Merro Kaam (My Work), Or What Am I Doing Here?

I was sitting in my district capital once with a friend, enjoying some spaghetti carbonara and good English conversation when the topic of work came up. I realized that as much time as we had spent together, despite the fact that I had visited his site several times, and that, being in the group two years ahead of mine and receiving trainings from him in our Pre-Service training, I had virtually no idea what work he had done at site. In my opinion, there are so many ways to be a good Peace Corps volunteer. There are volunteers who are very productive on paper, giving large trainings all over their VDC (village development community- collection of villages). Other volunteers focus on certain families, finding people who are receptive to learning and focus on teaching them a lot and helping them implement new practices. Some work with their government counterparts closely, training them on a technique and helping them teach others. Others, have no relationship with their government counterparts, some needing to avoid them all together because the volunteer feels that their counterpart doesn’t understand our role as a volunteer in village and that the counterpart actually hampers their productivity. Still other volunteers focus on really integrating into their community, becoming really good at Nepali, and planting seeds of cultural exchange and being an ally in community for under-represented individuals and working on empowerment that way. Additionally, the lessons about cultural exchange, being a foreigner in such a close knit and completely different culture I believe will be some of the most important skills I have begun to gain as a volunteer. I hope to bring these back to the United States and have a better understanding of minorities, and challenges facing immigrants in my own culture.

All this to say, that when we as volunteers get together, we don’t really talk about work because there are many ways to do “work,” all valid, all important. It’s hard to answer the question of “what are you doing in village” because some of my biggest sounding projects, are things that I don’t view as very successful at all. I gave a large training about jhol mal, liquid compost. Many people came, I got to put big numbers on my monthly report for Peace Corps. One person used it in their garden, other people got to say they attended a training by the American living in village. A bigger success in my opinion is watching my friend in village talk about wanting more for herself, and discussing our views on female empowerment and independence, and seeing her dedication to school. But I can’t report this. Mostly, we just talk about boys, and catch up on gossip.

This all being said, I want to address the question of what I do in village, and talk about my approaches to doing more of the food and nutrition security work that I purportedly came to Nepal to do. The main things I have been focusing my energy on is mushroom training, working with the government middle school, and doing trainings about how to cook more nutritionally dense food.

Mushroom Training!

This winter, I did a lot of trainings about how to grow Oyster mushrooms. This is a project that most everyone in village was interested in, some had received trainings on already, and was a pretty straightforward way for me to start giving more effective trainings in my village. Working with a few people at a time and using the time to talk about other work I am interested in accomplishing in village, I felt like I was able to provide a more practical training that was more impactful to my previous tactic of “here’s this tool, you should do it.” To make mushrooms in village, I first had to buy the spores from a supplier in Pokhara. Currently this man is the only man in Nepal producing spores from mycelium, allowing for a more pure source that doesn’t get easily genetically contaminated from using the same mycelia over and over again. I’m sure that description is incredibly lacking scientifically, which as a Biology major, I don’t feel great about. But feel free to do more research on your own! Regardless, as a side note, this man is trying to start a lab in Pokhara to teach more people how to produce their own spore and bring more mushroom cultivation to rural Nepal. This would be super cool! Another volunteer is working with him on this project to set up a go-fund-me which I will post here after it’s set up. Anyway, after I bring the spore to village the work begins! First, we cut the straw into lots of little pieces. Straw is readily available in many villages because of how large scale rice production is in Nepal. We then boil the straw for about twenty minutes to kill of lingering bacteria. Then we stuff the cooled, slightly damp, straw into clear plastic bags. Stuffing a small amount in, packing it down really tight by pushing body weight on top of the straw, sprinkling some spore onto the straw, then adding more straw (about four fingers in height), and repeating the process. From start to finish the process takes about a day. A Nepali day that is from about 11-4. We store the bags in a cool dark dry place, cutting the plastic after about 2 weeks, and then the mushrooms begin to emerge from the straw! From one bag, I have gotten up to 5 “flushes” of mushrooms, which provides several kilos of oyster mushrooms. All the people I have done mushroom trainings with have consumed their mushrooms themselves which is what I encourage to improve food security. However mushrooms in local Nepali bazaars fetch a pretty decent price of about 200 rupees, 2 dollars, a kilo. This was a pretty successful and easy way to get myself established.

Working with the school!

