Everest Here I Come

Sorry things have been quiet for a while. And they will become even more quiet for the next few days. I'm on a sudden, last minute trip to the Everest region to visit Tengboche starting this morning and returning back on May 30/May 31, depending on the weather. A couple of friends of mine invited me to go at cost without having to pay for a guide or any other fees, and another friend hooked me up with a backpack, sleeping bag, and parka!

So I'm off! I'll check in from the trail if possible.

Peace.

Job job job!

I got a job today!! So I stopped working for HimRights and BBC to free up my time to work on The Kumari Project, but expenses are expenses and rupees are rupees, and I'm running low on them. Last week I got a potential job offer working for New Era (www.newera.com.np), a research institute in Nepal. I will be editing reports for them on my own time (perfection!), and they even want me to continue working for them while I'm in The States! Sweetness.

Bal Mandir Clean Up

So I was getting incredibly discouraged with efforst to support Bal Mandir, as it seemed like any money that was raised for the orphanage was not getting to the kids. Even some of the didis – women who live in the orphanage and take care of the kids 24/7 (who hadn’t been paid in seven months) - were selling baby formula boxes to stores to get money. However, May 1, I got incredible news.

Mitrataa (http://mitrataa.org/) is an Australian NGO that is run by Bec Ordish. They have been paying for scholarships for some of the girls at Bal Mandir, as well as running other projects on the ground in Nepal. And as of May 2, they took over running Bal Mandir for five years with the specific goal of creating a sustainable model, so that the Nepal Children’s Organization can not only run the orphanage after five years, but also use this model for the other eleven children’s homes they run in the Kathmandu Valley.

Already walking around the grounds, you can tell things are better. The kids have full plates of food with a variety of food, not just plain beaten rice. The didis are smiling and seem much happier. There are still many problems with the way that Bal Mandir is run, but already Bec, is trying to fix the most urgent things and create long term strategies for improving the rest.

One of the first projects Mitrataa organized was to clean up Bal Mandir. So Saturday, they spent the morning and afternoon scrubbing down the rooms, debugging mattresses, cleaning the outside showers and toilets, and picking up the trash littering the grounds. A friend of mine who runs a trekking company called Grand Asian Journeys (grandasianjourneys.com – check them out) brought ten of this guides to help pick grass and litter out of the brick courtyard outside the bathrooms. Also a friend visiting from America on a two week volunteer/trekking trip, a friend from the UK who is volunteering at a hospital in Patan, and his French roommate who had been in Nepal for three months spent her last day in Nepal at Bal Mandir helping out. And HimRights’ staff and friends of staff also came to help out for the afternoon – initiating the toilet cleaning, which was definitely the most daunting clean up area. Thank you so much to everyone who came to help out! (And thank you also facebookers for your long distance support J.)

Microbus Travels

Moment of the Mundane:

I was so squished in the micro yesterday that every time it jerked, the song on the ipod in my pocket changed.

Moving Out of TGH

When I was adopted 24 years ago, my mom and dad stayed in the Tibet Guest House (fondly called ‘TGH’ by the YNepal 2011 crew) for maybe five weeks before taking me to Amurica.

Since then, we have ALWAYS stayed at TGH. Even as the room rates increased and their clientele got fancier. We stayed whenever we traveled to Nepal. I stayed there for a summer on a Yale fellowship. We recommended TGH to our friends, and the YNepal volunteers have also stayed there four years in a row.

But now, operating on a smaller budget, I had to leave hotel livin’. So I moved into a new apartment this week! AND I LOVE IT! Now I am living with a former WFF colleague and a very nice Australian couple in Lazimpat (behind the ShangriLa Hotel). The area is very nice and peaceful compared to Thamel. The main Lazimpat road has everything you could possible want for much more Nepali prices than Thamel…eggs for 7 rupees each, homemade yogurt for 35 rupees, and a bundle of vegetables for 100 rupees (approximately 70 rupees to a US dollar).

