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.
