There and Back Again

June 20 marked the end of our unanticipated stateside sabbatical and the beginning of the next, though fairly familiar, step of our Peace Corps service. As we had done twenty-one months previous, we packed our bags, said our goodbyes, and boarded a series of planes that would eventually deliver us to Nepal. As we passed through the clouds, down the airplane stairs, and into the absurdly inadequate Kathmandu International Airport, tipsy from the free booze and attentive service of Thai Airways, the familiar jitters returned. We were back.

We stayed at a fine resort, which sported a fitness center, ping-pong table, and even a giant chessboard. Also monkeys.

After a relaxing afternoon by the pool, we were kept busy for the next three days with housing presentations, policy explanations, programming discussions, and committee meetings. It was the first time in at least a decade that three groups of Nepal volunteers had been together, and it was interesting to observe the prevailing differences in attitude, ideas, and energy amongst the groups: those of us with twenty-plus months of experience seemed more pragmatic, resolved, and jaded; the freshest, two-month old trainees were eager, inspired, and occasionally naïve; and those nine months into their service tended to fall somewhere in between. I just hope that our group’s pessimism didn’t quash the others’ energy.

On our fourth day, Peace Corps arranged for a post-quake visit to our training communities. Our country director and his wife traveled with nine of my group to Sindhupalchok, the district most affected by the earthquake. I was extremely keen to reunite with my host family, who had lost their home and seemed to be struggling. I’d called them the day before and asked what I might bring them. After a lot of prodding, my host mother finally conceded, “Sugar, we’re out of sugar. And maybe some oil.” I had seen pictures, read stories, and heard accounts of the devastation, but to see my community with my own eyes was another thing entirely.

The damage worsened as we traveled further from Kathmandu. On the city’s outskirts, the chimney of every brick factory was broken. We passed over narrow stretches of road where landslides had been cleared, through the shells of former bazaars, and past hundreds of tents and temporary housing.

Some three and half hours later, we arrived at the entrance of Chautara. There, the police informed us that the bus couldn’t enter the bazaar. We would have to disembark at the outlying bus park, about an hour and a half’s walk from my village of Mahjgaun.

The path from the bus park was in places obstructed by debris. A thick layer of dust coated the paved road leading through town. Swaths of the bazaar were gone. In some cases, the building foundations and supports had evidently toppled; in others, the land beneath had simply given way. Most of the surviving storefronts were closed.

The bazaar was alive—not with the bustle of everyday life, but with the work of recovery. Teams of people were removing rubble from the wreckage and conveying it away. Where once there were no foreigners, now many walked about wearing t-shirts with the names of various organizations. The armed police, out in greater force than usual, patrolled the disaster zone.

Short on time, another volunteer and I hurried down the hill to our village. Where the line of teashops and general stores had been, now nothing stood. I nearly walked past the house that had once been my classroom, so unrecognizable was the scene.

Those I met greeted me with weary smiles and mixed emotions. Our conversations were short. “You came back,” and then “Everything’s gone.” I was sorry, sad, uncomfortable, and especially late. Apologetically, I moved on down the hill. I was no longer so sure about how this was going to go.

As I approached my home, I found my host father squatting in the shade. I bowed my head into his hands in respectful familial greeting. “You’re late,” he said aloofly, still squatting and looking into the distance. “Come, your mother is waiting.”

We made our way down, past the ruins of their house, to a row of low tin-roofed wooden shacks and a couple of white canvas tents. My host mother, after greeting me with the embrace of someone unaccustomed to physical salutations, gestured me into their hovel of a home.

Once inside, I presented the gifts I’d brought: the requested oil and sugar, along with some fruit and vegetables, peanuts, cashews, spices, mosquito coils, liquid soap, water sterilization drops, and an inflatable, water-proof solar lantern that a friend had gotten donated. “Why did you go to so much trouble?” my host mom lamented. “This must have been so heavy.” Then they sat me down for a meal of daal bhaat (with not one but three eggs. No one ever eats that many eggs here).

