the Beginning of the End

One of my favourite kid in Oncology left for home today.

I felt a strange sense of sadness when he told me he was leaving.
After surgery rounds today I decided to drop by Oncology to see my friend Manish before heading home. He's one of the few kids who I've been consistently spending time with over the past several weeks. His favourite game was Memory. We play the gam with these flashcards that another volunteer made for teaching English, and they have become quite a hit with the kids on Oncology. With many of the Oncology patients how it works is that they come in for a few weeks for their treatment and then they can go home for about a month before having to return for more treatment. So unfortunately Manish will be back again, but not before I leave.

With this being my last week, having to say goodbye to one of my favourite kids at Kanti really makes it feel like things are coming to an end. I feel like I'm rushing against time. I can't believe 6 weeks is almost over and in less than a week I'll be home. A part of me knows it's time to leave, but it sucks because I've finally become familiar with this place. In a strange way I have established some roots here. I know already that I'm going to miss this place terribly!

Scandalous!

I saw this banner on my way back from Kanti the other day. Rather presumptuous calling Hiliary the "Future President".

What makes this more interesting is the second banner further down the street which sends well-wishes to "His Excellency, President George W. Bush". (to be posted soon)

hmmm...

Lukewarm Showers

Yes! My first “hot” shower in weeks. The hot water at the house is solar powered, so no sun, no hot water. Today the sun finally came out for a little bit to play, and I came home – well, more like I rushed home – just in time for some quality lukewarm water. Bliss!

New week. New unit.

I’m heading into week 4 of my time in Nepal, and today I started in the Immunization/Family Planning Clinic. I’ve been looking forward to starting immunization out of personal interest and to prepare for a health/immunization clinic that a few other Health & Medical volunteers and I will get to run for an orphanage that another group is here to help re-build – definitely more details about that later!

Immunization and Family Planning alternate days, so today was Family Planning day. I was expecting to see more counseling with Family Planning, but it’s really a day for women to come to have their Depo-Provera shots or pick up oral contraceptive pills. To my amazement, the service is almost entirely government paid. The OC is free of charge and the Depo shots costs 10 NPR per shot – that’s less than 20 cents per shots! When I told the nursing students there how much these same items cost in Canada they were pretty awestruck as well.

Another interesting fact about the OC’s that the women get here. Instead of 7 placebo/sugar pills, their placebo pills are composed of ferrous fumarate to supplement iron loss during menstruation. I’m not sure if the reason for this is related to the prevalence of anemia here, but it’s an excellent practice. Also to note, the pills come from a Canadian pharmaceutical company!

Dirty Sandals

The rain makes the roads muddy, and since the rain has become much more consistent over the past week, the brief periods between rainfalls are hardly long enough for the roads to dry. The purpose of all of this rant, my permanently dirty feet and sandals! My Teva’s are an exceptional mud magnet, somehow after a day of walking I will have amassed a nice chunk of mud in my sandals around where my arch sits. It’s simply ridiculous. And no matter what amount of washing I do to them, as soon as they dry they look muddy again. So I give up!

Sandals, you win.

Being Nepali

In the last 48 hours I have been mistaken Nepali THREE TIMES! No jokes!

Incidence #1:
At our meeting with the SAV (Social Action Volunteers), the director asked if I was Nepali, or was of Nepali origin.

Incidence #2:
On my way home from Kanti, a woman stopped me to ask where Kanti was. In my broken Nepali I replied: sidhha (straight), bhaai (left).
(So no, she may not have thought I was Nepali, but I did perhaps look local…. Wishful thinking?!?!…)

Incidence #3:
My Patan Durbar Square guide thought I was Nepali and one of this friends at the Thangka shop we visited also was not convinced that I didn’t have Nepali blood in me.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

After struggling through our first week in the medical ward we were hoping to be placed either in oncology, physiotherapy, or immunization; but to our dismay Bishop decided we should be off to Burn Unit. Initially I was a little anxious about returning to the Burn Unit. My first visit to this ward was during our hospital tour. When I entered the patient rooms, what I saw were what seemed like an endless number of children bandaged from head to toe, wailing in pain. As I stood there, it was the first time I’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the sight of illness. Knowing what to expect, I braced myself for my return to the Burn Unit and I was okay.

