We all made it to our first major training as Peace Corps
Volunteers-no one has dropped out yet since we have had our swearing ceremony!
Things that I have been keeping busy with: I have started
making improved cook stoves. In Nepal many people cook indoors over an open
fire so there is a ton of smoke women and children inhale on a daily basis so
respiratory issues are a huge problem in this country along with cataracts. So
these cook stoves we were trained on require red mud, cow shit, wheat husks,
and water. You make 50 regular bricks for the stove portion and 20 chimney
bricks and then you mud everything thing together (a little more detailed than
that but its not necessary to bore you with the details), it reduces the amount
of indoor smoke drastically and it requires less firewood and less time to cook
so reduces the work load on women. I have made 4 so far and have many more
people waiting for me to build at their houses next. Many offer money and I
tell them no no I am a volunteer so I can’t accept money and then my ba (Nepali
dad) is there and he tells them “Offer her meat! Chicken meat! No wait buffalo
meat! She likes meat!” Then they are like ok sure yea and then my ba chimes in
“Oh and give her beer too! Ask for beer chori (daughter)!” Haha it’s quite
comical.
Also its planting season so been planting tomatoes,
cucumber, eggplants, pumpkin, ect. I’ve become much busier lately so time is
starting to fly by much faster.
Currently we are at training learning about plastic houses,
drip irrigation, integrated pest management, collection centers, business
management, solar driers, and of course more language training. It will be
great to learn these skills and hopefully our communities will be able to adapt
the new technologies if I am able to find funds to do trainings (these aren’t
cheap things to build on a Nepali income standard).
So of course I have to insert a little bit of reality of the
life of a Peace Corps volunteer and point of the things I really didn’t think I
would be doing in my mid 20s.
-Who would have thought I would have my first hotel room
hair cut with a pair of medical scissors at age 26? Also I gave a hair cut to a
friend in the hotel room who is also 26.
-I buy street food and eat in my hotel room so I don’t have
to spend $2.50 on a plate of food because that is “kasto mahango” aka how
expensive!
-I do my laundry in a bucket of the hotel bathroom because
10-15Rupees is too much money to pay someone else to do my laundry for me, I
could be spending that on something else! ($0.10-$0.15).
-First thing we do when we enter a liquor store is as what
is the cheapest booze and then compare percentage of alcohol (also we ask if
there is local/homemade booze available, they sell that in old water or pop
bottles).
-Looking at a menu I look at prices before looking at what
food options there are.
-I have never been so pressured in my life to get my nose
pierced.
-We all laugh hysterically when we see someone in a towel or
tank top because we all have the same ridiculous tan lines.
-Offering to buy someone deodorant when I go back to the
states just brought our friendship to the next level.
-When we are told we can wear shorts for a training everyone
cheers!
But what is even more exciting is I have my airplane ticket
purchased for MSP arriving June 17th at 7:25pm and will stay in
Minneapolis till early June 20th when I leave for North Dakota
(celebrating friends wedding June 20th) to stay with family and
friends until June 26th when I will head back to Minneapolis to
celebrate Savannah and Jakes wedding on June 28th and then I fly out
Monday June 30th at 11:25am. So its going to be a fast two weeks! I
hope I am able to see most friends and family within this time frame! J
