I know it has been a while since last I posted and they will only become less frequent because I have finally moved to the village of Mahadav Besi! There is no internet there so I will post when I have access to a computer. The village is really beautiful, hard to describe but there are rows of fields that almost look like green pyramids carved into the mountains. There are seven of us in one mud house. When we arrived it almost felt like we were young children who stumbled across an old house in the woods and decided to make it a play house only we decided to actually live in it for almost 3 months. The monsoon had ruined part of the house, and no one had lived there
in over 5 months, so it was time to clean things up. There was a hole in the roof of my room as well as the ceiling of the people below me and as fun as it to play will I fall through or won't I, we needed to close it. It turns out that one of the best muds to make a sturdy floor is, you guessed it, buffalo manure, which can only be properly mixed by, you guessed it, our hands. My friend reminded me to really get out all of the "lumps" as if this experience wasn't scarring enough but in the end, it was kind of exciting to help build my own floor, whatever materials may have been used.
Most people in my group are extremely proactive and have worked really hard to make the house a home and someone even made a small clay oven outside along with a hammock. Someone even tried to create a tap in the bucket shower so it could be even closer to taking a real one. Every night the power goes out for about an hour and a half right as we are cooking dinner but everyone wears their headlamps and just keeps on chopping, and I must say I have become quite the master of peeling potatoes in the dark and still have all of my fingers.
Sometimes I feel like I am in one of those museums that has the exhibits where you can dress up and pretend to cook in a kitchen from the 18th century but then I realize this is how all of my neighbors in the village are living today. We have three Nepali staff who work with us and come with us to all of the meetings to translate as well as
provide their own knowledge. They are so warm and helpful and the people love them just as much as we do. We have not started actually working in the groups and communities yet because we are still observing them all and trying to figure out what role we will play and how helpful we can be in such a short amount of me. I will be working
mostly with a girls group in which they can hopefully speak out things that may be embarrassing or not openly discussed in their society normally in a safe place, working in a theater group and choir at a school, and in 3 women's groups as well discussing a variety of topics. One of the women's groups is located in the stone quarry in
which the women work to break stones everyday to be sold and they are migrant workers that live in very small tin and plastic structures near the quarry. They lead a challenging life but today we had our first meeting and the women shared a lot and even laughed for most of the time and told us they felt very comfortable in this setting so I am excited to see what we can accomplish or at least provide an hour a week for them to relax and talk about any issues on their minds. Although some of us feel at times that we do not have so much to do in the village and that our groups meet so infrequently, there is something so comforting about being able to walk around the village and have people call out your name from fields away just to say hello and how are you, knowing its the only words you truly know in their language. Although some of the bigger goals I had in mind might be harder to accomplish in the amount of time I have here, there is so much for me to learn here about myself, the land, and of course the communities and I look forward to see what the next 2 and a half months will bring.
Food for thought: We had a couple of girls come over to the house during our last days of training from the youth group and they asked us to share what the youth do in our own countries. One group of Israelis did a small skit showing games they like to play and explained about strong the youth groups are there to which one girl said " That all looks like fun, but when do you all find time to work in the day?" No one knew how to answer and then someone finally tried to begin to explain how in Israel and America a lot of children do not work at such a young age and for those who do it is sometimes more for their own "piggy bank" and rarely to pay for the groceries for the family. There are obviously many who must work as well but for most of us in our group and in our social circles this is not the case and it made a lot of us think about our own childhoods and how working at that ice cream shop in the summer to pay for a new iphone maybe was not so bad after all.
in over 5 months, so it was time to clean things up. There was a hole in the roof of my room as well as the ceiling of the people below me and as fun as it to play will I fall through or won't I, we needed to close it. It turns out that one of the best muds to make a sturdy floor is, you guessed it, buffalo manure, which can only be properly mixed by, you guessed it, our hands. My friend reminded me to really get out all of the "lumps" as if this experience wasn't scarring enough but in the end, it was kind of exciting to help build my own floor, whatever materials may have been used.
Most people in my group are extremely proactive and have worked really hard to make the house a home and someone even made a small clay oven outside along with a hammock. Someone even tried to create a tap in the bucket shower so it could be even closer to taking a real one. Every night the power goes out for about an hour and a half right as we are cooking dinner but everyone wears their headlamps and just keeps on chopping, and I must say I have become quite the master of peeling potatoes in the dark and still have all of my fingers.
Sometimes I feel like I am in one of those museums that has the exhibits where you can dress up and pretend to cook in a kitchen from the 18th century but then I realize this is how all of my neighbors in the village are living today. We have three Nepali staff who work with us and come with us to all of the meetings to translate as well as
provide their own knowledge. They are so warm and helpful and the people love them just as much as we do. We have not started actually working in the groups and communities yet because we are still observing them all and trying to figure out what role we will play and how helpful we can be in such a short amount of me. I will be working
mostly with a girls group in which they can hopefully speak out things that may be embarrassing or not openly discussed in their society normally in a safe place, working in a theater group and choir at a school, and in 3 women's groups as well discussing a variety of topics. One of the women's groups is located in the stone quarry in
which the women work to break stones everyday to be sold and they are migrant workers that live in very small tin and plastic structures near the quarry. They lead a challenging life but today we had our first meeting and the women shared a lot and even laughed for most of the time and told us they felt very comfortable in this setting so I am excited to see what we can accomplish or at least provide an hour a week for them to relax and talk about any issues on their minds. Although some of us feel at times that we do not have so much to do in the village and that our groups meet so infrequently, there is something so comforting about being able to walk around the village and have people call out your name from fields away just to say hello and how are you, knowing its the only words you truly know in their language. Although some of the bigger goals I had in mind might be harder to accomplish in the amount of time I have here, there is so much for me to learn here about myself, the land, and of course the communities and I look forward to see what the next 2 and a half months will bring.
Food for thought: We had a couple of girls come over to the house during our last days of training from the youth group and they asked us to share what the youth do in our own countries. One group of Israelis did a small skit showing games they like to play and explained about strong the youth groups are there to which one girl said " That all looks like fun, but when do you all find time to work in the day?" No one knew how to answer and then someone finally tried to begin to explain how in Israel and America a lot of children do not work at such a young age and for those who do it is sometimes more for their own "piggy bank" and rarely to pay for the groceries for the family. There are obviously many who must work as well but for most of us in our group and in our social circles this is not the case and it made a lot of us think about our own childhoods and how working at that ice cream shop in the summer to pay for a new iphone maybe was not so bad after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment