Namaskad, Namaskad

Hello everyone! You would think with all the free time I have I would be able to blog more…my apologies. My excuses are limited so I will make you for them in this awesome post!

This past week has been…better! I started to “volunteer” with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which is one of the 4 organizations that work with the Bhutanese refugees in Damak. At LWF I have been going through their “monthly reports” and “bi-annual reports” with the goal being to find what has been THE most successful thing that LWF has done in their past 25 years. It has been difficult to choose just one thing that they have done well…so I have limited it to 4 categories…which each has 3 specific things each. LWF supplies clean water and water sanitation classes to the refugees as well as provides shelter maintenance and camp management tools like fire safety etc. ALSO LWF does a great job hosting and supporting various social groups within the camps such as “Bhutanese Refugee Women’s Forum” and “Income Generating Activities” (like mushroom farming Steph you would LOVE this and bee keeping). So as you can see, I have found it difficult to choose just one thing. So I didn’t. To my credit, when I was assigned this project they were specific to say that “we are interested to know what a Westerner has to think” so there you go LWF, I cannot choose just one great thing you have done but 12+.

Bee Keeping, which both the Bhutanese and the host community (Nepalis) participate in as an Income Generating Activity (IGA)

Mushroom growing!!!!!

Over 70,000 mushrooms will be harvested from the ones in this hut

The honey that was made by the refugees and host community. It was SO sweet that the bees wanted a taste of it too! Sharing is caring!

Every morning I naturally wake up between 5:50am and 6:15am where I proceed to get up and go for a run. (I swear the entire Damak community starts working and cooking at 5:30 am—I am not sure how they do it). Like I mentioned in my last post I have been really enjoying running along the tea fields but recently I have discovered Beldangi road, which leads to the refugee camps and have found myself favoring this route. It is a nice run because you can see the foothills of the Himalayan mountains and I also see many passerbyers on bikes heading from the refugee camps to Damak town. This morning I was on my run and had two girls on one bike coasting next to me. We exchanged smiles, and unlike other bikers they continued to ride along side me. I sped up my pace to see if they would want to race me. They did. We continued to race from telephone pole to telephone pole until the pavement turned into dirt and we had reached the camps.  Another thing that is interesting about my morning routine is that I have become a source of entertainment for the local women on my road. As I finish up my run I like to conclude by doing “leg exercises” which basically mean a series of lunges. It has become a thing that each morning I have a crowd of (mostly) women lining the street to my apartment watching me complete my exercises. I can’t help but wonder what they are thinking…they laugh and laugh, I’m sure they think I am doing something super abnormal. I have come to embrace the attention because admittedly at first I have a bit overwhelmed with it all. It is the funniest when one of the women will see me coming down the road and she yells into her house “Auntie, Auntie” (which means woman in Nepali) and all of her friends and family will come running out of their houses to watch me. I am hoping to get them to join in by the end of the week!

The shops once you reach Beldangi I Camp

Beauuuutiful flowers along the road

Yesterday (Easter Sunday), I went to an Easter Brunch hosted by an American family who work for UNHCR. It was a great time filled with a traditional Easter egg hunt for the children (both International and Nepali) and a delicious feast. It is hard to come by simple ingredients that we value so much in the USA so I really found myself enjoying some Quinoa and the leafy green salad! (Those are on my list of “first things to eat” when I get back to the USA). I had a fun time and it was really great to celebrate a holiday with Nepalis who are not accustomed to our tradition. (They still don’t understand the significance of the egg hunt…and to be honest, I do not either).

The highlight of my week culminated on Saturday when I biked to the refugee camps to get some interviews. Because I still do not have access into the camps I am really struggling to get any sort of substantial research to write this paper. So I took it upon myself to get as close to the camps as I could. I woke up early and biked my way to the first Beldangi I camp. To give you a picture: about 6k outside of Damak town, if you drive straight down Beldangi road, you will reach the first of three refugee camps. Along the side of the road, near to the camps, you will find little stores selling anything from bike tires, to juices, to clothing, to fruits and I even saw a “Facebook store” (In Nepal, they LOVE Facebook). From my research I gained that the stores are mostly owned by Nepali families but are frequented by Bhutanese who leave the camps to buy things (like bike tires, juices and even Facebook?). I got off my bike once I reached the area of the camp in order to make myself less intimidating. And I think it worked! Walking my bike down the road I was chirped by a boy who said “Hello, where are you going?! I turned around and smiled and said “just walking”. I knew he must be confident with his English (or at least some what) to chirp at me so I walked over and we struck up a conversation. This boy was a 14-year-old Nepali and his name was Praswal. He was hanging out with his grandmother and grandfather who owned the shop that we were sitting at. We got talking and he explained a lot about the positive relationship that the Nepalis have with the Bhutanese refugees. “I have many Bhutanese friends. They are just like me and we play futbol together. They live in the camps and I live out here but we are still friends”. This was a great start to my time. I continued along the way and met many more people similar to Praswal and even more Bhutanese that were outside of the camps. It was really great to get out and explore and get some of my lingering questions answered. Although I did not get into the camps there are no rules about me conducting research outside of the camps!

