16/10/13

Things have improved, and also gotten more stressful since my last post.  I am feeling better, no thanks to the funky food that I’ve had to eat.  However, we have a big mock Language Proficiency Exam coming up, which is stressing me out.  We have to achieve “Intermediate Mid” by the final test, which is a month from now, so I am trying for “Intermediate Low” for the mock test.  It will be 20-30 minutes of someone talking to us and asking us questions about our life, in Nepali.  It’s difficult because our teachers only know some of the things that MIGHT be on the test, and not all of it, plus, no one has told me what level I’m at now, so it has been hard to judge how much and what I have to study.  We will be having that test in the next week, after which we leave for two weeks to a conference and to visit our permanent sties. 

Speaking of, I found out that my permanent site, where I will work and stay with a host family for the next 24 months, is in Dang province, in the municipality of Pachkule, in the town of Kaushilapur.  Dang is the southern most part of Nepal, right along the Indian border.  It is flat and abounds with poisonous snakes, tigers and malaria.  It will be a totally different environment than the mountainous one, which I have been living in.  I will be with a Tharu family, an ethnic minority whose native tongue is not Nepali (!!!!).  There are some suggested agriculture projects in the region, but I, to some extent, get to decide what I will work on.  I am interested in aquaculture; mushroom farming, spice crop farming, women’s empowerment and education group formation and possibly working with sex workers-they abound along the Indian border.  I am feeling apprehensive and excited. 

Dashain has been happening for the last week.  It is the biggest Nepali festival, kind of like Xmas.  People come home from all over the country and world to be with their families; kids get new clothes; many, many castrated goats are slaughtered and eatern; friends’ and families’ houses are visited.  Since we are in school for some much of the day, and week, we only really experienced two days of Dashain, but they were interesting…  I missed the goats actually being slaughtered, but did see the buthchering process.  Eating the meat was a challenge for a couple of reasons: First, they do not clean the meat to the extent to which I am accustomed, Second: the meat is offered to you until it runs out, which can take up to a week.  At this point, I am offered meat, which has not been re-heated, from a bowl in a cupboard-it gets pretty funky.  Bizarrely, I have not gotten sick from it *knock on wood*.  I ate some funky meat, tripe soaked in blood and blood cooked down to the consistency of ground beef-both of the later were actually far more pleasant than the more traditional forms of meat. 

In addition to the meat, which is a huge part of the celebration, all of the women get dolled up, so it was an opportunity for me to wear my new traditional outfit, as well as some makeup, which was weird.  I visited my other family, which was lovely-my Didi fed me homemade samosas and walked me all around the village, plus, we took lots of family pictures, which I will try to post, if internet speed allows. 

Every village erects a ping, or swing-either from the branch of a very large tree, or, more traditionally, from two large bamboo poles.  One or two people, who squat, and can go twenty or thirty feet in the air, ride these swings. 

The kids are off of school for two weeks, and everyone just seems to take it easy, visit and eat all of the time-it’s been interesting to watch, but I still feel like an outsider and don’t get a ton of enjoyment out of it. 

Monday the 20^th we leave for a conference to meet our counterpart-this is the person who will be in the office in our district.  They will help get us established and partner with us on projects.  Unfortunately for me, my office is 17 k from my site, so it will be less of a partnership and more of a resource that I will use once a month.  This will mean that I will have an even harder time establishing contacts and projects in the community, but, as my Dad says, I guess this means that the PC has a lot of faith in me-faith, which, at this time, I feel, is misplaced…

After the conference, we will travel to our permanent site to meet our new families, which in a crazy prospect.  I hope to bond more with this family than with my family during PST.  It seems bizarre to me how close people have gotten to their host families here in Pipal Dana.  I guess I just don’t think of people as actual “family” has quickly.  But two years seems like more than enough time to get close to people.   On a lighter note, I will only be about an hour bike ride (yay, I get to ride a bike!!!!) from my nearest volunteer, which was closer than I anticipated.  Strangely, he is the same volunteer who was my direct neighbor at my first house-he just can’t escape me!

Well, off to have dinner-same thing every day! (Please send food!!!)

Xoxo,

Zoop