Merry Christmas!

Hello! I'd had a demotivated period - just a touch of a cold - but I'm back in shape and having quite a nice Christmas all things considered. So let's see...Christmas eve I had dinner with a new friend of mine, Megan, who's a grad student / intern getting her degree in international conflict resolution. It just sounds so important. We went to a beautiful Nepali boutique hotel and they had a Christmas buffet with turkey and beef tenderloin, which I think is pretty crazy considering that it's literally against the law for a Hindu to kill a cow and this country is 80% Hindu. It should have been against the law for the beef tenderloin in peppercorn sauce to be that delicious! And there was a pasta bar and so what's not to like? The meal was very nice although certainly not like being at home and so for sure next year I'll be home.
I had asked my parents to mail me some gifts for my boss and the senior management team which is comprised of 6 people, most of whom have names that start with P. My boss KT surprised me with a lovely gift of a Nepali silver bracelet with a big piece of amber in it. Really pretty. And so I brought in a bunch of boxes of sweets for the office as well as the American gifts. We opened gifts over lunch which was, as always, ramen noodles and American gifts were a huge hit. In fact, it felt like something shifted with the team and they asked me if I could go have a drink after work. This is the first time they've ever asked me out and so it was a real compliment. So 6 of us went to the funky tourist part of town and had beers and appetizers:

They kept telling me that I'd always remember Christmas 2007 and that is for sure. My first Christmas at which I ate ramen noodles and fried paneer cheese (both tasty). My first Christmas at which I argued with Nepalis that the American eagle is a way cooler national bird than the turkey, which is what Ben Franklin had adamantly wanted. Surprisingly, Nepalis think that turkeys are better than eagles because eagles are wild and wild is not good. One guy even passionately expressed that dumb is better than wild and I just got to giggling at the entire conversation. One of the other guys jokingly mentioned that guy's wife and it dissolved into a laughing conversation in Nepali.

Tomorrow 3 of us leave for the mountains and I have lots of warm clothes compliments of the great Christmas box that Janice sent and lots of books to read by flashlight. Today at work someone casually mentioned that I'd need to carry a backpack since there isn't a road to the village that we will be visiting and so I scrambled and borrowed one in time. Say what?! I have to carry in all of those snacks?! What happened to Sherpas? So Happy New Year and I'll be back with you when I find the internet or when I get back to KTM on the 3rd. Lots of Love, C

The show

So I feel like I've been called up to the major leagues...the show. On December 26th I'm leaving for a week-long trip to the mountains - the real mountains - to start a new project awarded to us by the EU to open 5 clinics in Jumla. I'm going with two senior managers, (but, alas, no dr durga. sigh.), and everyone just seems so amused when talking about the trip. And then I found out why. Jumla is the "real" Nepal meaning it just got a road last year and it doesn't have any electricity. That's right...snow, no electricity, and we can all imagine the bathrooms. But on the other hand, I'm told that the hotel will have hot water during the day because of solar power. I will thank Al Gore when I rush back to the hotel at 2:PM to shower. And by hotel I mean...I actually don't know what I mean. So of course I haven't had my boxes of winter clothes shipped yet, finding a company that services the Detroit to Kathmandu route is proving to be tricky, and so this weekend I'm going to go rent a down winter coat. There are shops here just for trekkers who need coats, etc. It's all a new adventure. I think I'll buy the long underwear. OK, to bed. xoc
Hey, it occurred to me that dr durga lived in the same apartment complex in Ann Arbor, the U Towers, as JenRose. Classic.

The hills

So Friday morning we headed off into the hills. What go for hills here might actually qualify as mountains in the US and we drove for hours on twisty, single lane roads, no guard-rails, up and down mountains to get to the clinic that we were visiting. It was quite interesting when a car/truck/bus came the opposite way and everyone had to squeeze a little. As it turned out dr durga always happened to be on the steep drop-off side of the truck and he kept hitting the driver in the arm and telling him to slow down. In Nepali, but it wasn't hard for me to get the picture. Note that daikon radishes are in season and are for sale everywhere. It's quite nice and food purist-y to eat what's in season except, of course, when it's only daikon radishes. That's when a girl goes out in search of lovely Indian pineapples. I have changed my mind on eating meat here in that one knows EXACTLY what one is eating (chicken, lamb, goat) because it just walked by minutes before. I actually had the misfortune of walking out the side door of a cafe on this trip and saw a chicken being decapitated. It's better than getting meat of more mysterious origins in the US but then again there are many good arguments for a mostly vegetarian diet.

