Don't Drink the Water...

I feel like I haven’t been dutifully updating people on what is going on, but I don’t even know what to update about! I started work a bit over a week ago, and have now been in Kathmandu for 11 days. There are many things here that make communication difficult, and so I apologize now for not being prompt with my responses to emails and FB posts.

Nepal, or at least Kathmandu, is currently in what the Prime Minister has referred to as a ‘Power Emergency,’ and the city is plagued with daily rolling blackouts for 12-14 hours per day. The power goes out every day at two intervals, for 6-8 hours, and the timing of the outages changes each day of the week, according to a schedule that has the city divided up into ‘zones.’ The ‘Load Shedding Schedule’ is posted in Nepali on the internet, and likely other places too, but as I do not speak Nepali, and am not clear as to what zone I am even in, this schedule sometimes feels useless to me, and I just kind of wait around for things to turn on. At work, our colleague has printed out the schedule for us in English, which is incredibly helpful. When we do not have power at work, we ration the precious and expensive generator electricity as much as possible, only using what we need, and then do any tasks that require more electricity during the hours that we have power. The worst are they days where the power is out most of the day, and on all night... The day feels almost useless at work when your laptop battery dies.

I also moved yesterday, and am now staying in a clean (YAYYYY) and comfortable guesthouse in a Tibetan Monk monastery. My room is very large, and I am no longer sharing with my colleague Dustin, so in many ways it feels like a private oasis (a rather sterile one). I have my own balcony that provides me with a stunning view of part of the city, although my sense of direction is all off, so I couldn’t tell you WHICH part of the city! Little boys with shaved heads and red and orange robes run around playing and calling hello, and asking your name. They are absolutely adorable, and I have to say, I am intrigued by their life, and would like to know more. The Monastery is right beside Monkey Temple, a popular spot in Kathmandu, and the guesthouse has posted warnings about feeding the monkeys, and leaving windows open, as the monkeys have become quite a nuisance.

We also are only a short walk from our colleague Prabin’s home. He had us over for dinner last night, and we met his family and had a lovely time. We ate Dhal Bhat, and other curries, and talked for a long time. It was very different to see his home, which is shared with his wife, parents and extended family, and to talk to him and his family about living in Kathmandu. While many share the house, it is divided up in a way that everyone has some personal space, and are not living on top of each other.

As many of you may also know, I was sadly struck down with the inevitable on Thursday afternoon, a good case of food- or water-borne illness! Lucky me! As I sat and ate a shared snack with the youth group who had come to meet us interns at work, I was suddenly struck with feeling terribly unwell. I held it together, and participated with a smile on my face until the end of this lovely meeting, and was glad I did, as many people had traveled from around the Kathmandu valley to attend and meet us. But the second I got home, I was a goner. It took over 36 hours to feel normal again, and I had to miss work on Friday (the office was just not a possibility for me for the entire day on Friday), but I am happy to say that by Saturday I was up and ready to go. My biggest regret was that I had to miss work, but it was not even a remote possibility to go in, and by Friday morning, when I was debating going in, I had already been sick straight for around 17 hours. Everyone at the office was very worried about me, and Prabin even came at the end of the day to check on me, but I tried to convince them that this was not surprising, and really not that big a deal, just something that I would have to bear through. Now I am afraid they are afraid to feed me new delicious foods :(.

This is getting long, and not all that interesting, so I will sign off now. I was feeling a bit of loneliness today, and miss everyone at home, but I am also having a great time, and know that that feeling is only natural :). I have written this post on my laptop, and will transfer it over to the blog as soon as I have power, so I am crossing my fingers that the lights turn on soon.

Hugs and kisses,

k

Day 1, and what a day it was

Sorry everyone for the jumbled update that this is destined to be. I finally have power, internet, and a bit of time to write an update, but I feel that I will almost certainly forget to talk about 90% of the things that have happened over the past couple of days. Here goes an update of as much as I remember.