Unlike the week before Bishop did not place us with a physician to go on rounds with. Instead we were introduced to the Sister (head nurse) and told that we could help/watch with dressing changes, play with the kids and maybe help provide food for the parents (I’m still not quite sure what he meant by the latter task because it seems like meals are provided for the parent and child). Despite being given a more succinct set of things that we could help with, it was still difficult to get started. The Sister and other nurses seemed unsure what we were there for. We were welcomed to watch the dressing changes, but this only took up at most an hour of the day. After dressing changes were finished I asked the Sister if there were other things that they needed help with, and all she responded with was whether we watched the dressings and to come back tomorrow and watch it again. Since watching dressing changes appear to be the only thing we could “help” with, we began searching for other ways that we could help; and what we came up with was toy washing. Unique to the Burn Ward there is actually a playroom with an eclectic collection of building blocks, puzzle pieces, bikes, and bowling pins. Like how most kids play with toys they usually end up in their mouths, on the floor, and then in the next kid’s mouth. So we decided that we would come back the next day with Dettoll and scrubbing brushes and give these toys a good washing! There is a big tub in the dressing change room so this was where we set up camp. The respect that we gained from the nurses as we did this was immediate. I could see their eyes lit up as they realized that we weren’t just another two foreign students here to observe, we wanted to help. There were about two tubs full of toys that needed washing so we saved half for the next day. Toy washing really doesn’t sound like much, but it was amazing how through such a simple act we were able to break the barrier between us and the staff. In the days to come they were actually happy to see us arrive and sometimes would ask if we would be back the next day. After the first week of constantly feeling so estranged from everything and everyone, I was finally beginning to look forward to going to placement each day!

Week one: Medical Ward

Our first week at Kanti was spent in the Medical wards. Days in the Medical Wards went something like this: arrive around 9:30am for the daily hospital meetings where the docs reported the number of admissions, and occasionally deaths, from the night before. This takes up about 20 minutes. Then we leave the Conference Room and head for the Paying ward. The Medical Department is split into Paying vs. Nonpaying patients. Paying patients afford their own medication and a small fee for their bed, whereas nonpaying patients are completely government-funded.

I was warned that my experience at Kanti would be very much observational; however, I was also told that doctors spoke English and rounds are conducted in English. As we began doing rounds on the Medical Unit we quickly realized that this would not be the case. Rounds are done with 1 staff physician, medical officers (somewhat similar to our residents), lots of Nepali medical students, and a few badeshis (foreigners) – totaling anywhere from 10-15 people depending on the day. Since the contingent of people is mainly Nepali, rounds end up being conducted in Nepali – so for most of the day we’re both mute and dumb. Every once in a while, either by our questioning or their own volition, someone may explain what’s happening to us. But we mainly try to figure things out by peeking at the charts – which is in English – or piecing things together by the English medical terms we pick up.

During our second day in the Medical Unit, we befriended two of the Nepali medical students (Udip and Amit) who enlightened us to the fact that we’re not missing much. Apparently most of the Nepali that we’re hearing is students chatting amongst themselves. The staff physician does very little – if at all – teaching, so the Nepali students are as bored as we are. On the one hand it’s great to know that we’re not missing much, but on the other it’s even more discouraging knowing that doing rounds is really just a means to pass time.

From what I’ve been able to gather, most of the cases that we’ve come across are gastrointestinal related. Lots of gastroenteritis cases caused by a variety of bacteria and parasites. There are also lots of cases of tuberculosis, with the strangest case being TB isolated in the abdomen. This young boy presented with massive stomach distention, which was complicated by malnutrition. We watched the docs drain some of the fluids from this abdomen for lab analysis, and it was one of the crudest operations I’ve seen performed. I had an interesting conversation with Amit at one point about the skill level of Nepal-trained physicians. Many medical students here aim to leave Nepal for the United States – “the land of opportunities” – so they must write the USMLE to apply for residency spots. For most students the theory aspect of the USMLE is a breeze, but the stumbling block in this process is the practical examination. As Amit admits, because of the lack of equipment available the clinical skills training are limited – and this really showed as I watched these doctors fumble their way to drain some of the fluid from this young boy.

I still have no idea how I can contribute to Kanti. We’ve noticed that there really isn’t any sinks around for the patients OR staff to wash hands. Handwashing may be a great project to undertake, but if there aren’t even useable sinks in the hospital, how practical would such a project be?

Chitwan

July 21-23
For my first free weekend in Nepal I decided to head down to Chitwan National Park for the weekend. Chitwan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the south-eastern region of Nepal, and its main attraction is the one of a kind jungle safari it offers. With promises of elephant rides, rhinos, water buffalo, and maybe even tigers, I was pretty excited about my first weekend away.

