Christmas in July

I love my job. 

Yesterday I spent four hours cutting jigsaw puzzles, crafting cardstock dice, coloring flash cards and bouncing up and down in my chair while singing "The Wheels on the Bus." And yes, obviously with the accompanying hand movements. Witnessing 8 other ETAs do the same around our crowded table reminded me of the creativity and ingenious activities that make learning fun, a fact that has been motivating me throughout this first week as we prepare to teach in our schools.

Our classroom-prep teacher, Christine Stone (literally) rolled into the Fulbright Commission compound on her bike before promptly hopping off, lifting her Border collie, Nim, from the basket in the back (no easy feat, considering he probably weighs almost as much as she does!) and bounding past us into the classroom, exclaiming, "Cheerio! Right then, let's get to work!" The best word to describe her is 'firecracker.' At 72 years old, she has more energy than the 9 ETAs combined and noted how she's more busy now that she's retired, helping write curriculums, train teachers, and write Nepali children's books to promote literacy across the country. In short, she's kind of a big deal...

At the start of her lesson, she handed out teacher packets, complete with all the necessary supplies we would need to get started in the classroom. Watching everyone's faces as we lifted cardstock, flashcards, scissors, markers, and glue from our bags was better than Christmas morning! (Keep in mind this is coming from the girl who color codes her planner and grew up giving alphabet lessons to her Beanie Babies...) Christine will accompany us next week as we travel to Gorkha to visit the first six site placements, meet with teachers, and of course, continue with Nepali language training in the hopes that Nepali will start to sound a bit more comprehensible and less like the babble of the minions in "Despicable Me"...

Off to be treated like a human pincushion at the travel health clinic (hurray for good ol' japanese encephalitis and rabies vaccines!) and try out a Bollywood dance class!



Some sights/foods from this week's adventures:

A Lesson in Nepali

Namaste! Sanchai hunuhuncha? Ma mero naam Annie ho. Mero kaam sikchhikaa ho. Mero desh America ho. Ma Nepali sikdaichhu.

Hello! How are you? My name is Annie. I am a teacher. I am from America. I am in the process of learning English.

And that folks, marks the beginning of my Nepali language training. I’m going to be honest. Learning a new language freaks me out. It’s that sweaty-palms, dry-mouth, racing-pulse feeling some people get when they are sitting in the reclining dentist chair. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the dentist and the free helium balloon I used to get as a prize. However, learning an unfamiliar language is a different story. I even went as far as to switch from French to Latin in high school. Why? Because it cut out the speaking/listening tests. Phew.

I am happy to report, however, that learning Nepali has been fun and successful! Today I could feel the other side of my brain working on overdrive. 14 vowels. 36 consonants. Even then it’s considered one of the easiest of the Asian languages to learn. And as cool as it sounds, the Devanagari script looks even cooler. (I haven’t quite figured out if and where the symbols might be hiding out in between Times New Roman and Wingdings, so you’ll have to take my word for it!)

Orientation is designed to give us at least 60 hours of language training before we leave for our site placements –hopefully giving me enough practice to be able to communicate with my host family, teachers, and students. We've begun to get the basics of grammar and already it's a great reminder of what it's like to be a student as I start my teaching position for the next 8 months. However, if today’s practice run was any indication, I have some work to do…

I put my (very basic!) language skills to the test when I went out to bargain for prices to tailor my new kurtaa suruwaal. These three-piece outfits are awesome. Seeing the eight girls shopping for fabric yesterday was like watching kids in a candy shop (a very inexpensive and overwhelming candy shop, I might add). Can’t choose? The brighter the colors and patterns, the better. And while I’ve never been a fan of gold lame, it’s starting to grow on me after seeing the beautiful outfits worn by the women here in Kathmandu.

Once you purchase the fabrics, you are sent out to hunt for a tailor who takes your measurements and even designs the cut of the outfit to your liking. The trick here is communication. Stepping into one of the shops, I panicked for a moment when it seemed as though everything I had learned slipped out of my head and hightailed it down the street, lost in the rush hour traffic. With a little Nepali, a little English and a lot of pointing and head shaking (bobbing your head side to side is used instead of a nod), I ordered my first kurta for teaching, before being invited to share Nepali chai tea with the store owner.

Houses in the Clouds

There are houses in the clouds here in Nepal. Literally. As our plane descended early Friday morning, three other ETAs and I sat glued to our windows as the clouds broke over the mountains to reveal small clusters of houses scattered along the edge of the cliffs. It was absolutely incredible. This mystical experience has kicked off a whirlwind of sights, smells, sounds, and tastes over the past 48 hours and unfortunately my short account here and an already-growing collection of photos cannot do it justice!

Stepping out of the airport (we were carrying all our bags, I’m happy to report! They all made it, despite looking a bit worse for wear), we were thrown into the dusty, noisy Nepali traffic. The rules seem to be drive wherever you can without being run off the road (and the lack of sidewalks make for an interesting pedestrian situation, but we’ll leave that for a later post). After registering in the Fulbright office, we were dropped off at our new apartment, which will be our “base camp” for the next month during orientation before we transfer to our teaching assignments.  We stumbled through our first grocery store experience, picking up a few staple items for the next few days (read: toilet paper) and returned for an early bedtime after almost falling asleep in our plates at the dinner table. I might add that “early” here means I was sound asleep by 8pm. Oof- jetlag.

