Tsivia’s Notes from Nepal

Tsivia and her Nepal family celebrating her birthday. 
Photo Courtesy of Tsivia Chonoles

Greetings, readers! It’s been about five weeks, I believe, since I last wrote to you. Needless to say, there’s a lot to cover.

    Here are a few things that I have accomplished:

    1. I completed the Annapurna Round Circuit Trek. A total distance of 211km (131mi), and reaching an elevation of 5,416m (17,769ft) at the Thorung-La Pass. That’s higher than the Everest Base Camp.

    2. I can take the bus myself without getting lost, and can navigate my way around (part of) Kathmandu and around Bhaktapur.

    3. I can read and write Nepali (although I am still struggling), even if I can’t understand most of it yet.

    4. I can hold a very basic conversation introducing myself in Nepali and talking about my family.

    To start with, let me tell you a little more about the trek. No, I did not go alone. The NGO that I have been place with as an intern has a second office that organizes treks and tours; this office is what pays their administrative costs, so that any money donated to the NGO can all be put directly towards their projects. When I expressed an interest, I was told that they had a trek already arranged for a tourist flying in from Germany, and that a couple of their other volunteers would be going as well. So, not only was the trek a unique opportunity to see some of Nepal’s most beautiful places and view more of the culture, but it was also a chance for me to meet and speak with other volunteers about the projects they were working on as well. The other volunteers, while also involved a bit with their own Green School project, were engineers involved. Their focus in the village they were in, was infrastructure; their project was to draw up a plan to fix and rebuild a school that had been destroyed in the earthquake.

    I also had the chance to speak with our guide on a variety of topics. He talked with us about the earthquake and the areas that were still recovering and the people still waiting for money from the Nepalese government to rebuild their homes – his own family among them, as his house was destroyed and not safe to live in after the earthquake. He also shed some light on Nepal’s political situation as a country landlocked between China and India and how that impacts Nepal’s internal politics and pits the parties against one another.

    The trek itself, while extremely challenging, was enjoyable. I enjoy hiking, but the occasional hike outside back home is completely different from the seventeen straight days of hiking that made up our trek. Even during our one rest day in Manang to help acclimate to the altitude, we still took a short hike up 200m and then back down. There were at least four or five days when we hiked seven to eight hours to try and keep to the schedule set by our program. It was intense, to say the least, and the hike up to the Thorung-La Pass was the hardest part. It wasn’t incredibly steep, but the altitude made it hard to catch my breath, and one of the other two girls in our group ended up having to take a pony to the top of the pass because she was having symptoms of altitude sickness. In all, although it was an enjoyable adventure, I feel that if I were ever to try and make the Annapurna Circuit trek again, I would want to space it out more. Some of our group were able to handle the long days, one right after another, but for the less experienced hikers in our group – myself included – an extra rest day or two would have been preferable.

    On the final day of our trek, I met a man from Germany who spoke, wrote and read fluent Nepali, and he gave me some tips for learning, as well as the name of a book to buy. At the end of our trek, we took a bus from Nayapul to Pokhara, where I spent two and a half days at the Lakeside. One of Nepal’s most popular tourist destinations, Pokhara’s lakeside is full of modern restaurants featuring food from all over. Pokhara also host the World Peace Stupa, which I did not get the chance to visit due to poor weather.

    I finally returned to my homestay the day before Holi, the festival of color, which is celebrated by people throwing colored powder and water at each other and – because this is Nepal, after all – with dancing. Two days later, I got to celebrate my 22nd birthday Nepali style. This means that my aamaa made enough food to feed at least two families – all Nepali dishes: pakaude; a type of fried chicken; rice cooked in butter with different nuts; alu cauli tarkari; and, of course, daal bhat.

    Now for an update on the projects I have been working on as a part of my internship. Before leaving for my trek, I had been in Nepal and working on two projects at Nabin English Secondary school for four weeks. Both projects were only in their beginning stages when I left for the trek. For the Green School Initiative, all that had been completed was the pre-survey administered to the students; the surveys had been completed and I had only just begun to type up the results. For the International School Partnership, I had only just begun reaching out (with the help of my professor) to elementary schools to try and find one interested in the project. It wasn’t until I had already left for trekking that I heard back from one of the schools confirming their interest.

    Now, having been back from trekking for two weeks, both projects are almost half-done. The data has been compiled from the survey and the first step of the school partnership has been completed by the Nabin students who will be participating. However, this coming week, March 27, the Nabin students will be taking their end-of-term exams, and then they will be on holiday from school for two weeks. In the interim, as an intern, I will be given another project to work on more directly involved with the NGO’s other projects and how they are operating.

    When school resume in mid-April, I hope to see the completion of both the Green School Initiative and International School Partnership rather quickly. But this is Nepal, and as a developing nation, things tend to move a little slower; there’s no need to stress over deadlines when you may be stuck in traffic for over an hour and the power (and subsequently the internet, if you have it) can go out anytime.

    Until next time, you can follow my adventure on Twitter @GetScaredLater.