It’s about a 6 hour bus ride from Kathmandu, so me and two other volunteers woke up bright and early Saturday morning and hopped on a tourist bus to Chitwan. (There were originally four of us going, but the night before we left one of the guys had the most bizarre accident: he was chatting one second then suddenly his eyes rolled back and he fainted, fell backwards, and hit his head against the shoe rack. My roommate and I were woken up at about 3am, ran down the stairs and found him just coming to consciousness on the floor. We’re still not quite sure what happened, but thankfully the cut wasn’t exceptionally huge so we were able to stop the bleeding and get him to the clinic to have it stitched back together. And that’s how we went from 4 to 3. :()

When we arrived at our final stop just outside of the National Park, we were greeted by a contingent of hotel personnel, some who were advertising and some who were trying to find their customers. Our in-country coordinator, Neer (who’s also a tour marketing manager, I believe that’s his other job title), had booked our trip for us – he books most of the trips for the volunteer here – so my instructions from him was that once we arrive they’ll know who we are and if not just tell whoever is there that Neer send you – sounds simple enough. But this was spoiled by the fact that our hotel guide was looking for 3 girls + 1 boy and there were only 3 of us. To confuse matters more another hotel guide was looking for 4 people, one of whom he found, making the 3 of us the perfect addition. So off we went with the latter guide, got to the hotel just in time for the guide to realize that we were at the wrong hotel. Eventually we get to our actual hotel, settle in, and meet our guide for the weekend, Kumar.

Ah, Kumar, what a bright and optimistic individual! After lunch we had our weekend briefing where Kumar filled us in on all the fun and wonderful things to come. Chitwan, being a fairly popular tourist destination, has a pretty standard weekend itinerary consisting of culture show, canoeing/jungle walks, elephant washing, elephant ride/safari, and jeep safari. Kumar had mentioned all of these things, but pretty much followed each activity description with the reminder that we’re in the middle of monsoon and how awful and un-accomplishable all of these activities will be. I’m not sure what his purpose was in telling us all of that, we realize it’s not the best weather, but we’re here so he could have at least tried to make the most of it for us. Since he was such a downer about the whole weekend, we ended up not doing the elephant washing – a highlight of the weekend – or the jeep safari. For the jeep safari he had told us that the jeep had been put away for the season and it would cost extra to go. For the elephant washing he was skeptical about it happening since if the water is muddy the elephant would unlikely go in it. The next day we actually did check for the elephant washing after our canoe/jungle walk but found no elephant in the river, so we headed back to the hotel and had a 3 hour break. The ironic part is that during the latter half of our break I took a walk down to the river and saw some elephants bathing! I also met a friendlier guide while I was there who took me towards where the washing was happening, but sadly the elephants were on their way out of the water by the time I got close enough.

After our break, we headed for our elephant ride/safari. We had probably one of the best elephant ride guides for this. He is the cutest little men. First he was really upset at the tour group that were on the safari with us because a) they were making a LOT of noise inside the jungle and b) when they saw an animal they would cheer and talk even louder, scaring the animals away! But when we did see animals he would get us close enough to get the best shot and would ask repetitively “Good pictcha? good pictcha?” before moving on. He even gave his seal of approval on several of mine! The weather being what it was – rainy and muddy – we only saw 3 rhinos, 2 deer, and a couple of peacocks (I was disappointed that there were no tigers), but from the sound of it the 3 rhinos were a pretty good sighting.



The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, reading, and just enjoying being away from the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu. The owner of the hotel was very hospitable. After our elephant ride I had gone up to the restaurant to grab a bottle of water, and coincidentally the owner was entertaining some of his friends who were also hotel managers of various hotels/resorts in Chitwan. He invited me to join them, so out of courtesy I joined them. I have to admit it was a tad awkward, me surrounded by a bunch of Nepali men smoking, drinking, and speaking in Nepali. Most of them could speak English, but some only a little. The owner was busy running back and forth grabbing more beer for his friends and cooking up a delicious mutton snack (These were from goats that they raised right behind the hotel. On my first night there I actually did see him bring a freshly slaughtered goat to the kitchen in preparation for our dinner. I was surprisingly undisturbed by it, and it was indeed one of the finest mutton meat I’ve had! Dheri mitho chha!) Sporadically I chatted with the guy sitting next to me who ran/owns one of the 7 resorts inside the park – the government passed a rule recently that no more hotels could open inside the park. Part of our conversation was a fairly in depth discussion about how Canadians are the only travelers who display their flags so proudly on all their gear – and yes, that would include the daypack I was carrying with me at the time! (The consensus I got from him was that we should keep it up ) I ended up staying until dinner was served, so I had a lovely traditional Nepali dinner consisting of diro(sp?), which is kind of like cornmeal, and more mutton curry. After which I excused myself and joined my friends for my actual dinner, which was a fairly unappetizing looking hodge-podge of chow-mein, rice, and veggies. We rounded off our evening chatting with the only other hotel guests, three French guys who were here volunteering at a nearby school, teaching French.

