Back in Nepal

My whirlwind month trip back to Nepal was indescribably amazing. Without sufficient vocabulary to express my gratitude and good fortune, I resort here to pictures.

In Phalewas:

Rural students my friends and I are sponsoring for their science education for the next 2 years. Thanks Will, Jamie, Patrice, and Winnie!

My FM radio interview broadcasted across several communities. We didn't have enough material, so I sang the US national anthem!

In Nurbuling school:

The students I taught 8 months ago! During the morning assembly they gave me a warm welcome 🙂

Village hospitality. Nima on the left welcomed me to her home and 7 more over the course of a day! What a wonderful way to get to know the Hyolmo culture. I can't thank them enough. Thanks for 5 types of local wine and endless tea!

Love the village life

Oh and I carried this 3 week old bugger up and down many hills to his new home. You don't want to know what happened to my tshirt.

In Tinpiple:

The only dump site that collects the trash from Kathmandu and neighboring cities. Many families live and work here to earn about $1-2 a day. It was absolutely humbling to experience a few hours with them.

On a dump truck back to town. Here is one of the single mothers that works at the site. She was so gracious and friendly! I met her children who were thankfully taken away from working at the site and are now receiving good education and housing, thanks to a great organization that I'll describe later. Again, a humbling experience.

So much more! But alas, photos don’t even do it justice.

Thank you, Nepal! Coming twice this year wasn’t enough. You’ve been a great teacher to me, and I’ll come back to learn and contribute as best I can.

Finding volunteer work

Several people have asked me how to find volunteer work while traveling. In selecting an organization, legitimacy is the first criterion, as not all are legitimate.

I worked in Nepal for NEIO. I had gotten to know the founder back in San Francisco and the focus was on quality (helping one school) and not quantity (becoming a big organization). NEIO is not without its share of shortcomings, but is at least legitimate.

In Cambodia, I joined CESHE by finding them on Workaway. The key utility of this site is the reviews. Many past volunteers positively reviewed CESHE over a long period of time. Sketchy organizations would not hold up to such scrutiny. (Well unless it’s all a premeditated scam.. When you start volunteering you could start getting cautious and almost paranoid, but that’s a rant for another day…)

Relying on social advice, you’ll be on a well-worn track, but at least you’ll have a degree of quality control. You’ll gain a constructive experience.

You may start discovering a lot of imperfections amidst the good work. With luck, you’ll learn to juggle them and move forward.

And a last point about what I got out of the experiences so far:
I’ve liked how I was in the position to push change as far as I wanted to take it. Compared to other enterprises that I’ve officially engaged in (startup company and graduate researcher), the intensity of independent learning and action was greater when volunteering. The weight of responsibility and failure was greater. The immediacy of lives affected by my actions was greater. And I won’t even mention the emotional toll. I was in positions to enforce positive change as I saw fit. It’s something that will indelibly shape my career decisions in the future.

Hope that helps!

Girl sponsorship

Dear friends,

I’m happy to report that the girl sponsorship program is on! We will start funding these girls in July for their new school year.

We want to see creative and intelligent young women take the lead in Nepal. We’ve created a scholarship for deserving girls in the 10th grade interested in furthering their education in math and science but are unable to due to financial and social reasons. Our goal is to enable them to complete their higher secondary schooling (11th and 12th grade) and break out of their typical path to domestic life, which usually occurs at this age (15 years old).

The girls are from the Phalewas district, a beautiful rural community located west of Pokhara. The girls are performing well at school – their marks compare well with girls from major cities. We hope to continue giving them a quality education to enable them to compete nationally and even internationally.

Your scholarship will go directly to the school to provide for their education ($300 per year for 2 years) and you will be in touch with your student via email or Skype to help cheer them on.

Our team is spearheaded by the tireless and no nonsense Mr. Bhola Sharma who after 43 years of governmental service has returned to his birthplace to help develop schools in his district. He has worked with Room to Read and others to establish 170 libraries in the district. Rajeev was one of the early members of Room to Read and is a book publisher. We also have film director Hari who inspired the project. And finally, yours truly, who hasn’t felt more strongly about a project than this one. Together we have established the criteria for selection and will soon pair you up with one of the deserving girls.

If you’re interested in sponsoring a girl, please contact me at chenronald at gmail dot com or leave a comment. I will provide more details.

You’ll make a big difference in their lives.

Thanks for reading!
Ron

Interview with Ram

This goes way back to Nepal.

I did this interview with the intention of introducing the kids at Nurbuling school to a wider audience and to secure funding for the organization that I was volunteering with (NEIO). I wanted to edit the video (to cut out my antics) but I haven’t found a way to do it on my phone. I find the unedited version more charming anyway 🙂

Meet Ram. He’s a great kid, as you’ll see, and he’s a student leader.

Nepal wrap-up

Even after allowing myself two weeks to digest my time in Nepal, I still feel ill-equipped to justly summarize my experience. Nonetheless, here goes.