Not the best shot but my first really good view from the ground of THE mountains. They're really far away but are so big they're unreal.

They do terrace and farm every possible inch of land. Most of these terraces are 2 - 3 feet in depth. I hope that you're able to click on the photos and blow them up because the detail is pretty amazing.

Here's my main man dr durga (that's his first name). He was number two in the Ministry of Health before he retired and came to work for us. He told me lots of stories about working in the incredibly poor mountain regions as a young man and literally slipping into a back room to read medical books while treating patients. He'd see something that he'd never seen before, go read about it, and then try to treat it as best as possible. One guy needed bladder surgery ASAP and couldn't walk for several days to the hospital (bladder stones which I guess are much more prominent in countries with poor diets) and so dr durga had someone do an ether drip while he operated. Dr durga taught the guy how to do it in real time and they somehow managed not to kill the patient. The really amazing thing is that life in the mountainous regions hasn't changed much in the last 30 years. This is a lovely spot where we stopped for tea.

The woman who runs the place is just waiting for daikon radish season to end. I took this photo as evidence in case the coroner needed to know where I had my final tea and fried syrup doughnut. See if you can blow this photo up because it's a gem. Why a medical doctor with such sterling credentials thought it would be OK for me to be eating food that is sitting in the open "window" of a "cafe" on a "busy" "street" is beyond me, but then again it's also beyond me why I ate it. But knock on wood, all is well in my gastrointestinal world.

And so the rest of the trip entailed me sleeping in a hastily-purchased sleeping bag so as not to touch the bedding, admiring the authentic squat toilet in my hotel room, and in general enjoying all of the things that locals think an American wants to see. We took a very long, bumpy trip out to see the dam that the Indians built 45 years ago. I dutifully took many pictures. But the clinic was interesting and the people are truly lovely and I have volunteered for any and all road trips with dr durga. He loves telling people that we went to the same college and I, too, get such a charge out of it. I told him that Ann Arbor has changed in the last 38 years but everything he asked about like the Union and the University Towers apartments still remains. He did prefer to watch football on TV rather than go to the stadium and I have to agree. Goodnight! xoc

Road Trip

So Janice told me that she pictures dr durga and me cruisin the back roads of Nepal listening to 70s music. "slow ride, take it easy...." Not quite, we had a driver and I was spending a lot of time listening very, very closely to understand him, but I totally love durga and we had a good day visiting clinics. Go Blue! I have some pictures for later. It was so great to get out of KTM, as well. And tomorrow we're going to visit a clinic 3 hours away right near the foothills of the real mountains and may stay overnight. I was told to bring my own pillow and sleeping bag because the hotel in which we'll stay is primitive (meaning potential bugs) and cold, and so I rushed to the store after work and bought a bag. Please god don't let me get scabies again. That was just about the opposite of fun. So my "is this really happening?" experience of yesterday was I was given permission to observe a vasectomy and was trying so hard to be all professional and unobtrusive like this is something that I do every day. Bumpers, vasectomies, whatever. I'm sure a lot of people in Detroit would draw parallels between the industries in a most unflattering way. So the poor guy was stone silent and had a cloth over his eyes and was clearly pretending to be somewhere else. I was leaning right over him to watch when, from my bag, my cell phone started ringing! And not just any ring, it plays the Charge of the Light Brigade (you know, the trumpet song at the end of which you yell Charge!) at volume 11. I mean, really. That's just wrong. Now south asians are notorious for answering their phones no matter what, but I scrambled so fast to make it stop. At least it didn't spook the doctor; I can't really speak for the patient. I'll be sure to turn it off tomorrow. And I started Nepali language tutoring today. And bought a pressure cooker. I hope that everyone is getting their shopping done and has a chance to relax. Everyone here knows what Christmas is and kids angle to get presents, but definitely it's not the norm. Goodnight! xoc