Khada B. Shrestha (60+ years old) crushing up banana tree for live-stock feed

Ros Maya Shrestha (50+ years old) the Shop keeper of this store 

Praswal Shrestha and his grandmother, Ros Maya Shrestha 

Bhumi, Ujjwal Moktan, and his daughter

The whole family (Bhumi, Kala, Mona Lisa and Ujjwal Moktan)

The photo shoot was never ending

This was a Bhutanese and Nepali mixed family. Uggwal Moktan (Bhutanese) married his wife (Nepali) and now they live in this Nepali house outside the camps

Beautiful woman I met on my walk along Beldangi road. She force fed me her last piece of roasted maize and we tried to have a conversation--her only speaking Nepali and me only speaking English

And then the whole family came

This family was having me take photo after photo of this little child making this same face hahah

Two boys wanting to be photographed (side note: Angry birds is THE biggest thing in rural Nepal)

This little boy was playing in the ally way with a bamboo stick--completely enjoying his life! Simplicity.

As much as I wanted not to take this photo I couldn't resist. Look at the lower left hand corner...that is the skin of the "buff" cow. 

Then I was swarmed by Nepali and Bhutanese children. So fun! 

This game was being played everywhere around the camps. It is the same thing as pool just without sticks and you use your fingers to push the chips instead. 

This is Beepan Bacoas. He REALLY wanted to talk to me and get his photograph taken. He is an 18 year old Bhutanese refugee and hopes to be resettled to the USA soon.

 I am entering my final week in Damak. On Saturday I will fly back to Kathmandu where I will meet up with some friends from my program and we will go to Pokhara (a beautiful lake just outside of Kathmandu with a great view of the Himalayas). I hope I get a chance to enter inside the camps but if not than my experience outside was really valuable! I’ll keep you posted!

Cockroaches, dead Cobra snakes and हप्प्य न्यु एअर

Currently I am sitting on the porch of an apartment I am “house sitting” in the only shaded spot on a 98 degree day. Where am I, you ask? I am in Damak, Nepal. Where is Damak? Even better question. Damak is in the South East corner of Nepal (near to the border of Sikkim, India. Why am I here? Well, my indented purpose of coming here was to study the Bhutanese refugee population that has been living in 3 refugee camps for the past 22 years (since they were “ethnically cleansed” from Bhutan in 1992). However, my intention has not really come to much fruition quite yet. In order to get into the refugee camps you need to have a “camp permit” issued by the United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Nepal Government and currently my proposal is somewhere in limbo. Perhaps in the trash can of the Nepal Government…or buried underneath the other hundreds of proposals waiting to be reviewed. Either way, being granted access into the camps does not look promising in the next 2 weeks that I am here. However, instead of getting me down I have been finding other ways of getting the research I need to write a 25-page paper at the end of this semester (PS—yes, its single spaced…!).

Damak is a very small town. There are 3 grocery stores, a great vegetable market, a handful of skilled tailors, shop keepers and 5 organizations that have to do with Bhutanese Refugees. Within my first week here I had visited all of the organization and received a lot of confused looks, questionable responses and a lot of rejection. Because I do not have the permit into the camps I am not only not allowed into the camps I am also not allowed to get some of the information having to do with the refugees. Basically this limits my research down to…well basically nothing. So my mission this week is to be persistent, revisit some of the organizations and bike along the camp road where I hope to have success in striking up a conversation with some of the refugees outside of the camp. Wish me luck!

In order to keep my self sane and occupied this past week here are a few of the things that I have done:

I go to the vegetable market! There is a large veggie market just a few minute bike ride down the road from where I am staying. In Damak a working refrigerator is difficult to come by and with a combination of load shedding (a shortage of power in Nepal) and the incredible amount of heat, I buy my veggies on a daily basis so they do not spoil from day to day.  At the market I have begun to frequent this very friendly man, Raj, who has a decent selection ranging from lots of unknown leafy greens, to different types of peas and newly in, beats! However, whenever I want to get broccoli I have to go to the only vendor who sells broccoli, which is this very unhappy, and not pleasant woman who could not be less content with me. But regardless of crabby woman, I enjoy the market because it is always busy and there are lots of colors!

Potato man doing his thing! 

Raj's veggie stand 

The Vegetable Market 

Today I am going to make Vegetable Chili and got all of these veggies for 60 rupees or $.60

Each morning I go for a run. The roads are super dusty and because Damak used to be a trading town between Nepal and India there is a good amount of traffic that comes throughout the day…starting as early as 8:00am. In order to avoid this traffic I have begun to start my run around 6:15 am every morning. I enjoy running around Damak because on the outskirts of the town there are really beautiful tea fields, which makes for a great backdrop. However, just this morning I had a rather unpleasant run. I was on my way out to the tea fields when I saw a black blob on the ground in the distance. As I got closer I noticed that it was a dead cobra snake with its guts splattered everywhere. I forgot to mention that snakes are a really big danger in the South of Nepal. I no longer have to be worried about dogs giving me rabies (I have seen a total of 4 dogs in Damak—one is domesticated and lives in my apartment) I now have to worry about getting bitten from a snake and consequently dying. (Don’t worry, dad only the largest number of people die in Damak due to snakes…I’ll be fine?!) Here there are Cobra (the ones that you see snake charmers charming in the movies) and Crate snakes. Both are very poisonous (so I have been told). I am not going to lie and tell you I am not NOT afraid for my life every time I leave the house…but I am not NOT THAAAT afraid for my life. I just keep my eyes peeled and hope that the snakes are more afraid of me that I am of them…right? I don't have any pictures of the snake (nor do I intend on getting any pictures of snakes here in general) sorry! 