With the school, I have been teaching English a few days a week. Originally to 7th and 8th graders, but now basically to everyone who comes and sits down. It’s a bit tricky because the range of skills is so vast, and it can be hard not to let the really bright kids who have had the opportunity to study a fair amount of English do all the talking and allow the ones who don’t understand anything that’s going on to sit in the back quietly. To be honest, I have a long way to go in this task. But I hope that everyone gets something out of it at least, despite the range in English knowledge. In addition to teaching English, I have developed an agriculture club with some of the students. We have a demonstration garden at the school and I start our meetings by talking about an improved agriculture technique, discussing the science behind why it makes sense, and then practicing the technique at the garden. Recently the students have said that they want to practice these skills at their own gardens. Fantastic! So we head to their homes sometimes, and I encourage the kids to teach their parents what they have learned in the club, and be little agriculture Peace Corps volunteers themselves. It’s been so fun to watch them talk about the concepts we have learned, and try to improve their family’s farm.

Nutritionally Dense Cooking!

The other main project I have been working on in village is teaching women about how to increase the nutritional content of their food through simple changes in their cooking style. Rice and Lentils is the staple of Nepal, usually served with a side of vegetables or meat and often with a glass of milk in families that have a water buffalo or a cow. Pretty healthy right? Often however, the proportion of rice to everything else is ridiculously high, the vegetables are cooked in a ton of oil for a really long time with a lot of salt, and the lentil soup that is poured over the rice is little more than spiced water with a countable amount of lentils floating around. With little tweaks, I have been able to encourage a few women to cook more nutritionally dense food for their families, and by not telling them to make major changes, I think I have had more success. In recent months, I have started these trainings at a woman’s garden. We look at what she’s growing and discuss ways to improve her garden and maximize vegetable production for her own family. Then we harvest vegetables and make a meal together, talking about how make what they usually make, but healthier.

I talk about why you need certain vegetables and encourage them to make sure that they themselves eat enough vegetables. In Nepal, the woman generally eats last and thus consumes the least amount of vegetables, whatever is left-over after her husband and children eat. I don’t know how many women actually have begun to do this, but they usually laugh when I tell them to leave a little bit aside for themselves, telling them to be a little selfish because they do the most work in the house! This project all started when two of my friends, one with a small son who wasn’t getting enough protein in his diet, the other who was pregnant with her first child, came up to me to ask about how to improve their family’s nutrition. In my opinion this project has been the most successful for me in terms of long term changes, and amount of fun I have with my friends in village. My ultimate goal in Peace Corps!

With all this talk about work, I feel the need to say that a big part of Peace Corps is learning to slow down. Accept that many days you won’t have projects going on, and that’s okay. It’s a time for self-reflection and a time to be part of a culture that doesn’t emphasize being busy in the way that our American culture does. I’ve enjoyed seeing all the different ways that volunteers approach work in village, as each village has different assets and interests, and each volunteer is differently equipped to work with their village.

Local Level Elections

Last week in Nepal people voted for local municipal and village level representatives for the first time in 20 years! There was a lot of excitement in village up to the election, and it seemed every single person or one of their immediate members was running for office. In anticipation of the rush Peace Corps had all volunteers be on standfast, meaning we were not allowed to leave our villages. Volunteers who had family members running for office, were made to move houses temporarily as well to avoid the craze.

In the capital city of Kathmandu, the ballot was over a meter long to account for all of the candidates running for office! Nepal had a 71% voter turnout, and some people in remote villages had to walk for days to be able to exercise their relatively recently earned democratic rights. For comparison, the 2013 New York city mayoral election had a 24% voter turnout. And we had to walk around the corner.

In a previous post, I discussed some of the details about Nepal’s transition from a Hindu Monarchy to a secular democratic republic. Writing a constitution has led to numerous uprisings, especially sparked by the Medhesi (the people at the border of India and Nepal) that manifest as transportation strikes, fuel shortages, and occasional violence. In 2002, the last democratically elected politicians’ 5 year terms expired, and because this was the height of the Maoist uprising and civil war in Nepal, seats were filled by bureaucrats appointed by high ranked officials, leading to corruption and rule by the elite members of the most powerful political parties. Corruption was widespread, and lead to disintegration of basic human services, such as appointment of teachers in government schools and doctors at local village healthposts. I asked my government counterpart, a doctor at my healthpost, about the upcoming elections and he said he was hopeful that doctors would begin to be assigned to posts based on needs of the community, skills of the doctor, and with consideration to where the doctor’s family lives. Currently, doctors can be transferred at the discretion of government officials, only the very well connected ones have say over where they are placed. After the earthquake, corrupt politicians failed to distribute donated material to villages that needed it, selling foreign donations, leaving food to rot in government buildings, and pocketing funds meant for relief. In 2006 a peace deal was negotiated, and in 2015 the new constitution was officially instated, although there are maaaaany amendments and ongoing discussions about fair representations of all the different factions and populations in Nepal.