Despite the fact that we didn’t get to do all of the activities that tourists usually got to do, we still had a lovely weekend away. I was fighting off a cold before heading to Chitwan and it only got worse as the weekend went on, so the slow pace of the weekend was about all that my tired body could handle. I’m still trying to fight off this cold, and almost like some rite of passage, I’ve also caught the infamous Kathmandu cough. I’ve been offered this green cough syrup made of tulsi herbs. I’m not actually sure if it’ll work, but this incessant coughing is making me sound a lot sicker than I actually am!

Thinner and thinner

I've been doing some reading on malnutrition and here's some of the facts that I came across.
According to the WHO:
- protein-energy malnutrition plays a major role in half of all under-five deaths each year in developing countries
- by the year 2015 the prevalence of malnutrition will have decreased to 17.6% globally
- overwhelming majority of these children, 112.8 million, will live in developing countries
- 70% of these children in Asia, particularly the southcentral region, which is 6.5 times the prevalence in the western hemisphere

For the past 2 days I've been hanging out in the medical wards of Kanti Children's Hospital doing rounds with about 20 other docs/medical students/interns. To my dismay rounds are not done in English - as I was told they would be - although all the physicians and students can speak English and charting is done in English (strange). So I try to pick up as much as I can by the random English terms they'll use in discussions, or by sneaking a peak at the patient charts whenever I can (there is no such thing as confidentiality in Nepal, the charts are laying out in the open on patient beds, along with their X-rays, pathology reports and drugs), and every so often the other students will show some kindness and point things out to me. The bulk of what I've come across are cases of gastroenteritis and respiratory diseased, but the common cause of many of these cases is malnutrition. There is even a specific "Severe Malnutrition Ward" for children under 5 who are literally skin and bones. At home, turn on the TV Sunday morning and you'll be inundated with countless images of starving children, but to see it face to face seems even more surreal than watching it behind a television window.

It took me some time to grapple with how detrimental malnutrition is. It seemed like a problem with such a simple solution: feed the kids and teach the mothers how to feed their children properly. I realize it's not as simple as that - or else malnutrition wouldn't be an issue. It's even more frustrating to realize that in North America our foremost pediatric problem is obesity, while children in Nepal are literally starving to death. Where is the justice in that? Malnutrition doesn't just end with muscle wasting and weakness, it catapults this vicious cycle where because these kids are malnourished they're immune systems become depressed making them more susceptible to infections of every kind, which could lead to gastroenteritis that further increases their metabolic needs and diminish their chances of improvement. Malnutrition is like this black hole that just grabs these kids deeper and deeper into sickness. The most devastating part about all of this is how preventable/treatable it all is. From the WHO report it's obvious that things are improving; but as I'm walking from bed to bed seeing these kids, all I feel is helplessness.

Kanti Children's Hospital

July
My volunteer placement in Kathmandu is at Kanti Children’s Hospital.
Kanti is a government-funded institiution, which is one of the major teaching hospitals in Nepal (the other being aptly called Teaching Hospital, which is located in the building next door). I’m not sure what I really expected Kanti to be like. Having never been in a developing country I tried to stir away from forming too many preconceptions of my new working environment - and of those that did form I had very low expectations of what was to come. As such I was relatively pleasantly surprised by the conditions at Kanti. Yes, most part of the hospital smelled heavily of urine and excrements, the patient rooms were overcrowded, and equipments and instruments all looked ancient, but conditions were better than I had hoped!

