Advice from a Nepali Turck Driver:

Just returned from our visit to Gorkha. We visited possible school placements and host families and even climbed to the old royal palace. More to come on that, but along the way I learned the three things you need to drive in Nepal:

11)      Good Brakes

22)      Good Horn

33)      Good Luck

7th of July: a taste of America

        I write you this as I sit in an internet café a few blocks from the flat which Ian, Nick, and I (the male portion of the Fulbright English Teachers) currently reside.  To say that writing this is a struggle would be an understatement. Not because I have experienced so much over this past week that it is difficult for me to determine where to even begin (although on any other day this would be the case), but rather because I am in a Mo Mo coma. These divine dumplings are a Nepali staple, but when Nick and I were challenged to eat the family size portion of fifty in one sitting, we naively took on the challenge for this lunch.  So please forgive me, the challenge is over, the Mo Mo are in our bellies and are paid for by our friend, but with the way my stomach is feeling I am not sure I would call us ‘winners’.

      After getting the run down with various offices of the US embassy and other NGOs this past week on how to stay healthy, what to do and what not to do to stay safe, along with a plethora of other information including how to get married or divorced here, we also were invited to the Embassy’s 4^th of July event at the US commissary (which is run by a Canadian…).  This event was held on Saturday July 7^th and was only for US citizens and their friends. It felt like I was in America. It was the first time that our group, outside of the Embassy, had been surrounded by native English speakers. As we were offered BBQ and Budweiser, it was easy to forget that we were in Nepal.  I think an event like this, which I associate more with family and friends rather than patriotism, would have been much more difficult to attend had I been away from all of you longer, but I am still in the tourist or honeymoon stage so the event was more bearable. 

      Living only with other Americans, and spending the majority of my time with other Americans has quelled, or at least subdued the major culture shock so far.  We are at the Fulbright Commission 5 days a week, 9 to 5 studying Nepali and receiving teacher training. But we are easing in, with every new Nepali lesson we acquire more vocab and confidence. A similar thing happened to me in Botswana when for the first 10 days we were staying in a hotel and receiving a crash course in the language; it wasn’t until I received my piece of paper which had my host families information that my heart started to pound and I really began to feel like I was getting out of my comfort zone. That experience would repeat itself in various manners throughout the rest of my stay in Botswana, but it only happened once I began to truly immerse myself in the culture.  I expect that to be the same for Nepal; it is easy to head back to our flat after a day of practicing Nepali and check out of Nepal for a while as I respond to emails, make my own food, or read a book, but living with a host family is going to provided me with an incredible opportunity to enhance my language skills and help immerse myself into the culture. I am totally excited for it.

     But until then, I am enjoying the tourist life. Checking out the sites and embracing my little knowledge of the area has been exhilarating. I have been exploring the different shops and restaurants, finding out the ‘true’ prices of goods and not just the tourist prices. I am becoming more and more acclimated with the city and can walk myself to most of the necessary places without a map. Finding shortcuts through alleyways is the next step though. It is disorienting (to say the least) to navigate through the tightly weaving alleyway systems which make up a good deal of the city, which provide no visual reference points, due to the height of the buildings, all while dodging motorcycles, little children, and stray dogs. Soon though, soon.

     After the American Club, we met up with a Nepali who went to school with Julie (a fellow ETA). He is back this summer in Nepal through the Anne Frank Project. When he went to college in the States it was not only his first time hearing about Anne Frank, but also the Holocaust.  Astonished to find this out only when he left the country, he began to come up with a way to teach Nepali about the atrocities which took place in Europe.  This is the second summer he going to Nepali schools to teach about the Holocaust through the story of Anne Frank. He is also in the process of petitioning the government to cover it in the world history textbooks. 

     He took us out to the countryside of the valley. After exiting the ring road which surrounds the majority of the city, rice patties become more and more prevalent, until they surround you on every side, with houses dotting the road or in far off fields. After trekking down a muddy path which wound through the paddies, we reached a trout farm where, with other Nepali, we caught our fish with nets and enjoyed the trout fried in a bamboo bungalow perched on top of hill overlooking the paddies as the monsoon season rain pounded down. After days of weaving through traffic, inhaling lots of dust, and coping with the ever present sounds of honking, this was a much needed breather.

     Tomorrow we head to Gorkha, outside of the valley to receive some in classroom experience and see one of our possible placements.

