February 23rd, 2011
I’ve waited too long to post and now many quirky and mundane stories have past by without documentation! Each day gets harder and harder for me to write because what was once new and unknown has become my everyday life. That’s not to say that everyday doesn’t present me with something new or strange-I’m fairly confident that even if I choose to spend the rest of my life here then I'll simply be old and wrinkled and thinking “why are they doing that? What is that used for? What’s that smell?!”
A quick update: I’m still living in KTM, taking a university course in Nepali language, working at a new organization, volunteering for ICDR when time allows, and adventuring whenever possible. My initial plan before coming to Nepal was to stay for 9 months and then go to Cambodia to teach English but, I’ve decided to stay in Nepal for the rest of 2011 and then reassess from there where next to take my life.
Sometime amongst the holidays and somewhat tedious hours at the government office I decided I just wasn’t getting enough out of my current position with ICDR. Yes, the title is nice- “Regional Director” but without a team to work with and government workers always dodging our meetings I was left feeling like I could be doing more for myself and others in a different position. So fate perfectly timed an email from a representative of an organization I had emailed a few months back about volunteering. The email stated that an assistantship had opened up in the Nepal office and my experiences were well suited for the position and I was urged to apply. I threw my hat in the ring and was interviewed for a technical assistant position at a development organization based in the UK with a branch office in Nepal. I was either the only applicant or I wowed them because the job was offered to me a few days later! I am the Technical Assistant for Fundraising and Partnerships at Restless Development on a 6 month contract. (Thank you Katy Neas for your reference letter!) It’s a for-youth; entirely youth-led organization that strives towards domestic youth led development. So far so great, except the ludicrously excessive use of acronyms that my dyslexic tendencies have great slippery difficult with. I’m very happy with the professional environment (all meetings are met, hoorah!) and I’m beefing up my skill set and contacts for future use. Another difference is the nature of the work, ICDR is near and dear to my heart but the cause, Dalit Welfare, is far removed from my reality and I feel more qualified to contribute to youth-led development…naturally J
Right, so as for the perks: I get a stipend towards an apartment which I’m about to share with a fellow American who’s in Nepal for 6 months doing research. I also get to eat all the Dhal Bhat I want at the office.
I’m still working with ICDR in my free moments, in particular the Alternative Break that’s coming in June from American University. In January I took a field visit to rural Nepal to assess old ICDR projects and create a need assessment report for this upcoming trip to base future projects on. This trip was hard. I haven’t spent too much time outside of KTM these past few months and the places I have managed to visit are well known to me All those statistics about Nepal being one of the poorest countries in Asia with unimaginable living and health conditions had been pushed to the side of my mind but they became bleakly obvious on this trip. This isn’t to say I’ve been living or visiting clean, well off neighborhoods. Many of my friends in Badare are poor (in fact all of them are if you compare them to American standards). Take my friend Pampha for example. She lives in a one-room home that she shares with her two sisters and two nieces. The home contains two beds and one shelf that holds cooking supplies and cardboard boxes hold their clothing. In the corner they’ve built a mud fireplace to cook from. Outside is a Nepali style outhouse. They collect water from a community tap and take showers in a stream nearby. But by comparison Pampha looks upper middle class compared the villagers I met with. It’s just so mindboggling how different our lives our. One of the project’s ICDR had supported was a livelihood project for girls from a largely Dalit community. These girls are married when they’re babies but live with their maternal family until 18 when they move into their husband’s house. They don’t receive education or training for anything beyond house life. The project was a tailoring training scheme to allow them to earn a small income for themselves before and after marriage. You guys are probably bored to death of me saying this but damn I’m just so frequently blown away with how lucky I am. America has its educational problems but at least there was never any question of me being able or allowed to go to school. Not to mention that at 23 I am still happily unmarried to the man of my choice.
