South African International Transit Lounge Check In

Who knows how much I'm paying to connect to the wifi network here, but it's worth it for a quick status check in.


Luci Duan just wrote a wonderful article for the Yale Herald on spring break volunteer experiences, and YNepal is featured a lot! Check it out: http://yaleherald.com/news/changing-the-world-in-fourteen-days/


I must say, though, that one thing that is missing from my quotes/experiences, is that YNepal is thriving because of the wonderful student leaders that have led trips over the past three years, so thank you Jarrad Aguirre, Jon Espitia, Kim McCabe, Hilary Rogers, Edith Sangueza, and Chelsea Wells! And of course, thank you to all the amazing volunteers who have come on the trips!

Moment of the Mundane (or a life or death experience - you decide :))

Now some of you know I am Quizno's #1 fan! But I have to say, Subway won me over just a few hours ago. I was touring the Delhi airport - which has become quite swanky, housing even a McDonald's that serves such items as paneer salsa wraps (but they were sold out :() - when I came across a Subway serving salads. I have been DESPERATE for raw vegetables for the past month - the plight of a vegetarian - so, I decided to boldly (and idiotically) dare the gods of bodily functions by ordering a salad complete with lettuce, tomatos, cucumbers, and green peppers, none of which were peeled, but I was assured they were 'washed with mineral water.' Well, it's been a good 12 hours and sickness has yet to take hold, so hopefully I have not spoken too soon :)

Off to Botswana

Okay final blog post for a while. Tomorrow I am off to Gaborone, Botswana to tour with a theater company who is doing street theater to combat negative stereotyping and discrimination in Botswana as part of my work for Minority Rights Group International (a wonderful London-based international NGO: http://www.minorityrights.org/). 


Before I go, I must do a bit of Ninja Zombies promotion. As some of you may know, I acted in a film this summer called Ninja Zombies directed by Noah Cooper and produced by Mike Castro. It's in the final stages of production and a test screening is going down on March 26! Get the details here: http://www.ninjazombiesfilm.com/?p=760. And, if you can't make it, don't be too sad. We are trying to figure out creative ways to get the film to those who are not in the CT area. In fact, if you know of any film festivals close to you, let me know and we will try to submit NZ so we can be showing at a theater near you! If you are still not able to see the film, hopefully you will be able to catch it after we get a sweet distribution deal (cross your fingers :)). 


Oh, and I'll give a box of milk duds to the first five people to spot the zombie played by my mom, Beth Eldridge.

Moment of the Mundane

Today I spent a good 30 minutes in a KTM traffic jam listening to my cab driver hock literally 16 loogies. We could have saved like ten minutes if he had been more focused on driving than hocking.

What's in a name?

I must thank my cousin, Sneha, for the idea for this blog title! Perhaps a year or so ago a fb update informed me that one of the quizzes you can take about people popped out 'free bird' as my descriptor. I remember reading it and thinking that I liked the sound of it, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to have been a portentous description of my life for the past year.

I was extremely fortunate to get perhaps the ONE job in the world for which degrees in Theater Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration were essential, and as a result have gotten to travel to many different places and meet wonderful people and artists in countries around the world.

I also chose to quit my lovely Yale 'yob' in search of a certain type of freedom. I have been meditating (albeit off and on and briefly) about the nature of freedom and self-determination at a point when my peers seem to be asking themselves what kinds of freedoms they want in their lives and what kinds of jobs and lifestyles allow them to seek and achieve them. I realize more and more that what I always thought of as an arrogant, American obsession with personal freedoms (and freedom fries and freedom toast) is what, in a sense, I am now seeking (and what a true privilege it is, as so many people are simply fighting for this right to begin with, and not even able to exercise it). Hence the 'right to life, liberty, and freedom' has taken on new meanings for me in the past few years...and I hope this blog will illustrate interesting parts of my flight through the freebirdskies for the next few months.

The perks of 'load shedding'

I'll have to get back to you regarding what exactly 'load shedding' means, but it results in 14-16 hour blackouts a day in KTM.

Sadly, that is what it has taken for me to not be connected to the internet while on my laptop. Happily, I have learned that I can be more productive in four hours of no internet connection than I can with 20 hours of being online while 'working.' Sadly/happily, when I have the option of being online I am a pure addict.

March 22, 2011: Welcome to my blog!

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while, but not being so gifted with the written word and not being much of a blog reader myself, I was resisting. (Plus, I have always had an aversion to personal blogs as they seem to be the epitome of new media narcissism…although it seems the past few months have been a lesson in realizing that doing the things that I used to judge harshly is not always a bad thing.)

However, I have come across some rather exciting things, much of the mundane (which is actually prompting the actual writing of this first blog post), and a bunch of people doing cool stuff and fun and interesting places which I would love to share with anyone who wants to procrastinate at life and read my blog.

If nothing else, I hope this blog will be a good way for me to keep my friends and family updated with my random activities, and encourage them to email me and keep me updated on their lives as well.

So…the mundane that is prompting this blog post: I have a real job once again. It’s been almost nine months! But don’t get too excited, folks, I’m only here for one month. The ‘here’ I refer to is Himalayan Human Rights Monitors (HimRights: http://www.himrights.org/) and Beyond Beijing Committee (BBC: http://www.beyondbeijing.org/).  

A very cool organization that I used to work with/volunteer for called Adhikaar in NYC (they are awesome and their executive director, Luna Ranjit, just completed a half marathon as a fundraiser – check them out: www.adhikaar.org) connected me with Anjana Shakya, the director of HimRights and BBC. After a few months of emailing Anjana in preparation for my travels to Nepal, I finally got a chance to visit the office and got hired right away to help revise and submit an urgent proposal about domestic and international sex and labor trafficking, of women, girls, and children, in Nepal.

What an incredible opportunity and coincidence, since I just finished Half the Sky, and have been raving about it to anyone who will listen. If you haven’t read that, check it out: Half the Sky by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof. They are a couple who are former NYT correspondents and living in Oregon. Check out the movement (and the book): http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

Anyway, I’m already learning tons about trafficking in Nepal, and am very impressed with the grassroots approach HimRights has taken to raise awareness of trafficking, and help stop trafficking by providing local job opportunities and information for legal and safe foreign labor migration. (As most of you know I am really in Nepal to start a women’s cooperative specifically to give young women a way to continue their education and give them local job opportunities so they are not at risk for being trafficking, or needing to go abroad to find domestic work.)

John Stewart’s 'Moment of Zen' = Arun Storrs’ 'Moment of the Mundane':

3 hours and 3450 rupees later, the Indian embassy has my passport so I can get a transit visa to go to Mumbai for eight hours…awesome…on the way back from Botswana to KTM. However, what truly is awesome, is that I get to see Dr. Kaushal Parikh for my very short layover in Mumbai. Ghosts of 38 Bishop are surfacing with the spring air.