Fraying at the Edges, Curry-Yellow Toothbrush, UGHHHH and Election Day

10/11/13

 I have been sick, on and off for the last 2 weeks-fever, throwing up, diarrhea, insomnia, headaches.  Today it all came to a head.  After yet another night of little sleep, I woke up in tears and couldn’t stop crying for the next 4 hours.  Once the shortness of breath started I realized that I was having an anxiety attack.  Around hour 4 I was able to talk to someone that could calm me down, but I spent the rest of the day in bed, trying to pull myself out of this funk-this depression.  For that is surely what it is, and not surprising, with all that we have to deal with here.

It’s horrible knowing that my mind is working against me and can’t even give me some peace, while everything else is in turmoil.  I’m going to try and sleep tonight and hope that I wake tomorrow a little more refreshed-with reinforced armor for the daily fight.  I’m trying to work against my natural instincts and take things one day at a time-wish me luck!

13/11/13

 I’ve been listening to “Professor Blastoff” about habits and its strange to think that I do things like brush my teeth, use my planner and make my bed all the way over here, so out of normal context.  Things are a bit better, today, although I’m getting nervous about implementing our Practicum Project.  This is a community project that we’ve been working on for the last month or so.  It has to answer a need in the community, be in Nepali, and involve as many community members as possible.  We are implementing it at the local school with the 10^th grade and 1^st grade classes, for about 2 hours.  We will be teaching them about hand washing (you can’t imagine how disgusting the bathrooms at this school are, and thinking about the kids going #2, wiping with their hands and then never washing them makes me want to vomit) and building a tippy tap (a hands-free hand washing station).  We built a practice tippy tap and then will build another one at the school.  I’ll try to put up pictures a.s.a.p.

Our Tippy Tap implementation went fairly well.  Because kids here are so used to doing physical labor, they dug the holes and erected the structure in an embarrassingly short amount of time.  After we had done a lecture about hand washing and made the device, we had a few of the 10^th graders bring out the younger children and teach them.  It was really sweet seeing them going to great lengths to teach the little kids-not letting them get away with not using soap, etc.  It made me feel a little better about doing this kind of thing at site, although there I won’t have three other people helping me, and someone to translate the speeches we want to make.  I have a feeling that I’ll feel like I’m drowning, a lot of the time.

 15/11/13

 So, because of some political violence, (there were some injuries during mobs and fights as well as some IEDs found around the country-but not near us) due to the upcoming election, we are no longer allowed to leave our site, at all.  This means that by the 24^th, when we finally get to go into town, it will have been three weeks since I’ve been in contact with the outside world, besides a few hours on the phone with family.  I’m going crazy here.  I am literally counting down the hours until we are done with language classes-26 more hours to go! And 12 more days in Pipal Dada. 

Next week is all about preparing for our final language test and planning for our girl’s leadership program.  Hannah and I are thinking about maybe a dance class…  Once next week is over, we will go to our Swearing-In Ceremony, then spend a few days left in Pipal Dada, doing last minute things.

 19/11/13

 So, the election appears to have gone off without much violence, at least in our area.  Yesterday, the armed police were walking around our area, making people take down any political signs within 200 yards of the polling place-the school near our classroom and where we did our Tippy Tap Practicum.  This is very difficult for people, because there is almost no house in the village without at least 4 posters and/or flags.  Often, there are posters/flags for several different parties (!!?), as well as huge signs for cement companies (these appear to have nothing to do with the election-perhaps the company thought that they’d jump on the decorate-your-house-with-any-free-crap-we-give-you bandwagon).  People were out all day scrapping off posters and rolling up flags-there seemed like there was some tension in the air.  However, today, my Didi told me that everything was peaceful at the school.  I guess we’ll hear if anything else happened in the rest of the country, in the next couple of days. 

Only two more days of language class-which also means only two more days before the LPI.  I am feeling fairly relaxed about it-I’m not sure if this confidence is founded in anything, or if I’m just SICK of studying.  I’ve done so many flashcards in the last three days that I don’t think I can fit any more vocabulary words into my poor brain!  I am trying to be Zen about the whole thing-I only care about passing, and since I already achieved a passing mark in my practice test, I don’t feel like stressing to try and get a really high grade in a test that, ultimately, doesn’t matter.  Everyone else is furiously studying and I just don’t give a crap, anymore.  I finally told my teacher that I’d rather study at home, on my own, than do one-on-one time with him.  So, for the last two days, I’ve had two hours of class in the morning, then spent from about 10:30-1 studying on my own.  From 1-4 we have been working on the plans for our GLOW camp for girls.

I’m feeling physically and emotionally better today, although my sleep schedule and bowels are still not normal.  I am trying to force myself to be more social, since it these may be my last days with that as an option, and because once I force myself to do something, I always feel better.  Yesterday Hannah, Priya and I “studied” at Saraswati’s house, but mostly we just gossiped, which was great.  Then today, after our planning session, we all walked down to Tullughaun (the lower village where my first family lived) to a great pasal down there.  We pigged out on a shared liter of Coke, sour cream and onion chips and muffins and sat in the sun-it was a delight. 

Also, we found out that another one of our PSTers is going home-tomorrow.  I don’t know the details, but he has apparently been planning it for a while.  I feel like we’re dropping like flies!  It’s mean, but every person that goes home, I’m a little relieved that it’s not me.  Looking at the statistics, about 30% of PTCs/PCVs go home during service-either for medical reasons (Medical Separation), breaking the rules(Administrative Separation) or for their own reasons (Early Termination).  That 30% is broken down about evenly between 10% during PST, 10% during the first six months at permanent site and 10% around the year mark.  With our original group size, we can expect up to 8 people to go home.  At this rate, we’re moving much faster than I expected. 

Well, I’m off to try to stuff a few more vocabulary words into my brain before bed.

Xoxo,

Zoop