At this very
moment, I sit (overlooking any minor deviations in the earth’s orbit) exactly
where I sat a year ago: at a hostel in Bhaktapur, preparing for the five days
of Peace Corps Trainee Initial Orientation. Only now, instead of a member of a
group of wide-eyed, anxious Americans stepping down in Nepal, I’m going to be that new group’s
mentor. The new group of 31 trainees is arriving within the hour. As I view the experience from the other side—as an assimilated, sometimes
even jaded volunteer—I’m realizing just how much has happened in the past year.
On the home front, not
much seems to have changed. So far, I haven’t missed any births, weddings, or
deaths among family or friends (and I keep my fingers crossed that it stays
that way). I did miss my sister’s high school graduation and my brother’s life
transition, as well as a year’s worth of smaller but memorable experiences that
were or might have been. Like any road not taken, it’s impossible to know what life
at home would have held for me. But, notwithstanding the ups and downs of
living in Nepal, I wouldn’t trade the past year for what might have been.
What about here?
What have I done since I got off that plane 365 days ago? Some of my experience
can be recounted in numbers, ranging from productive to mundane:
Smokeless cookstoves
built: 10
Plastic tunnels
constructed: 1
Women trained in basic
maternal and child nutrition: 286
Babies weighed: 52
Percent of those
babies that were malnourished: about 20%
Kids trained in
hand washing: 240
Hours spent in
Nepali meetings and trainings (including hours just waiting for meetings to
start late): 108
Hours spent in overcrowded
buses and jeeps: 274
Blog posts written:
47
Blog views: 7,146
Times asked whether
I would bring someone back with me to America: 237
Times forced to
sing a Nepali song in front of a group of people: 15
Cups of tea
consumed: 734
Decent beers
consumed: 3
Meals of daal bhaat: 580
Days with diarrhea:
41
Pounds lost: 17
Packages received:
10. I can’t express
enough gratitude toward all those who have sent me goodies over the past year
to sustain my health and happiness. Thank you to:
·
-Omi
& the Cramers (sounds like a German band): Thanks, of course, for the food,
all of which I enjoyed immensely (this was during my sick period, when Nepali
food wasn’t particularly appetizing). The travel games were a big hit with my
younger neighbors, but I wasn’t really sure what to do with the mini beer pong
set (the cups are so small!).
·
-Willard
& Grace—Your package arrived at a perfect time, just as I was running out
of snacks. For whatever reason, those cartons of seaweed really hit the spot.
The almond chocolate granola bars were also a big hit with my usually picky
host family.
·
Shannon
& Meade—Thank you so much for the food and magazines—it was a lovely
surprise. Shannon, I can’t thank you enough for being a consistent pen pal, and
especially for reaching out to the Mamajamas for messages. It keeps me hopeful
that when I return after two years it won’t seem that long at all.
·
-Ally—Vermont
maple sugar candy is my favorite sweet treat. I also appreciated the music,
almost none of which I had and many of which I liked!
·
-Christian—Your
compilation of protein and granola bars is a testament to how well you know me
(Reese’s and Rollos, aside from Milky Ways and Charleston Chews, are the only
chocolates I like). Not sure if the beef jerky was meant to be ironic not, you sending
it to a vegetarian in a Hindu country where killing a cow is punishable with jail
time. The pictures, which are now hanging above my desk, were also a nice
touch.
·
Nina:
Thanks for the new tunes (it’s fun to see how our music tastes overlap), the
podcasts (which have proven invaluable for getting through long, uncomfortable
bus rides) and movies (Her is the
best film I’ve seen in over a year).
·
Mom
& Dad: Your concern for keeping me healthy and happy is unparalleled. I’ve
never thought of you as helicopter parents, but these days “airlift parents”
seems an accurate appellation.
Letters received:
17. Thanks to all those
above, as well as
·
Anna—we
had a brief correspondence going, but it seems both of your last two letters
got lost. Hopefully you’ll have received my most recent letter before you read
this!
Seasons of TV
watched: 26
·
The
Walking Dead: Seasons 1-3; Girls: Seasons 1-3; The West Wing:
Seasons 1-7; Orange Is the New
Black: Season 1 & 2; Sherlock: Season 3; Game of Thrones:
Season 4; How I Met Your Mother: Seasons 1-9;
Books read: 28
·
Call of the Wild by Jack
London, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, At Home in the World by Jim Fischer, The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David
Foster Wallace, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David
Oliver Relin, The Time Machine: An Invention by H.G. Wells, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by
Benjamin Franklin, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, The Art of Life by Zygmunt Bauman, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Non Campus Mentis: World History According to
College Students by Anders
Henricksson, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Keeping Kennedy's Promise by C. Payne Lucas and
Kevin Lowther, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Common Sense by Thomas Paine, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Movies watched: 90
(97 if you include the seven movies I
watched on the four flights it took to get here. And that’s not counting the
two dozen or so movies I watched for the second time)
·
21 Jump Street, The Great Gatsby, Oz the Great and Powerful, Arsenic and Old Lace, 42, Ben-Hur, Wreck-It Ralph, 50/50, Crazy.Stupid.Love, Due Date, Cool Runnings, Blazing Saddles, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Halloween, Eat, Pray, Love, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Purge, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Rushmore, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Mallrats, The Raven, Princess Mononoke, World War Z, Admissions, Out of Africa, The Amityville Horror, Chocolat, Savages, Marley and Me, The Campaign, Anna Karenina. The Omen, Seven Years in Tibet, Animals Are Beautiful People, The Machinist, A Bronx Tale, Amazing Spider Man, Hot Rod, Spring Breakers, One Life, It's Complicated, Snow White and the Huntsman, Before Sunrise, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Darjeeling Limited, The Master, American Hustle, Winnie the Pooh, Whip It, Corpse Bride, Highway, The Wolf of Wall Street, Catching Fire, Splice, Her, The Heat, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Iceman, The Virgin Suicides, Frozen, Cloud Atlas, Inside Llewyn Davis, Religulous, Pacific Rim, The Sapphires, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Wet Hot American Summer, This Is 40, Identity Thief, Death at a Funeral, Water for Elephants, Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, Friday Night Lights, Rio, Ender’s Game, Marie Antoinette, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Captain Phillip, Maleficent, Notting Hill, Lost Boys, The Five Year Engagement, Rock of Ages, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Divergent, Bad Teacher, Man of Steel, The Fault in Our Stars, Blue Jasmine, The Dreamers, Chaplin, The Lady, Nebraska, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Guardians of the Galaxy
Games of phone
solitaire won: 44
Games of phone
cricket won on hard level: 0 (hard is HARD!)
Live snakes seen: 7
Lizards living in
my room at the moment: at least 6
No comments:
Post a Comment