Since last time I posted, we were placed with our host families in our respective villages.  All the villages are within an hour hike of our "hub" site, Chautaura-a medium sized village that has our training site, which is blessed with western toilets and internet access-we walk into this once a week.

My village is the furthest from Chautaura, an hour hike, uphill.  It is very small and has no real central gathering point, just a road that goes through it.  My house is at the end of a hairpin turn, right next door to another volunteer, thank goodness!

My family consists of my didi (older sister) who is 32, my bhai (little brother) her 13 year-old son, my bahini (little sister) her 8 year old daughter.  Her husband is in the Nepali police and lives in Kathmandu for most of the year.  Today is my fifth day with the family and I am getting used to it.  My family is very poor and my room smaller and dingier than many of the other volunteers-just a bed with a mosquito net, a shelf and two plastic chairs.  The family is very nice and welcoming, although since my didi has to run the house and small plot of land by herself, I do not see her much.

I have washed my clothes once, we put them in a shallow bucket to get them wet, then put them on the ground and rub them with a bar of laundry soap, then rinse and ring them out twice, and then line dry them.  With the exception of my towel, all of my clothes seem to been very clean and smell good, although I think my idea of what "clean" is has changed, already.

Every morning I get up at 4:30 or 5:00am, go use the squat toilet, wash my face in the bucket of water outside of the toilet and brush my teeth with my filtered water.  I usually do homework or write in the morning, then tea and maybe some beaten rice in the kitchen.  We sit on the floor, surrounded by the smoke produced by the open fire stove with no chimney.  I walk steeply uphill for 10 minutes at 6:30 for school, then back down for late breakfast with the family at 9am, then back up for class from 11 to 5.  We have language classes for 4 hours/day, plus 2 hours of culture classes.  Classes are very hard and it's exhausting to always be on, but it will help me communicate with my family, and, I think, it's getting easier every day.

From 5:30 to around 8 I work on homework, review what I studied and hang out with my family.  Sometimes I help my bhai cut grass for their cows and goats, which is super hard.  I used to sit in the kitchen with my didi, but I have developed a horrible hacking cough from all the dust in my room and the smoke in the house.

The food is fine, a lot of rice with vegetables cooked in a light curry sauce-we eat this twice a day, sometimes broken up with roti (flat bread) or sweet rice, and the occasional guava (it's guava season right now-I can't wait for mango season, which is coming up!!!)  Nepali people, as well as us PC volunteers, are at great risk for protein and vitamin deficiency because of the lack of fruits and vegetables and protein.

At this point, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I'll be here for over two years.  I am lucky to have some amazing people around me, although there's not a lot of down time to hang out, that I will be able to lean on.

Recently, after class, some of us gathered under a pipla rook (sacred ficus tree) to play cards, and nearly 20 people came out of their houses to silently watch us.  The constant watching is interesting, it doesn't really bother me, much, except for the recent evening when I tripped on the uneven road and 10 people burst out laughing!

We will be with our host families for 9 more weeks, with some trainings sprinkled throughout, then back to Kathmandu for our swearing in ceremony, and then onto our permanent sites. However, we find our permanent sites the first week of October, which will be exciting!

At this point, it's feeling very weird being so disconnected, I can't even call of text the other volunteers, as we have no cell reception at our house.

I'm missing y'all, and food and hot showers, but I'd like to think that I'm adapting.

I'll try to post photos soon, but the internet is very slow when we do have it.

I only check my email once a week, but I love hearing from everybody, so please send me little notes!!!

xoxoxo

Zoop