Baph re baph! Ekdam time-pass bhayo! (That's Nepali for Wow! A lot of time's passed.) It's hard to believe that this is the last report and that my year here is coming to a close. The year seems, in retrospect, to have flown by; but in reality it was a series of breath-taking rushes and foot-dragging slows. I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to experience so many things, especially under with the caustic political situation, and to have met so many incredible people. At the risk of sounding right out of a high school yearbook on the "Memories of a Lifetime" page, I would like this last report to be a sort of haphazard scrapbook of reflections and memories to give a feel for what the real experience is like-- with maybe a word of wisdom or two thrown in for next year's recruits!
Mancheharu (Nepali Folks)
The number of nice and caring people I have met here is beyond count. The ubiquitous and generic guidebook quote that "The Nepalese have a reputation from South Asian travelers of being very warm and friendly people" is justified by the truth of the statement. A warm sea of Namastes and Hellos awaits any casual visitor, but the depth of relationships can become much more profound and I have found that so many people I have met are overly generous in invitations to meet their families, eat rice, or share in a cup of tea. As this is a "highlights" review, I would like to mention some unforgettable people I have met here:
Our most venerated Shangkaji: Shangka was our Nepali lesson teacher for the first three months or so we were here. At a time when life was a "little" stressful with all the small hassles of living in a foreign country, learning how to teach, getting used to a new family, eating all new food, and, of course, not speaking the language, Shangka was a miracle. Lessons at her house with her wonderful sense of humor, her well-planned conversation-based teaching, and her delicious milk tea are some of my most cherished moments. Shangka was not only our teacher, she invited us to dinner, introduced us to another American girl our age, and did so many other kind things to make our lives easier! For next year's fellows, you must risk the perilous walk across the rice fields (literally) for my sake to visit Shangka, it's like drinking kindness with every sip of her chiya!
LMV: At first it was a little difficult to reach out to all the teachers, but there's never been a mean or awkward moment. All the teachers at LMV have been very warm and friendly and we have had a few very fun times eating momos and listening to MP3s together. Alison and I had a particularly fun experience at Pramod-sir's house where we were able to watch two different Ricki Martin videos on his computer while enjoying buff momos (buffalo meat-filled steamed dumplings) and roxsi (local liquor).
The students have also been so great. I feel as though I've talked a lot about students at the school, but we have also had lots of opportunities to meet them outside of school. A couple students invited us to their relatives' weddings and we also got to attend the bratabandha, a boy's right-of-passage ceremony for one of our students. It was so much fun to meet all of their relatives (and in Nepal all the relatives could mean up to 200 people!) and to see the kids in their own elements!
Hamro Pariwar (Our Family): When researching possible post-graduation abroad experiences one of my number-one concerns was staying with a family. I really feel that staying with the people is so important when living in a foreign place because it allows someone who would normally be an outsider (me) to feel so much more like an insider. Living with the Situala's has been a wonderful experience and has really made me feel like I have become part of their family. Alison and I were also very fortunate to experience a lot of exciting family events including Sunil's wedding, Sarita being awarded a scholarship to study for a chemistry Ph.D. in South Korea, and the birth of Madhav and Anju's third daughter. Although the big events were fun, I think the most enjoyable for me has been eating dinner with the family, sharing in a family evening watching Nepali news, or hanging out on the roof on warm days with the kids hot-roding around on their big-wheels and Aamaa sewing palm-leaf bowls.
