35!

I had a perfect 35th birthday: early morning hike, mountain sunrise, flying through the air, and and evening of the best of company.

THANK YOU to all who helped me celebrate my birthday in person, by email, phone, or in spirit. I am so grateful for all those who surround and support me. I am one lucky woman! And wouldn't be who I am without you. This was one of the best birthdays I have had.

Photos above: (1) paragliding in the Himalayas (words can't describe), (2) Elijah getting ready for take off, (3) prayer flag, (4) birthday sunrise view above Pokhara and (5) Akke Antje and me. We shared our birthday paragliding together. This is before we took off. Can you see how excited I was?

One of my best presents: a poem from my creative and fabulous brother, Cameron. I wouldn't normally print something like this about myself - it feels a bit odd. I think his talent deserves an audience, however!

Here it is:

A few years ago, who would've thought?
Tiffany in Nepal, enjoying her life as a horse enjoys a trot.
Facing all challenges, she takes them as they come and go,
Yup, it's my sister Tiff who runs the show.
Heh, it's so easy for her, the lowest degree,
Power outages at home? Who says she can't see?
To my amazing sister Tiffany, who simply
Constantly reaches epiphanies, doesn't succumb to trickery,
Continues to enjoy life in a way that's particularly inexplicably,
Enviable. Yes indeed, we shall proceed
To watch her successfully plant "knowledge seeds"
For those who need it most. But not to sidetrack -
This lady needs some time to herself like a tic does a tac,
Thus I hope she's able to fully enjoy this time AKA "take a min",
As does a newborn fish in the water putting to use multiple dorsal fins,
Happy birthday to my wonderful sister, Tiffany Corrine!

Poem by Cameron Purn (brother extraordinaire, who I miss very much)

Holi

Even the name is cool. A Hindu festival of color.

Holi came at a good time this year for me. I was really needing a holiday of play and fun. And Holi came to the rescue.

Okay, so there are some parts of Holi that are weird and can be not-so-fun. Especially if you're not in the mood. Like if someone pelts you too hard with a water balloon while you're walking down the street and it's the last thing you expect. Or when people smear thikka powder on your teeth in your mouth. Yuck - imbibing toxic power sucks.

BUT - if you are in the mood and just give in to all the craziness, and head just a bit out of the main part of the city, this is one of the best festivals.

Everyone takes off work. Sleeps in, eats rice with their family. Then...it's off to "play Holi". Which entails smearing thikka power on your friend and family's face. Lots of it, as many colors as possible. Throwing it on them. Perhaps - if you go all out- breaking an egg on someone's head.

The best part? After a Nepali gets smashed in the face with tons of powder, they look to their assailant and say, "thank you". That is so Nepali. Yes - it is a blessing to have this kind of love showered upon you on this day. The more friends and relatives you have, the darker your face gets throughout the day.

Once I got over the fact that I wasn't ever going to wear the clothes I had on again and that it didn't matter...it was a day of paint craziness, total fun, and finally - exhaustion. After a long shower.

The streets are generally quite outside of the gangs of young men (mostly) and girls roaming around. Women and children watch all the fun from their windows and balconies - also often joining in. Young, old...all. Lots of music and singing and dancing on porches with neighbors joining in.

I found a great roadside music group who invited me to dance several songs - definitely the highlight of the day for me.

The holiday is a celebration of the defeat of an evil demoness, Holika. But also a celebration of color and Spring.

This is what Nepal does well. Combining ceremony, community, and play. Light and Dark with blurry lines. And even if your friend smashes an egg on your head, laughing it off, and saying, thank you.

Above:

1. Our COSAN team playing Holi in Hetauda

2. On Laxmi's roof in Chaughada

4 Laxmi, Avi, Cassie and friends on the roof

5. Rajesh on his motorbike in the village...roaming (as men here are wont to do)

6. Women in Putalibazaar

7. Elijah's "after" photo. Note the police in the background, who have a much stronger visual presence these days now that the UN Mission has left.

After ecstasy, the laundry

It’s been a whirlwind recently, and after all the fun and work and craziness, it feels completely satisfying to be back in Hetauda with things on my to-do list like: do laundry.

I remember a postcard my friend Karen had on the wall above her work desk. It read: After Ecstasy, The Laundry. Indeed.

Two now-friends, Catherine and Nick, came to visit me here in Hetauda for a week of volunteering along their 6 month around-the-world trip (read about their travels here: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Cat-and-Nick/). It was reinvigorating for me to have people to talk about development with, to have an outside perspective on my life here and the work our organization is doing, and to have several opportunities to get out of the office to see what the staff in the field are up to.

