Hello dear family and friends! I have been in Nepal now for 14 days, not including the 3 days of travel it took to get to this little piece of the planet. It’s hard to know where to begin, how to bring you in to the adventure that I have been having and provide a window into the world of a PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) during Peace Corps Pre-Service Trainin g (PST) (Peace Corps loves them some acronyms).
Our first test as a group was navigating group international
travel! Our journey progressed as such: Chicago->Hong
Kong->Singapore->NEPAL! Highly recommend the floor of Hong Kong airport
for a nap, but even more highly recommend the Singapore airport! After trying
to figure out if our bags were in fact going to continue with us to Nepal
(spoiler: they did! All of them!), we had many hours to explore the Singapore
airport! Having seen nothing of Singapore, I would recommend a visit solely to
see the airport. There is a butterfly garden, sunflower garden, orchid garden,
and a rooftop pool!
When we finally reached Nepal, we were greeted warmly by the
Peace Corps Country Director, various staff members, and lots of photographs
capturing our weary 35-hours-of-travel faces. We were then shuttled into vans
to TiTi Hostel in Bhaktapur to spend our first week as PCTs! I can’t say we saw
too much of Bhaktapur because our days were filled with all sorts of safety,
cultural, and other preparation meetings! When we did have some time to
ourselves to venture out of our compound, we had our first taste of Nepal!
Bhaktapur is a suburb of Kathmandu, and the area surrounding TiTi offered much
in the way of little urban gardens, winding neighborhood streets, and lots of
goofy kids to practice our ~20 sentences of Nepali with.
The end of the week brought much anticipation as we drove to
Panauti to meet our host families for PST (pre-service training again, in case
you’re lagging with the acronyms). We each received a little slip of paper
saying the name of our “Head of Household,” the number of family members we
would be living with, and whether or not we had any pets! It doesn’t sound very
climactic now that I have written it down, but as we drove to Panauti we all
eagerly discussed the little we did know of our families. At 3pm last Friday,
our host families came to meet us at Hotel Panauti! The anticipation from both
the host families’ and the PCT’s side of the room was palpable. Everyone was
buzzing, scoping out who would be joining their hearts for the next 2 months.
For my part, I was eagerly watching a woman with strikingly beautiful eyes
laughing and adding her 2 cents to all of our training coordinator’s
guidelines. The woman seemed so cheerful, so full of warmth for the American
child she did not even yet know. I felt an immediate flood of happiness when
the training coordinator called out my name and my host mother’s name, and I
saw that this lady bursting with vim, vigor, and love was to be my host mother.
If you know me at all, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when my host mother
(from now on referred to as Aama) reached out to give me an enormous hug, I was
struggling not to cry. All the other host families greeted their American
children with “Namaste,” and I was prepared to do the same. It is impossible to
capture in writing how powerful of a moment meeting Aama was for me. And not
for a moment, have I felt that warmth subside.
The past little over a week, has been spent adjusting to the busy PST training schedule and spending time with my host family! We have classes 6 days per week from 7-5. This usually includes
~4 hours of language class and ~4 of technical trainings, introduction to Nepal culture lectures, and various Peace Corps safety/security meetings. There are 4 people in each language cluster, and we are divided into two groups of 12 for the trainings etc. Once a week we gather as a complete group for bigger trainings and meetings on what we call
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| Early morning view from my balcony where I drink tea |
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Morning mist lifting over Panauti
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There are many other goofy tales I could talk about in this
post. Stories of when I have said something ridiculous in Nepali by mistake,
gotten completely lost coming home and scrambled up a hill to the amusement of
an entire family, dancing at the New Year’s party, getting massaged in ginger
cow butter, and the time I got hundreds of kisses by a sweet old lady I thought
was my aunt, but turned out to just be an adoring stranger. I will post again
soon to share more specifics, but hope this long post can give you an idea of
the whirlwind that I have been absorbed in so far.
The beginning of this adventure has been sweet. I feel cared
for, happy, and my heart is very full. Full for my family here, the other PCTs
I share this experience with, and so many of you from home who’s support I know
I am never without.
