Short Stories

Socially, professionally (if you could call what I’m doing an occupation), existentially, and otherwise, things have been good these past few months. There are still many moments that make me smile anew at the character of this country’s people. Recently, these have included spontaneously receiving a bag of mangoes from a colleague because he knows I’ve been struggling nutritionally; getting an unexpected call from a close friend who’d moved abroad for work; my host nephew impulsively cleaning my room every few days; a group of women pitching in to help each other build a new stove in each of their homes; a man proudly showing me his rooftop garden; and school children incessantly shouting “hi, Ben!” as I walk home from a long day.

Workwise, I’ve been roughly the right amount of busy. I’ve been spending two days each week at my village’s health center, delivering nutrition trainings for pregnant women and mothers of young children. By improving the community’s knowledge of the importance of proper nutrition among those most at risk, we hope to greatly reduce the level of child malnutrition. In conjunction with the trainings, we’ve been developing a nutrition center to provide information on and encourage positive changes in nutritional habits. We’re also working on improving the monitoring of child development, both at the health center and in the community.

I’ve now built ten smokeless cookstoves in my village and have been improving my skill and speed with each replication. As an increasing number of households have seen the benefits in the reduction of smoke, time, and firewood, more and more people have been soliciting me to build one. I’ve even found a few individuals who have seem seem interested in taking up cookstove construction as a part-time occupation, after the rains and duties of monsoon season pass.

 This woman is amazing. She helped me build four stoves for herself and her neighbors over the course of two days.

A few weeks ago, while building a smokeless cookstove, I was bitten by this:

That’s a baby wild boar, which some people here capture from the forest and raise to eat or sell. This little guy was bothering me while I was mixing some mud, so I nudged him aside with my foot. He squealed, charged, and sank his little teeth into my ankle. I screamed (more from surprise than pain), Nepalis laughed, and he scampered away.

While making another cookstove, I put on some music to pass the time. After a few songs, “Blurred Lines,” a racy pop song about either the unclear roles that females have to navigate or rape (depending on whom you ask), came on. I got up to change it (not that any of my Nepali companions would have understood the lyrics), but noticed that the old man, toothless who’d been sitting in the corner of the room was smiling and bopping away. Robin Thicke’s audience knows no limits.

I’ve been spreading awareness about the many amazing benefits of Moringa trees. This past week, I was supposed to hold a training to distribute saplings but, not unsurprisingly, nobody showed up. I ended up giving an informal training to the health center staff, who were very impressed by the benefits. I gave many of them saplings to plant in their own homes, and together we planted a few at the health center. After these saplings grow into mature, fruiting trees, I’m hoping there will be a big demand for Moringa trees next year.

This past month, I worked with a small farmer to build a greenhouse with a bamboo frame and plastic roof, the first in my community. This will allow him to grow vegetables in the off-season, times when prices are high and nutritional variety is otherwise low. We also installed a drip irrigation system, a small plastic tank and series of pipes with tiny holes that deliver water directly to the base of the plant. Drip irrigation conserves farmers’ time and water, ensuring that the plants receive just the right amount of water each day. Already, many other farmers have expressed interest in building their own plastic house in the coming year. These relatively simple, cheap technologies have the potential to greatly improve the production and availability of vegetables in rural communities.

I realize I haven’t mentioned my garden in awhile. A few months back, I was so fed up with animals destroying my garden that I hired two guys to construct a bamboo fence. Since then, it’s been thriving. Right now I have tomatoes, bitter gourd, snake gourd, okra, beans, and corn, as well as a small herb garden with basil and cilantro.

Before (top) and after (bottom) construction of the fence.

 

I’m also starting to do comparisons to demonstrate the efficacy of different farming practices. With my host sister-in-law, I planted one row of corn using the traditional Nepali method, and another using biointensive permagardening techniques. So far, the difference is clear.

The corn planted biointensively (the back row) is considerably taller and fuller than the corn planted with the Nepali method (in the middle, behind the tomato plants).

Despite early challenges, gardening is proving to be a fruitful hobby—both from the satisfaction I get from growing something from seed to food, and the conversation it generates among villagers. Presently, there is a complete lack of vegetables available in my village, so the harvest from the garden is also keeping my family well nourished.

It’s also fruit season in Dang. The other day we covered all of our pomegranates in plastic bags to protect them from pests. I spent several hours one afternoon with my host sister trying to knock down mangos by throwing sticks and stones at them. The Asian pear tree in our backyard is laden with fruit, which make for a nice snack when I’m feeling underfed. Since coming to Nepal, I’ve tried a bunch of new fruits, including rose pear, jackfruit, pomelo, litchi, mulberry, gooseberry, and several others whose names I don’t know in English.

The other day I was cooking some American-style pasta when my family urgently called me outside (tangentially, my family is always surprised when I eat anything for dinner other than rice. It’s, like, not kosher). Just above the kitchen doorway, coiled on the bamboo rafters, sat a six-foot long snake. Eventually it slithered off the far end of the roof and into the garden below. Thankfully, my family tells me he’s a “friendly snake” who will protect us by eating baby cobras. I’ll feel much safer once the monsoon season is over.

Speaking of monsoon, apparently a lot of the people in my village get drunk before they head into the fields to plant rice, which, in my opinion, makes the deftness of their work even more impressive.

For the past few months, my computer’s been doing this weird thing where if I touch it while it’s charging, it mildly electrocutes me. Interestingly, this doesn’t happen if my feet aren’t touching the floor or walls, which leads me to believe that the electricity must not be grounded. So I have to be careful.

Whether from my chronic illness or steady diet of daal bhaat, I’m pretty certain that my sweat has changed odors in the past few months. I didn’t use to think I smelled bad, but now when I perspire I reek something strange with a subtle hint of curry.

Yes, the constant sickness, rain, and isolation bring me down sometimes, but many things are going right. Okay, maybe not always “right” per se, but at least life is interesting.