Being a teaching hospital, Kanti sees its fair share of foreign medical students coming to complete an elective as part of their studies. Thus one of our – there are two of us doing a placement at Kanti - biggest struggle from the get-go was to differentiate ourselves as volunteers here to help and not medical students here to just pass a course. Unfortunately our coordinator at the hospital, Bishop, is the one who oversees foreign medical electives so a volunteer placement at Kanti can easily resemble a medical elective. For example during our first week in the Medical Ward we spend most of our morning doing rounds with the staff physicians along with Nepali and foreign medical students. Since we’re very limited in our Nepali skills, there isn’t much we can do but observe. We start at about 10am and rounds finish around noon. Most students take-off after that, but most volunteers in the past have taken the afternoon to spend time with the patients and work on projects that they’ve created. Thus the onus is really on us to be proactive to seek out areas where we can contribute and help. One of the wonderful things about working in the developing world is that there is a lot less bureaucratic red tape. To make changes in the hospital requires someone to take charge and see it through. There’s no need to go through ten different boards to get various approvals, or endless protocol to follow, someone just need to spearhead it. I’m not sure what my project will be, but it sounds like proper handwashing education may be an area to pursue.

Before taking on this placement I was repeatedly warned about the potential frustrations and limitations I would face. Kanti isn’t a place with defined areas of need; you really have to look for them. The staffs are glad to have people here to help, but they’re not too sure where we can help most of the time. At this point I’m really not sure what will happen over the next few weeks. On the one hand it really is too early to judge, but because my time here is so short I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency to figure out exactly where I can contribute.

O-week: Nepali style

**This entry took me a whole three days to finish. I started placement on Monday, and it's been a fairly big change from our first week here. The first two days have been rough and frustrating. No matter how much I had prepared myself for all of it, to actually face it draws up emotions that I could never have fully prepared myself for. So that's part of the reason why this has taken so long, I simply feel drained after placement to write. Since this has taken me so long, it's also gotten longer; a lot of it is probably boring since it's more so that I don't forgot things I've done. :) **


My first week in Nepal began with a week long of orientation activities, which included everything from Nepali lessons each morning to lots of sightseeing and cultural activities.

We - the 6 July-starting volunteers - began each day with a three hour session of Nepali language lessons taught by our super-energetic guru (teacher), Anjala. I can't say that I've even come close to mastering the language, but I've acquired a couple of key phrases including "how much does it cost", "too expensive", and "please stop!" - the first two are very handy for bartering and the last one helps me get off the local transportation. Now and again I can even pick up a few Nepali words from other people's conversations! When we first began our lessons I was more than ready to become fluent by the end of my 6 weeks here, but by mid-week my enthusiasm had waned. It's pretty easy to get around with English in most of Kathmandu, and where I can't get around with English, my sign language skills definitely outshines my broken Nepali - and I imagine the former will be my "language" of choice once my placement starts!

Outside of language lessons we've also visited some of the temples/stupas in the Kathmandu area. Our first visit was to Kathmandu Durbar Square, which literally means royal palace square. Surrounding the royal palace are various Hindu temples - most notably the kama sutra temple. At Durbar Square is also where one can visit the living goddess, Kumari - but only outside the hours of 12-4pm. The story behind the Kumari is that she is a young girl chosen through an extensive mystical selection process to become the human incarnation of the Hindu mother goddess, Durba. One of the crazier selection criterion is that she is placed within a dark temple with live animals being slaughtered, if she can withstand this environment without fear, she is capable to be the Kumari. She lives within the Kumari Chowk, which is a temple that she cannot leave other than during religious festivals, and holds the title until her first menstrual period. Our tour of Durbar Square ended around 4pm, so just in time to visit the Kumari. Her being a goddess and all, I was expecting perhaps a smile and a wave, or maybe even a blessing, but all we were greeted by was a very sour-faced 8 year old, who disappeared almost as quickly as she appeared. Disappointed as we were it was understandable since she was just 8 and probably very spoiled. There is apparently a human rights group speaking out against the Kumari being confined to the temple. Which I find ironic because there are so many street-children in Nepal without food or shelter, and yet this group is fighting for the freedom of a child who is likely very well taken care of in the confines of the temple...

