It’s OVER, ended, DONE, finished, SIDIYO!!

It’s OVER, ended, DONE, finished, SIDIYO!!

I can’t believe it; I never thought this time would come! I completed Peace Corps Nepal! 2 years and 2 months of my life dedicated to Nepal has come to an end. Reality of it is, my ending was not really what I would have wanted (I’ll explain) and the questions on everyone’s’ mind are “Will you miss Nepal?” “How have you changed?” “What are you going to do next?” “Are you happy you did it?” I’ll get to these questions in this LAST blog post!

Here is the low down on how it all ended. So after the earthquake I got back to Nepal, went to village for about 3 weeks, left for Malaysia/Indonesia then got back to Kathmandu welcomed with riots/strikes due to the Nepal constitution disagreements and ethnic parties mad. Basically the entire terai (the roads/area where I live in Nepal is considered the terai) was shut down during the day due to ‘bhands’ (strikes) so I was stuck in Kathmandu for 7.5 weeks. Eventually roads started opening and then India was mad about the Constitution and cut off Nepal from petrol, medicine, food, propane, and other essential goods. Sadly India was able to get all the media to not cover any of this information so people around the world have been left in the dark. People have been dying from not getting the medicines they need, food prices are up, lines for petrol are absurd, and planes all have to carry in fuel or stop leaving Nepal to fuel up in India or Bangladesh. These strikes have really hurt Nepal maybe even worse than the earthquake. Tourism has definitely taken an additional hit, it is quite sad.

So I finally made it back to my village October 7^th (day before my 28^th birthday) after our safety and security manager sat down with the US Embassy to get special approval for us to travel through the terai even though there were still bhands, which it was approved and she flew to Nepalgunj with us and arranged a private jeep to get us to our villages.  I was quite happy to go back to village as I had a lot of work to complete before COS (Close of Service) including; closing out my grant, packing, saying goodbye to everyone, giving a moringa tree training, and of course trying to get the photos I have been putting off taking for 2+ years.

On October 8^th I used my mud oven one last time and baked a cake for the family, which surprisingly they really liked, they never like anything that isn’t their typical meal of lentils, rice or roti. Ama (my host mother) had been talking about how sad its was gonna be when I left but she really pulled herself together. It definitely wasn’t too big a deal anymore about leaving because I think they really didn’t expect me to come back after the earthquake evacuation, saying goodbye kind of lost its emotional sadness.

I got the receipts for the entire grant close out information, got my photos, and on October 18^th I left the village of Ramghat for good. Now this was a shit show in itself. So my buha (host father) told me the bus left at 9am, so Krysla and Ben were all coming to my place before the bus since I have a direct bus to Nepalgunj from my village. Well then my host father tells me it’s at 8:30am so I call Krysla and Ben to let them know. And at 8:02am my buha shows back up at the house and tells me its leaving at 8am, which is really messed up because ama hasn’t even given me my mala (flower wreath) nor my tika (red powder) to far me goodbye. So then that get rushed and then Ama is crying and I tear up and Ben’s shit is at my house, which we can’t all carry to the bus park. I rush to the bus park with all of my stuff and some of Ben’s bags. The family all comes with me. Then Ben rolls up and I tell him to go grab his stuff and he takes his sweet ass time going to get it. The bus already pulls out of the bus park and goes around the corner and Ben is still not in sight (I live really close to the bus park so no reason its taking this long). By this time Krysla shows up and is all emotional and I leave her with Ama so I can find Ben. When he comes into my eye site he is just walking as slow possible with a huge bag on his head and a backpack and I yell at him “hurry up, bus has left” and his response is “I am not running with this.” And finally when he reaches me he throws his big bag at me and takes off sprinting. So I run after him and we run down the hill he sprints passed my Ama not even saying goodbye (she brought tika and flowers for him too, super rude, I’m still mad at him for how disrespectful his is-clearly didn’t grow up much over the 2 years). Then I stop say goodbye, hug and we are off on our way to Nepalgunj then fly to Kathmandu. Not how I pictured my last day in village, disaster to say the least.

 

The ladies of the family

Ama Oli and I in front of the off-seaon tomato garden

Getting Tika and Mala

The people I called family for 2 years

Walking to Annapurna Base Camp

We made it to Annapurna Base Camp

Photos dont do it justice on how beautiful it really is

Porters

I left really early because I went to trek the Annapurna Base Camp near Pokhara, I was really happy to finally get to do a trek since I was unable to do so during the entire 2 years I lived in Nepal, due to the one time I planned one the earthquake hit just days before we were suppose to go to Langtang. The trek made me really appreciate Nepal; it was so beautiful to be in the mountains, it made me realize why so many tourists actually come to Nepal.

