Some "Facts" about Nepali Culture

1. Men hold hands here. Walking down the streets, openly, interlocking fingers, in half-embraces. They aren't gay, it's just acceptable for them to do it here. But apparently they are homophobic as well. Sometimes I wish American men wouldn't be so reserved and would just show affection like that towards one another. Who cares, ya know?

2. Everyone here rides motorbikes. If there is a person riding behind the driver, they NEVER have a helmet on. I found out recently it is a Nepali law that the "pillow" (backseat) rider CAN'T wear helmets. This is because, in the past, there were lots of drive-by shootings where the person on the back would shoot people as they drove by, and when they were wearing a helmet, the police were not able to identify them. Well, shit.

3. Another crazy law here, that was only changed 4 years ago or so, was when a woman was widowed by her husband, she was considered to not be able to live without him, and was killed. Just like that. Good incentive to keep your husband healthy and kicking. But, like I said, that's changed now.

4. Leisure is not something many Nepalis seem to understand, at least not like we do in America. Everything they do is just practical. I asked this nurse that I work with what she did for fun when she wasn't working and she looked confused. Maybe it was the language barrier, but then I offered the word cook, and she smiled and said, "yes, yes, just cook." Women don't seem to play sports here very often, and I am trying to figure out what it is they do, besides cook, in their free time.

5. White people are like celebrities here. Especially out in Banepa, where there aren't as many tourists. When we go on walks through the back streets, there are kids playing all around their houses, in the gardens and the fields. They always yell at us from down the street, "Hi!" or "Hello!" When they get a response from us, they immediately giggle, and then try it again and again. The kids follow us and smile and adults break from their work and smile and say "Namaste" with their hands in the prayer position. I honestly don't think I've ever felt so popular in my life. It's going to be hard coming home and walking down the street and have people ignore you and bump into you like you don't even exist.

6. Nepalis strike about a lot of things. Right now, there is a huge strike going on. There is this political group called the Maoists who used to be in power, but apparently aren't really anymore. A constitution has been worked on for the past two years, and is supposed to be signed the month of May. The Maoists are wreaking all sorts of havoc now as this is going on. Yesterday, we were riding into Bhaktapur from Banepa for work, and we got stopped by a road block. An officer came on board and was searching the bus, for weapons we assumed. Later, we found out that grenades had been found on local buses coming into Kathmandu. We are going to leave the city this morning to go back to Banepa where we should be safer, but for now, we are staying away from large crowds. Luckily, Westerners are NOT at all the target. In fact, they don't want to hurt us because we bring money into their economy with tourism and they really don't want to piss off our governments by killing their citizens. We are just hoping a civil war doesn't break out and we all have to leave before our placements are over.

7. Men can't cut women's hair and women can't cut men's hair. The only day that men really touch women in public, at least that us volunteers have seen, is on the New Year, which just happened 15 days ago or so (Nepal has an entirely different calendar than us, in fact, it is currently the year 2067 here, I believe. You can imagine my surprise when I passed a school that said "Established 2058.").

8. When a Nepali is agreeing with you or saying "OK," they do what we call the Nepali "wobble head" where they bob their head back and forth like one of those wobble or bobble-head dolls that we have. We have kind of found ourselves doing it after a while.

9. Nepalis are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. But have you ever been invited over for tea and potatoes? Just boiled potatoes, peel the skin, dip it in some chile and you've got a replacement for biscuits with your Nepali tea.

Namaste from Nepal

Namaste. And welcome to Nepal.

I have been given the great privledge of traveling to this beautiful, culturally diverse and wonderful country to offer my limited services in medical clinics in the Kathmandu area. For those of you curious about this foreign country and culture, I'll do my best to pass on my tiny but growing knowledge of this absolutely amazing country. My journey started in Kathmandu on a dark and exhausting night...

After almost 48 hours of traveling and no sleep, I touched down in the Kathmandu airport. A representative from Projects Abroad (the organization I am traveling and volunteering through) greeted me at the gate and took me through a maze of windy, bumpy brick streets and dropped me at my motel at 12:30am. My first impression of Nepal was not a good one, the streets looked tiny, broken, dark and trashy.

Luckily, the next morning, the streets exploded with color and energy and life. Colorful posters and signs dangled from rooftops and colorful clothes and purses and trinkets spilled into the narrow streets from their nighttime barracades. People and motorbikes and cars fought for space on the roads. Heaps of trash were piled everywhere. Mangy dogs scratched their furless ears. This place was incredible.

After a few days in an area of Kathmandu called Thamel (generally considered the "tourist" area) myself and a couple other new volunteers headed out in vans to our placements in the country. I found myself at a very tiny and run down hospital called Dr. Iwomura Memorial Hospital. This is located in a town called Bhaktapur. Here, I would start offering my services in these dirty halls, filled with flies and sick Nepalis.

The hospital is exactly what one would expect in a third world country. The beds are hardly clean, the windows are open to keep it cool but the flies get in as a tradeoff and land on the lifeless hands and faces of shriveled women curled in balls and heavyset men sinking into their beds who are too sick or in too much pain to notice. The nurses wear flip flops and no gloves. Everything that can be is used and reused and reused again. And everyone is speaking Nepali around me.

Luckily, I can escape to my homestay. It is a 35 minute, sometimes more, bus ride away to a town called Banepa. When the buses are full and crowded, we are allowed to sit on the top, on tiny metal racks that is not intended to carry people at all and you have to hold onto to keep from falling off. The bus flies around windy mountain roads and since there are no "lanes" on Nepali roads, we are constantly staring at a bus of equal size and equal speed clamboring head on at us before narrowly swerving back to the left side. Exciting, and exhillerating, especially as you look around you and see the beautiful green of the hillsides and people working in crops and the color and life of the country-side. I fall in love with the country again every time I take this bus ride.

My homestay, like I said, is in Banepa. Here I stay with a kind man named Lok who owns a rice factory. He hosts 9 or so other volunteers, and we are each given a large room with bed and a lock of our own. We all return from work, shower (since this is the only time the shower water might be warm, it is solar heated on the roof. ANY, and I mean ANY, other time, it will be cold) and then sit down, normally by candlelight (since there are rolling blackouts and we have no power for most hours of the day) to eat and talk the rest of the night. We have a wonderful rooftop that we hang out on together if we have freetime. It is perfect for tanning and reading during the day and drinking at night...none of which we really have much time for anyway.

Our days start at 5:30 for morning walks in the hills or yoga and normally ends at about 9 at night. It is the Nepali way to rise and set with the sun, as they don't have power and its a dark world when the sun goes down. It is a good and simple life we live, but entirely fulfilling, for the timebeing, at least. The other volunteers are from all over the world: Switzerland, Holland, Ireland, Israel, England, Wales, Canada and one other American besides myself. They are all around my age, and very interesting, laid back, intelligent and fun people. I guess that Nepal in general attracts these kinds of travelers (not trying to categorize myself in there).