Prabin, from the Nepal Campaign to Ban Landmines (NCBL), created our hotel’s website, and is friends with the owner, so he got us a great deal on the room for as long as we needed, and ensured that they would take great care of us, which they are. The owner is super friendly, and the hotel’s driver has been a lifesaver on our first couple of days here, while we work up our courage to use the micro-buses (that will be a challenge for Sunday).

We spent most of the first day in Nepal being driven around to some of the sights of Kathmandu by the hotel’s driver. As he speaks very little English, and we speak very little Nepali, he would drive us somewhere, tell us the name of where we were, and we would go check it out, not really knowing where we were. It worked out surprisingly well. I apologize in advance for my descriptions of these amazing places, I am still learning what the full significance of them is, and hope to visit them again throughout my stay in Kathmandu to better appreciate them.

Our first stop was a very holy spot for the Hindu people, Pashupatinath. Having no idea where I was going, or where our driver had dropped us off, I was surprised that after paying my entry fee to what I thought was going to be a Stupa or temple, a young man began talking to me about the site, and telling me to follow him to see the cremations. Dustin and I followed him obediently, although I kept asking myself repeatedly “Is he saying cremation? No, that can’t be right… but wait, yes, he is saying cremation… But no, I don’t want to see this, it must be inside, right? And I will be outside, and I will see the building where cremations happen…” Which shows right away that everything I had known about Hinduism I had forgotten, and how unprepared I was for the day. So the first ‘sight’ that I saw was the cremation platforms, where a large number of Nepali people are brought to be cremated after death. Actually, the first sight was someone being cremated on an open platform, which was a shock to my newly arrived eyes, but also an important part of the Hindu culture. The young man who was quickly giving us a complete, eloquent, and charming debrief about all things Hindu, was Sumit, and he (for a small pre-negotiated fee) became our guide of the temple area, which had a lot to see and take in. I won’t remember everything that there is to tell, especially about the intricacies about the Gods and their relationships, but I’ll fill you in on what stuck out to me.

The first, of course, was watching the cremations and the purification of the bodies of people who had passed. This was a moving and overwhelming thing to watch. Both Dustin and I felt that we were looking in on something that we shouldn’t be present for, but Sumit continued to assure us that this was a moment that was open to be shared with everyone. The ashes of the bodies are swept from the platforms that are along the Bagmati River into the river bed, which runs into the Ganges in India. Our amazing guide took us all through the sites, and showed us the deer park, where he saved us from a monkey attack, the door to the main temple, where we could see the back of the gold bull statue inside, but could go no further, as we are not Hindu, and the many smaller temples around the main temple.

He also took us to visit the state run home for the elderly, and the Mother Theresa hospital for the elderly, also located here. There are no photos of this. This was a very difficult experience, and I don’t think I can comfortably write about seeing these elderly people who seemed almost abandoned by their society in someways, although we were assured this wasn’t the case.

OK, jet lag is kicking in, I need to pass out, and I only got through a third of yesterday! I have tomorrow off, so I will have to update more…

Loves!!!!!

k

PS.this is posted a day late due to lack of power and internet.

From Hong Kong to Kathmandu

So I have arrived in Kathmandu, and have had a short night's sleep, and am up and raring to go! I'll try to give a brief overview of my trip so far, but you know me, I am rarely brief :).

We arrived at Hong Kong after a surprisingly comfortable and painless 15 hours and 45 minute plane ride. I had managed to sleep, watch three movies, and just relax! We arrived at the Hong Kong airport at 5:15am Hong Kong time, 5:15pm Toronto/Ottawa time. We obtained a free visa from immigration, and by around 7:45am we were on a train heading into the city of Hong Kong! We didn't end up doing any of the sites in Hong Kong, and mostly spent our time wandering up alleys filled with stalls, and just soaking in the different city. We were able to grab a bite to eat (Chinese noodles and beef, with a side of fried eggs and bread), and some wireless, and then we hit a wall of exhaustion, and headed back to the airport to wait for our connection flight.

