The End

this is going to be a big reflection one. I'm in Singapore Airport and very tired, so it might not make much sense. But here goes.

On my last day I went out shopping with Kiri, a kiwi from wellington who volunteered at the same home I was at and is back for a visit, helping out in the office. We took Kammal, who is one of the VSN drivers. Wow, what would I do without him?? I wouldn't have bought half the stuff I did without him. Because he is Nepali, we got local prices on a lot of the stuff we bought, as opposed to tourist stuff. By the way, this shopping thing is like some form of racism...one guy we tried to by prayer flags off said he couldn't give us local price because we were tourists, white. I presume Kammal was trying to say they are volunteers, been here for ages etc etc, and the guy did give us a reasonable price in the end, but the common opinion is white = money. Not white = someone trying to help out in their country. But I don't suppose they want to think that. Cos thinking white = money is probably more true for them, and in turn gets them more money, and on the cycle goes.The funniest one for me was today, I was looking at this bracelet, a stone one that no one in their right mind would pay more than 50 rupees for...I asked how much, he said 500. I laughed, said, I've been here for a long time, it is my last day, I only have 20 rupee left. I wasn't actually interested in it, so I walked away, and he yelled after me 'ok! yes! miss!' I just laughed and kept walking, but its interesting. Very interesting. So shopping was good, a lot of fun in the given company. The rest of the day, I packed, I soaked up the atmosphere of Thamel, which is crazy and awful and awesome all at the same time, and then I went out to dinner with the folks who were in town (only two people from the december group were there, but that was ok)...Dinner wasn't actually that good. I was mostly in my own wee world, thinking 'home. home! home? home...' This morning I woke up really early, had a (hot!) shower (the lights were on too, luxury!) then wandered the streets waiting and watching them wake up. Went on line and chatted to mum, got my results of exams and I wasn't very happy...came back to the hotel room half an hour before I got picked up and just bawled. Cried and cried and cried. Because I wish I was staying longer. Because I wish it didn't happen at all. Because I've changed so much, and because I'm so proud of myself. Because its such a beautiful place but its so broken too. Because I wish I could have done more for the kids. Because the immense confusion I'm feeling right now and have been feeling since I left Chitwan is too much. Because I haven't had a hug from my sister in 7 weeks. My dads cooking in 7 weeks. A face to face chat with my mum in 7 weeks. A date with my boyfriend in 7 weeks.


But the thing is, after the 3 week mark was passed, I could have been in Nepal for a lot longer. Right now I feel like it wasn't long at all, but I remember the first 3 weeks being the longest ever. And I believe, especially after seeing Ngaire (the one I worked with, been here for 4 and a half months), that the kids get so much more out of a long term volunteer. I reckon if I had taken a wild leap and signed up for 5 months I would have been able to do so much more for the kids. I feel like this trip has been more of a benifit to me than to the people I came to help. Still, you have to do these things in small steps. Next time. Next time.



When the plane took off I cried again. I could see the city and the mountains and the rice feilds all stretched out below me and what an amazing sight it was. I remember coming in to land on the 29th of November 2008, looking out over that city and hearing a song Westside introduced me to: 'Your the god of this city, your the king of these people...greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city...' I was full of big ideas about what I was going to do. Maybe thats a mission I still have to fufill. Maybe I had to come to Nepal to get real about it, get an understanding, so when i come back I CAN bring some of those greater things. Maybe I had to grow up, in Nepal, first. Maybe something like Nepal was the only way I would grow up. Shrug. I don't know.



Man, if you've got this far and are still reading, top work.



Singapore Airport is too much for me. Its doing my head in. I was standing in the line for BK, then suddenly I was like, no way, I can't stomach this, so I went and got samosas and a masala tea from the indian place next door. Funny. And I keep looking at all these freaking decorative lights thinking 'what a waste of power'. In the seven-eleven I had to stop and remember not to say 'namaste!' to the woman at the counter. I wasn't even there for long, but from what I've noticed its HOW you spend your time in a place that really counts. People can go for a holiday in Nepal. Chitwan is a prime example of that. But when you throw yourself into the culture, live it, as I did for the most part i believe, you become so much more attached. I'm attached. I really am. Christchurch better sell beaten rice somewhere...

I'm only going to find out just how much I've changed when I start interacting with the people at home. My way of thinking may have changed, Nepal may have affected me lots already, but I think I'm only going to realise quite how much when I get back home and start hanging out with friends and family. It'll be interesting, both to see how I react, how they react, and what their opinions are of the changes. Because I've been going through them, I can't see them as much as someone who has a memory of Sophie leaving, and a memory of sophie coming back, and not so much in between. I'm quite nervous about that.

i'm going to stop rambling for now. if youve got this far, leave a comment, and congratulations, i might buy you some chocolate. heh. please do comment though. i'm so confused...
but im smiling too.
so at least theres that.
as the nepalis say - what to do?

then they shrug.
and grin.
and offer you daal bhat.

Chitwan 12th-14th of Jan

Chitwan rocked my socks off. Its a cool place. I won't give you a running commentry, I'll just tell you the highlights....

We stayed in a resort called 'Unique Resort' (where 'its really wild and quiet'...does anyone else think thats an odd tag line?). It was lovely. It suddenly made some of my Nepal adventure seem like a holiday, rather than an adventure...it was hot, there were nice trees and pathways to your rooms with little lamps dotting the way etc. The generator to make the lamps actually work made a hell of a noise though. Sigh.