Nepalese hospitality has already lived up to its reputation and we started out Saturday morning to meet my friend Anish from PC who is back in Nepal for the summer. He took us to tour the museum in the Narayanhiti Palace Museum, which was the location of the Royal Palace Massacre of 2001 when the (then) Prince Dipendra opened fire on members of the royal family before shooting himself and dying after being in a coma a few days later. Although I wouldn’t have chosen the interior décor for myself –dark 70s-inspired wood paneling and countless animal skin carpets for the floor –I decided I could be quite content to move into the spacious garden house that overlooked the beautiful plants and fountains.

Lunch marked our first traditional Nepali meal (and as promised, I will include names and pictures of the different meals for all my fellow foodies out there!). We enjoyed vegetable momos (Nepali dumplings and already a new favorite!), bhatmas sandeko (soybean salad) and pakoda (a mix between a fried falafel and potato pancake). Mmm-mm!

While exploring Thamel, the tourist district, we turned a corner and BAM! walked into a courtyard with an amazing stupa and smaller devotionals splattered with red tikka and bits of marigold blossoms. I instantly became the photographer for a parkor/breakdancing photo shoot of the kids running around the courtyard. We ended with dinner and drinks in Thamel with Anish and his friends (one of which is a singer/songwriter and soon-to-be Nepali movie star!) and finally meeting up with the other ETAs.

So far I’ve been overwhelmed by the sense of hospitality –it seems like every time we get lost (which has happened a number of times already…) there is a helpful Nepali guide who insists on taking us to the location himself. Our impromptu guide this afternoon announced “Wow! How did you end up here?” on our journey to find Kathmandu’s famous “Garden of Dreams” and escorted us here. And here I sit, enjoying the gorgeous scenery in a beautiful sanctuary from the hectic streets just on the other side of the ivy-covered brick walls.

Starting orientation tomorrow- more updates to come soon!

For the Traveler

Am I packed yet? 

No. 

But there are piles of supplies and equipment scattered around the bedroom floor waiting to find a home in one of the two bags I will be piling onto the curb at the airport terminal tomorrow evening. But instead of packing, right now I stare at the 3.4lb rolled-up sleeping bag, trying to figure out how it can possibly live up to its advertised -5 degree limit. It's bright orange and cone-shaped and looks like a giant carrot, for goodness sakes! Sitting beside it are my newly acquired Chacos sandals (Eliza has lovingly dubbed them my "Jesus sandals") and a box full of whatever Pepto Bismol product CVS had in stock in this week. Mm-mmm. 

In less than 24 hours, I will be en route to Kathmandu (with layovers in Frankfurt and Delhi) for a month-long orientation before embarking for my new school and host family. Anxious, yet excited, I recall a great travel poem by John O'Donohue passed along by my favorite capstone professor (thanks Joe!), which has helped me prepare mentally for this next journey: 

For the Traveler

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

Catch you on the flip side!

Back When the World Was Flat

As I pack for my upcoming departure (T-1 week!) to Nepal on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant, I’ve been doing some organizing (aka rummaging through a closet that is way overdue for a spring cleaning) and putting aside items that I will attempt to fit into my luggage. The emphasis here is on ‘attempt’…

Hidden in the back of the closet was a collection of journals I’ve kept over the years and flipping through the pages of my first grade diary, I found this lovely gem dated October 11, 1997:

“The day aftr Sunday is Cristufr Cloombiss day. He sald the oshin bloe.”

Now before you start questioning, “This girl is going to go teach English?” I must note that this entry was accompanied by a wonderfully artistic representation of Mr. Cloombiss in a boat sailing across – you guessed it –a very flat map of the world. Upon closer inspection, Spain seems a bit disproportional to the rest of Europe. But then again, geography has never been my forte.  

Thinking about how this event made a big enough impact in the life of a first grader that it made it into her diary –phonetic spelling and all – it’s also hard not to recognize the impact it has on my mindset years later. Yes, things were easy when the world was flat. Who in their right mind would venture to the corners of the earth, where it seemed as if you would simply drop off the edge of existence? Let’s not even get into sea monsters. But this complacency can also be limiting. If the past four years in college have taught me anything, it is to challenge assumptions, ask questions, and learn from new –and sometimes uncomfortable –experiences.  

Up until now, Nepal has been yet another country squeezed onto the map that hangs on the wall in my bedroom. Over the course of the next eight months, I look forward to immersing myself in the culture, traditions, and language as I serve as an English assistant in the classroom. I approach this next adventure with an open heart and mind (and empty stomach!), ready to experience Nepal and continuing to “round out” my understanding of what it means to be a global citizen.

Official Fulbright Disclaimer:

This is not an official Department of State website or blog, and the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program of the U.S. Department of State.