Revising home

One can know that reverse culture shock will happen, but then there's actually experiencing it. Right now it is an illusive whirlwind of thoughts and emotions and physical reactions...refusing to be captured, held still, nor properly seen and understood.

There is no rushing this process, this space of in between. So I am doing my best to just breathe, and allow this new environment and I to come to some terms of understanding that will work for both of us. I'm not quite sure yet how that's going to work out.

Who knew that warmed toilet seats in a public restroom in Japan with 4 different types of automated flush type options depending on your cultural and personal preference could bring such a sense of overwhelm?

In my mind, I keep seeing this experience at the public toilet juxtaposed with my experience of going to the post office in Nepal the day before I flew to send a few things home to myself.

At the main post office in Nepal, when you go in to send something, a man goes through your things to make sure everything is good to send (customs).

Then you hand your package to someone who takes white cotton material and hand sews your package closed.

At this point a woman hands you a thick, black, permanent marker so that you can write your address on the now beautifully stitched cotton material. This is her job, and the only thing that she will do all day. And likely every day.

To the right of the woman with the black pen (everyone is organized in a row so that you are helped by one person and then the next) sits a man in the corner carefully tending to a flame.

After receiving my package, he takes his wax stick, places it in the flame, and allows it to melt. The melted, red wax is used to seal the seams. He is careful, focused, present. I am transported back to times when people wrote handwritten letters with quill pens and sealed the letter with their wax emblem.

At the end, I have been helped, very personally, by a total of 8 people. It has taken an hour and a half, and I have a beautifully wrapped gift to send to myself. This is as official as it gets in Nepal.

And....aren't my brother and his girlfriend, Chiaki, cute? (yes, my thoughts jump these days at random between the U.S., Japan, Nepal, Canada, and back to Nepal, Japan, the U.S...)

There was a lot of rain in Japan when I was there. A deluge of water, in general. A welcome experience after the dryness of the sun and dust of the last few months in Nepal.

Now to spend my last Canadian coins before flying back to the U.S...where I re-create home and figure out how to tie all the threads of my experience together.  

No title

In between the craziness of my last weeks before leaving Nepal, traveling to Japan, coming home (jet lag and culture shock)  I leave these pictures and thoughts for you.   Thank you for being a part of the journey.  And stay tuned for the next one.

1. Nepal
2. Japan
3. Seattle
4. Japan

After the whirlwind

Japan is clean. And orderly. REALLY clean and orderly. Woah...that is all I have to say about that right now.

It is also beautiful here. Presentation is important. The food is amazing. There are temples and shrines - of a very different sort than Nepal - scattered everywhere. And the rain is welcome after months of sun (yes), but also dust.

I am missing Nepal. I am missing my friends, my work, the chaos, the dirt, internet cafes on every corner, large smiles, easy conversations with strangers, a simple lifestyle.

I am equally ready to start a new adventure. To take with me what gifts I`ve received from my time and experience in Nepal and to see where these take me. I also know that I`ll return to Nepal again. And that made it a (tiny) bit easier to say goodbye for now.

At the end here, I can`t help but think about what it is that I most have been given and will take with me as new learning, new understanding. About myself, about people, about Nepal, about the "third world", about development work...

In reality, I think the list is too long to attempt to put into anything succinct. And a list would only minimize.

I can pick the top of the list, however, and say that the biggest gift I received from those I know in Nepal was the experience of being around people who are truly present in their lives. To surroundings, to family and friends and community, to cooking and eating... to enjoying.

In reality, the biggest gift I can give to those who hosted me in their homes, communities, organizations, and lives for two years is to take my experience and learning forward with me...to my own life and work and creation...

I am awful at saying goodbye, especially because I didn`t really want to be saying goodbyes. So my last weeks were rushed and chaotic as I pretended that I didn`t have to do the inevitable.

My resistance was met with so much understanding, love, gifts (and more gifts), home cooked food, parties, dancing, cards, and kind words. This says little about me, and much about those who were giving. I felt humbled and honored...thank you to all.


