my sister’s experience in nepal. proud of you, em.
as most of you know, i got back to the states on march 16. ive wanted to do a bit of a summary post, but had no idea where to start. i spent exactly two months in nepal, rather than the 10 weeks i had planned on plus the 2 weeks in thailand. there were many factors playing into my decision to come home early, but the biggest factor was the four earthquakes that shook nepal the day after japan’s 9.0. clearly, if i had stayed, i would have been fine. i have friends who are still there and are still having a blast. but i had a strange gut instinct like i’ve never had before that told me it was time to come home, and i know that i made the right decision for me and my mental health.
the eight weeks in nepal were an absolute roller coaster. if you follow my blog, you’ve seen a lot of the amazing things i got to do while i was there, and read about some of the connections i made with the people and with my nepali family. my baa is literally one of the best people i have ever met. he breaks the mold of the nepali man: he helps his wife cook, he respects women, he is able to joke and laugh with me and look me in the eye. he is absolutely poor, but still found a way to buy me fabric that he knew i liked, and then proceeded to buy enough fabric for me to take home for my mom and my two sisters. the only thing he ever requested of me was on the behalf of a little girl in the village- he had never heard of contact lenses before i showed him mine, and he wanted me to give a pair to a little girl who had bad vision. it broke my heart to explain to him prescriptions and the fact that one pair of contact lenses would only last her a couple of months.
my time at the school was both enlightening and frustrating. i started out teaching english, but due to unforeseen problems, i switched to ‘teaching’ the nursery class. it was a blessing in disguise: it was hard for me to sit back and scrap my lesson plans and ideas for the older kids and feel like all i could do was ‘play’ with the younger kids, but after a week or so i realized that it was a great opportunity to get them while their minds were super flexible and make a difference in their learning style. i made some memory games, flash cards, and other materials to introduce new learning techniques to the nursery teacher and the kids.
after our time in the village, we started the annapurna base camp trek. this trek was something i had been looking forward to for months. its the hardest hiking i’ve ever done, and i think the highest elevations i’ve ever hiked to, even though we didn’t make it to the base camp. the earthquakes happened when we were two days out from civilization, and we decided to turn back before we got into the avalanche zone. i’ve never ‘given up’ on something i wanted so badly before. honestly, it was a harder decision for me to turn back and give up on my goal than it would have been for me to keep going. the trek was still beautiful, and we had amazing views as we got right up next to annapurna and machapuchre.
weirdly enough, i was supposed to be in thailand from march 23-april 9. the first few days of my trip were to be spent in chiang mai. on march 24, a 6.8 earthquake struck about 70 miles north of chiang mai. luckily the earthquake was very deep, so it caused minimal damage and casualties, but the residents of the area reported it being the worst earthquake they’ve felt. the world is a strange place.
but here i am again, brushing my teeth with water straight from the tap rather than boiling it, and enjoying real toilets, and especially- toilet paper! its weird to be back, but its good. i’ve spoken with baa a few times since i got home, and the family is doing well. they miss us, and we miss them. i still find myself wanting to speak nepali, and i am amazed every night at the comfort of a real bed and, right now, heating systems! i know i will go back to nepal one day, and i know i will go to thailand soon enough. i learned so much about myself, education, eastern culture, poverty, and happiness in simplicity.