Old

How do you know you're getting old? After having too much to drink at the neighbor's place on Saturday night you get back to your apartment and drunk dial your mom. And talk work for an hour. Sassy. So this week was feeling like a little bit of a downer, nothing specific but just whatever, and then things all of a sudden clicked into place. It always happens like that. Today I mailed Christmas gifts to my parents, maybe found a shipping company to ship the stuff that I have waiting in Bethany's garage, found a Nepali tutor to come to my apartment several times a week, and found a restaurant near my apartment that serves carry-out pizza. It's kind of a funny pizza with tons of veggie toppings on it, literally maybe 2 cups of diced veggies on a 10" pizza, but it was delicious. Lots 'o cilantro. And tomorrow I get to go on an adventure outside of KTM with the really old guy who went to U of M (he's a doctor) to visit clinics all day. Hooray! It'll probably be awkward because I have a hard time understanding him but I just sorta pretend to understand and smile a lot. He assuredly thinks that I'm an idiot. When I asked him this afternoon if he was going to leave me someplace or sell me he looked at me with the universal look that clearly means "you are not the sharpest tool in the shed, lady." Meanwhile I'm just worried about the Big Three: toilet, water, food. I must remember TP, water and snacks. So when I walked home past the burning piles of garbage (it gets dark early now and it's cold after the sun goes down...yet another good reason to burn the garbage) I felt a warm feeling towards my new city. Unlike yesterday when I tried to quickly walk past a cow and it swerved and touched me and I thought if I get gored and have to go home I'm going to be really mad. Goodnight! xoc

Thank you

Yes, I was inspired yesterday. Thank you for the props for the blog. My favorite feedback email remains my parents: "C-the phone message you left was not understandable. You need to talk slower. The last blog was the best todate (about the condom awards). Love Dad" I'm so proud of them for emailing and checking the blog and, yes, I do need to talk slower. I honestly never thought that my dad would one day praise my condom awards blog. So here I am at the end of the week..let's see...I guess it really is about patience here. I still haven't paid my rent after living here for 3 weeks, (waiting for the bank transfer information from the owner). 5 weeks ago they started to look into my work visa and no update yet. The condom awards started 4 hours late and I started to get anxious but then it occurred to me that I am in no way responsible for making things happen here. Another trait that I thankfully read about before coming here is that Nepalis are more than happy to sit for long periods of time without talking. It's not an embarrassed silence, just silence. Try getting used to that when you're a fast talker. And they're so direct: sometimes a few of us will be sitting around in silence and then someone will lob a slow-pitch my way "so how much does your apartment cost?" This, of course, being our favorite topic of conversation. Oh, and when we were sitting around not talking before the condom awards for a very, very long period of time I made a joke about needing a rice cooker should someone not be there to receive their award. One of the bosses, who I quite like, responded that maybe I could have a condom sales competition in my apartment (of which I had just once again refused to divulge the price). I couldn't help but ask who, exactly, he though would be buying condoms in my apartment and how he thought I could win such a competition. It totally gave me the giggles but then we all fell back into silence. So that's another aspect of life here. Goodnight! xoc

How did I get to this point?

I know that everyone has had this experience more than once in his or her life: when you stop for a moment, look around, and think "How in the hell did I get here?" What events in my life lead up to the point at which I am sitting on a couch on a stage in front of 150 people in a corrugated metal structure named "The Party Palace" in Kathmandu waiting to present the award of a rice cooker to the shop keeper who sold the most of our brand of condoms? I actually handed out both the second and first prizes because I'm the westerner and apparently make the victory that much sweeter. Fair enough (no pun intended). It was an amusing afternoon and I listened to hours of speeches in Nepali while mildly smiling and looking at the crowd. My expat friend told me (after the fact) that it's OK to bring papers to read at such events because it actually makes me look more important: "I can't wait ONE MORE MINUTE to review this grocery shopping list and, in fact, and going to pour over it for 1 1/2 hours to insure that I don't miss a single ingredient for my stir fry." And don't EVEN ask me what those people in the painted picture on the banner are doing; strangely, the actual artwork on the condom box is less lurid than the painted representation of it.





And believe me, all of these guys were also wondering how in the hell they got there.


