I’m back in the homeland so I guess it’s finally time to
finish my last blog post. Since being home I’ve washed my clothes in the
washing machine, pumped gas in my car, got redirected through a NASCAR race day
(aka Redneck-ville), got my first speeding ticket because I got lost from the
NASCAR thing, and have since been hanging with my family at my aunt’s
lakehouse. Overall I still feel like I’m in a bit of a confused state and I
guess most people would call this feeling culture shock. It feels weird to call
home a culture shock but I think me explaining my experience during my last two
weeks in Nepal will help explain why.
Sunday, August 4th our group split in two where
Group 1 and 3 went to the village of Baluwa and Group 2 and 4 (my group) went
to the village of Khanalthok. The adventure began even before the Khanalthok
group reached our destination when we drove up the hill to find the car ahead
of us with its wheels nearly covered in mud. This is a common occurrence for dirt
roads going uphill, especially during the summer rainy season because they
easily get washed away or very muddy. This event turned into our first team
building activity where we all had to do what we could to push the car out.
After a few tries we were able to push out the car, then we pushed the bus out
and finally pushed the car out of one more ditch before we felt like an
accomplished group and continued to drive to our village.
Once we arrived to the village we went straight to the
community health post to meet with leaders of the village and were able to ask
them about their village. This was a
good start to our week to get an idea about the community but you could also
smell the bit of bias they reported in trying to make things sounds slightly
better than we would maybe report. We also experienced our first frustration
dealing with the translation process but one of the Nepali students, Amol, did
a great job with the translations.
We were then assigned to our host families and my host dad
came to lead us to his home. Izzy, from Israel, Amol, from Nepal, and I then
walked to the home and sat outside the house on a straw matt to meet with the
family. Our family was obviously very happy to have us stay with them, insisted
on how hygienic they were, and told us we all had our own beds to sleep on
because their kids moved out of the house. The family consisted of a mom and
dad, a daughter who’s a teacher in the local school, and a five or so year old
boy who was the cutest thing ever. Overall, I don’t think I could’ve gotten a
better family to stay with because they were the most friendly and welcoming
people I’ve ever met and we didn’t even speak each other’s language.
Entrance of my homestay
Our animals
The front of the house
The first full day we were in the village consisted of a
long tour of the area we were assigned to investigate which was more difficult
than we expected because the land was quite hilly and it was rather hot that
day. I even misplaced my foot as we were walking along a small path and slid
down and edge that got me worried if I would break a bone but it ended up not
being too bad and I only had a few scratches. Soon after we had our first
interview with a house though who gave us some tasty pears and had a nice time
relaxing for a bit. The man that we visited seemed to be involved in many
things in the community and was very proud of the buffalo and cow he had just
purchased and even showed us both animals.
The rest of the week then consisted of many interviews with
households and key groups in the community including the water committee,
health post worker, forest committee, primary school, youth group,
transportation committee, secondary school, and the women’s group. Although
having to speak through a translator was a bit challenging, the experience of
these interviews was very interesting. Most all of the people said water supply
was the biggest problem in the community as well as the lack of roads but not
too many people complained about their health. I would have expected the households
to backaches from the baskets of grass or corn the women would carry on their
back or of lung problems from the smoke produced by the cooking stoves but
these two things were rarely brought up I expect because these things are a
part of daily life. The most common health concerns brought up were headaches,
fevers, and sometimes occasional coughing.
We also found out about some random facts that we didn’t
expect. The first was that even though the community had a temporary water system
in place so each household had a tap, people would still walk hours a day to
the tap because they didn’t like drinking that tap water because it tasted bad.
We were also surprised to learn about a Dalit house in the community that was
doing well despite them being “untouchable” according to their caste name. When
nearly everyone got a 6,000 NRS loan (~$60) others spent it on useless stuff
but this man chose to invest it in pigs and now he’s the community’s go-to guy
for pigs. He also said how before, he would have to wash his own dishes when in
a restaurant because the workers would not touch his dishes but now things have
gotten better and he considers himself the top of the Dalits. Lastly, our guide
in the community, Darma, was what our instructor called a “positive deviant”
because he was a social worker in the community and you could tell that
everyone respected him. He also told us how in eighth grade he helped establish
a private primary school because he wanted to improve the education system and
he even went back to teach classes after he had his own classes.
Paths we had to walk to get to houses
Overall the households wished they had some training to grow
different crops and also an irrigation system so they weren’t only reliant on
the summer rainfall to water their crops. These things require money or
resources though and they weren’t sure how they could raise money for these
things when they also need to install a permanent water system as well as a
durable road. Our group chose to highlight the agriculture challenges in
community and suggested a solution to develop an agriculture co-op so that they
would lose less money as a group from the middle-man they need to pay to
transport their crops. This co-op could also establish a tax system so that a
small percentage of everything they sell could be saved for a bigger project
such as bringing in a trainer or an irrigation technician.