As I ate, we caught up on life. We recounted where we’d been when the earthquake happened, and what it’d been like. My host mother, it turns out, had been inside the house during the earthquake. Most of the room had collapsed around her, but my host father, who had been sitting just up the road, had been able to remove enough rubble to pull her out.

It also so happens that, although my host mother reported that all our livestock had perished, our goats and buffalo were alive and well (interestingly, several other volunteers had received similar misinformation from their host families). My family’s fields had not been damaged, and they were in the process of planting their rice paddies. A Canadian organization had given them two large, sturdy tents, and my host father had scrounged up enough wood to build the shack in which we now sat. They felt prepared, they said, to face the incessant monsoon rains.

They thanked me for the note and money I had sent via a neighbor prior to our evacuation. From a corner of the house, my host mother brought forth the photo album that the year’s previous volunteer had assembled for them, as well as the one I had given when I had moved out. She flipped through the pages, smiling and recounting the events that each photo showed.

The hour we spent together was joyous and too quickly past. Despite their shortage of food and my insistent refusal, my host mom still managed to send me off with a bag of roasted corn, fried dough, dried coconut, and some other treats. As ever, she worried that I wouldn’t get enough to eat. On my way out, we stopped for a moment at the former site of their home, where I lived for three months. Now, the only standing structure was the door to the latrine.

Back on the bus, we shared our joys and concerns from our respective visits. Although many felt some initial trepidation, everyone was happy that they had decided to come. We had seen the gravity of our families’ hardships, but it seemed to have been cathartic for all of us, both families and volunteers, to have spent some time together.

Learning Helplessness

When I speak with my host family in Sindhupalchok about what they’re going to do for food, water, and shelter, or what I can do to help them, they invariably respond with a noncommittal, heartbreaking “Ke garne?” “What to do?” It is a classic Nepali phrase that frustrated me daily in Nepal, where it is often used as an excuse to shirk responsibility or do nothing.

But sometimes nothing is all you can do.

It's been 40 days since the earthquake in Nepal. During Days 1 through 3, I lived with a group of trainees and volunteers in the US Embassy, about which I have previously written. On Day 4, we were moved to a hotel in Kathmandu, where the trainees were informed of the decision to suspend their training and remove them from Nepal. The following day, we were told that we, too, would be placed on “administrative hold” and returning home indefinitely. We were given three reasons: with the busyness of the hospitals and airport, emergency care or evacuation for urgent medical issues could not be guaranteed; volunteer housing in affected areas would need to be assessed; and local staff would need time to deal with the impact of the earthquake on their families and homes. Until these criteria were met, we would remain in the US. The duration—a month, two, three—was unknown.

On Day 6, we set out for our villages to pack our things and wrap up unfinished business. On the morning of Day 7, I arrived at my house and broke the news to my host family. For the next three days, I traveled around my community, trying to connect with everyone I could before Day 10, when I would have to leave.

My village in Dang, a couple hundred miles from Kathmandu, had not experienced the previous week’s events as I had. They’d felt the first tremor and a few aftershocks, and as a precaution had slept outside for a few days, but no houses had collapsed, no one had died, and normal life had resumed. Those who hadn’t watched the news couldn’t conceive of what was going on in their nation’s capital and the surrounding area. With each new interaction, I’d have to explain the devastation, painting with broad strokes the backdrop for my big news, my temporary and imminent departure from Nepal. Things are bad. It isn’t safe for us to be here right now. I don’t know when I’ll be back, or if, I told everyone. But as soon as I can come, I’ll be back. People tended to react as I did—if I got upset, they did too; if I was hopeful, so were they. The lack of personality in their reception was confounding.

On the morning of Day 10, many of my neighbors arrived to see me off. As I waited for the bus, we took pictures in the garden in front of my home. My host brother gave me pictures of the family to remember them by. My host mother gave me tikaa as a blessing for my journey. With more belongings than I felt belonged with me, I boarded the bus and waved goodbye. The following afternoon, I arrived in Kathmandu.