Plus....stories from an around-the-world trip....fabulous. I was pretty sad to say goodbye to them. I adjusted very easily to having their company for food shopping, cooking, motorbike rides, song and game sessions with local children, and birthday parties.

Then, was off on travel for work. I still think of the elephant that lived just behind my hotel room in Chittwan. And how wonderful it was to sit at the river in the morning before we started to share the stillness with the water, jungle, canoes, and birds.

After the jungle, it was off to the mountains where I helped facilitate a leadership training in the company of the Himalayas. I worked SOOOO hard during that training. It was no vacation by any means. But if there is anywhere in the world to have to work really, really hard....

Finished off my travels by attending my landlord’s daughter’s wedding in Kathmandu. A Newari wedding - very elegant and multi-day affair that deserves a post of its own.

I am so exhausted after all the traveling and work and dancing(much, much fun was had in the process of so much work) that it doesn’t take much for me to break out into tears right now. For just about any reason. When I think about Elijah leaving soon, when I think about how lucky I am to be in such a stunning environment doing difficult work, when I can’t get my CD player on my computer to work AND the internet is despairingly slow AND my new Mp3 player is confusing to me....when I think of how easy I have it compared to people living in Japan in the moment.

When things like development, the “right” thing to do, or turning 35 soon seem overwhelming....laundry is wonderfully comforting. Watching the water cleanse my hands, my clothes, washing dust particles down the drain to return to the soil below.

Above:

1. Women coming home from work, enjoying watching Nick and village children playing games (photo by Catherine)

2. Nick is a hero! Nick is signing his autograph on hands of children who clamor for his attention. Sometimes being a foreigner in Hetauda can feel like being a celebrity...

3. Catherine taking a picture of the road. We made it up to here on the motorbikes after pretty tough terrain...but this is where they can't make it any further. On foot from here to meet with the local woman's community action group.

4. Leadership Course. Did it!!! Huge personal success for me as one of my goals in coming to Nepal was to help identify and support local leaders who are doing the *real* social change work here.

5. At the wedding, a perfect way to celebrate the end of several weeks of hard work.

Elephants and Gizzards

Elephants!

This week I attended a day long work meeting in Souraha, a national park area an hour and a half from Hetauda.

Main public transportation to the area near the park is a horse drawn carriages.
Yes, besides walking the 7 kilometers from the road, this is the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to get to where you are going.

And, walking alongside elephants? Part of the day-to-day. There are a bunch of elephants kept for tourists who want to go into the national park. Traditionally, also how folks would move around in the jungle area.

Several of the elephants walked past our hotel to and from the place where they enter the park. And one was kept just a few feet behind the room I slept in.

Now, I do feel very conflicted about elephants being kept captive. I do not feel conflicted, however, about the opportunity to touch and spend time with an elephant. Something I will never forget. The elephant's eye - so carefully taking in everything around it.

These elephants are sometimes adorned with tikkas (like above), and you can see them bathing in the river around mid morning each day. They've been trained in India and understand Hindi. The men who ride them are skilled, communicating through spoken commands and also an intricate system of foot movements and taps of a stick.

Even so, I would watch the elephants sometimes do exactly what they wanted and looks of amused exasperation from their owners.

And ahhh....the river. So beautiful and peaceful. When you are in Souraha, you can just feel that you are at the edge of miles and miles and miles of land that is teeming with wildlife.

Land of rhinos, at least 4 variety of deer, tigers, wild chickens, boars and over 500 species of birds - something like 14% of all the species in the world.

Today I am in Kathmandu on my way to another town (Nagarkot) where we will facilitate the second session of our Leadership course (which I am super excited about, by the way). We have a fabulous team and some really interesting content. I am looking forward to seeing how it goes over.

Just returned from meeting up with a group of people who do something they call the "Hash", a Saturday tradition here. Around 30 people gather at a new spot every week and go on a run (or a walk, like I did) through the villages and country landscapes. Those runners, they are pretty serious. Then afterward, everyone enjoys lots of food and drink.

Among others, I got to meet a Nepali yoga teacher/guru/herbalist and a diplomat from the Norwegian embassy. A very kind man who has his own gardener, driver, cook, and someone who does the cleaning. He has a sense of humor about his set up - aware of the extravagance compared to others' lives. And even offered to send fresh baked brownies to Hetauda when he saw my look of longing for "real" brownies...

We all just returned from eating tantalizing Newari food at a hole in the wall restaurant along a busy, otherwise nondescript Kathmandu street. In addition to the more common beaten rice (churra), spicy vegetables and chickpeas we had chicken liver, goat lungs, gizzard, tongue and some other food that was tasty, but that I thought better not to ask the name of.

Oh my, I live a good life.....

P.S. Note to Catherine and Nick: THANK YOU for visiting and volunteering at COSAN. Pix to follow.