Tsivia's Notes From Nepal

Tsivia's view from her homestay.
Photo Courtesy of Tsivia Chonoles

I will not lie to you readers: I woke up last Monday morning so homesick I literally felt sick. 6:30 in the morning here in Nepal is around 7 in the evening EST, so I used some data to video call my grandmother. This is not the first time I’ve been away from home - this is not even the first time I’ve been out of the country – but this is the farthest I have ever been, for the longest I have ever been, and it was hard the first couple of days at my homestay.

    My first two nights were spent in a hotel in the middle of the touristic area of Kathmandu: Thamel. Friday night (January 20) after I landed, got my visa, and collected my luggage, I was met by three of the members from VolNepal: Anish, who I had done my Skype interviews with, and Santosh and Shiva. They took me to my hotel and left me to get settled in for the night. Saturday I had breakfast in the hotel and Shiva met me in the lobby to walk me over to the VolNepal office for an orientation. As we were walking, he talked to me a little about some of the things I noticed.

    There are no stoplights, stop signs, or noticeable street signs in Nepal, but there are also almost no car accidents. Any accidents are usually caused by young people going too fast on a motorbike, which is the most common means of transportation as the roads are often

 bumpy and not too wide, so they become congested easily. Public transportation in Nepal is also not very reliable, and since you can sometimes become stuck in traffic for an hour or more when the roads get busy, people are not often too concerned with time and timeliness, and are very flexible. As we were walking we passed two shrines, and Shiva explained to me that, in Nepal, where you see a Buddhist shrine you will always find a Hindu one as well, and vice versa; he called Nepal the picture of religious harmony. The Nepali work-and-school-week is Sunday through Friday, mostly due to the fact that they celebrate so many holidays. So, although the Nepalese people are very hard workers, they are easy-going as well, and the outdoors are a large part of their life. 

    One final thing he shared with me after I pointed out a couple of strays as we were walking, was that Nepal has tens of thousands of stray dogs, but almost no cats (although I did see one when I was taking a walk around my homestay area the other day).

    At the office, Santosh gave me an orientation that consisted of Nepal’s history, current government, culture, customs and traditions, and a more in-depth explanation of my homestay and the work I am supposed to be doing here in at Nabin English School in Bagmati, Bhaktapur. Although my current focus will be on building and instituting the framework for a Green School Initiative to help students be more environmentally conscientious and beginning an International School Partnership (basically a pen pal/cultural exchange program), since I will be here past the end of the current school term, I will also have opportunities to learn about and possibly work on other VolNepal projects.

    Something that I found to be the most interesting from the orientation was that, even though they are one of the youngest republics (the Nepalese monarchy was dissolved around 2007/2008), they are arguably one of the most progressive. Their current president – their second total – is a woman, as are two of the other Nepalese government heads; in addition to that, according to their constitution, 33% of the seats in parliament must be filled by women.

    One of the most important things I can offer about travelling anywhere, even within the United States, is to keep an open mind. In a foreign country, you are the different one, so don’t expect people to conform to you. For me, being 21 years old and unmarried and not engaged is unusual; Nepalese people still use an arranged marriage system, so most women are married between the ages of 21 and 25. Some of the other teachers were making fun during lunch the other day, asking if I wanted to marry a Nepali boy, since some of them have brothers and are searching for wives for them. Nepal has no nuclear power or resources; all of their energy is hydro- or solar-power, which means that during bad weather the power may not always be reliable. And just because a place has electricity, does not guarantee that they will have internet access, so if you are going to be travelling and need internet, make sure you find a way to make arrangements for cell phone data; speaking from experience, AT&T’s international passport plans are great for unlimited texting, but don’t have a reliable allotment of data usage. Because the roads are often worn down or unpaved, many people wear face masks so they don’t inhale the dust.

    My first week was mostly spent adjusting. Getting to know the school where I will be working, and getting to know my homestay family, which consists of a mother, father, two children, and a dog (who stays upstairs and guards the house very noisily). At the school, in addition to the projects I have been given by VolNepal, I will also be working as a volunteer teacher to help students in grade three, four, five, and six with their English grammar, reading, and writing skills. The English teacher here that I was working with initially has been friendly and helpful. Here in Nepal, their schools are very good; students start learning English alongside Nepali beginning in Kindergarten, and a separate class in English grammar is added to that beginning in grade five. Their teaching methods are not unlike those seen in American schools, only without the added technological or monetary advantages that we have: while there is a computer lab for practice, it is not equipped with internet, and there is no electricity in the individual classrooms. The teacher told me that, before the earthquake last year, the school was bigger and the classrooms less cramped, but there was not enough money to completely rebuild. She also said that, even though her home was damaged in the earthquake, the Nepalese government has only been giving money to rebuild to those people whose homes were completely destroyed, and the workers are asking for $70,000 Rupees for repairs, not including materials. That’s about seven thousand USD, which here may not seem like much for home repairs, but in Nepal where there is no home insurance and the economy is still recovering from two earthquakes, it’s a lot. Most young children here at the school don’t have their own pencils; the teachers provide them and then collect them again at the end of the class. Here in my homestay I have a younger brother (Rit, age 5) and a younger sister (Rik, age 13), and they had never seen a mechanical pencil before. Part of the problem is that, since recovery has been so slow since the earthquake, especially economically, many young people are now going abroad to find work and schooling. Paying for university in Nepal is extremely difficult; it’s almost impossible to find loans and what little scholarships are available are highly competitive, making the exams hard to pass. And although the young people who are able to find work abroad are sending money back, there is no social security in Nepal. Parents rely on their children to care for them as they get older.

    So far, however, despite the many disadvantages they appear to face, the Nepalese people appear to me to be strong, resilient, and friendly. As always, readers, if you’d like to ask a question, leave a comment, or follow my adventures (whenever I have wifi), you can find me on twitter @GetScaredLater, on Instagram @Get_Scared_Later or you can send an email in to the Concordian at concordian.concord.edu .