My group also seemed to be impressed with the government
primary school because the teachers were dedicated and used innovative teaching
techniques however when members of our group visited the secondary school they
were less than impressed. The school had graffiti on the walls of the classroom,
there was no running water, all but one of the toilets were filled with shit
and the one left was only allowed for teachers and girls. The girls however had
to go to the woods during their periods and the boys always had to go out to
the woods to defecate. The teachers themselves were also not accountable to
their students because they wouldn’t always show up to the classroom, they charged
their students for private tutoring sessions that taught the same material that
was supposed to be taught during the day, and because of this only a small
percentage of the students passed the nation SLC exam that allowed a student to
continue on to 11th grade. Lastly, there was nearly no pushback from
the parents about the quality of the school because many of the parents were
not educated and was not sure what to demand.
Needless to say, our group also saw a large opportunity for
the community to join together to work to improve the infrastructure of the
secondary school. We thought that maybe if the infrastructure was improved that
respect of the school system would also be instilled among the staff and
ideally more students could pass the SLCs.
We were assigned to make a presentation to the community on
Saturday about our findings and found this to be somewhat of an intimidating task.
We were only able to observe the village for one week and then we were supposed
to stand in front of the community and tell them what we thought the strengths
and weaknesses are. This made Friday the most difficult day when we were
supposed to as a group make our presentation and decide on what to present about
but we eventually decided to present about the many strengths of the community
and then focus on the two topics we thought had the most potential for
improvement, agriculture and the secondary school. We didn’t really propose
potential solutions because we didn’t think we completely understood, nor
worked with the community enough to tell them what we thought as students.
After we made our 30 minute presentation in English and Nepali we hoped to get
feedback from the community but it just turned into a kind of long thank you
session and them telling us to not forget them, which we won’t.
After the presentations was the best part of the week
because we just hung out with the community all day. I bought a small basket
from the grumpy basket man, then hung with my host mom to make a flower lei
thing, and then 4:00 was tea time at the health post where everyone’s host
family showed up to drink tea and we ended up playing games and dancing with
the kids.
The last day was like a dream. We packed up our stuff and
Izzy, Amol, and I were given a flower lei, a silk scarf thing, and red tikka on
our forehead. Our group then thought we could eat breakfast and go but the
community had one last farewell planned for us where we went up to the health
post to have a second breakfast, drink the local (very strong and not super
tasty) alcoholic beverage, have a group photo, and then gave us more flowers
and tikka. The amount of love and appreciation the villagers showed was
incredible and I can’t believe how much they cared for us when we only stayed
there for one week. I wish I had pictures to show all the flowers and everyone in the village but I haven't seen them posted yet. Check out my Facebook later if you'd like to see them.
Our group then made our way to the other group’s village in
hope of assisting with the building of a few bioreactors but it ended up we
were only able to help with one. This was hard work though because hand-mixing
the concrete that was very dry with shovels was difficult. It was nice finally
seeing the other group and to see their village though. We even got more tikka
there as they also left their village.
Last tikka of the day
The last week was quite busy because each group had to make
their final presentation. This is when we had to put everything we learned in
class to practice and it took much longer than we expected. Everyone had at
least two late nights but in the end, we were all able to make our 20 minute
presentations on Thursday. We then filled out our post-survey of the class and
I never would’ve expected I had so much to say. Overall the course was awesome
and I wanted to express it as much as I could.
When then left the school and had to quickly head to the
Israeli Ambassador’s house for our closing party. It was quite weird at first
because it felt so political and I wasn’t really comfortable with the situation
when I was thinking about the village we were living in just the week before.
But soon enough the talking and random people went away and we ended up dancing
to our own music and eating and drinking merrily. The night concluded with a
video our TA made of the course and it nearly made everyone cry, especially the
hilarious impressions of the staff and a few of the students at the end.
Saying goodbye to my new friends was difficult because I’m
not sure of the next time I’ll be able to see them but they sure won’t be
forgotten. I had no idea what to expect prior to this course and really only
chose to do it because it started the day after my India program ended so I
thought, “if I’m in this area of the world already, I guess I should go.” But
this was maybe one of the best accidental decisions I made in my life. After
this experience I feel confident in the career path I want to go into and that’s
to continue in community development work like this. It makes me a bit nervous
that the path is less clear because I love to have things planned out clearly
but I know that this work will at least be meaningful to me. Most of all, I feel
weird about how I did nothing to be born into an easy lifestyle while so many
other people were born into more difficult circumstances. The majority of the
world’s population is in poverty and I would like to help these people to at
least be able to access the basics such as water and electricity. Not only this
but I also want to make an effort to teach the communities to develop in a sustainable
way and teach that the Westerner’s very wasteful and consuming way is not the
only way.
So this concludes the blog to my summer adventures, now I
need to start prepping for my last year at MSU. Thanks for reading, I hope you
enjoyed.