Definitely much darker

What I did in broad strokes
With Winnie here for the first 3 weeks, we visited 6 rural schools in 3 different regions, which looking back was pretty darned ambitious. Accustomed to Western standards of eduction, after the initial survey of the schools, I was left feeling quite discouraged.
After Winnie returned to the states, I focused my remaining 2 months on the kids at one rural school, Nurbuling. In the future when I look back to my stay in Nepal, memories of the laughing kids there will surface first. Second to that would be the crisp sunrises and peace I basked in amongst the trees and longtailed birds.

Relaxing on my favorite bed of pines

Winnie and I made new friends and formed a partnership to sponsor qualified young women to enter careers in math and science.

Team (from left to right): Bhola (Phalewas school district director), Satelite (film director), and Rajeev (book publisher and early member of Room to Read)

Cities are more complicated places.

There I stayed mainly with the fabulous Karki family. To say they went out of their way to help me whenever they could would be an understatement.

My coffee habit did not taper, and I ventured over a handful of times to this one cafe that was an hour microbus ride away by the famous Boudhanath stupa. It took some gumption to eventually take the micro everywhere. First micro experience: late 1.5 hours to a meeting!
The city was also where I was shaken by the orphanage business. Miracles do happen though. (More on orphanages later..)
Winnie and I were only able to take a quick break away from school related business, and we couldn’t have asked for a better location than beautiful Pokhara. I never thought this would be the closest I came to trekking in the Himalayas.
I still don’t know what I got myself into, but I willingly surrendered myself in a weeklong Yoga retreat.

And lastly, I went with Rohit, a host family member, to Chitwan and Lumbini, to do jungle safaris and visit the birthplace of Buddha.

On the financial side of things, it cost me a grand total of $1700 (including flight) for 77 days there, which works out to $22/day! Considering my Mountain View rent was $50 a day, this experience was a proper heist! Examples of daily costs are shown below:
Living at school $3 including food.
Hotels in Chitwan and Lumbini $7-$12.
Bus rides (not tourist) 4-8hr ones $2.5-$4.
Typical nice hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu: $30-50. My favorite was Ting’s Tea Lounge.

On the personal side of things, I learned that the following are luxuries:
Running water
Hot water
Showers
Toilets (yes, even squat toilets)
Electricity

What I learned about myself
I wanted to learn Nepali, but I did not learn enough to become conversational. I could negotiate a cab fare without them thinking I was a foreigner though!
I learned to let things unfold and not get so worked up prematurely.
I don’t like being a guest. That was a hard one for me. At the school people had to cater toward me. I was a guest at teachers’ homes and at host family. Luckily there are such things as hotels that I could retire to when I just wanted to be on my own.

Superlatives section
Most familiar culture: Hyolmo.
Most peace: the Helambu hills, gazing out into the valley, at night the groups of lights in distant villages became constellations in an inverted galaxy. In the morning the mist would decorate the valley so artistically.
Best hike: between 2 schools. Pic Nurbuling to Nakote. We would pass by a village every couple hours and see distinct features in each.
Most I spoke with foreigner: Natsumi at the yoga institute. In fact, I spoke so little proper English that I felt a culture shock in Hanoi where there are so many Brits and other Europeans.

My constants
Attending many weddings: 1 Hyolmo and 1 Hindu
Winnie. We are so blessed with technology. Whenever I got imbalanced she was there.
Podcasts. Planet Money, Men in Blazers, Enormocast, The Dirtbag Diaries.
Reading: Best books I read were Wherever You Go, There You Are, Inverting the Pyramid, The Power of One, and Poor Economics.
Writing. In my journals and here 🙂

Vietnam, here I come!

Safaris and Buddha

My last side trip in Nepal was a southwestern journey to Chitwan National Park and Lumbini, land of rhinos and elephants, and the birthplace of Buddha, respectively. I was accompanied by Rohit, my fearless guide and host family member.

How to both look like a local and protect yourself from pollution.

Clear and beautiful day to depart for our journey!

The drive was eventful. We first took a microbus to Kalanki, a hub station, switched onto another bus, then headed off.

This wasn’t the tourist bus station, so it was a little unkempt.

Then we hit mud slides in the mountains that thankfully only delayed us two hours.

Ambulance!

This is typical Nepali style driving:

We made it to the National Park in 7 hours. First we took Monkumori, or Big Heart, coincidentally Winnie’s Nepali namesake, on our way to see elephants.

The two baffoons

My side job

I finally learned why they call it “weed.” It’s so abundant!

We participated in a Tharu drum dance.

Then we took a boat to see crocs and birds

We climbed some trees

Parasite strangling a tree.

Rhinos roaming during our safari

Buffalo crossing the river

Then we went over to Lumbini, another 4 hr away.

Posing next to the Bodhi tree next to Buddha’s birthplace

Nepal monastery

Monks at German monastery

There were monasteries representing so many countries, from Austria, France, Germany, to Thailand, Japan and Nepal. Somehow I doubt Buddha would have wanted to see these ornate displays of worship. Nor the one-upmanship that countries play to see who can build the “best” monastery. Nonetheless the place was striking and some places were indeed quite peaceful. If I had the time I’d try to stay at the Korean monastery and use their peaceful meditation space.

It was great seeing a few more dimensions of Nepal before my departure.