(Above: goodbye dinner with a few of my friends...)

From the Hong Kong airport

I am writing this from the airport in Hong Kong, on my way to Japan to visit my brother (where he lives) on my way home. Going through a few pictures from my last weeks in Nepal (pictures above from a trek to Helambu last week with Eva and Gyalgyn), it already feels a bit like a world away. Though only in image. In experience and in my body, I know Nepal will remain close and continue to take shape within me for a long time.

Leaving Nepal was harder for me than I had imagined it would be. Partially, because when I arrived, 2 years seemed like such a *temporary* time. And this had always been in my mind in Nepal...I am here temporarily.

27 months later, therefore, it has crept up on me somewhat secretly that Nepal feels like a real home. With all the familiarity, comfort, routine, love, and connection that home brings. And I found I wasn't quite prepared for what it would feel like to leave this home.

For all of you who I have been out of touch with the last while...apologies...

I will be posting something again, if only some of my leaving thoughts about my time in Nepal and first thoughts about heading West (first striking things: advertising, chain restaurants, and people following rules).

But for now, wanted to let all of my friends in Nepal (wherever you come from) know that I am thinking of you and miss you already. You have enriched my life in uncountable ways...you know who you are.

And I am incredibly excited to be on my way to Japan to see Cameron, the Pacific Northwest (!!!!), and then Pittsburgh(Kevin xx).

... at Boudha ....

Trip to the border and first goodbyes

Last week I spent some time in Hetauda, Makwanpur (where I lived and worked for over a year) and Birgunj, Parsa.

It's hard to believe I'm leaving Nepal in a month.

Realizing I'm visiting a place or person for the last time (this time around, at least)and saying goodbyes is....awfully difficult.

It's hard to put any words to the gratitude I have for those people here who have shared their lives, experiences, wisdom, home, and friendship with me.

In Hetauda, among many others, these people include: Saroj, Chanda, Teresa, Diksha and her family, Smarika and her family, Saroj, Krishna, Sushant,Sita, Anju, Dudumaya, Uttam, Nawaraj, Raju, Shukra, Sushila, Anu, Jose, Prenam, all the girls at "the kendra", Maya, Kumari, Bishnu Om Shanti, Urmila, Basudev, Madan, Sanu, Ravi, Hari, Chiringibi, Laxmi, Bikram, Bishn, Ashmita, Lokhari, Pierre, Shyam, Sarada, Tulasa, Balaram, Tej and all the women in our project areas, especially, who welcomed me into their homes and their communities.

Above:

(1) Shreela is in Nepal...I'm in India!!
(2) Visiting my friend, Dudumaya, at her Bastipur home
(3) Sushila and her family
(4) COSAN Hetauda team

Images from my way to work

Today's another strike. 13 student unions came together and shut down the valley shops and traffic in protest of fuel hikes.

So I had the opportunity to walk to work today. I get to walk through a world heritage site (Durbar Square) on my way....

Here are some images from the walk:

(1) holy men hanging out
(2) this is how we buy and sell vegetables in Nepal
(3) pigeons at the palace
(4) even though it's a strike, life must go on
(5) Bhairab temple in Durbar Square
(6) Kantipath street...with foot and bike traffic only

Tharu New Year Celebration

Sometimes we catch someone looking at us....and wonder exactly what it is that they see.

Namaste

I walked to work the other day in (almost) complete silence, as there was a day long nationwide strike. No motorbikes honking and sometimes touching me as they brush past. No cars and tempos and busses jammed up against each other, crazily stopping and starting, weaving in and out from under one another. No exhaust fumes. No dust kicked up from the traffic.

Just people. Walking, selling vegetables, bartering, visiting the temples, and standing by burning tires and blockades in the middle of the road telling stories to one another.

As I walked through the old bazaar area of town, the old Newar trade area, winding through narrow alleyways flanked by temples every block or so, I felt like I could have been walking ... seeing the same exact thing.... 500 years ago.

A group of perhaps 15 young Nepali men marched by me with flags at one point. I had to quickly look to make sure they were peaceful. Otherwise, I’ve learned to just quietly and quickly step out of the way.