Throughout this time, I’d been calling my host family in Sindhupalchok, where I’d lived for three months during training, three times a day. I was traveling by bus to visit them when the earthquake hit, destroying their home, killing their livestock, and effectively wiping out their livelihood. My calls went through only on the first two days after the earthquake—after that, I got only a message recording that their phones were switched off. On Day 11, after nine days without any contact, the phone rang and I heard my host father’s voice on the line. I practically started crying, in the middle of Kathmandu. We’re fine, they said, don’t worry. Don’t be sad. Just come when you can. But there is nothing you can do right now.

That evening, all 50 Peace Corps Nepal Volunteers convened in the hotel for a briefing. For almost two hours, our country director explained the situation and answered questions. We were (and still are) offered the option to complete our service, with no penalty and full benefits. When prompted, our director estimated that we could be back by Day 36, better known as May 30. We spent the following day occupied with meetings and administrative tasks, before being flown to Thailand on Day 13 for a transition conference.

I have little to say about Thailand, because for most of the time I was in a daze. The weather was sultry, the hotel extravagant, the food divine, the nightlife raucous. At 3:15 AM on Day 16, most of us returning home gathered in the hotel lobby to depart for the airport. After an absurd series of connections (Thailand to Tokyo, Tokyo to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Atlanta, Atlanta to Westchester, New York) I arrived in the arms of my parents at 11PM, or 10AM Thai time (for a total travel time of 31 hours).

Since then, Peace Corps has been providing us with updates every few days. Nepal was hit by another major earthquake on May 12, seventeen days after the first. On May 15 (Day 21), we received word that our return date would likely be delayed. On May 22 (Day 28), our director informed us that the Washington office had requested that all volunteer housing be inspected, and that our return date would be delayed to June 20. As many of half of us will need to move into more structurally sound housing. On May 29 (Day 35), we were told that our travel would be severely limited during the coming months, due to increased likelihood of landslides. In the tentative schedule proposed, we would depart for our villages on June 27, 63 days after the day nothing stood still.

In the meantime, we linger in limbo, earning a small stipend to sustain us during our unwanted hiatus. I’ve enjoyed many aspects of my time home—spending time with family, seeing friends, playing the piano, drinking good beer, catching up on TV—but this is not where I feel most comfortable, not where I want to be at present.

There are few here (even you, dear reader) who really understand what the past forty days have been like. For Peace Corps Volunteers in Nepal, our worlds have been shaken up and our surroundings have yet to settle. Decisions and emotions seem sporadic and impermanent, liable to change at any moment of any day. Each unsolicited restriction that has been placed upon our residence and movement shapes our future time in Nepal. Early on, numbed by the shock of the aftershocks, I indifferently accepted each new roadblock, pothole, hairpin, and detour. But now I find myself questioning the rules of the road, its makeup, and whether it’s worth traveling.

Two things draw me back to Nepal—my work and my people. With respect to the former, I have four main projects that I hope to accomplish before completing my service in November: construct four plastic greenhouses for off-season vegetable production; plant a half-acre pomegranate orchard; roll out a cookstove training and construction project with a Dalit women’s group; and implement a first-of-its-kind five-day boy’s leadership camp with six other volunteers. The first three of these are contingent on my housing location—that I be consistently nearby to conduct these projects. The last depends on coordination within a large group, which would require occasional travel.

My family in Sindhupalchok, has been on my mind every day. They are now homeless, living in tents with limited food and resources. Together with a group of current and returned Peace Corps Volunteers, I’ve been raising funds to rebuild that community. This family fed, housed, and cared for me while I lived there; now I feel bound to do the same for them. To be able to spend some time together and deliver some aid would be such a relief to both them and me. Personally, it is practically essential to me. With the increased likelihood of landslides, travel in these next few months will be more perilous than normal, but I would risk it for the opportunity to see them.

My third pull is my new host family. I’ve not yet written about it (I’m saving it for a later, very lengthy post when my service is over), but I had changed host families not long before the earthquake, and was absolutely elated with my new family. To leave them now, having spent so little time together and with so little time remaining, would be a huge blow. The house, which had been approved by Peace Corps just one month prior, was unscathed after the earthquake—that I might need to make such a drastic move was hard for me to imagine. Without my projects and families, I don’t know what reason I’d have to return to Nepal.

