Home to my appliances... aahhhh....

We are safely back from our trip to Nepal. We hiked down from Nangi to Beni last Monday. It took us about six hours, and our legs were sore for days afterwards. I loved the hike, though, because it winds through many small villages and gave us a lot of chances to see what other villages were like. We definitely got a lot of stares, though - I’m not sure if they have ever seen red-headed and blond kids before... After we got to Beni, we drove three hours to Pokhara. Since the monsoon season has started, the road was pretty bad in some places. For the first 10 km outside of Beni, the road is not paved, so it is really bumpy and rutted, and the rain only makes that worse. The rest of the road is “paved”. Originally, the road was two lanes wide, but over time, the outer edge of the road on both sides has eroded away, and now the pavement is only about 1 ¼ lanes wide. So every time a vehicle comes from the other direction, we had to slow down and pull over so that one set of tires was riding on the dirt on the side of the road. There were also a few places where there were steep drop-offs on one side of the road, but it wasn’t too bad (definitely not anything like the drive in the mountains of northern India where I was certain that we would all die).


After two weeks in Nangi, the first thing we all wanted when we got to Pokhara (after a shower) were cold drinks and pizza. We found a great pizza restaurant (the boys thought that it was their second or third favorite pizza place in the world after Pepperoni’s here in Singapore and Paese Mio in Allentown) that had a big screen to project the world cup games. So every night while we were in Pokhara, we ate pizza and watched the world cup. We spent two more days in Pokhara just putzing around the town and relaxing, and Bruce was able to meet back up with us there. It is definitely one of our favorite places – good food, nice people, beautiful views, interesting shops, small amount of traffic and noise.

Then we flew to Kathmandu and spent two and a half days there. It is much bigger, dirtier, and more unruly than Pokhara. We visited some interesting temples while we were there. There were a couple of Buddhist temples – the ones in Kathmandu have the “eyes” painted on them. The kids thought the eyes were creepy. We also went to a Hindu temple where they do the cremations. If someone dies during the night, they must be cremated before sunrise, and if they die during the day, they must be cremated before sunset. The bodies are cremated on concrete piers beside a river. We were only allowed on the far side of the river, but we could see some of what was going on. Thamel, the tourist district, was crazy – no sidewalks and cars, motorcycles, bikes all rushing by. It was a little nerve-wracking with the kids. The hotel that we stayed in was beautiful – a nice oasis in the craziness.

As we think back on our time in Nangi, many other things come to mind that we want to write about. I will never again take dishwashers, refrigerators, or washing machines for granted! I really missed cold drinks!!! We had to boil all of our water, so that seemed like a never-ending job and it seemed like we were always having to drink warmish water because it never cooled all the way before we were thirsty. By the time I cooked breakfast for all of us and then got all of the dishes washed, it seemed like it was already time for lunch. It made me realize how much of their time is spent doing things that are necessary for living – it doesn’t leave much time for relaxation. Washing clothes was not that big of a deal, but it also took a long time. The villagers all wash their clothes under a spigot – some have spigots right outside their house and others have to go to a more common area. The students who live at the school all use a spigot in a common outdoor area. I couldn’t figure out a way to wash clothes without getting my legs soaking wet from the thighs down. It wasn’t so bad in the summer, but I can’t imagine how cold it must be to do laundry outside in the winter. The air temperature would be cold, and the water comes from a spring up in the mountains, so the water must be nearly freezing, too. Also, their bathrooms are outside their houses – must be cold in the winter.

It was interesting talking to the students and learning more about their lives. They live so much differently than teenagers in Singapore or the US. Some of the students in the high school are from the village, but many of them are from villages that are farther away, so those students live at the school. Two students live in huts that are about 8 ft by about 12 ft. The huts have beds and a cooking area (basically a woodburning stove-type-thing that they cook over). They have to cook their own food, wash their own dishes outside their hut, wash their own clothes, etc. When I asked them what they do during their summer vacation, they all answered that they help harvest potatoes, plant millet, pick corn, take care of their cows and goats, cut grass for the cows, and help their families take care of younger family members. For them, the work that they do at home gathering food is necessary so that they have something to eat during the winter. There is not easy access to food from anywhere except their own gardens, so they depend on that food to live. It’s hard for me to picture any 9th grader that I know being able to take care of themselves like this or helping this much at home. Despite how demanding their lives are, the kids always seem to be laughing and smiling.

Their houses are made out of wood, stone, and mud. Some of the more wealthy people in the village use bricks instead of stones. Basically, though, wood is used as a frame and the stones are stacked with mud used as mortar between them. Then the stones are covered in a layer of mud. One teacher told me that every week or so when their kitchen walls become covered with soot from the cooking fires, his wife puts a new layer of mud on the walls. She must go out and dig up some mud and then spread it around on the walls. Most roofs are made of overlapping slates, but some are metal. Some houses just have a sleeping room and then space for storage and animals. Some have the cooking area attached, and others have the cooking area separate from the house.

One of the women in the village who has some medical experience and works in the clinic told me about how the women all have their babies at home. She comes to their home to help and to be the midwife. She said that she is trained to know when the pregnancy is high risk, and then she sends the woman down to Beni to have the baby with better medical care. Now there is a “road” between Beni and Nangi. It is unpaved, it takes three hours for the jeep to drive it, and it is a little scary (some big drop-offs on the sides). I can’t imagine being driven down that road at the end of a high-risk pregnancy. Before the road, though, they had to walk or be carried down the mountain. If there are complications during birth, there is not much that can be done.

I am almost done sorting and fixing up my pictures. I am leaving tomorrow to take Jessica to Australia for her volunteer work with the marine biologist grad student. I am going to stay there for a few days to make sure that she is situated and has everything that she needs, and then I’ll come back to Singapore. I am hoping to finish all of the pictures and then post some and upload the rest to Flickr so that anyone who is interested can see them. I’m sure that I will also think of other interesting things about life in the village to write.