Which leads us to these local elections, and hopefully gives a sense of how monumental this event was. Following this local election, Nepal will vote on provincial elections, and then national level seats in the next year. Overall it was a neat time to be in Nepal, and to see the excitement in my host grandmother’s face as she went to our local government school to vote.

To read about the counting process click here. This link is also available in the Nepal in the News section which I just added to my blog! When I have good internet access (rare, but exciting) I try to add to this blog in ways that can give you readers a better idea of what life is like here. Let me know if there are aspects of this country you'd like to know more about, or if you have an experience or article you would like to share.

Monsoon is coming

The rain is back, and with its restoring waters comes a smell that immediately brings me back to about a year ago, when I first got to my home in Lamjung, Nepal. The rains have come early this year, a fact which my host brother without any prompting from me, attributes to global warming. The first day we had a big rain I was overcome with a sense of realization that I have been here in Nepal for a year. The smell of wet earth, sodden water buffalo manure, and fallen rain-soaked leaves so distinctly reminded me of my early days here walking in the rain to the health post. Running through the roads which had become rivers, walking through villages hoping people would invite me in. Going up to a woman and telling her: “I have no friends here, I need friends.” In mid June, I will have been at my site for a full year. In that time, I have made dear friends, found a good running route, and feel few qualms about going to people’s homes and inviting myself in, Nepali e-style. Things that seemed so foreign to me have now become routine.

That’s not to say that I am completely comfortable here. Rather, I’ve adapted as best I can to what is uncomfortable, found ways to cope with the aspects of this culture that still makes me feel alone. I still get frustrated when people repeatedly ask me when I am going to get married, and why I don’t eat rice twice a day. When people tell me I am fat, and then someone else tells me I am too skinny later that day. But it has been a year of living in Nepal, and the time has really flown by. Somedays feel like they stretch forever, the weeks crawl by, but the months… I don’t know where they sneak off to.

A recap of the past few months includes cooking trainings, a trip to Bangkok for emergency wisdom teeth removal, several books, consumption of a lot of golden raspberries, an evening at the ambassador’s house, improved compost trainings, and my first harvest of kale. Perhaps the most striking of those tidbits, is my trip to Bangkok. In February, I went to another district to assist fellow volunteers in their GROW camp- a camp which teaches youth improved farming techniques, and skills to be stewards of the soil and equipped to confront food insecurity in their own villages. Unfortunately, I never really made it to this camp. I called the Peace Corps doctor on the first day with intense pain in my wisdom tooth, and was flown to Kathmandu. I spent a week in Kathmandu fighting an infection before they flew me to Bangkok where our regional headquarters is to have two wisdom teeth extracted. Peace Corps was very good to me during all of this, I felt like the doctors really did their best to get me the best care available.

The extraction went very smoothly, it was over in about 10 minutes. That night I had some yogurt and soup, then the next morning I was pretty much good to go! The next few days I spent exploring sights in Bangkok, eating delicious food like grilled squid, sushi, and sticky rice. The culinary highlight was going out to lunch with Thai Peace Corps volunteers who took me to a local place off the beaten path. They were able to use their impressive Thai language skills to order food that I otherwise would not have known to order, and everything was absolutely delicious. I was relishing the opportunity to eat seafood, and had a chilled squid salad, and all sorts of other delights that we ate family style. It was a wild experience to go from Kathmandu to a city that in many areas is pretty much as developed, if not more developed than anyplace in the US. It was unreal to be able to take public transportation that didn’t feel like gambling with your life. It was an overall pretty great trip, but I was happy to return back to Nepal. I missed this country and returning felt like coming home.

As I breath in the smell of another fresh rain, and look towards the view of the Himalaya that graces my front porch, I’m struck with the sense that this is my normal. I’ve gained much more than I have given to my community, and I have only a year left to try to even the score. But for now, I think I’ll just have another cup of tea with my grandmother.

Bardia National Park

Several weeks ago, I went with several other PCVs to Bardia, National Park. We spent 3 full days exploring the park, two nights camping. The experience is best relayed via some pictures I took on the trip.