Saying goodbye

Another turning point a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go. So make the best of this test and don’t ask why. It’s not a question but a lesson learned in time. It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right. I hope you have the time of your life.

When I left school, I played Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day to Grade 5, reminiscing, however cornily, that this was the song we sang when I was their age and leaving school. Scrolling the lyrics on my phone, they entertainingly sang along too.
To the most participatory class, Grade 7, I told them a Barry Hearn life lesson ripped off of the Men in Blazers podcast: All of us are limited in the same way – there are only 24 hrs in a day. You can compete with anybody if you work harder. I felt incredibly cheesy, but with kids you never know what works.

This is the farewell assembly in which the students each said “Namaste” and some gave me the sash called “Kada.” A proper sendoff fit for kings!

We kicked off the last day with a football game, in which my team won 6-2, and the wager on the game was a rooster for dinner, so I bought a rooster (I was spared the sight of the slaughtering) for dinner, which was the first time they had eaten meat at school in the last 6 months.

All together a mighty wonderful day.

Things that worked at school

At Nurbuling school, 70 of the 100 students live in the dorms, most of them boys. Here are some of the things I introduced that worked for them.

Twister. Thanks, Tiff. Fun, but violent rendition of the game.

Hand slapping game. They loved this one. Hand-eye coordination training.

Hand pushing game. Balance training.

Chess. My record = 1 loss, 1 stalemate. Not bad 🙂

Checkers. My record = 1 stalemate. They had never seen this game before.

No blinking game. They already knew this one. I lost quiet a lot. Dry eyes to blame.

Korean drinking/animal game. Thank you, Catherine, for teaching us at WashU. Who knew this would become the game of choice here!
Japanese and Taiwanese drinking/predicting the number of jointly raised fingers games. Math practice.

Improvised computer class to do my personal work. They had seen computers, but not often.

Printing Wikipedia entries. No internet, so I printed Pele’s entry back in Kathmandu.

Guitar. Good thing I donated 2. A single one would have been difficult to teach with. The teacher that knows how to play has the stern manner not conducive to teaching. Students asked me specifically to teach them as I’m a mechanism to bend the arbitrary rules. Too bad I’m not much of a player. Overall it was difficult to teach games due to the highly regulated nature of dorms. For example, one teacher prohibited playing cards.

Science class. At least I think this worked. We were learning about solar and lunar eclipses and we made this out of the plywood for the bunk beds, cricket and basketballs, and our own ingenuity! Guess if this was a solar or lunar eclipse when we shown the light on the hanging cricket ball.
Things showed that they’ve never seen before, even the teachers.

Kindle. Amazon, you’ve got work to do.

Camping stove and gas. This was my awkward attempt to make coffee.

Water filter. Sawyer filter based off Fred’s recommendation. Grade 5 and above had learned about water filters in their books, so this was a live demo of a real life one.

Celebrating my 30th at school

No children were harmed in the making of this video, despite the violence you see!

Yoga retreat

Act I
As we patrolled the yoga building at night, I gazed across the incredible cityscape. In the distance the sparkling specks of planes accelerated out of and decelerated into the Tribhuvan airport. My juvenile mind drifted to Space Invaders. I wished I could gracefully exit the march and just behold the vista. Inexperienced in walking meditation, and with the added difficulty of navigating through the darkness, I steadied both my gait and resolve and focused on maintaining 5 paces behind the instructor. Did I have it in me to make it through the week?

Act II
緣 – yuan – a bond formed with a bit of luck and a bit of destiny. Natsumi, the only other student there, had initiated her meditation practice with Mindfulness in Plain Japanese, and I with its English counterpart. I don’t think I’ll get very many other chances to chat so candidly about meditation, yoga, and spirituality. No, this was not a hippie retreat!

Meeting perfect strangers doesn’t happen often, and she provided that rare window in which I could gush about my awesome girlfriend –  something that guys like me feel too prideful and awkward to share even with close friends. Measured in her approach, thoughtful, present, and alive, bless her for having the patience to listen to me babble on about coffee, graduate school, and my travel experiences so far. It most definitely would have been lonelier and quieter without her company.

Act III
“You never listen! If you listened you would be an expert already!” Our harsh instructor laid down the law… on handstands. Disciplined, opinionated, devout, and close-minded, Amrit’s approach to yoga and life had a degree of militarism to it. He began his practice years back “by the grace of God” and narrowly defines a proper life of yoga and meditation; there is a “right” way and many wrong ones.

“It is difficult for you, no?” he remarked as I struggled to reach my toes. I wasn’t given a chance from the start. I shouldn’t be the one to complain as Natsumi had it much worse. She already excelled at many poses and the instructor demanded perfection. Her mental fortitude through it all is worth emulating.

Act IV
“Bend over to the front and touch your toes!” I was jubilant. My lyrical interpretation was far from Lil Jon’s original intention, but who cares? I went from 5 inches off the ground to all 10 fingers on it! 2 hours daily practice goes a long way.

The week at the yoga center gave me many tools to move forward independently in my practice. Aside from the discomfort from a less than compassionate instructor, I basked in the clean air, majestic mountains, and soothing harmony of the surrounding forest. What a retreat it was!