This morning, I received an email: due to the structural composition of my house, I would have to change host families.

It’s not something I’m much used to, dealing with a slew of unanticipated situations entirely beyond my power. Maybe Nepal’s fatalism evolved as a survival tactic or coping mechanism for such frequent experience of times like these. When nothing goes your way and you have no say, you have to relinquish your desire to control the game and just play the hand you’re dealt.

Ke garne? What to do?

I want to return to Nepal, helplessly hope for the best, and make it happen. Can those three things be reconciled?

Shaken

On Saturday, April 25, I woke up pretty hung over in Kathmandu. Friday had been my last day with the newest group of Peace Corps trainees to arrive in Nepal--they were returning to their training village the following afternoon, and I was planning to visit my training family in Sindupalchok, followed by taking a week-long vacation to Tibet with a group of volunteers. The previous night, we'd been out late having a few drinks, dancing, and neglecting to hydrate. If not for the queasy, almost debilitating feeling saturating my body and the allure of the weekly Kathmandu farmer's market, I would have hopped aboard the 7 o'clock direct bus to Sindupalchok, which would likely have placed me in my homestay family's kitchen at the moment the Himalayan earthquake hit.

Instead, I lounged in bed, moseyed over to the farmers' market, browsed in a bookstore, and hopped on a bus around 11. I put on my sunglasses, mask, and hat, and immediately passed out.

So I was a bit out of it when, at the edge of Kathmandu, the bus began shaking and people started screaming. The Nepalis around me immediately recognized the tremors as an earthquake, and someone yelled that everyone should remain on the bus. Traffic stopped and buildings emptied onto the street.

The initial tremor would register as a 7.8, the largest earthquake in Nepal in over 80 years, and lasted about 20 seconds but felt more like five or ten minutes. After a minute of confused motionlessness, the driver started the ignition and continued ahead. Within moments, another tremor began. Soon after it stopped, another arrived.

Shortly after the third shock, a man appeared at the door of the bus and reported that the road ahead was destroyed. I followed a few Nepalis off the bus to view the damage. The road had split apart like a poorly broken chocolate graham cracker. Pedestrians and motor bikers were trying to negotiate the cracks while police redirected traffic down alternative roads. Everyone was out in the street, heading every which way.

As I walked to a nearby field, I tried making over a dozen phone calls, two of which went through. The networks were overloaded with the congestion of calls. Everyone and their mother was on their phone, except no one could reach even their mother. Over the next two days, the cell phone networks would fluctuate between being down and being too overburdened with traffic to connect calls.

After waiting in the field for half an hour (and, finally, contacting Peace Corps), I decided to abandon my travel plans and return to the city. Walking around the outskirts of Kathmandu toward the airport, the damage looked pretty minimal, though the streets were swarming with people. I hailed a few cabs and finally found one to take me back to the center of the city, where three of my friends were holed up in a guesthouse.

As we sped through the crowded backstreets, the severity of the situation became more clear. A building or wall (mostly brick) had collapsed on almost every block. People were headed every which way, with many congregating in the larger intersections. later, while surveying the damage with some friends, we spotted a wall that had fallen on and subsequently overturned a parked car.

Eventually, we happened to run into the group of Peace Corps trainees that was still in Kathmandu. We consolidated in the Phora American Club near Thamel and waited in a big field for further instructions. In the early evening, four of my volunteer friends and I were shuttled to the United States Embassy, along with thirty Peace Corps trainees, several Peace Corps staff members, and a bunch of American families.

Since then, we've been mostly confined to the Embassy, permitted to leave on a sign-out, sign-in, come back early buddy system. The Embassy has taken in hundreds of American citizens in the pasttwo days. With the airport closed until this morning and the uncertain structural integrity of many of Kathmandu's guesthouses, many have accepted the cafeteria dining and hallway sleeping of the U.S. Embassy.