There are three geographical regions in Nepal. The Himalayan region, or mountain region which borders China and Tibet. This is what you're thinking of when you imagine Nepal. The hill region, which is where all of the Peace Corps volunteers are placed. To be clear, what a Nepali considers a hill would be considered a mountain by most Americans, certainly all Minnesotans. Bardia is in the terrain region, which borders India. This area is largely characterized by Nepal's at times contentious relationship with India. After the Maoist civil war in Nepal, India assisted Nepal in negotiating a peace treaty in 2004. A plan was put in place to establish democracy in Nepal, create a secular country, and end the monarchy rule. India's involvement meant that it had, and continues to have, strong political and economic sway over its smaller neighbor. Now, as Nepal reforms its infant constitution, India feels it is not receiving its just recognition and accolades for assisting Nepal, and Madheshi people, those living at the border of Nepal and India, complain that their needs are not accounted for in the constitution. This is of course, an incredible simplification of a complex issue based in decades of political discord. I include it to bring you into the mind of Ali, as a I traversed the terrain region, my first departure from the hill region.

Nepal is a small country by North American standards, but these regions are so dramatically different that it feels as if you are going to a new country when you travel between them. The long 2 full day bus ride to Bardia was made tolerable by my excitement to take my first vacation in Nepal, and by my fascination with how different life in the terrai is to life in the hill region. It was surreal to see landscape like this, I've grown so used to my rolling hills and views of the Himalaya. From the road, the houses were different- closer together, pathways akin to sidewalks defining the layout of the "neighborhood" rather than where I live where the sloping uneven landscape defines where houses are, pathways created out of possibility rather than convenience.  People were riding bikes- an impossibility where I live.

Traversing our first river on the first day

In Bardia, we stayed at a hotel called Mr. B's place. For what it's worth, I recommend. We were greeted by Mr. B himself, who assured us that camping was the best option to get a feel for the park was to camp. Recently what I have been missing most in Nepal is the wilderness. You would think there would be a lot, between treks that are overrun by tourists, and forests that are harvested daily for firewood and greenery for water buffalos, I have not found the wilderness that I crave. Until Bardia.

Sunset on the way to first night's campsite

No better way to wrap up a day of exploring than nepali tea

Rhino sniffing out encroaching Americans

Mama and baby

NepALI sees an ALIgator. but it was a crocodile

Ducks on route home

Door to door service, Nepali style

One of the things that made my parents most nervous about my joining the peace corps, is the transportation in Nepal. I can't count the number of times my dad said: "just don't be the last person on the roof of a crowded bus with the goats." This warning is not an exaggeration, but genuine advice I would give a tourist in Nepal. The bus boys, or bhai, will try to convince you to climb up or if you're lucky, make space for you on top of a woman and wedged between her vomiting baby, and a peeing goat. 

It is that scenario that I found myself in two weeks ago as I tried to get my stove from my district capital to my village. I mentioned in the last post that I am now cooking for myself. What I didn't mention is the process that it took to get my materials to do so. A process I think bears mentioning as it speaks to the challenges of transportation in Nepal, as well as how much people look out for me here and are eager to try to help the struggling foreigner, bideshi. 

After talking to my family about cooking for myself, I set about to buy the things I would need to build a little kitchen in a spare room and headed to the capital of Lamjung, Besi Sahar. I made the hour and change trip down my mountain to the road and met the bus, siting next to a teacher who despite the many times I said "I am not a teacher" kept asking me what school I worked at. After about 30 minutes, I arrived and bustled around town finding a stove, gas tank, regulator, and numerous ingredients and cooking utensils. Besi Sahar is the city that people leave from to hike the Annapurna Circuit trek, one of the more popular treks in Nepal so the site of a young white woman with a backpack is no strange site. What did boggle people's minds however is why does this girl speak Nepali, and why on earth is she buying a stove!? Usually when I am in capital it is to eat different food and see other Lamjung friends, and it felt good and different to go about and buy things from stores foreigners never go in. I now can't walk past the store where I bought my utensils without the owner running out and telling me sit with her for a moment. 

Around noon, I call my mom and tell her I have my things, and ask what time the last bus to our village is going. I usually avoid taking a bus home, because it takes just as long or longer as walking up the mountain and is infinitely less comfortable. There are at least three that come to our bazaar daily, about half an hour walk from my house. But I need the last one, "Dubar gadi"  that on its way to Dubar, passes my house because I can't carry my stove and gas 30 minutes. She tells me the bus never left Dubar this morning so it won't be coming back this evening. A little frustrated I go to the bus park director who tells me that no, the Dubar bus is going today. I call my mom to tell her I'm getting on the bus, she says okay she was mistaken. I check in with the store owner I bought the stove and gas from to make sure he can bring it to my bus, and feel satisfied and sit down at a snack shop to marvel at my ability to purchase things and feel thankful for such an easy day. Transportation in Nepal is great! I'm great! I'm cooking for myself!