The other amazing thing is that the older gentleman sitting to my right in the picture attended U of M in 1975 to get his Master's in Public Health. Seriously, what are the odds? He was telling me that Michigan blew his mind because before that he'd rarely seen a car. So here I am in KTM and my co-worker is a fellow Wolverine and my first friend is from Grand Rapids. If I thought that I was going to lead some sort of wild, secret life of intrigue then I was sadly mistaken...the world is way too small. But at least I'm hanging out at the Party Palace! And seriously, I love this stuff. This beats bumpers any day. xoxoc

Monkeys where they belong

So dinner with the General was totally interesting. Their house was lovely and had armed guards in front of the gate, inside the gate, and I'm sure in the house. KT was quite the hostess and the General was quite charming. He went to the Officer's College in the US for a year, participated in several South Pacific military meetings, (with 30 countries), and commanded Nepali troops in Kosovo in the middle of the heavy fighting. The famous Gurkha soldiers. I felt pretty lucky to meet a Chief of Staff and his perspective on how this is the century of China drove home the point. For the record, he was firm in his belief that US military commanders would never have recommended the Iraq invasion and believes that they were over-ruled by higher powers. I'm just saying...! Dinner was delicious with maybe a dozen different dishes including a spicy duck dish and and some tasty lentils that were originally yellow but turned black from cooking in an iron pot. There were some lightly steamed greens (hooray for plain vegetables) and several curries, as well. And what's so funny is that in the midst of all of the elegance, crystal, wine and servants we had Pringles as part of the appetizer selection. Pringles rule the world. Then Sunday I went on an adventure with the Argentinean woman that I had met at the Indian Embassy a month ago. We went to a famous Hindu temple named the Pashupat Temple and it was complete with monkeys, ancient buildings, and cremations along-side the river. There were different pyres for the different castes and children in the river dredging for the coins that had been in the mouths of the dead, (after the cremation everything gets pushed into the sacred river). It seemed rude to take pictures of funerals but here are a few of the temple area. Monkeys are consider sacred (connected to Rama) and are protected at temples, and that's where they belong...not at English gardens in the middle of cities when one is innocently reading a book!

I have to admit that I felt compelled to take a shower upon returning home after having spent time surrounded by all of that smoke. On the one hand it seems like a healthier approach to death for the family to personally administer the final rites and watch the body disappear, but on the other hand it's not so healthy to breathe it in! Shockingly, Isabel and I did manage to rally from these life and death issues and split a pizza before calling it an evening. One must keep up one's strength in these troubled times. Good night. xoc

The view

Looking to the right from my balcony (temple and temple gardens):
And looking to the left from my balcony (buses, tires, and trash in a field):

That totally sums up KTM. Here's something ironic: most of the produce here is "organic" because no one can really afford chemicals, anyway. But I have no idea what is in the soil and so what does that really mean? So it's off to dinner tonight at KT's (Nepal boss) house. Am so interested in meeting her husband who was the head of the army throughout a lot of the fighting with the Maoists (13,000 people died). The political situation here is slowly heating up again because one of the main Maoist demands, and a major component of the peace agreement, was truly representative elections and finally the king and Parliament conceded. But just before the elections two weeks ago the Maoists figured out that people don't like them (when they're not pointing a gun at them, anyway) and they'd lose miserably and so they threw up lots of impossible new demands and called off the elections until the new demands are met. Total stalling tactic. But now everything is at an impasse and sooner or later something will happen. What that really means to me is that I've been told to have plenty of food on hand in case there's a big strike and I have plenty of US and Nepali cash should it become clear that leaving would be a good idea. And I need to get another canister of natural gas for my stove which is next to impossible and so the apartment building management will have to go on the black market. Huh. Again, I am glad that everyone here is very, very careful not to mess with the westerners because tourism IS their economy. All of that said an getting back to what's important, my clothes are lame and I'm wearing something totally dorky to dinner. Some things never change (!) Also today I went with my neighbor Audra to a Christmas shopping bazaar at the Hyatt Regency sprawling complex and it was weird with blaring Christmas music (under the hot sun) and lots of tourists and expats. All of the US government -related people know each other (USAID, AED, etc.) and it was weirdly click-y. I'm kinda glad that I work with all Nepali people because I don't even have to figure out the pecking order as I am totally outside of it. But I met another cool woman who lives in my building and so am going to go out on a limb and say that I have two friends! Hooray. xoc