My walk to the market

People are so resourceful and use their bikes for just about anything! 

This bus stop was in the middle of the road...not the side...the middle

This is 3 grown adults on a motorcycle...the record I have seen is 5 people (2 adults and 3 children)

I have always loved cooking, but with my abundance of free time I have really taken to stove top cooking (as an oven is not a thing I have come by at all in my travels throughout South Asia). I enjoy cooking chilli, lentil and cashew veggie burgers and last night I even made momos! The first day I moved into the apartment I was about to cook some beans when I reached into the cupboard to grab a pot and was greeted by a HUGE cockroach. (I think all cockroaches are the same size, but to me they are HUGE…and extremely intimidating and not attractive). I freaked out for a good 3 seconds, stood in shock and slammed the cupboard door closed. Once out of my shock, I opened it one more time and the little bugger (pun intended) was still there. I walked around the kitchen in circles for 5 seconds then rand downstairs to grab the friendly security guard. I frantically ran up to him and said “do you know how to get rid of a cockroach” he smiled and looked at me…he for sure didn’t know what I was saying. I repeated with hand motions “cockroach!!!!” he smiled and said something in Nepali then got the landlords sons, nephew who does speak English. The three of us went up to my apartment to try and solve the mystery. After they saw what I was talking about the chuckled, said some things in Nepali then proceeded to empty out all the pots and pans and the landlords sons nephew grabbed the scary looking thing by its antenna and threw him off the balcony. Mission accomplished. It is safe to say, yes, I do still think there could very well be plenty more cockroaches living in the cupboards…but I try not to think about it.

Momo prep! I had no rolling pin so I just flattened the dough into patties...kind of like playdough! 

My makeshift steamer! 

YUMMY!

Super successful

Scrambled egg stir-fry with naan

Other than being extremely hot (I mean like sweating a lot…I take a cool down shower after my run in the morning, a cool down shower at lunch and a shower before bed too) I am doing fine. The apartment I am staying at has a great rooftop that I can do a lot of reading on and one of the organizations, International Organization of Migration (IOM), let me borrow a bike of theirs so I have been doing a lot of exploring of the town area. I hope to find more success in the coming weeks but am also just proud of what I have accomplished thus far. Learning how to readjust both my plans and my attitude and also learning to live on my own have been things I am really working on through my independent research. I still have a few more weeks in Damak and am ready to see where they will take me.

PS it is Nepali New Year today… हप्प्य न्यु एअर!!

Wish it was the real Pink Berry in America...not the same (and really not what the pictures look like)

Cow grazing in the trash littered field

Wednesdays is "market day" and I saw this shirt that read "New York and Massachubatts"

The landlords sons nephew and the security guard helping me with my cockroach situation

Goat outside my apartment!

My apartment--I live on the second floor and have a balcony in the front and the back! 

Damak, Nepal here I go!!

Hello all!

So tomorrow (Sunday April 6^th) I leave my month long independent study (ISP). Similar to my Kenya experience where I went to Tanzania and worked with Seeway Trust (see previous blog posts) students from my program are doing some pretty cool things!

Here is a list of a few of the things students are doing:

Emily—trekking through lower Dolpo (google it…its beautiful!) and trying to understand how “compassion” is felt in medicine

Lulu—going to Rajasthan India and photographing doors and looking at the structure of doors in India

Mark—going to Bhutan and researching organic farming at the College of Natural Resources

Drew—going to Bhutan and researching Traditional and Allopathic medical ways through “integrated medicine” at the National Institute for Medicine in Bhutan.

Ben—Studying Remay philosophy of Buddhism in Dharamsala, India.

Joshua—studying Sherpa youth in Kathmandu

And as for me…I am going to Damak, Nepal (in the South East corner of Nepal…towards the Sikkim, India side). The objective of my study is to research the Lhotshampa population with a prime focus in the UNHCR Bhutanese refugee camps. I am hoping to be granted access into the camps…but am not sure how successful that will be! The Lhotshampas are the 100,000 Bhutanese citizens that got evicted from their homes in the 1990s. Currently 1/3 of them remain in the refugee camp in Damak, Nepal while the other 2/3’s have been resettled to third party countries (like the United States) see my St. Lawrence “Weave Blog”.

Although I do not know much about my trip…besides that I am getting to Damak on April, 6^th and leaving on the 1^st of  May…I will have limited internet access so may be able to update everyone. Please send emails!

Have a great month filled with happiness and great spring filled thoughts!

SEE YOU IN A MONTH!!

Wish me luck!!!