That's not where this post ends though. The bus director, Khussi, comes and joins me at the snack shop. He says he's calling the Dubar driver over and over but he's not picking up. Can I come tomorrow? If I come tomorrow I can get my things. He points to a bus that's pulling away and tells me to get on that cause it's the last bus to my bazaar. I gather my bags and run toward the extremely crowded bus, get a lot of laughs and confused faces as I get on. I'm lucky this time, the bus makes truly record speed, the driver refusing to stop for passengers on the side of the road, and we make it back to village before nightfall. A woman gives me a snack of "chaat put" which is a mixture of dry ramen, something akin to rice krispee cereal, and an assortment of cucumber, chilli pepper, and sour sauce. Delicious. A man offers me drinks of raksi, a locally made liquor. It's a good bus ride. In my bazaar, I make moves to get off. The driver asks why, and I say where I live and he says oh I'm going right past your house, I'm going to Dubar today to meet my wife's brother. I regret not having my stove, confused at why I couldn't figure this information out beforehand. I arrive at home feeing a little dumb, but ready to go back the next day. 

The next day, I don't end up going. My friend tells me he's bringing mushroom seeds for me the day after, and I decide to make a garden at home instead. The day after however, I proceed down the mountain but not before my neighbor calls the Dubar driver to make sure he is going back today, and that he can bring my stuff. He assures her that he'll meet me in Besi, and we'll go back. Long story short, I arrive to capital, meet the driver, and he tells me the bus is broken. It will be fixed certainly (said in English for emphasis) tomorrow. I buy more things, get on a bus back to village, and feel at a loss, disappointed at having to try yet again to get my stove, feeling bad that my family has to cook yet another night for me after I said I would begin cooking for myself. The bus ride back is brutal. The woman next to me is throwing up, I'm sitting on a chair with a woman and her two kids,  a man keeps hitting me in the head with his elbow, and I'm fending off marriage questions. There's even a few chickens, whose poop lingers on my pants long after I've gotten off. 

 It's 4.5 hours, and we arrive after dark. 

I go back. You know the story. No stove. I eat momos- a delightful Nepali dumpling snack and drink blended ice coffee from an old man who learned to make it from European tourists. I talk to Khussi and the Dubar driver who tells me that the bus will be fixed tomorrow, and that I should come back again. When I look at him skeptically he suggests I don't have to come back, that he will put it on the bus for me! He talks to the store owner where I bought my stove and gas and arrange the exchange.  

The next day, I call Khussi. He's delighted to hear from me and assures me that my stove and gas will be on the bus today. My brother is home from Kathmandu, and willing to help me carry it up the stairs from the road into our village. We eat and sit on the porch exchanging Nepali lessons for English lessons until the bus comes from Dubar, driving quickly past our house. My brother starts yelling and sprints in the pitch darkness off the porch down the slippery stone stairs to the road, and I follow, slowly stepping down with a flashlight. He chases the bus down the road only to hear that my stuff isn't on it. Khussi laughs and says he forgot! He's sorry. Tomorrow. 

The next day, at last my stove and gas come and my brother and mom help me carry it to our house. Alls well that ends well, and I go to bed and dream of delivery men, but wake up thankful to my own type of door to door service, and the Nepalis who made it happen for me. 

January Ramblings

Sunsets serve as a good distraction from politics

One of the benefits and the disadvantages of Peace Corps is the sense of disconnect from the America. January found me feeling that in a big way. The inauguration of Donald Trump blissfully passed me by, and the subsequent women’s marches filled me with a sense of pride for the strong women in my life, both those who marched that day and those who march for human rights every day of their lives. Thank You. The other side of that disconnect is the difficulty of translating my experience of living in Nepal back home to friends and family. Yesterday was a really hard day for me. At the end of the day I spoke to my friend here, who told me “Nepal is a country which wears its challenges on its sleeve.” I felt overwhelmed with sadness for people who I’ve come to deeply care for, witnessing them struggle through things that would be challenging in the States, much less in Nepal. At this time, I am still processing things that I have seen, things that people have told me. I’m happy to talk about it with those who may be interested, but for now I am not going to go into that in this blog.   I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to present my experiences.  I feel that is a valuable opportunity to answer some questions about a country and that is so foreign to so many, and I welcome any questions or topics that may be of interest. I have noticed recently that I am pretty used to living here at this point. Experiences that once struck me as strange, have now become mundane as I have fallen into the Nepali pace of life and that can make it challenging to find focal points for blog posts.