They took no notice of me at all. An older man had also been watching them, I saw. Not for his safety, but because of their flag. As I approached him, I watched him react, a quick flash of anger crossing his face, as he bent down to pick up a brick.

My intuition told me I was completely fine, so when he raised the brick...almost as if wondering exactly what to do with it...and he looked my way....I quickly smiled at him. It was my first impulse. And something I’ve learned in my time here. In the face of potential conflict...smile.

What then transpired was the most quick and clear transition from anger to palpable calm and peace I have ever witnessed. Once he noticed me and my nervous smile, he immediately looked me in the eye, set down the brick, gracefully put his hands together in a prayer position, and smiled the hugest smile I’ve seen in a long time.

The movements were almost like a compact dance routine, a whole story of a nation poised between conflict and peace, looking forward and back at the same time. It all took place within a 10 second time period.

I smiled back at him, put my hands together in Namaste, and kept walking to work.

Breaking speed

Yesterday I walked up a path I've walked so many times to my friends' place in a village area outside of Hetauda. He's built a home and there are 12 girls living there - who otherwise would have been at risk of being trafficked to India.

Instead, they are living and working together, studying, planting rice and cooking, creating and maintaining a beautiful, peaceful home. I so enjoy visiting them whenever I have the opportunity.

After being a guest in a country where it is considered an honor both to be a guest, as well as to provide comforts to your guest, I have to say that it's a nice change of pace to visit a home where they're willing to put me straight to work.

The girls were drying rice in the day sun, rice that had just been harvested from the field. We pulled up our pant legs, sifting huge piles of rice with our feet. Spreading it into thin layers on the ground. It was easy work, physical, tangible, satisfying, joyful.

They then put me to work weeding the vegetable garden. My hands in the dirt, I looked at the young women around me. Everyone pitching in. Silence balanced with laughter. Broken occasionally by song. We would work until we needed a break. Then sit on the wall, entertaining those crouched down. Until we returned to the dirt.

Our movements slow...this is not work that can be sped through. But with so many people, it goes quickly. And easily.

There are so many from the West in Nepal who are trying to change the speed here. Trying to impose their ways of doing things. Trying to make people think in a different way. Trying to propose that their development is "the" development.

But just as much as speed, humans need stillness and slowness. Just as much as the individual, we need the group. Just as much as noise, we need silence. Without one, how can we have the other?

Without the East, how can we have the West?

And why do we try so desperately to change the other....to be convinced that we are right?

Maybe there is a place for work that isn't organized. Where people come and go as they are able. And break out into song. Work that is intentional and human...and not "outcome" oriented. But that is present to the world around.

Maybe we need to still be walking through the rice every once in a while. Feeling the grains stick to our feet. Watching the husks dry in the sun. Slowly, slowly...taking in what is happening.

Fall

A few days ago I celebrated my two year anniversary in Nepal. Unfortunately, in bed, as I was laid out with a fever. But I was internally celebrating, nevertheless.

It was hard for me to imagine being in Nepal for two years when I first arrived. But here I am, in certain ways, quite a changed person. No matter what other reasons might exist, I guess this is partially why we really come if we are honest with ourselves.

I am enjoying feeling at home in a country that at one point felt so foreign.

I am enjoying switching easily in conversations between Nepali and English.

I am enjoying knowing finally what work it is here that brings me genuine joy.

I continue to enjoy simple pleasures: like Nepali tea and full conversations with no words; dancing and joke telling as part of trainings; knowing my neighbours and the fact that my corner shop carries everything really necessary.

And I am enjoying knowing that I am on my last stretch of time here. Time which I am really grateful for.

For me life in Nepal has a level of intensity to it, as well as a circularity and fluidity. I am starting to wonder what it will be like to go back to things that feel normal, predictable, and linear. I imagine that I will find this alternatively hard and comforting.