Next we visited Swayambhu, aka monkey temple, which is located at the top of a hill that's directly accessible by climbing 365 steps (almost on a vertical incline at some points). Since there were so many steps to climb we woke up extra-early (5am) to make our way up before the heat and humidity kicked in. The unique thing about Swayambhu is that you can find both Buddhist stupas and Hindu temples at the top of the hill. From the top of the hill you can also get a lovely panoramic view of Kathmandu. Being monsoon season the fog tends to be heavier, clouding much of the scenery, but every once in awhile the sun will peak in to shine over patches of the city. Despite being dubbed the monkey temple, there actually very few monkeys around - I think I saw around 2! More could be found at Pashpatinah, a Hindu temple East of the city. Since only Hindus could enter Hindu temples we could only view the temple from afar. Before arriving at Pashpatinah I was told of cremations that occurred out in the open along the river, but I wasn't sure what to expect.... We found a spot along the river to view the cremations occurring across the river from us. Cremations happen throughout the day, each one taking about 4 hours. There is a bridge that divides the river, with one side for lower class cremations and the other for higher class/royal family cremations. The latter would b fancier, but there were none occurring that day. In contrast, on the lower class side there were line ups of family waiting to have loved one cremated. To a certain extent I was expecting a religious ceremony, but observing from afar it felt more like a ... marketplace (?). On top of the cremation there was a line of people (men) getting their head shaved as it is tradition for the males in the family to shave their head when someone dies. Then there is a religious reading done over the speaker-phone on what appeared to be a repetitive cycle. What really drove this marketplace feeling home was the Cornea Excision Centre right behind where the cremations were occurring. I completely understand how useful cornea transplants are, but to have that juxtaposed cremations just didn't feel right.

At Pashpatinah we also had the opportunity to chat with a yogi, Hindu monk. Once again my preconceptions were corrected. For some reason I didn't think we could talk to yogis - real ones that is, there are a whole lot of fake ones who are very willing to take pictures with you and tek-ka you for several hundred rupees! Here we also saw lots of monkeys - perhaps this should be dubbed the monkey temple - and pretty feisty ones as well. We had to be pretty quick with a photography skills; a couple of times the monkeys would hiss at us and the mothers would even come towards us to chase us away!

From Pashpatinah we headed to Budnath passing through windy roads and rice fields, very uncharacteristic of the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu. It was an absolute delight to walk through this area. (I'm working on picture posting, but the connection is just a tad slow :( ) Budnath is another Buddhist stupa, which is suppose to be one of the largest in the world. It is this massive circular structure, and if I had to choose I think this would be my favourite stupa thus far. Sitting on top of the stupa there is this mixed sense of isolation and peace as I stood above the business of the streets of Kathmandu.

The rest of the week was filled with a fairly eclectic range of activities. As mentioned in the previous entry I visited a Nepali jail - one thing I never though I'd do anywhere, let along Nepal! Friday, on a whim, we went to the movie theatre - a very nice theater at that - to catch a Bollywood flick called "Jhoom barbar Jhoom". As typical of Bollywood films it's a love story, with a modern music video flavour to it. The sheer cheesiness of these films make them hilarious to watch. I've definitely brought myself a copy of it (along with several other quality Bollywood films), so we'll definitely have to have Bollywood nights when I'm back!

The week was rounded off with sari night and Amazing Race.
Sari night was on Saturday where we got all dolled up in our saris (yes, I'm a proud owner of a lovely purple sari) and headed out for dinner at Nepali Chulo (kitchen) and dancing at Dhori.
Nepali Chulo is a pretty fancy Nepali restaurant where we were served traditional fare and treated to a cultural dance show in between courses. The dances were amazing. The dancers were dressed in different costumes for each dance and all were very colourful. In addition to the dancers, there was a peacock puppet that came out that greeted all the guest. Most of the guests gave him money, but we gave him a napkin - which he was equally happy to take in. The finale was performed by the infamous Yeti (Nepali equivalent of the Sasquatch) who did his own variety of choreography and scared a customer or two. Once the show was finished, we got up and did a bit of Nepali dancing ourselves with the dancers and live band. This had to be my favourite part of the week! Great food, great dancing, what more could you ask.
We rounded off the evening at the Dhori which is another bar/restaurant that had live Nepali folk music and dancing. Our time at the Dhori may have been better without the excessively drunken men on the dace floor, but it was an experience to hear Nepali music and see them dance - and by them I mean Nepali men! In Nepal men are much more affectionate with each other then in Western culture, thus it's completely normal for men to hold hands, hug, and, of course, dance with each other. At the Dhori it was solely Nepali men up on the dance floor while the Nepali women sat and watched. So a bunch of badeshi (foreigner) girls up there dancing caused lots of stares from the locals. On our way out, the women sitting even asked us to stay and dance some more!