Mushrooms at my house

One the work front, this past month I led several mushroom trainings, and have continued working with the pregnant ladies on nutrition and cooking classes. On the more fun front, I've been reading a ton, and went to a soccer game with my little host cousin. I'm not usually a big sports enthusiast, but it was a pretty big deal in my village, everyone every single day asked me if I had gone to this multiple day long tournament. So I figured I would give it a shot. It ended up being a really cool day, I spent most of it talking to people I hadn't spent time with in a while and tracking down snacks at booths that were set up for the occaison. Another big development in my life is I started cooking for myself! This has given me more freedom in my cooking, as well as the opportunity to get to know how to cook Nepali food for myself. Possibly the most important advantage however is getting over my fear of pressure cookers.  My host mom had to come in and teach me step by step how to make rice in the pressure cooker, and watch me carefully lift off the little top to let the steam out. She does it with her hand, I do it with a spoon because I’m still not there yet bravery wise. My family makes a lot of fun of me for not cooking my vegetables to the point that they lose any sort of structural integrity, and not using enough salt.

I realized I'm more into sports when there are Himalayas to look at

Today, I had a site visit from our country director, his wife, and the Peace Corps doctor. It was nice to have them in village. On the way to my bazaar three different people called me on the phone to tell me that my mom and dad had come to meet me! The country director and his wife are both American and don’t speak Nepali, and it was funny to watch my friends talking to them in Nepali, forgetting that it’s a pretty weird thing that I speak this language that is only spoken in this very tiny country. One of my most outgoing friends started telling them that I have a boyfriend in our district capital (I don’t, for the record) and that I am going to marry a Nepali and live here forever (also not in plans). I teased her back saying that she hasn’t found any men for me yet that meet my high standards, and she told my country director that I expect so much from men and that with my weird habits I can’t expect much I have to settle soon. She then proceeded to start pointing at things and saying what they were in Gurung language. I don’t speak any Gurung either, the country director certainly doesn’t, but this woman suddenly felt the need to hold a language lesson. She ended the conversation by telling me that my pimples are clearing up because I am eating less oranges. An old woman who had been listening the whole time told us that “Ali hamro gau ko mache ho, hamro dherri kaam garne manche” which translates into Ali is our villager, our very hard worker. That was the only part that the doctor translated for my country director.

Continue fighting the good fight my friends. I’ll keep fighting off marriage proposals.

Meet Shova

Here's a blurb I wrote about Shova Pariyar for a competition about volunteers who work to better communities in Nepal. Shova is one of my best friends in Nepal, and one of the most inspiring women I have met.

Shova is part of the lowest caste in Nepal, but the respect that she has gained in her village thanks to her work in community development is palpable. Her family are seamstresses, received very little education. Her mother studied through class 4, but speaks of the importance of educating girls and allowing them the same educational opportunities as boys. Despite this, Shova acknowledges the discrepancy in love toward sons and daughters in Nepal. In Nepal after the son marries, his parents live with him. After a daughter marries, she moves out and lives with her husbands family, only returning to her "maiti" for holidays and occasional visits.  Due to these customs, women are pressured to have a son, and more resources are put toward his success as he will be the one to stay in the family. Today in Nepal, many men seek work abroad, earning money which they send home to their wives and parents. Shova hopes to go abroad herself and delay her marriage until she has achieved some of her own goals.

Shova Pariyar is a leader in her community, dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of educating girls and stopping  child marriage. She has been a volunteer for 3.5 years with Global Action Nepal, a NGO which identifies girls in the community at risk of dropping out of school and encourages them to continue to pursue an education. Global Action Nepal partners girls between the ages of 9-18 with young women in the community through a mentorship program and leads trainings ranging from empowerment to reproductive health. The organization has monthly meetings, in which Shova often suggests projects which she believes will be both fun and useful for the girls in the program such as making reusable sanitary pads and taking about menstruation.

        Shova is a "big sister" to 4 girls in her village. In this role, she meets with the girls at their homes, helps them with homework, and checks in with their teachers to see how they are doing in their classes. Shova also talks with the parents of her "little sisters" to discuss the importance of educating heir daughters as well as their sons. Recently, Shova helped secure funding to get toys for government schools in the community to allow children the opportunity to play rather than work, and encourage them to attend school. She is passionate about the community she is a part of, and will continue to volunteer her time with the girls. Her vision serves as an inspiration for the future of Nepal.

Pheri Namaste (Namaste... again)

Well, dear readers. I have procrastinated this day long enough. The people have complained, they have rallied, they have cried out “why have you not written! Where is your blog! It sustains us!.” By people I mean mom. This is for you, I am recommitting to my blog in the New Year. It’s a long one, so grab yourself a steaming cup of chiya (nepali tea).

