Year in Review

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

But all those numbers don’t really capture the past 525,600 minutes. What impact have I had on Nepal in the past year? And what impact has being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal had on me? I find these things much more difficult to define, categorize, summarize and express. Besides, the verdict’s still out and will be for another fifteen months. One year gone by, and a new one just begin.

Teej Time

Last year, we arrived in Nepal a few days after Teej, making it the last Nepali festival I have yet to experience. A Hindu holiday celebrated in India and Nepal, Teej is a commemoration of the marriage between Shiva and Parvati. Traditionally, Teej was a festival in which married women prayed for the wellbeing of their husbands and unmarried women prayed for a good husband in the future, but more recently Teej has also become a celebration of female expression. Women fast until late in the evening, consuming only water, fruit, and/or yogurt as an expression of devotion. And they dance—a lot.

My extended family began to arrive the day before the first day. With my four sisters, brother, mother, two aunts, sister-in-law, and four children, it was a pretty full house. That night, the dancing lasted until around 1AM, according to my family. I wasn’t feeling well and slept through the whole thing.

The next day, around noon, all the females of the household emerged donning red saris, flecked here and there with shimmering patterns of green and gold. Each woman had pinned up her hair with a golden crescent moon clip. Their forearms were decked with chura, round bands of red and gold. The married women had braided red rope into their hair, and many wore their mongolsutra, a necklace with a gold pendant that husbands give to their wives as a wedding gift. The younger girls looked pristine in their new dresses, their hair and makeup done special for the occasion.

After a prom-like succession of photo poses, preparations began for the puja materials. Grains of rice were separated from their husks with a conch shell. Bags of were filled with barley and wheat; others with bananas, guava, and other fruits.

The various bundles assembled, we walked leisurely (movement is difficult in a sari) toward the temple, crossing the river on foot. At least a dozen motorcycles, each with three young men packed onto the seat, whizzed by—they were heading east to watch the celebrations, my family informed me. My new flip flops, which I’d purchased in Kathmandu just a few days earlier, broke halfway to the temple, forcing me to walk the rest of the way semi-barefoot.

The temple was largely unoccupied when we arrived. While my family set about preparing the leaf plates with grain, coins, fruit, and flowers to perform the puja, I set out towards a clothing shop up the road.



I only walked a few meters, however, before a short, benign-looking middle-aged man called me back. He claimed to possess “superglue.” Never having seen superglue in my village, I skeptically followed him to his house. After a few minutes, he emerged with a little plastic bottle of what did indeed appear to be superglue. “Where did you buy that?” I asked in surprise.

“Malaysia,” he said. “I only have two bottles left.”

“I can’t take it.” I said. “You might need it.”

He smiled. “I saw that you were having difficulty, and it made me sad. You’re our guest. Please, let me help you.”

A man offering his precious glue to a complete stranger—such is the generosity of Nepali culture. We sat beneath a tree and he applied the glue between the two halves of the flip-flop. Then he proceeded to do the same to the other. “If you don’t get them wet, the glue should hold,” he said. We let them dry for a few minutes, and then I put them on. They were good as new (probably better, in fact). He refused my offer of payment, but I insisted that I would reciprocate his help some day.

A large crowd had gathered by the time I returned to the temple, with a “band” to boot. Mostly women, they sat encircling a small area where, turn-by-turn, individuals rose to dance. The roughly 30-second progression at these gatherings is always the same: someone started chanting, the band picked up the tune, and they went through three cycles: slow, then medium-fast, then frantic. Everyone’s dancing style varies a little bit, but after awhile it all kind of seems the same.

After a few hours of sitting in the sun, and watching the repetitive display, I excused myself and headed home. So ended my Teej, for the moment.

Two evenings later, I was watching a movie in my room when the singing and drumming began. After my movie ended, I went outside to see a crowd of at least sixty women in saris sitting in our front yard. The dancing wasn’t over. I sat for a while cheering on the participants, and, after some prompting, even danced three rounds with one of my host sisters. As it grew late and the routines grew monotonous, however, I discreetly ducked out and went to bed.

My host brother returned one day reporting that he had consumed three kilos—or approximately seven pounds—of goat meat (he’s pretty fat, but I still have a hard time believing it). Another relative confessed, when I visited him at school, that he was sick and hung-over after several days of late night drinking.

Having experienced the full festival cycle, I’ve now got a pretty good feel for what a Nepali holiday entails: families get together, dress up, slaughter an animal, do some puja, eat sweet and oily food, dance, drink, and be merry. When you boil it down, ignoring the animal sacrifices and god offerings, not that different than American holidays.