Vidyala (School)
Teaching for a year in a foreign place with no formal training, 200 students, and six days a week is not an easy task. I believe this year has been harder for me than Grinnell ever was. I have found that teaching is not a profession I will probably not go into, but that's not to say I haven't had a lot of fun working with this challenge. After nine months of teaching, I still do not feel like I have mastered classroom management, consistency, or student accountability. However, I do feel like I have made huge leaps and bounds from the first dog-days. There have been days when I wanted nothing more than to throw my Teacher's Diary in the trash and start again this time "doing it right," but of course, there is no turning back and one can only learn from one's mistakes. There are many corrections I have made and I do feel like I am learning what it takes to "do it right." All along, the best part about teaching is that the frustrations are always balanced by moments of warm fuzziness. Teaching can be hard and students can be a pain, but they can also be rays of sunshine on a cloudy day. Here, I would like to just say a couple of my funniest teaching moments:
"The stool incident": My Class 4 classes have close to 40 students in them and so class is somewhat like a constant sea of movement with students reaching into their school bags, opening and closing pencil boxes, hitting their neighbors and occasionally even slipping under the desks-- especially when class occurs right after recess. So as I walked into my class this particular day, I was not surprised to see students standing, talking, and moving restlessly. However, I was not prepared for the chaos that would further ensue. All of a sudden, one of the students noticed that another little boy had a suspicious smear on the back of his shirt. "Stool mam! Sttttttttoooooooolllll!" he yelled. All of the students started jumping and shrieking, climbing over desks to get out of his way as the poor boy pushed his way through the crowd to show me his shirt. It was, in fact, stool (i.e. poop), how he had gotten it on the back of his shirt I don't even want to know, but I sent him with a friend to wash up and the crisis was soon resolved. However, I learned my lesson that day that many a strange thing can happen in a classroom!
Q-T Pie: For Valentine's Day, I brought valentines for all my students that my parents had shipped me from the United States. Valentines is not really celebrated here and is more of a Western-import that has shown up in card shops and the tourist restaurant's drink specials, so the kids were pretty much all a-twitter from the cards. After I passed out the cards in my Class 5 and all the kids had a few minutes to compare their cards, talk, laugh and do whatever it is kids do when they are so excited, one student's voice broke above the clamor. "Mam! Mam! Mam!" he shouted. I hushed everyone down and with more than a hint of anxiety (after the "stool incident") asked him what was the matter. "Mam?" replied the sheepish boy holding out a card that said You're doggone cute Valentine, "Do you really think I'm cute?"
Nepali Jiwan (Nepali life and random thoughts)
Health: One of the most popular greetings in Nepal is to ask a friend "Tapaailaai sanchaichha?" (Are you in good health?). For me, the answer has often been a pitiful sanchaichhaina (no). It is not easy to be away from home without Mom and a bowl of chicken soup when you're feeling under the weather, and for me a big challenge this year has been staying healthy; however, there are many positive sides to those who have health problems in Kathmandu. For one, the CIWEC Clinic, which is a British-run clinic that caters to travelers, is renowned for its diarrhea specialists, so for matters of the intestines you're in safe hands. Also, (knock on wood), my health improved with time and so I think it is a matter of adjustment that time will heal. For future fellows or interested travelers, I think that a bottle (or a case) or pepto bismal and a good attitude will be just what the doctor ordered and shouldn't turn anyone away.
Time: Time in Nepal runs on a much slower clock than in the US, especially after a busy four years at Grinnell! Nepal, like much of the rest of the world, is not so over-wound: concepts such as "time is money" or "wasting time" are less prevalent. This slow-pace and the emphasis on time for family, for gauff (chatting), and for people in general is a really, really nice change from the United States. Nepali time does have some drawbacks, however, or at least some aspects that may take a matter of getting used to. For example, very little is planned more than a few days in advance; even wedding invitations arrive a day or two before-- and wedding parties usually cater to 300-500 guests! At school, I felt the difference in planning practices on a few occasions, such as when we were asked to write, caste, direct, and manage a 20-minute one-act play in less than two-week's notice or when the time of the teacher's meeting cannot be determined until the day of meeting itself, but these are simple and easy things to adjust to. I think that coming home to the hectic lifestyle in the United States where time is money will be harder than spending a year in Nepal where time is more relaxed.
Hardships: One of the more challenging aspects of living for a year in a Third World country is living so intimately and unavoidably with the realities and hardships of life. Statistics become faces here, and levels of poverty that in the United States remain hidden become outstretched hands from a beggar's emaciated body, five-year-old girls asking for "one-rupee madame" while toting their two-year-old sibling on their small hips or small boys with tongues like whips that call you to buy their stainless-steel scrubbers or rolls of adhesive tape in the manner of the street not of a classroom where other boys their age may sit. There is no easy solution to these problems, and they are, unfortunately, not unique to Nepal; the proximity and reality of such destitution, however, is still difficult to confront. I believe that one of the most valuable things about visiting the developing world is putting faces to the numbers-- "1.5 million starving children" changes its meaning after you have seen little girls carrying their sisters and brothers on their backs and asking for change, and I think for anyone who has an interest in working with these "numbers" in the future, seeing the faces is a vital first step.