Since I last wrote, a lot has happened. Since I last wrote, nothing has happened. During the first three months, we are not allowed to leave site. This was really valuable time to get to know my community, be present, and adjust to the much slower pace of Nepali life. During Pre Service Training, my friend Becca, a girl in the group above me, told me that it is probably going to be the longest time you will have at site during service. I scoffed, thinking this couldn’t possibly be true. But since September I haven’t had more than two weeks in a row at site. So, what have I been up to?

Teej in the bazaar with Shova's mom, sister, and nephew

After I last wrote, we celebrated Tij, the women’s festival. The women worship Shiva and Parbati, the divine couple who epitomize marital bliss in Hindu religion. The first day of Tij is called dar khane din, meaning the day of feast. On this day, we ate a lot of sel roti (fried dough) in preparation for the next day where everyone fasted except for me, my younger brother, and the two children under 4. The fast is in reverence to Parbati who fasted to obtain Shiva. My host sister, her daughter, and bunch of aunts came to our house for a few days to celebrate. I live about 30 minute walk from a fairly big (by rural nepali village standards) bazaar. On the main day of Tij there was a huge festival in our Bazaar. We all got dressed up in red saris and paraded down to the bazaar. PCVs from other groups had made me somewhat nervous about this holiday. Despite my many attempts (ballet, Irish step dancing, African, modern) I have never been a good dancer, and Tij is all about the dancing. But sure enough, soon after arriving in the bazaar, I met up with my friend Shova and her family, and Shova whisked me up on stage where I found myself dancing in front of hundreds. People who I’ve never met still approach me on busses, in capital, in village, on the road, and tell me that they saw me dancing in a red sari on Tij. Throughout the day, women sing songs about their husbands, lost love, being a woman, inequality, the pain of raising a family alone if the husband is abroad, and how hard they work.  It started out as a holiday to celebrate husbands, but in recent years has turned into much more of a celebration about womanhood. Women return to their maiti ghars, home where they were born, to spend time with the women in their own families and commiserate. The day after fasting and partying, the women all bathed together and conducted a puja (worship) to bless their marriages and clean their souls.

Mandalas for Tihar in Kathmandu

Soon after Tij, I went into Kathmandu for our two week long In Service Training, IST. My whole group was looking forward to being together again. On the second night of being in Kathmandu, I broke my foot. During our pre service training, the doctors told us that no one in Peace Corps Nepal had ever broken anything. They must have jinxed it because I was the second person in my group in only 4 months to break something. I tried not to let breaking my foot hold me back much, I still attended all the trainings, even when it required some fancy crutch-work to navigate thin paths through fields, and muddy paths. I recruited the help of some especially kind strong friends who carried me up hills, over streams, and down some pretty narrow paths over cliffs. The training was really interesting, and provided us with some really good ideas to take back to site. We learned about mushroom cultivation, tree pruning, grafting, and some techniques for saving water. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to return to site after the 2 weeks were up because I had to let my foot heal. I missed the two biggest holidays in Nepal, Deshai and Tihar. Thankfully, Peace Corps was very good to me, and set me up at a really nice hotel, and allowed for me to have friends stay with me to help out in my wobbly gimpy state. Celebrating Deshai in Kathmandu was uneventful, as most people return to their villages during this time, the city was a ghost town. Thankfully we had stock-piled some peanut butter and bananas, or else we wouldn’t have eaten, everyplace was closed. Celebrating Tihar on the other hand was a fantastic experience!  Tihar is a five day celebration, and on each day something else is worshipped. The first day is crow puja, then dog, cow/goddess of wealth, ox, and on the last day the relationship between brothers and sisters is celebrated. I wish I had bene home to celebrate this last day with my brother, and give him tikka (red powder on the forehead). On the third day, Laxmi the goddess of wealth, as represented by the cow, is celebrated by giving malaas (garlands) and tikka to cows. Nepali people clean their homes and make a design with colored powder outside their doors (called mandalas) to lead Laxmi into the home. Outside people’s homes in Kathmandu there were extremely elaborate mandalas that were strikingly beautiful.