We arrived at the Kathmandu airport at a bit after 10pm Kathmandu time, which would be around, uh, who knows in home time! The time difference is throwing me for a loop, and I can’t keep it straight! We had a car from the hotel waiting for us, which was great, and the best part is that all of our luggage actually made it!!! A porter carried our bags, and then got angry at me for not tipping him in American, and not giving him enough rupees… It was awkward, and I’m sure situations like this will keep coming up while I get accustomed to the exchange rates, and the cost of living, but still, it sucked.

Today I woke up after a great sleep at like 5:30am, to the sounds of roosters outside, and while I napped a bit, I really was ready to go for the day, and was up and at it before 7:30, which is so unlike me! After debating whether the marks of my legs were bed bug signs (they have faded away, so I have decided they’re not) I mentioned my bed bug quandary to Dustin, and have now successfully creeped him out and made him super paranoid about the bugs. I am in more of the ‘meh’ frame of mind about it J. Dustin and I are sharing the smallest room, with two twin beds and barely room for our luggage. We are both (I think) missing privacy, but happy to save money by not bunking individually. The hotel was originally were confused, and gave us one bed, so I think we are both happy that that situation was cleared up through broken English, and we each have our own bed.

After waking early this morning, I went for a walk to find some chai, leaving Dustin at the hotel to rest up a bit and get things done… he was not nearly as ready to seize the day as I was, understandable considering the jet-lag! I wandered up to Thamel street, the main tourist drag, and was greeted by many Nepali people, on cars, bikes, scooters, and rickshaws… oh, and walking of course. I tried to stay out of the way of the vehicles, but a couple of kids were bearing down on me on bikes, and it looked as though it would be my responsibility to jump out of the way, not theirs! I obediently did so only to look down and see A DEAD RAT about an inch from where my sandal Birkenstock clad feet landed. I squealed like a princess, and looked up to see a Nepali girl around my age giggling at me… This is all within 2mins of leaving my hotel. I then tried to play it cool and walked around the garbage, people, and general hustle and bustle with the goal of finding my chai. I finally just sat down in a small restaurant/hole in the wall, picked only for the fact that someone else was sitting there, and had just finished eating and drinking a chai, so it couldn’t be too bad, and ordered my tea. It was DELICIOUS! I am praying that it won’t make me sick, because the paranoia makes me think it will all make me sick. I bought a couple of Pepsi’s for sustenance until I figure out where is good to eat, and made my way back to the hotel feeling like I had actually accomplished what I had set out to do.

That takes us to now, and I am preparing to go out for a tour of the sites in a hired car recommended by our hosts, and to stop by the Canadian Embassy to register to vote, as we will have to act fast if we have any hope of absentee voting while here.

Love you all, and more later!

Katie

Pre-pre-pre departure

I am hoping to write, at least occasionally, in this blog to update my nearest and dearest on what is going on with me in Nepal, and perhaps share some pictures and stories of my time while in Kathmandu. This is not intended for public consumption, and I am not promising flowery prose or a literary masterpiece. I am only hoping to have another way of updating those who are interested in the things that are going on in my day to day life while I am in Nepal, without spending a fortune on daily phone calls.

I'm starting early to try and get into the habit of writing before I leave for Nepal. There is so much to do, and I am trying not to get overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of tasks, and the fact that I leave for Cuba in one week, and when I return, I only have three weeks to prep for my departure to Nepal. I've motored ahead, and have scheduled my travel health appointment for vaccinations for when I return from down south, have talked to the Nepal Embassy regarding my Visa requirements, and will be stopping by to see them upon my return to get their stamp of approval, and have now moved on to reading everything I can get my hands on about the country, expats in Nepal, what to bring, landmines, etc. etc. etc. With so much to do, I fear my horrible attention span will get the better of me, as I keep racing off on tangents: I look at national holidays and events for 1.5 minutes, then wonder about weather patterns in May, and jump to a site on climate, then realize I need a rain coat and jump to look at prices of good rain gear... If I'm not careful I will end up a hamster on her wheel, spinning wildly but getting nowhere.

So here is the first installment, with no followers or readers yet. A good practice blog post to get me off and running... Here's to my seven month adventure (including the adventure of preparing to go, that is the next month!)

k