The accommodations have been luxurious, at least by a Peace Corps Volunteer's standards. Although we're mostly sleeping on the floor, there are land lines, internet, electricity, hot water, drinking water, meals, TV, and even a basketball court. I've snacked on Poptarts, Butterfingers, Gushers, Dr. Pepper, Gatorade, and a host of other American delicacies that I've sorely missed. We've also been eating MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat), which are the packaged (and actually quite tasty) meals often eaten in the military. Gradually, however, the resources are running out and we've begun rationing cups, silverware, and a few other items. Depending on the extent of the road damage, the coming weeks may bring shortages of food, water, and fuel in the Kathmandu Valley, which will be particularly dangerous for Nepalis not living in their wealthy country's embassy.

Peace Corps Volunteers have also been helping with various tasks around the Embassy at all hours of the day--everything from answering phone calls in the consular office to planning activities for the many expatriate children to cleaning bathrooms to cooking meals. I've taken calls from the US and Nepal about missing persons, entered, information into the Embassy database, checked people into the Embassy, mopped floors, and run various errands to help keep things running. It's been remarkable to see our ragtag group of untrained people come together in such a way.

There have been over 45 tremors above 4.5 on the Richter scale in the past 60 hours, ranging from unnoticeable to jarring. The gaps between them have ranged from five minutes to five hours. With such frequent unpredictability, it feels as though my center of gravity no longer fixed but rather shifts around while I'm standing or lying down. Every inexplicable thud, every accidentally knocked desk is an instant for uncertainty and exchanged glances of panic. In the night, I awake from dreams of quakes to find myself in the real thing. Even as I typed this paragraph, everyone in the Embassy library froze as another shock rocked the room.

For me, the gravest news has come out of Sindupalchok, where I was headed the morning of the earthquake. After finally making contact with my host mother on Saturday evening, I learned that their house, along with many others in the village, had been completely destroyed. their barn had collapsed and the livestock had been killed. My host grandmother died in the aftermath. The rest of the family has been without food and shelter, they tell me, and request that I not come for the moment.

For many other Nepal Peace Corps Volunteers, the news was the same. Most permanent host families were largely unaffected, although a couple of homes have cracked and are threatening to collapse. Many volunteers' training host families, however, were devastated.

There is a tendency for tragedy to fade too quickly from collective memory. That is my biggest fear at the moment. Please hold these stories, the images you've seen in your memory so that they may retain their deserved intensity. They are far away from you, but they are just as much reality. Our cohort and a previous cohort of Peace Corps Volunteers in Nepal are discussing organizing some sort of relief effort from the U.S. to Nepal to aid our unfortunate and suffering families. More updates to come.

A Public Affair

In the past 15 months, I’ve spent a lot of time attending a variety of official community events. Red Cross meetings, HIV/AIDS forums, mental health trainings, women’s rallies, new building dedications, latrine construction discussions, reconciliation center roundtables—you name it, I’ve sat through it. Sometimes I’ve been invited by the organizer, but more often than not I’m just wandering around obliviously when someone inquires, “Hey, are you going to this program? No? Well come along.” Typically, every program follows one of two protocols.

1) The Ceremony

Setting: Somewhere outside, a crowd is gathered in a large arc in front of a colorful cloth tent that has been rented especially for the occasion. At a podium or table before them stands the master of ceremonies, speaking through a microphone with the reverb turned all the way up (which makes his voice resound absurdly like an announcer’s in an enormous arena, when really he is just addressing a few hundred people in a field). In a row of plastic lawn chairs behind him sit the more distinguished guests, in whose company I will eventually, reluctantly, find myself.

 

I try to maintain a low profile upon arriving, but it’s only a matter of time before they find Waldo with his white skin and western dress. Without delay or regard for my protests, I am ushered up to the stage to sit in a chair with a bunch of people much more deserving of such special seats. Often they’ll give me a necklace of flowers, paint my forehead with vermillion, or pin a laminated certificate to my chest.

Now, the organizer may begin calling guest speakers. Sometimes, these speeches are the bulk of the program. A member from each major political party speaks (whether at a school board election or a child marriage seminar). I am usually invited to speak as well, to which I’ll sometimes consent.