And I’m loving my room – it’s larger than any room I have had since high school, and the place is absolutely lovely. I had a short conversation with the landlord today, and she said that I could come back and rent from her if I was ever in Nepal again – so I’m very very excited by it all I could just spit.

I was worried about electricity, but monsoons have given us much more power than before, and the charm of candlelight is certainly growing on me. We have hot water most of the time! And we even have a didi who comes to do our laundry and clean our house twice a week…how sweet is that?! Although, it definitely makes me think of White Tiger a little too much…but I guess that’s a subject for another post.

Playing Catch Up

Sundance, April 30: The weekend before last, some friends convinced me to go to the Sundance Music Festival up in the hills outside Kathmandu at a place called Last Resort. It is known for having the second highest bungy jump in the world, but it also has a restaurant and a collection of large tents for people who come to take part in the various outdoor activities that they have.

Once a year, they organize a two-day music festival and bus people in from KTM for an evening. They set up about 150 tents (the ones that are permanent are fancy safari-like tents, but they set up backpacking type tents) all over the hillside and number them. You get assigned to a tent, and then you have all meals included and a stage set up with a variety of music including folk, traditional, rock, and a late night DJ.

The day started out raining so hard, I had to take a rickshaw from my hotel to get to the bus stop because there was a foot of water flooding the road. I was skeptical about the journey, as I wasn’t keen to spend an evening in a soaking wet tent listening to mediocre music.

But I rallied, only because I’d already paid for my non refundable ticket. However, the journey started off well. I was with a large group of friends of friends, one of who managed to get us a private van to take to Last Resort because we ‘couldn’t all fit on the buses.’ Then, once we arrived, it turned out that the rain that was slamming the KTM valley all weekend didn’t even reach us. The resort was beautiful with a little plunge pool, a nice bathroom J, and a lovely restaurant area with tasty eats. And, the weekend was full of lovely music (none of it spectacular, but definitely entertaining and a nice variety). But the best thing was the atmosphere. It was a small group of people, and no one really knew more than a few people, so everyone was incredibly friendly. I even lost my camera, and everyone thought someone had taken it, but I was sure the crowd was too chill (and too rich – admittedly there were mostly expats) to steal it. And it’s true! I was sitting on the bus ready to go home at the end of the weekend, and one of the staff members brought me my camera – it had been lying in the grass…oops. Besides my favorite German in the world coming, I didn’t know anyone at the start of the weekend, but I actually managed to make a few friends who have already made Kathmandu feel much more like home.

So thank you, Last Resort!

Poop Check In

To all my adoring fans, sorry for the interweb silence these last few weeks. Things have been a bit hectic…haha, when are they not?

To start off with, a meditation on poop:

Last week, coming back on a three-four hour bus ride with some mild but seriously inconvenient bowl issues, I had a discussion with a complete stranger about the mucus content of my poop – he is a doctor in training, so that (maybe) gives you some context.

That being said I also had another discussion with a complete stranger about pooping ourselves after about 30 minutes of the usual get to know you chit chat.

I guess what I’m saying is your bowel movements do become part of the ‘usual chit chat’ in Nepal, and it’s something I sorta love. Traveler’s diarrhea as they like to call it can seriously mess with one’s sense of control. But, once you make it through (often multiple bouts) it becomes a ‘right of passage’ in a sense.

One of the co-leaders from the fourth annual YNepal trip this year commented that last year she had greatly appreciated my graphic recounts of my bowels in various states of urgency and liquidity, as they helped her become more comfortable sharing her ‘activities.’ I was quite touched.

To wrap up, as you may know, I am not a religious person. But the only time I pray is when I am on the toilet.

Summer Nights

Walking to Dairy Mart to get an ice cream cone in the dark.

Staying out late playing hide and seek in the cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids.

One of those perfect warm air summer nights cooled by a gentle breeze walking home tonight.