Receiving tikka and tending the flame for a long life during mahar puja

 Another neat opportunity I had in Kathmandu, was the chance to celebrate Maha Puja, which is known aas the self-puja, to purify one’s own body and connect families. It is particular to the Newar community in Nepal. It is also the first day of the Newari new year. Since I don’t live with a Newari family, this was a really unique opportunity. My friend and I met a lady who lives in Spain, but was back in Nepal to visit her family. She invited us to her house, fed us an amazing Spanish omelet complete with cheese (!!!!) and prosciutto from Spain (!!!) and then to her family’s house where we did the puja. I feel so lucky to have met this lady and experience this puja. Her whole family was incredibly welcoming, and knew a lot of English. Her father and mother live in America now in fact, and had really insightful comments to make about American culture. It was really interesting to talk with them about challenges they face in America, and trends they notice in the states. A refreshing contrast to the many comments we hear in Nepal that glorify the United States. In maha puja, each member of the family sits on the floor in a line in front of a mandala. In front of us we tended to a long thread representing our lives as it burned in a small bowl. This represents a long life, and caring for one’s self. Next, we were presented with Sagun, a plate consisting of eggs, fruits, sweets, meat, fish, lentils, and pastries. We were instructed to eat this, while taking sips of Johnny Walker. The mandala represents the universe, the wick represents our life and the hopes that we should tend to our souls and spread light for others. We were given tikka an enjoyed more delicious food. At the conclusion, all of our mandalas were swept together in one continuous brush of the broom, bonding the family (and me and my friend) together. This ceremony is probably my favorite holiday I have celebrated in Nepal. It felt meaningful to celebrate my own life and body, and I was especially thankful to have so many English speakers there who were eager and interested to explain all the aspects of the ceremony to me. Usually these types of worships are largely a mystery to me, and when I ask for an explanation, I am told that it is Nepali culture.

Soon after this holiday, I returned finally to my village!! I was really ready to be home after so much time in the city, so much time unable to walk, and after missing out on so many important holidays with my family. My bus ride back to Lamjung was beautiful, monsoon had ended and after leaving the smog of Kathmandu, the Himalaya shone through clear and piercingly white against the blue sky. I spent about two weeks at site, bustling around to different people’s houses after being away for so long. I went to a training at the school about reproductive health. I celebrated my birthday with my closest friend here, who made me a beautiful woven shawl. I ate a lot of multiple week old sel roti, which people had saved for me from Deshai and Tihar. Sweet thought, but I am not a big fan of sel roti when it is fresh, so two week old roti pulled out of a dusty suitcase was often not the tastiest. It was nice to see how concerned my village was about my foot, everyone was amazed that I run every day on the muddy monsoon slip-n-slide roads, and then go to the paved streets of the city. I amaze myself too sometimes.

In mid-November, all the PCVs gathered together for a Thanksgiving in Pokhara, under the guise of attending a conference to talk about Let Girls Learn, my girl Michelle Obama’s initiative that partners with Peace Corps to encourage girls to stay in school and pursue careers. Thanksgiving was a fun affair complete with pumpkin pie, chicken, and lots of delicious sides. I definitely missed being home for this holiday though, as it has always been my favorite. Right after that conference, we had PDM, project design management. Each PCV in my group was allowed to bring their government counterpart, and one member of their community to this training. I brought my friend Shova, an inspiring young woman as my counterpart. Stay tuned in the next few days for a post wholly dedicated to Shova. She kept me in check and was great to talk through project ideas with. We talked about how we can create income generating projects for women in our community, and talk about financial literacy with families. We’re planning on making some nursery beds and doing mushroom cultivation soon together.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Note the tree behind my head.

Thanks for staying with me, as we zoom into December. December brought several mushroom trainings, a lot of downtime, and the initiation of my project aimed at improving nutrition in nursing and pregnant mamas. It started through some of my friends, one of whom is pregnant, one nursing, who asked me some really pointed nutrition questions. Since, I have been working with a small group to talk about what women need nutrition wise, and why some practices, such as only eating rice after a girl is born, or the thought that fruits and green vegetables shouldn’t be eaten at certain points in the pregnancy, can really harm a woman and baby’s health. The month ended with me going to visit friends in another district for Christmas where we watched Elf, cooked a not terribly exiting Christmas dinner of some sort of root vegetable that we thought was sweet potato but wasn’t and ate it with mustard, drank eggnog, sang, and wore Santa hats. It was a ton of fun and very festive. We even had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree to tie together the room. Our boxing day meals were more delicious, we made pancakes in the morning, and chicken and kale from my friends’ garden. Between Christmas and New Years, a friend and I went to a beautiful lake outside of Pokhara, where people were fishing and the air smelled like beautiful clean lakes. A smell that makes me pine for Minnesota and the Adirondacks. New Years was spent back in Lamjung celebrating Gurung (an ethnic minority in Nepal) New Years called Losar, and American New Years back to back.

Sporting some wildly applied Tikka at the Losar (Gurung new Year) festival in Josh's village

Now I find myself in the beginning of January, facing a full calendar year in Nepal. I am 2017 off feeling more secure and happy here, confident that I am finding my rhythm in Peace Corps.  I feel so lucky to have this opportunity. With that, I leave you for now. Stay tuned for more regular updates (promise!).