Sunday, our last and final day of orientation, was capped off by a game of Amazing Race. Like the game show we had tasks we had to complete and navigate to different locations for the next clue. We were split into 3 teams of 2 and in pairs ran around Kathmandu taking pictures for the photo scavenger hunt (aka challenge 2), shopping for food in Nepali (challenge 3), and we even made our very own music video to Nepali folk music at one of the CD stores we came across. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it (it took about 4 hours), but in retrospect it was a fantastic idea to get us to navigate Kathmandu on our own and put some of the Nepali we've learned into practical use.

Needless to say it was a jam-packed week. I've seen a lot, done a lot, and experienced a bit of the culture. In the next few weekends I'm really looking forward to get out of the Kathmandu and see what the rest of Nepal is like. Everyone keeps telling me how fresh the air is, so I'm definitely looking forward to getting away from all the smog and pollution.

Jail time

I went to jail yesterday.

As part of our orientation they bring us to the Nepali jail to visit some of the foreigners imprisoned in Nepal for everything from murder, drugs, to visa overstays. I wasn't really sure what to expect at first. I've never been to a jail before, so I was far from sure as to what to the jail would look like or what to say to these foreigners.

The jail is located in Kathmandu, other than the police presence around the perimeters, there wasn't much that resembled prisons that we would find in Canada. Even the visitors entry is pretty low security. There's this check-in table outdoors and two small "cubicles" boarded up by blue tarp in front of it that acted as the security gate. A woman was in one and a man in the other. Despite the basic set-up, the frisking process was very thorough, there was definitely no way to sneak anything in - and I'll leave it at that. The next part was the most bizarre part of the whole experience. We proceeded to a small office where a listing of all of the foreign prisoners were posted on the wall, and we were told to pick one. It doesn't sound very strange, but standing there and reading the list of names not knowing who they are, just their names and crimes, it just felt wrong. The best way I could explain it was that it felt as if this was some contest and we were picking our prizes. After we had chosen our foreigner to talk to, me and another girl headed to the back to the woman's prison, where we visited Irina, a Russian woman in for murder.

The visits are about 20 minutes long, and unlike the movies there were no plexi glass or phones to speak into, it was a simple metal fence where the prisoners sat in a row on one side and the visitors on the other. It's rumored that Irina may have some type of mental health disorder, but it was hard to tell in the brief time we spent with her. According to her, after years of 'training' and studying she has attained spiritual enlightenment. Since she has attained this state, she sees it as her goal to travel the world to alleviate suffering by praying, meditation and taking it onto herself, and in return giving her good karma. When I re-tell the story I think I may make it sound more absurd, but coming from her it sounded genuine. It would be easy for me to simply say all of it was absurb, but I refrain from judgement as I'm not sure if I can soundly delineate the line between being mentally unsound and intense spirituality.

She tells us she has a website describing her case, but I have yet to find it.

Another interesting fact about Nepali prisons is the management. In North America we have wardens and various staff that take care of the prisons, here the prisons are run by the prisoners. They do the cooking and cleaning, and aside from the guard presence outside the perimeters, the management of the prison is prisoner controlled! How very unique and good use of resources. (Although I don't think that would ever work in North America.)

The little things

Typically once a day, usually around dinner time, we loose power for a few hours. It's expected, but still unpredictable. If you happen to be walking on the street when this happens you could hear a unanimous sigh coming from the stores and houses as the radio fizzle to a silence and the lights disappear. At the house, we light up all the candles and place them around the house. If it's around dinner time, we end up enjoying a lovely meal by candlelight - it's quite romantic really.

Then about three hours or so later, the power will magically re-appear to be welcomed by a cacophony of radios and children cheering down the street. When the power came back on last night I happened to be standing outside on the balcony and seeing how excited these kids were over electricity struck home how much we take things for granted everyday. To these children, electricity is a luxury, it's something worth celebrating. I know this isn't a groundbreaking thought by any means, but it is so ironic that it takes traveling thousands of miles away to realize how much we truly take for granted the luxuries
we enjoy everyday.
Perhaps the old adage is true, that you don't know what you're missing until you're missing it.

Bob Marley in Kathmandu

We went to a restaurant in Thamel last night for some live music. It was a Nepali band doing a variety of Western cover songs. Their repertoire included Marley, James Blunt, John Mayer, and even Hoobastank - that one-hit wonder from last summer. They were actually quite good, but it was just surreal to be sitting in the middle of Kathmandu listening to Western music!

I suppose the cliche is true, music does connect us all :p

I can't seem to figure out how to fix the date on my blog postings properly.... The entry before this was actually from yesterday, but I was short on time so posted it this morning.

