and he worked by himself. Got tons of blisters, said it was too much hard work for a Finance major like him, dropped it and changed his placement to teaching English. The people at VIN are telling me that it was only for one day so it shouldn’t be like that all the times but that yeah, because it’s monsoon period, taking care of the crops is more important to them than to build a toilet so that’s why they might not show up all the time. That’s fine but my only worry is that the plans for the structure are in Nepali… I sorta need somebody there to tell me what to do, in sign language you know…
We’ll see! Will tell you more about it later this week.
In my room right now, 9:58PM, thinking of going to brush my teeth (no sink here so I guess I’ll just do it outside in the open air). People go to bed really early here because they have to wake up so early. Diwakar has to wake up at 4:30 during the week to go catch the microbus up the hill at 5:00 and then make it to school in Kathmandu for 6:30. Other people it’s the work in the fields that starts really early.
I’m not against that though, will try to adapt to it. I would go to bed pretty late every day in Geneva because of all the work I was doing. Not much I can do here without internet so I might follow along. It’s a good time for me to write for my blog though so I intend to keep doing it.
…
Two beds in this room, he told me to go for the one on the right, which looks nicer but there’s a huge spider on the wall on top. The other bed now has all my stuff on it., that’s where he told me to put it…. And there’s a gecko on the wall. The dilemma here is to I stick to the bed on the right with the big spider on the wall (just a bit smaller than the palm of my hand…) or do I move all my stuff to the other bed and sleep by the Gecko.
Hmmmmm…
Will think it over brushing my teeth.
More soon,
You guys take care!
E
Filed under: WORLD TOUR 2010 | 2 Comments
Tags: Kathmandu, Nepal, VIN, Volunteer, WorldTour2010
Elliott
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