International

Two months have passed already! It feels like it’s been a couple weeks at most. I think the title says it all; these are some of my favourite experiences from my time here so far, in no particular order:

Visiting Pokhara during Dashain:
Dashain is the country’s largest holiday lasting a little over a week. It is a time for people to go home and visit their families. Most businesses close down for the week and everything’s quiet. We took this time to go to Pokhara, the country’s second largest tourist destination. It is on Phewa Tal, a beautiful lake, and rests near the Annapurna mountain range which you can see poke through the sky above the hills. We rented bicycles and biked around the lake through the mini villages that dotted the shore. We also woke up at 4am to grab a taxi up to Sarangkot which is at the top of a hill and offers amazing views of the Annapurna range. We watched the sunrise here with a hundred other people. We also got some hiking in and visited the World Peace Pagoda which is on the top of another hill. All in all, it was a very beautiful and relaxing week.

Being in Kathmandu for Tihar:
Tihar is another festival that follows Dashain. It is shorter in length but makes up for that in intensity. The children set off firecrackers and fireworks all weekend long and the streets of Old Kathmandu (between Thamel and New Road) were alive with lights (like Christmas lights). Sitting on the rooftop terrace of our building at night and watching random fireworks everywhere in the sky and enjoying all of the rooftops lit with lights and oil lamps was definitely a highlight! The jewellery shops on New Road are famous for competing with each other for the most outrageous decorations. Rajendra, a CECI Nepal employee, invited us to his home to see the Bhai Tikka ceremony which is a very intricate ceremony and is unlike anything we have in North America. We were so lucky to be invited into his home to witness something we never would have had a chance to see otherwise.

Meeting Ganga’s Family in Kavre:
Ganga, the girl I work with here, asked me to come to her village in the district of Kavre. Tessa came with me and we took the bus with Ganga to Nagarkot, a village at the top of a hill. From Nagarkot we did a 3 hour downhill hike through villages, forest, mountain ridges and more. At one point we emerged from the forest and are were greeted with the most amazing view of the Himalayas. How refreshing! Staying with a family for the weekend was also wonderful. We hung out with Ganga’s sisters and I photographed the entire village at their request. We enjoyed the freshest sugar cane ever while sitting on the ledge of a paddy and enjoyed the view of the sun setting behind the hills that surrounded the valley that laid below us. As if that wasn’t enough, we had to ride the roof of a bus to go back to Kathmandu because otherwise we would have been stuck in Kavre as busses were full. 270 degree views of the Himalayas are best enjoyed from the roof of a large bus barrelling down a mountain side road that runs along cliffs. This experience is enhanced further if you have a very cold Coca Cola to go with it, haha! I guess I should add that you should never, EVER try this yourself! Do as I say, not as I do!

The little joys of daily life here:
Chatting in Nepali with the CECI support staff, commuting to work, negotiating the price for a taxi ride, riding on the back of a motorbike through Kathmandu, the glorious post-monsoon weather (25 degrees, dry and sunny every day!!), hanging out at our favourite restaurant… little things like that.

Capacity Building with Ganga:
This is probably the most amazing experience of all. International development not being my area of study, this internship was a bit of a change of pace for me. I love to travel and have been to Nepal before which was why I wanted to return but I had no idea what to expect from my time here. When I first met Ganga, I had no idea what effect we would have on each other’s lives. At first, based on my first few weeks here, I was under the impression that I would go to work every day, complete the documents they wanted of me and then return to Canada with little long term improvements to show for my time here. I am the first volunteer to work with my organization and the success of my internship will determine if they will continue hosting volunteers. I figured that, at best, my internship would go well and they would then host other volunteers who would actually be able to have an impact. Luckily, because of Ganga’s initiative, reality couldn’t have been further from my expectations. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, Ganga had never turned on a computer in her life. In only a few weeks she went from knowing nothing to being able to create simple documents in Microsoft Word and Excel and update more complicated ones herself. She can play music, send e-mails, print things and play solitaire of course! Her prospects of getting another office job after I left for Canada were slim but now she has a good resume (that I helped her make) and very useful skills that will help her get a better job which she will use to pay for her university studies. If I had not come from Canada to Nepal for this internship, the federation never would have needed to hire Ganga (and they only did because she spoke English) and if Ganga was never hired into this position, she never would have had the opportunity to learn the things she has. It’s quite satisfying to know that I had a concrete positive effect on a person’s life here and in return she has provided me with wisdom I never would have gained otherwise. I had half-shown her how to send an e-mail ONCE weeks ago… but this weekend, while sitting at the kitchen table, I received an e-mail from Ganga! She went to an internet café near her house and figured out how to do it herself! Needless to say I was very proud of her. Anyway, all to say that this was probably the best experience of all.

Seeing the jungle in Chitwan and visiting successful farmers’ co-operatives:
First of all, elephants are such beautiful animals! The experience is certainly enhanced when you’re by the edge of a beautiful river, watching elephants bathe, basking in the sunlight and enjoying the epic view of the Himalayas made possible by the very flat terrain of the Terai region of Nepal. Riding through the jungle on elephant back, seeing crocodiles while canoeing on the Rapti River and seeing real tiger prints in the sand were some of the highlights of this fabulous voyage. After pleasure came business and I met up with the Federation’s General Secretary and Chairman who took me to visit a successful farmer, a successful primary-level cooperative and the district level cooperative federation. In two days, I got to see almost all of Chitwan and learned more in two days than I have in the last two months! And then I was fortunate enough to be able to contrast their success with that of another cooperative in the district of Dhading. I got to meet dozens of interesting people and see firsthand how local fruit and vegetable markets work as well as some tangible evidence of what these cooperatives have been working on for the last ten years or so. I can’t wait to write my case studies on this topic!

That’s it for now!

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