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 7th
(day before my 28th 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 8th 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 18th 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.
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| The ladies of the family |
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| Ama Oli and I in front of the off-seaon tomato garden |
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| Getting Tika and Mala |
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| The people I called family for 2 years |
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| Walking to Annapurna Base Camp |
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| We made it to Annapurna Base Camp |
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| Photos dont do it justice on how beautiful it really is |
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| 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!