Then COS (close of service conference) was a rush of 2 days of getting bank accounts closed, turning in paper work, understanding health insurance options, medical check ups, dentist, resume writing, saying goodbye to everyone and writing my description of service. It was a very overwhelming 2 days. Happy it was over and also it left me feeling so exhausted I slept a lot in that first week after leaving Nepal.

Right now it’s too soon to say ‘yes it was worth it everyone should do Peace Corps!’ I had a hard service being the second group back in a country, living in a Hindu country, the earthquake, bhandas, constitution, and so many other hiccups. I think Peace Corps Nepal will be a great program eventually and its improved A LOT since our first arrival but my two years was a lot of figuring out what really works for Nepal.

As of now I don’t miss Nepal, eventually I will but right now I am so happy I left and its over. It’s an experience I will never be about to explain fully to anyone who has not gone through it. The people in my group I came with are really unique friends and we all have a bond that we won’t be about to explain to any outsider of our group. These are people who I don’t think I would have ever been friends with outside of Peace Corps Nepal but I am so thankful for each and everyone of them for what they brought to Nepal for those two years and what a support system they are.

As for what’s next and how I changed? Well I think a realized I want to help people, and my career I choose will reflect that but I know its not through development. You can’t help those who don’t want to help themselves and giving things to people doesn’t help them. I think I am going to pursue grad school for Physicians Assistant. Realistically I wont be able to get accepted until I complete some serious 2000 clinical hours and get a couple more classes done. So getting accepted will happen in probably two years but I might still apply next year just to see if I can get in maybe.

Overall sorry for being such a late blogger and bad at doing updates often. It’s been an experience over the last 2 years. Now I am in Laos then off to Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. Ill be back in the states in probably April!!! Spend that readjustment allowance right!.

When I get internet Ill try to do a blog post with my best 100 pictures of Nepal!

Nepal Post Earthquake

Nepal After the Earthquake

I returned to Nepal June 22^nd. We had a 5-day training on new safety and security issues regarding earthquakes and more information about returning to site etc. We got a new travel policy during monsoon (June-September) due to increased risk of landslides as the earthquake has shook loose much rock and the rains will surely cause higher than average landslides. Now we are restricted to only one-two days a month to travel outside our village to do banking and personal stuff within our districts only. Also for annual leave (vacation) we can still vacation outside of Nepal but not within Nepal and we must fly to Kathmandu to limit bus travel. With that said it was quite nice Peace Corps flying us to our villages rather than taking 2-3 days via bus and being only an hour flight….oh Nepal.

Before I was flown back to Surkhet we were all give the option to go to Sindupulchowk to see our host families from Pre Service Training period (this was where our first three months in Nepal were when we were learning the language and technical trainings). Sindupulchowk is also the district that had the most deaths from the earthquake but luckily most of my G200 host families did not have immediate deaths in their host families and my family specifically is ok. Their house is unlivable and they had made a structure out of bamboo and tin to live in for the mean time. It was wonderful seeing them again even though it was super sad to see all the damage. It’s amazing how resilient people really are. When my family saw me they cooked a huge meal, I brought them fruit, beaten rice, 2kgs of buffalo meat, a blanket, a solar lamp and they just replied why? Even when people have nothing in Nepal they will give whatever they can, it is really special. This was also the first time I had seen them since I left December 2013 so it was really great to be able to communicate with them so much better because my language has gotten a lot better than it was my first 3 months of learning. They cooked up the buffalo, made rice, achar, and even gave me raksi (the homemade alcohol-its probably what moonshine is like, pretty rough). After a couple hours of visiting and eating to maximum capacity, I met up with other volunteers and we went exploring through the district capital, Chautara, where we had trainings once a week. It was quite destroyed but again it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting but it wasn’t good. It would have been very scary to be there during the earthquake. Some hotels were completely gone, others tilted on the side smashed into the building beside it, huge cracks, complete fronts missing, and some half gone. Photos below.

My first view arriving in Sindupulchowk

Inside my old host family's new 'house'

outside the new 'house'

this use to have a second story, this is another volunteers house, right next to my house

my first host family and i

host mother and her sisters

sindupulchowk

completely destroyed buildings

So going back to Surkhet everything was the same. There is virtually no damage or changes. I jumped right into working on my tree nursery and plastic houses grant which should all be completed by now but I don’t know (I will get to that in a minute). It was also a proper monsoon season so it cooled the weather down quite a bit every day that it rained so it wasn’t constant heat. But also due to the monsoon season there wasn’t a lot to do. When it rains it pours. I only had just under a month at site before I left on vacation to Malaysia and Indonesia for 24 days. I had an extra 8 days to burn on vacation since the Tibet trip was canceled due to the quake.