Each speech begins with each speaker saying, “Today, we are gathered here together at” (at this point, each speaker turns around and reads the event’s name off the banner). From here, the script can vary somewhat, but it is sure to be filled with certain buzzwords determined by the theme of the event. Some may last for as long as ten or fifteen minutes. The speakers usually fall into one of four categories:

·      Those who pause between every two to five words for emphasis, though they may say nothing of substance

·      Those who mutter through the entire speech, whose insights are unfortunately lost in the hubbub of the crowd

·      Those who speak softly at first, but gradually grow to such a fervent pitch that you would think they were rousing a battalion for battle rather than enumerating the benefits of farmers markets

·      Decent public speakers

Some time between the speeches, there is certain to be a “cultural program,” which is always one or more dances of one of four kinds: a young girl dancing by herself to a Nepali tune, a teenagers dancing to a Hindi pop song, a group of ethnic minorities performing a traditional dance, or another traditional dance involving three men (two of whom are dressed as women).

At the dance’s conclusion, most of the crowd leaves. The remaining guest speakers say what they have to say. The dancers receive prizes of a few dollars. Finally, the master of ceremonies expresses his thanks and brings the ceremony to a close.

2) The Seminar

Setting: The assembly room of the village development committee building, the health center, or a school gradually fills with people arriving between an hour and an hour and a half after the designated starting time. The participants sit on plastic lawn chairs arranged in a half circle, with all the men on one side and all the women (and myself) on the other. If there are not enough chairs, some of the women sit on the floor. Everyone receives a pen and notebook, which will remain unopened on laps for the duration of the training. A register circulates to account for our attendance.

Approximately two hours after the scheduled time, when a sufficient number of participants have taken their seats and begun complaining about the delay (despite having arrived many minutes late themselves), the training begins with the official opening, in which the organizer expresses it his or her pleasure to start the event.

Next, someone delivers the welcome remarks, in which everyone is individually recognized for their presence. At a seminar this past week, the speaker personally acknowledged the president of the planning committee, the secretary of the village development committee, the representative of the hospital, the Maoist party representative, the Nepali Congress representative, the Marxist-Leninist party representative, officials from two NGOs, the president of the reconciliation committee, the president of the women’s cooperative, the president of the disabled persons committee, the president of the youth network, as well as mothers, fathers, older brothers, younger brothers, older sisters, younger sisters, children, our foreign friend (because I usually get a shout-out), and other attendees from wards one through nine. Lest no one feel unwelcomed.

Then come the participant introductions. Each person rises and states their name, village, and title. Despite introducing myself as “Ben Wagner, Peace Corps volunteer,” later I will still be referred to as “our foreign friend”.

There may now be an opportunity for a few guest speeches, which proceed as described previously.

By now at least an hour has gone by, and it is finally time to introduce the chief business of the event. Sometimes everything goes without a hitch, with the presenter conducting the lesson exactly as planned. There are always small disruptions, of course. Every so often, a cell phone rings and is answered, its owner carrying out a prolonged conversation that goes something like, “No, I’m in a meeting right now… Yes, very good, but I’m in a meeting… Oh, I did that this morning. Yes, I already told him. Ok, I have to go now. What? Why? What does it matter? Next week is fine…” A baby begins crying; to placate it, its mother pulls out her breast. Strangers spontaneously enter, greet everyone with a “Namaste,” sit for a few minutes, and leave.

But things can get interesting. A few minutes in, someone may mistake the lecture for a discussion and decide it’s a good time to share his or her personal views on the matter at hand. Someone else will vehemently disagree. Before long, half the room is engaged in an impassioned debate, and the other half is completely tuned out. The facilitator struggles to refocus, but there is no reconciling such ardor and apathy.

Just then, the snack arrives. The composition of the snack is a topic upon which everyone can agree: eggs and samosas are superior to chow mein or biscuits (though the latter have the advantage that they can be pocketed for later consumption). Steaming milk tea is poured into cheap plastic cups, which warp with the hot liquid.

After the snack, little is left to be said. After the discussion wraps up, somebody thanks everyone for attending and announces that the program has come to a close. The participants prepare to leave, but not until they’ve collected their few dollars of “allowance” for attending.

I bike home, wondering why I once again spent an entire day at another public program. At least the snack was decent.