Rangichangi

I am humbled writing this entry. I do not know where to begin or how to possibly explain how much has happened in only two short weeks in Nepal. In many ways, I feel that here and now, I am at the culmination of my travels. I also feel that I am just beginning my journey and I am reminded every day how important it is to get up and take each day like it‘s your first. Climbing a mountain, I find many more mountains on the horizon.

There is no way to shorten this, or make it bite-sized, so here it is in it’s entirety.

My first three days in Nepal were a whirlwind of host families, Kathmandu sightseeing and arriving in Nirmal Pokhari, where I would be volunteering. My guide in Kathmandu, Kshitiz, took me around to all the temples and sites on his motorbike and I consider myself blessed by a higher being to still be alive and have all my limbs. I loved it. In Kathmandu, I stayed with Karuna, her daughter and two servants. The poverty slowly starts to creep into your awareness, and even well-off families like Karuna do not have running water and wait like everyone else for the electricity to come on. Karuna is 35 years-old, has been married for 22 years and has a daughter that is 15 and son that is 20. How very different my life would be if I were born in Nepal. I spent a memorable evening drinking beer by candlelight and eating curry on the carpet.

After only two days, I left Kathmandu for a crazy bus journey to Pokhara, the second largest town in Nepal, and onto Nirmal Pokhari and the small village of Miadan. This is where culture exploded all over me.

I was met in Pokhara by Amanda, another volunteer that has been here for four weeks. We took a 45-minute bus to Miadan and this has to be the bus journey to beat all third-world country bus journeys. (Perhaps I shouldn’t speak too soon, I still have two more weeks in Nepal). Climbing up a road that looks more like a hiking trail, we were covered with dust by the time we arrived and surrounded by loud, curious, locals in an explosion of colors and smells.

I arrived to find that I was not working in an orphanage, as I was told, but would instead be teaching English in a resource library run by volunteers and at the local secondary school. But all that had to wait, as Laxman (my host father) was just cutting up some goat, served for special occasions, and Sita (host mother) was serving daal bhaat (rice and lentils) before going to a party at a nearby neighbor‘s house.

There, the women danced and sang, while the men kept mostly to themselves. Amanda and I were encouraged to dance, but I couldn’t quite figure out how it was done. I resorted to my own dancing, and let me tell you - the running man was a hit and they are still talking about it in the village. I think making an ass of yourself really opens doors. This theory was proved right just a few days later when I was washing with some local women by the water tap and carried some water on my head for one of the ladies. They all started waving and calling to me, making dancing movements and laughing. Still, they call to me on the road and imitate my dancing.

I woke up the next day and started my first week of teaching English. After two weeks here, I am still unsure of how to walk away from this volunteer experience. I don’t really feel as if I really made a difference - it is not long enough and Nepal is a place that needs more fundamental help and aid at a deeper level. I feel overwhelmed with hopelessness at the secondary school. The teachers don’t seem to care and will even complain about the poor quality of education, oblivious to their role in it. There is no set schedule for the students; we teach English at random timeslots, teachers don’t show up and leave classrooms full of children just waiting. Some classes are a mix of rejects - students stay behind a year if they don’t pass, well beyond their age group. Some classes have 60 students, ages ranging from 10 to 15 years-old. The English books are wrong. Classes are chaos. Kids have never had discipline, other than getting smacked around the head.

How do you make a difference with just two weeks, a school system that isn’t even trying and no teaching skills?

The resource library is a little better. Volunteers teach English and play with the kids before and after school. It is entirely run by volunteers and has a long legacy in the village. This makes it even more sad and hopeless, as it is still very basic. The children want to be there and are starving for attention and positive reinforcement. I struggle with cheery childhood activities when I know exactly where these children will end up. Even more so, I struggle when they are so badly behaved and acting out. It is an emotional rollercoaster. Most of the children are unwashed and wear filthy clothes. Sometimes they cannot go to library or school because they have to work at home. The children are fun and exhausting and adorable.

You cannot tell me that teaching English in a broken system is going to help them. I am not giving them a future; maybe I’m helping bring some play to their lives. I do not know.

I do not believe that InfoNepal is doing it’s best to help people in Nepal, but with thousands of NGOs in Nepal, I think they are perhaps better than many others. I have yet to hear of a good organization in Nepal, where the money goes where it should. There must be one out there. There are also two Dutch volunteers living here with us, from an organization called Cross Borders, that teach at the primary school. They have had a positive experience in their three months here, and they give a lot of hope to this situation.

I am not disappointed in my experience volunteering, because I think that I would be looking in the wrong direction. I am more frustrated with myself for doing so little for others during my year of travels, and like a selfish American, I am only going to return home to my hot showers and….and what? The truth is, that you cannot make a difference in just two weeks. I think volunteering has to be a longer commitment, a lifetime commitment. I feel even more selfish because I am really enjoying Nepal and the amazing experiences that volunteering is allowing me. Staying in this village, living with Laxman and Sita, is an incredibly opportunity to see Nepal at the local level.

And the local level is poor. Laxman’s and Sita’s house is pretty typical (and maybe a little nicer than most): tin roofs, a hut for the bathroom, a hut for the toilet, no running water and random electricity. There is no shower and a bucket of water is your toilet paper. You can wash at the tap, where everyone gets their water and does their washing. They have a buffalo, chickens and a small plot of land. They have nothing, but, like many Nepalese, they give everything.

And the beauty of the Nepalese people is their humor. Even when the children are screaming “Miss, Miss!!” and misbehaving, even when the women are tired from working all day, they are smiling, laughing, joking. I find that beautiful.

I laugh a lot here. Mostly at ridiculous travel moments. Apparently, moles in Nepal are quite rare. On more than one occasion I have been asked, “What is wrong with your face?”

“Um, excuse me? Oh, my moles. Koti, Koti.” Yes, koti, moles.

Also, Samanta is a man’s name in Nepal. Hilarious. Meeting new people is just a ten minute laugh riot.

After a week, I took a short break from Nirmal Pokhari and went to Pokhara for a night. I had my first shower in eight days. It was my first shower in Nepal, my last being in Hong Kong. It was a short break, but I returned to Nirmal Pokhari recharged and ready for one more week.

In Nepali, rangichangi means colorful, but also crazy or drunk. That pretty much sums it up for me. I returned to the village to be hit by more cultural bombs and my last week flew by. I went to a traditional engagement party (and the wedding which took place four days later). I helped serve food, I had my hair and makeup done. I was dressed in a sari and again, entertained the locals with my dancing. I spent the next day throwing up with a rangichangi stomach, apparently a little too much culture for my belly.














Last night, after a full day of wedding celebrations, Laxman and Sita took us to a neighbor’s house for another drum and song evening. The night had become misty and with a full moon, you could just see flashes of singers faces in the candlelight. We all packed onto the porch, sitting on woven mats and leaning against one another. The Nepalese are very touchy people, and have no sense of privacy or personal space. My hand is often spontaneously held, or an arm around my shoulder, a hand on my knee. I thought about how much my back hurt, after two weeks of no chairs. I thought of my brother, Dylan, and how much he would love the music and the open-faced humor of everyone. I thought that maybe there is hope, that simply being here and opening yourself to the village can help everyone. I felt happy to be there, happy that a life like this still exists.

I return to Pokhara with a head full of laughing, rangichangi children and song.