I’m exhausted. The last few weeks have been wonderful, but
taxing physically and mentally. As a result, I’ve spent this weekend doing
nothing more than drinking coffee and having deep discussions with my friends
in cozy places. My literary brain isn’t fully operational, but due to requests
from family, here’s a somewhat tired update…
I’ve spent the last two weeks experiencing “real” Nepal,
getting a small taste of the rural areas outside Kathmandu. The contrast
between town and country in this place is unbelievable. I am once again sitting
in a coffee shop on a rainy day, drinking my caramel latte and listening to
music on my laptop, surrounded by white people doing pretty much the same
thing, all of us cozy in our expat bubble, pretending we are home, ignoring the
fact that we are not. This experience is the opposite of what I’ve been doing
for the last two weeks. So opposite that my “field trip” seems more like a
dream than reality.
For work, I spent fourteen days visiting more of our
research sites in the mountains, hills, and terai of Nepal. This time I was
more actively involved in the research and organized some group discussions
with local Nepali women. Having an active role made the experience much more
enjoyable than my first trip to the field, and although twice as long, the trip
went by twice as fast.
Two weeks ago, I set out for Arghakhanchi, a village in the
hills west of Nepal, crammed into a jeep with four colleagues and two drivers.
On our seven (or was it eight?) hour trip, we sped down winding mountain roads
with no guardrails, past huge trucks and buses, on the only main road that
leads in or out of the Kathmandu Valley. We arrived in the town of Arghakhanchi
in the evening, welcomed by the field staff and directed towards our luxurious
hillside hotel room. I’ve now grown used to Nepali hotels. The questionable stains
on sheets, ground-level toilet, bucket shower, and cohabitation with giant
spiders and various other bugs was easier to adjust to once I stopped expecting
an American-style hotel room wherever I go. While in Arghakhanchi, we hiked up
to the top of the “hills” (higher than most of the mountains I’ve seen in the
U.S.) to reach the research sites. Despite frequent leech checks, the hike was
beautiful and (at least in my mind) the exercise balanced out the mountains of
rice I inhaled every evening and gallons of sugar and whole milk with a splash
of tea that I drank every day. I also did an early morning hike on our last day
there to watch the sunrise over the hills.
Nestled in the clouds with panoramic views of terraced hillsides, it was
hard to leave Arghakhanchi.
Unfortunately, our stay in the hills had to end, and we
drove out of paradise down into hell. Or at least that’s what it felt like to
me. As we drove south on winding roads towards our next destination, Banke
district, I could feel the air getting hotter, the people getting meaner, and
myself getting more depressed. Because I had such a hard time during our first
visit to the terai in July, I was anxious about returning there and spending
more time in the hot, flat, and to me, more depressing region. But to the terai
we went. And after another long car ride (complete with a carsick driver) we
arrived in the glorious city of Nepalgunj, one of Nepal’s “second largest
cities.” Nepalgunj was hot, humid, and dusty. I spent the first day in misery,
counting down the minutes until we could move on to the mountains. The A/C in
our hotel room only worked when the power was on, which was not very often. I
felt uncomfortable walking down the street because people stared at me more
than in the hills, and the heat of the place seemed to make people less
friendly in general. This is all my speculation, and I am very biased against
the terai, but I have never felt so much hatred for a place and anxiety over
being there as much as I have with the terai. This trip has made me realize
more than anything that I am not a hot weather person. I sound like a spoiled
westerner making these complaints, and I realize that there are many people who
have it much worse than me, but when I am in a place that makes me feel so
horrible, it is hard not to complain. But I did manage to spend three days
there and after some rainfall and a successful meeting with local women for
work, I know that I can manage in such a place if I must. Still, I was elated
to board our tiny 20-seater plane and head off for our last, and best,
destination: Jumla.
Jumla is a mystical place in the mountains famed in Nepal
for its apples, cool weather, and fantastic views. Its climate was blessedly
cool after Nepalgunj, with crisp mornings and nights cool enough to warrant a
thick comforter and a long sleeved shirt. During the day, the sun shined bright
and hot, and I definitely felt like I was a few thousand feet closer to the sun
than in Kathmandu. We were so excited to eat organic apples not doused in
chemicals that word of our apple obsession spread quickly among the field staff,
and we were presented with a plate of them almost everywhere we went. The place
had an interesting feel, with generally friendly people, but a sinister vibe at
night. Alcoholism, especially among the men, is apparently a big problem there,
and Jumla at night was not so welcoming as Jumla in the day. I’m not sure how
much of this feeling was real though, and how much was invented in my mind
because I’d been warned not to walk alone at night due to the drunk men walking
around. Like so many places, I had my own preconceived idea of Jumla in my mind
and when I finally visited, I molded what I saw to my preconceived notions. Is
this good or bad? I don’t know, but a three-day stay in a place is not enough
time to truly understand it, so I am left with my own opinions. Luckily, they
are mostly positive.
When I got back to Kathmandu, someone asked me which place
was my favorite. Both Arghakhanchi and Jumla were lovely and it was hard to
leave both places. But, as often happens when I travel, I think I prefer the
place that felt most like home: Jumla. I do not come from a mountainous area in
the States, but I felt a sort of kinship with the people of Jumla because their
hardship is partly due to the climate of their home. Jumla, like Paradise, gets
heavy snowfall in the winter. I can empathize with a community that braces
itself for a hard winter and emerges in the spring feeling like a battle has
been fought and won. I can’t relate so well in Banke, where the weather war is
against extreme heat, which must be endured, but cannot be escaped or
conquered. Like I said, not a hot weather person.
So now I’m back in Kathmandu and quickly slipping back into
my yoga-obsessed, coffee-drinking self. Most of my work from here on out will
be in the office at a computer, and I will cherish my field visit and the
memories of the wonderful people I met there. I’m not so enamored of Kathmandu
after that trip, and plan to make more of an effort to get out of the city on
the weekends and try not to hang out exclusively with expats. In two weeks, I
will be going on a five-day trek in the mountains, and am excited for another
chance to explore this beautiful country.
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