Our welcome to the American Club

Wouldn't be a real 4th without the King

Sorcha, Ayumi, and Rachel

Fishing

The first few days

Traffic in Nepal

                The  past few days have been a whirlwind. We, the Fulbright English Teachers (ETAs), have been pinballed around the city doing everything from getting safety talks at the embassy with our Regional Security Officer, creating a local bank account, buying clothes and toiletries which we were lacking, all while learning Nepali and taking ELL (English Language Learner) classes. But don’t worry though, although we have been busy with official work, we have found time to relax some and enjoy a variety of restaurants and sample the local brews. I even was able to meet up with my good friend Keiko from Pitzer who had just finished her study abroad and was trekking around the country with her parents. She introduced me to two Nepali beers, Everest and Gorkha. Speaking of Gorkha, starting Monday, we are headed there for a week.  It is where half of our teaching placements will be. It is a hill village/town outside of the Kathmandu Valley to the west. While there we will continue to take our ELL and Nepali classes as well as meet and interact with our potential students and fellow teachers. If we are not placed in Gorkha we will be placed south of Kathmandu, still in the valley, but in a rural region outside of the city.

                4^th of July was less festive than what people in the states experienced as many of our systems were coping with the new environment and food.  But thanks to the Dollar Store, I was able to wave my American Flag around a little and give a few good “USA!” chants.

Arrival

After some long days of travel, a few lost bag scares, and a lot of in flight mystery meat meals, I am in Kathmandu. Whenever you go to a foreign country, there is always a lot to take in, but one of the things, so far, that has struck me the most has been the driving. Before I left, someone described the situation as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and after having been driven around the city from the airport to the Fulbright Commission, to lunch, back to the Commission, and finally to the flat I will be living in for the next month, I think I agree. No one is going to let you enter the lane, or pass, you just have to take it. You drive as motorcyclists weave in and out with precarious loads of people and goods, all while bicycles and people try to assert themselves into the flow or cross the street. Before coming here I thought bicycling in Los Angeles was one of the most difficult places in the world. I had it soooo good there!

So much more to say and so much more for me to take in. Today I am having lunch with a friend who is just finishing up her study abroad in Nepal and Monday we start ESL training and Nepali class!

To note:

This blog is not an official Department of State blog, and the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State.


Also, I leave for my nearly 48 hours of travel on Wednesday morning flying San Francisco, New York, Brussels, New Delhi, then arriving to Kathmandu. I received a little advice from youtube that may be practical for traveling not just to Nepal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX4b18gl6b8

4 days to go

Just returned from Orientation in Austin. Met my program director, Robin, and the eight other Americans who I will be heading over with. Packing is in full swing now. Here is a time lapse of the starting process:

Here I Go Again

Source: www.mayhewinternational.org

            In roughly two weeks, I set off for my longest adventure yet. Previously, I have been fortunate enough to do home stays in Spain and Costa Rica; a year later, I received a study grant to live and study in Italy the summer before I went to Pitzer College. While at Pitzer, I lived in Beijing and Botswana (whose stories you can find in this blog). Now I am headed to Nepal on a Fulbright Scholarship. 

            Before receiving the packet that listed every country to which the Fulbright sent people, I thought I was dead set on Nepal.  I had chosen between it and Botswana junior year for study abroad and was only swayed by my cousin Francesca who had just returned from working in Sub-Saharan Africa. But when I opened the Fulbright booklet, I became like a kid in a candy shop, wanting everything! I stared at the lengthy list of countries and realized that it would be much quicker to create a list of countries that I wouldn’t want to go to rather than make a list of those I did. It was done before I even picked up a pen, none. I could come up with viable reasons for why I would want to go to every country. But, I began reading the provided bios and was quickly able to eliminate many countries. Countries like Mongolia where applicants needed to be prepared for “harsh weather and development issues” (read: stuck inside a poorly insolated house for a Siberian winter) were quickly ruled out. After peeling through the pages, it finally came down to a few things:

1)   I wanted to go to a country, and for that matter, a region I had yet to experience.

2)   I wanted to live with a host family. It is not only the best way to develop one’s language skills, but also the best way to integrate oneself into the host culture.

3)   I wanted to have a legitimate chance to get chosen. That meant I had to give myself some sort of competitive shot at going.  It meant not applying to places as an undergrad like Hong Kong, who only has two research grants and I would be competing against people who were doing their PhD dissertations. This also falls under that category that Nigel Boyle (who oversees the entire Fulbright process at Pitzer), said not to apply to - any place that plays cricket, because the odds are some of the worst by far. Places like the West Bank with only two slots for teaching were also left out due to the sheer number of applicants who applied.

With that criteria, some trips to the library (yes people my age know what books are), and talking with several of my friends who attended the Pitzer in Nepal program for study abroad, the decision was solidified. Then the fun process of applying and the torturous waiting game began. But I will get into that in further post.

As always, please feel free to ask any question or suggest topics that you want me to cover, or give me advice.

Vincent