My program officially starts tomorrow with a week long of Orientation. So today I'm taking it easy and simply enjoying doing absolutely nothing :)

Other than my trip out to Thamel, I spent the rest of yesterday reading and sleeping. I was unpleasantly woken up around 4am this morning by barking dogs. Since it was light out already, I decided to make the best of it and spent the morning up on the rooftop. To my surprise most people in the neighbourhood were up and about as well. By around 5am the small grocery store across the street was open for business and kids were on their way to school! Amazing! About this time the roosters joined the dogs, with some Nepali music singing in the back. The city was alive as ever by 5am!
(At breakfast I was informed that the barking this morning was more than usual, which was good to know, but I think I still will put my new ear plugs to good use and wear them tonight!)

g.

I arrived safely in Kathmandu early this morning shortly after 7:30am. The whole trip was uneventful. Surprisingly I manage to sleep through most of it, only to wake up to be fed about every 2 hours. In Halifax, I was able to check-in for all three legs of my flight to Nepal, and my luggage was checked in for Kathmandu as well. This made my two layovers pretty stress-free - didn't have to worry about reclaiming my luggage or running around trying to find the appropriate check-in kiosks. Especially at Heathrow, besides making it through securities and making it to my next boarding gate, there wouldn't have been time for much else.
I had heard so much good things about Qatar Airways that I was expecting quite an elaborate plane, but to my disappointment it didn't quite live up to the rumors - then again, I was flying economy... The flight from Doha to Kathmandu was a little strange. My original itinerary had stated that the flight departed at 12:45am (arriving in Kathmandu at 8:20am), but by the time I had arrived at the airport the flight had been bumped up to depart at 11:20pm. The strange part was that this is apparently quite normal for flights to be switched around without much notice. There was quite a bit of delay leaving Doha, so in the end we arrived "late" at 7:30am.
Getting a visa was pretty straightforward, and by the time I had gotten through my luggage was waiting for me at baggage claim (very thankful that it didn't get lost in transit!). Neer, our country coordinator, was waiting for me outside (thankfully he knew to check the flight times so came earlier). I was greeted with the Nepali version of a lei (made of these beautiful orange colour flowers) and some water (much needed) and cookies. Within less than half an hour i arrived at the house, my home for the next 6 weeks.

The taxi ride to the house was nothing less than chaotic. I felt like I was in some high speed car chase as our driver stealthily navigated his way through windy narrow rides, oncoming traffic, motorists, and, of course pedestrians. It was an adventure in itself!

The house is very nice. It's quite spacious. There's hot water, electricity, and even mineralized water for us to brush our teeth with and drink. There is a cook that makes all of our meals for us and two ladies that come in to help with the housework. Needless to say I'm very well taken care of here.
There are a bunch of volunteers here already, one big group from Queen's who will be leaving within the next 2 weeks and a handful of independent volunteers like myself who are here for another month or so. By Friday, all of the July-start volunteers will arrive and our Orientation will begin.

Since it was sunny out today i took the opportunity and walked around the tourist area of Kathmandu, aka Thamel. It's very busy, with lots of shops and restaurants catering to all tastes. Relatively speaking Thamel is much more expensive, but again this is relative. For example, a big plate of noodles in Thamel would cost around $3CAD vs outside of Thamel for $0.25! - so either way very affordable to eat out. (On a side note, my first meal in Nepal was bruschetta(?) and hummus dip - and here I was fully prepared to eat lentil curry (the local dish) for the next 6 weeks...)

I'm not quite sure what I think of Nepal yet (yes, it is only day 1). The culture shock isn't as great as I had anticipated. I'm glad I'm here with Volunteer Abroad (VA) rather than venturing on my own. It's great having the support around, they have made lots of contacts within the city which is comforting to know that someone is there to help if help is needed.

It does feel a little bit surreal that I'm actually here! So far I've only been to Thamel, and it's crazily busy, too many vendors, too much traffic - the incessant car honking is a little unnerving. But I'm told this is very non-representative of Nepal, so I'm looking forward to venturing away from Thamel in the weeks to come!

The rain started a short while ago so the temperature is feeling a bit cool. Exhaustion is starting to kick in, I'm not sure if it's the humidity or traveling (but i did sleep an awful lot throughout). I think my plan is just to lay low and hang out around the house until Orientation starts, after which hopefully I'll have more exciting things to share.

Love,
g.

Nepal