Reflections on Service: Although I had read about the Grinnell Corps program in Nepal, talked to the advisor for the program and talked to the past fellows, I do not feel like I really understood what sort of service work I would be doing here. I wanted the adventure of living in Nepal and I wanted to do a year of service. Teaching seemed to be a good way to serve, and working in a developing country seemed equally appropriate. After arriving here though, I have had several moments of doubt or disillusionment and several rounds of self-questioning about the nature and fruitfulness of this year of "service." One doubt that is often raised in my mind is the amount of benefit the students are actually receiving from my inexperienced bumbling in the classroom. Even if they are getting the benefit of listening to a native speaker, I very much feel, especially after a year of experimental teaching, that teaching is not something that everyone can just do, even if you are "only" teaching your native language. I regret the fact that I did not come here with more teacher training and received next to none while in Nepal. I feel like I would have been much more effective in my service to the students if I had come into this program more academically equipped to teach.
A second doubt that I often raised was where my efforts lie. Before coming to Nepal, I didn't really have an understanding of the Nepali education system (which is only 50 years old because up until the Ranas were overthrown and democracy was introduced in 1951, there was no system of education in Nepal for the masses), and being here, I realize how much it is in need of help. The government (public) schools here are, for the most part, abysmally understaffed with unqualified teachers and virtually non-existent budgets. To make matters worse, with the Maoist insurgents, many schools in the rural areas have shut down completely as teachers are often targets of Maoist violence and many have been kidnapped or tortured. Government schools in Kathmandu are no better off than their rural counterparts with an equally desperate need for teachers and support. Often, I have asked myself if I shouldn't be teaching in a government school instead of a private boarding school. I had plans to contact and volunteer at a government school in addition to my duties at LMV, but, as is so often the case in Nepal, blocks occurred that made my intentions impossible (read: Maoist-imposed school bandh (strike), major Hindu holidays and school closings, LMV final exams and grading, etc.) I would suggest to future fellows to look into the possibility of at least giving your time once or twice a week to one of the local government schools, I think that it would help immensely both for the school's staff and the children to interact with a native speaker. Not being able to give that extra time to a government school is one of my biggest regrets here.
In conclusion to this reflection on service, I feel that doubts about service are not only natural, but indeed necessary. To serve without reflection is not, in my opinion, complete or true service. Blindly going into a project with no thought as to its effects (or worse, assuming that everything you do is good just because you do it with good intentions) is not conscientious service. Throughout my reflections this year, I have found that constant self-questioning and negotiation are the most important things to do. Maybe there are some faults, there are some doubts that arise, and some things that should or could be changed, and to think and reflect on those is the most important thing that can be done. Going to another country, especially going to a developing country, is not a mission as a "benevolent bringer of charity" and should not be down in as a blind act of faith. I am glad I have had this opportunity to think about and question the meaning of service at the same time that I am here in Nepal doing my own service work.
Sideyo (The end):
The year I have spent in Nepal has been unforgettable and unique. I feel on a personal level that I have changed so much this year, and I believe more change is still to come after being transplanted back into American life and culture. I feel that I have gained so many invaluable insights into different ways to view the world and life, different attitudes towards family, and different ideas of fate and destiny. Living in Nepal, I feel I have also benefited from spiritual growth, and I have learned a lot from my interactions with my meditation and yoga gurus and also from individuals' personal spiritual philosophies. The year has not been an easy one and far from perfect. There have been many moments of doubt, desperation, and disillusionment. However, I feel that any year has it's ups and downs. The gains I have received from generous and caring Nepali friends, the lessons my students have taught me, and the richness of experiencing Nepali culture and life are invaluable. Nepal is a place I hope to return one day, and even without physically being here, I feel like I will never be far from this place in my heart. The sense of peace, the beauty of the mountains, and the warmth of the people have made my year here magical and ekdam raamro.
-Jessica Schmidt, February 2003