I went to Kuala Lumpur for 3 days and met my friend Avi who works for Delta airlines so he just flew in for a short trip. Then went to Flores Indonesia to scuba dive a couple days and see Komodo dragons and then my cousin Cassie and her friend Amy joined me as we sailed over 3 days to Lombok which was really fun. Then we hung out in Lombok then moved to Gili T to do a couple more dives and partied way to hard. Then we went to Bali to Tulamben where we dived the USS Liberty Shipwreck and shark dive. After Tulamben we headed to Ubud for a night then Kuta for another night of partying. We all headed to Kuching Malaysia for the rainforest world music festival and met 5 other volunteers and we went to the fairy caves and Bako National Park during the day. Best part of Kuching was that is the cat city!!! Like cat statues everywhere and cats all over, they even have a Meow Meow Cat Café which of course had to go to! Then headed to east Borneo and went to Mabul/Sipadan for 4 days of scuba diving. Spiadan was AMAZING it lives up to it’s hype. Worth while.

So now I returned back to Nepal August 16^th and currently I am stuck in Kathmandu due to strikes. Nepal is trying to write their constitution and there have been riots and killings and all sorts of mess. This is just another set back in Nepal after the earthquake. It’s another upset on the tourism as roads are closed and shops have to be closed during some strikes as well. Basically Nepal is a mess. But I only have 2 months left to wrap everything up! 2 years has flown by! My 2 year mark will be September 8^th!! Crazy

Earthquake interruption

The Tibet vacation interrupted by the Nepal Earthquake

So as I am sure everyone knows about the earthquake that hit Nepal. At the time of the earthquake my sister Nikki, friend Amanda, and I were in a microbus in Kathmandu heading to Chitwan National Park. Amanda and Nikki had arrived in Nepal the night before for a 15 day vacation to Nepal and Tibet.

So the micro was driving through Kathmandu and luckily there weren’t huge buildings surrounding us nor on the edge of the windy dangerous rounds of Nepal. At first it just felt like some strong North Dakota winds rocking the bus side to side really intensely and Amanda and Nikki were like “What is that?” My response “Oh that’s just the wind” Then we looked around and every motorcycle had wiped out, people were running and falling over, there were clouds of dust ahead of us and I looked at them “Fuck, this is an earthquake.” People in our bus ran out and Amanda and Nikki looked at me “What do we do?” All I could say was “I don’t know, I don’t know if we should get out of the bus, stay in the bus.” After the first big one passed (we stayed in the bus btw) the ground stopped shaking and Amanda wanted to turn around and go back into KTM. I was like nope, no way, we need to leave, KTM is the most dangerous place to be right now we need to leave. I also got in a mini argument with a local telling me there was another coming and I was like this isn’t something that you forecast dude, how can you know that (Nepal people are full of a lot of talk to I have a hard time believing anything they tell me anymore). We ddint see too many collapsed buildings where we were so all three of us kind of concluded that this wasn’t too bad and we all agreed not to mention this to our moms until after Nikki and Amanda got back to USA. (Little did we know how big it was in other parts of KTM and Nepal).

So we hit the road. The driver was really great and was in amazing spirits the whole time. Unfortunately a lot of boulders had fallen from above and reduced the roads down to one lane so there were a lot of traffic jams we had to sit in. Our bus ride that was suppose to be 5 hours turned into 10 hours and my phone was going off like crazy with texts and calls with other Peace Corps Volunteers at the time. So with my shitty iphone battery my phone was losing power fast and I needed to save battery for when we arrived in Chitwan to I could call the hotel and arrange for us to get picked up. I turned off my phone for a few hours and then later turned it back on and the texts from home started pouring in asking if I was ok from lots of people. That’s when we realized how big this earthquake must have been. I immediately texted my mom back informing her we were alive but phone was gonna die and I would text when I could.

Earthquake or not we are on vacation!