Here the weather is crisp. Sunny. The mountains stretching along the horizon. On and on and on. Dust is filling the air. More and more every day. And outside of the city the fields have now been cleared of all the rice. Everyone is getting ready for the cold that is starting to set in.

Picture above: evening of dancing at our young professional women's workshop.

Tihar

Tihar is my favorite holiday in Nepal. It's all about singing, dancing, community and neighbors, kids, families, and having fun. It's about lighting candles, inviting prosperity into our lives, honoring animals and renewing relationships.

I headed up briefly to the mountains during Tihar and got to join in on a rockin' village dance party high up in the now cooooold mountain foothills. The views of the peaks this time of year are breathtaking.

I came back to town with 2 nasty blisters, a cold, and a fresh and clear mind. Plus this photo.

The boy above, when he saw himself, got the hugest grin on his face. He said, "I look like an eagle"! Indeed.

For my brother, Cameron

Dear Cameron,

I took this picture just for you.

How cool are the deer's antlers?

Love, sis

Dad visits!

Mountains and monasteries
Crazy local bus rides
Women sitting on my father's lap
Children sitting on mine
Praying, praying, no one will puke this time
Taking in the quiet of the morning fog of Lumbini
A welcome reprieve from the oppressive heat of the day
Moments of stillness
And home
Wrapped up together, mingling together
Speaking to each other

Sacred cows

Last week we volunteers had the opportunity to gather in Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha, for 2 days of work. Program planning, strategizing, discussing... And evening gumning (that's Nepangregi, for my fellow half English, half Nepali speakers).

This cow slept at the front gate of the buddhist nunnery where we were staying. She arrived a year ago, and hasn't left since.

My dad arrived in Nepal 2 days ago. I am seeing the country again from a visitor's eyes.

Tomorrow we head for a 3 day trip on the Trisuli river: from Kathmandu to Naranghat, which was very close to where my first home was in Nepal. Perhaps it's not exactly the same as canoeing down the Deschutes as we used to do when I was young. But - on multiple levels - feels like circling around back to home. Just in a new way each time.

Movement

These days everything is shaking, rumbling, stirring

It has been like this for some time.

Sometimes in a pleasant way – laced with hope and excitement.

Sometimes it’s quite uncomfortable.

I guess change is like this.

Today it started shaking outside also. First my computer screen. Then my chair, the windows.

It felt like the world was reflecting my inner self back to me.

Outside on the street, my neighbour claimed it must have been a 5.5. I wonder what it was near the center, he mused.

Aren’t we always at the center?

If we die today, however, we’ve done our meditation and we’ll die with our spirit happy, in the right way, he says.

He says this with a smile on his face.

He’s a brilliant artist. And can say these things and they sound authentic. Not like platitudes.

We had just eaten. Rice and potatoes and turmeric and spices and cabbage and onions and garlic and peppers and achaar.

We had talked about the transitory nature of life. How quickly everything can change. And how in our life- how often it does.

As I was running down the stairs, I realized how easy it was to leave everything behind if I had needed to.

Outside of the immediately practical things (my passport, wallet, a flashlight, pen and paper, water and a house key), everything truly important to me isn’t material.

This, somehow, is reassuring.

Nora: I felt like it was appropriate that I spent today (your wedding day) with artists and philosophers and home-made food cooked with love.

In the calm now, it’s hard to know if the shaking was the beginning or the end.

And really, it doesn’t really matter.

It’s just good to enjoy the calm while it is here.

Knowing that peace and chaos can only ever co-exist.

Monsoon skies

A reflection on weather and our connection with the sky as - with clouds still grumbling outside my office window - the monsoon season starts to come to a close.

Renew.

Burnout. What to do?

Meditate.
Be silent.
Breathe.
Dance.
Run through rivers.
Celebrate.
Light a candle and float it down the river.
Take time to make and eat good food with friends.

Success. Reminder to self: there is always time (and endless ways) to renew the soul.

Photos above from a ceremony from one of my very favorite villages in Nepal where women still take the time to be together, renew their connections, honor their community, make beautiful things, and feast.

To all of you who let me know that you read and enjoy the blog - thank you.