The next morning we were woken up by more aftershock quakes and then we got breakfast and started our day. The elephant safari was pretty unexciting and we didn’t see much wildlife in the jungle but that was fine, although, we did see two rhinos, which was pretty great. Then we did elephant bathing which was really fun. We road on top of the elephant bare back and then it sprayed water of us with its trunk. I LOVED it! This was my third time to Chitwan and the other two times the bathing all got canceled so I was really happy I was finally able to do it. On the way to canoe over to the jeeps to start the jeep safari we were in this easily tippable canoe when the next biggest tremor happened. Little scary. The jeep safari was all right. Sadly I think all of us at various times dozed off. Our guide was not very enthusiastic nor really good at spotting wildlife sadly. But we saw wild boar, wild buffalo, rhino, deer, monkeys, and were pretty close to seeing a sloth bear, the jeep before us saw it but by the time we got there it left. At the end of the safari we stopped at the crocodile-breeding center and saw lots of baby crocodiles that was actually surprisingly cool.

The next day just rented bikes and rode to the elephant-breeding center and saw all the babies, which was really cute. Then we went into town and did some souvenir shopping  for Amanda and Nikki. It was a very relaxing day which was good because Amanda and Nikki and I were all pretty shook up with all the tremors. I spent a lot of time on the phone with other volunteers listening to rumors about evacuating/not evacuating/staff homes being destroyed/staff family passed away ect. Luckily that evening I got the ok from Raju to leave Chitwan to head back to site. 

Rhino we saw on the elephant safari

With our elephant after the safari

Bathing the elephant or the elephant bathing us?

The news of Evacuation
So we had been told several times we are not evacuating things are fine, all volunteers are safe we are all on stand fast aka stay put don't travel. Then BAM we all get a text message we are being sent home to our home of record we all need to be in Kathmandu on May 7th to fly to Bangkok. WTF does put on hold mean? I wasn't at my site so I called other volunteers to figure out what the handbook says about being put on hold.....are we coming back? What is happening..... Well several hours later I finally get a phone call from staff and he explains this is because Nepal is under a state of emergency, our main medical hospital isn't open do to earthquake damage, we don't have access to emergency evacuation helicopters if a volunteer would need to get medically evacuated out of their site for something serious, and a lot of staffs' houses have been affected and some staff lost some extended family and Peace Corps Kathmandu can't run to full capacity. But we are not 'evacuated' which would mean Peace Corps Nepal would stop, its just put on hold. With this hold we still are considered volunteers and are receiving our per diem and monthly funds and our end of service date will not change. (yay thank goodness). We all fly to Bangkok for transition conference on May 7th and then fly to our home of record May 10th. 

At this point Nikki, Amanda, and I head to my site for a few days before we have to be back in KTM. They both really enjoyed site and my family loved meeting them. They were really happy we all came because originally we weren't going to have enough time to see me site. 

Typical Nepal Meal, rice/lentils/cooked veggies/slices cucumber

My hose mother cooking roti

Us eating dinner with my sister from USA and we are drinking the last of my homemade wheat beer

Delivering book to the school that i got donated from the Asian Foundation

On May 7th I flew out to Bangkok and May 6th Nikki and Amanda departed KTM for home, they moved their flight up two days because there is nothing to do in KTM anymore with most of the cool stuff destroyed by the earthquake. 

Now what am I doing in the USA
So the original send back date was suppose to be May 30th but then the May 12th earthquake hit and that pushed our send back date further back. I just recently found out June 20th is when I will be going back to Nepal. Arriving June 22nd and then we have some conference stuff to go over and safety issues so I should be back to my village to resume my work June 27th (just in time for the end of mango season!). 

Here is the actual criteria of why we were evacuated and what needs to happen before they have us return:

"1)       The medevac flights have to return to a “normal” flying status;

2)       We would need to complete the housing review for those PCVs in the area affected by the April 25 earthquake;

3)       And we would need to give our local staff time to deal with the impact of the earthquake on their families and homes, with a timeline of the office being back at full strength on May 26.

Though these criteria have now been met, the May 12 earthquake has changed our situation here. Peace Corps headquarters is now requiring that we check all Volunteer housing (including that of Trainees) to ensure that it meets new standards that have been developed in the review that we recently completed in the West Development Region. We must complete that review before your return."

My house has been unaffected and my host family is all ok. About 25 volunteers will have to be moved houses which is a timely process looking for new host families in such a short amount of time. Looks like being one of the districts furthest away from KTM is a positive thing! Sadly my host family i first lived with in Sindupulchowk (the district that has had the most casualties) was affected. They lost their house and all their animals but thankfully none of them died in the earthquake. All us volunteers are hoping Peace Corps will allow us to go to there when we return to maybe help deliver some relief goods and food. That is yet to be determined due to safety. 

I would like to thank everyone who texted/emailed/messaged me telling me they were thinking about me. I am sorry I was pretty slow to inform everyone what all happened. 

Cheers to enjoying 'Merica' getting me that seafood and beef everyday!!!