So, some cool things...the canoe ride freaked me out (note to self, Sophie does not like canoes as a form of transport) I managed to relax a bit which was good and it was really atmospheric and creepy cos it was early morning, and there was steam coming off the water and mist everywhere and creepy trees in the distance and you could hear animal calls in the distance and every now and again a lone man on his canoe would come sliding out of the mist and it was totally like a 'and they were never seen again' moment from a film. Oh, and we saw a crocodile head pop out of the water in a creepy blink-and-miss-it moment. I used the word creepy a lot there. Sorry. Insert a different describing word if you get bored of that one.

The other cool thing about Chitwan was the elephant ride...I rode through the tourist village of Chitwan on an elephant. It was surreal, cos there were shops next to me selling chocolate and booze and stuff and I was ON AN ELEPHANT. Also, when we got into the jungle a bit, we saw two rhinos just hanging out, which was a major highlight. Rhinos are crazy cool, they kinda look almost dinosaur-like. And smaller than I thought, but maybe that was because I was on an elephant, perhaps. Heh. I like elephants. I think they are my favourite animal. I patted a baby one too in Chitwan, but he had an attitude. There were all these tourists crowding the poor guy and screaming and giggling, so by the time we got to him, even though we were nice, he had just had enough. Which is fair enough. I would have had enough also.

Chitwan was a good way to end my trip I think. It gave me an oppurtunity to relax and escape from some of the typical Nepali stresses of being in town, the constant noise and pollution and so on...and it also gave me time to distance myself a bit from the kids and the home I've been working with. I don't think I could have left the home then left Nepal the next day. Would have been too tough. So Chitwan was excellent on all those levels.

Sorry its taken me so long to post that!

The Beginning of the End...

Leaving placement was such a hard thing to do. I really got attached to the kids and their wonderful, bright personalities, and to say goodbye after such a short time was heartbreaking. If I was to do it again I would definitly take a bigger step and volunteer for longer, because the kids get so much more out of a long term volunteer...they can relate to the kids more, give them a stable figure to depend on. I remember the first question the kids asked me was 'how long are you here for?' I guess because they are so used to volunteers that they know not to get attached if the person is only here for a short time.
Regardless, I loved my time at the home, I loved my surroundings, the people I worked with, the kids...And being there will be an experience that I will remember for ever and ever amen. So there.
The night I left placement and got back into town I got really sick...My stomach was cramping up and I was up all night in the bathroom. Highly unpleasant. I had a feeling it was Giardia, which I had some tablets for, but I had to take them with food and I couldn't handle that thought, so I just kept my fluids up and my fingers crossed and went to bed really early the next night....And only woke up once in the night! So that was cool. I was quite worried cos I really didn't want to be sick while I was in Chitwan.

New Years - Lumbini

So, on the 31st of December 2008, Rick, Giedra and I got up very early and travelled in a van to Lumbini, which is right down south, nearly on the border to India. It is a Holy Site as it is the birthplace of Buddha. The bus left around 7.30am, we arrived at 6pm. It was a long day, but I loved the bus ride. We had lots of supplies (pringles, gummy bears etc...) and it was great company and wonderful scenery. We got held up for about an hour and a half, and it was great timing. It was early afternoon, a bit after lunch, really warm and sunny, and we three sat on the top of the van and watched the traffic mount and the people walk past and just soaked it up. When we arrived we had a 30 minute walk through the compound (where all the monastries and temples are, its a work in progress) to get to our (free!) accommodation...in a Korean Monastry. We arrived just in time for a wonderful dinner of vegetarian korean food with everyone else who was staying. We met our room mate, a girl from China, who we ended up taking with us for some of our adventure the next day. We went to bed very early, the first and last new years where I haven't stayed up till midnight in a while! Breakfast, again delicious, was at 6am, then we four walked out of the compound to the very small villiage to hire bicycles so that we could bike around the compound visiting different monastries and temples. The bikes were wonderfully old fashioned, dangerously ricketty and the best fun in the world (except for the sore bums we all had the next day). I named my bike Phoebe (I hope Phoebe at home isn't offended, the last bike I rode was hers, and the bike reminded me of her lots for some reason...). Our first stop was MayaDevi temple, which is the temple which contains the stone which marks the actual birthplace of Buddha. It was really foggy at this point, all my photos look strangely eerie, but I thought that added to the atmosphere of the place. There were so many prayer flags strung up everywhere, I think they are truely beautiful. I might by some and string them up around the garden, with Mum and Dads permission. Heh. Then we went back to the Korean Monastry for (delious) lunch and got back on our bikes to head to the World Peace Pagoda. On the way we visited the Chinese Monastry. Its interesting to study the design of all these temples...I have only really noticed the differences between the different cultures temples when I saw them all in the one place. The World Peace Pagoda was one of the highlights of my day. It was truely beautiful, it wasn't misty by this time and it was really cool just to slowly wander around the giant white dome feeling...peaceful. (See what I did there??). Then we went back via the Tibetian style German monastry, again a highlight for all its paintings and statues, which gave an incredibly detailed story of Buddhas life. We then returned the bikes and caught a rickshaw back to the Korean Monastry, where we relaxed till dinner, then watched our photos on Ricks computer. The whole day was really cool. Being at such a holy place made me really think about a lot of things on maybe a 'higher' level, I thought about where I was spiritually and what I wanted to achieve over the coming year. It was a wonderful place to start the new year. Today we came back to Kathmandu, my eye was doing funny things the whole way back, I woke up and couldn't open it, its crying gunky stuff and it feels really tender. And it looks like I've been punched. No road blocks on the way back though! A french woman called Flo came back to Kathmandu with us and Rick and Giedra went back to placement today so I spent a very enjoyable evening discussing heaps of stuff with her, mainly of a religious nature. Its so refreshing to chat to someone who isn't against Christians, and is also completly happy with her religion, but willing to explore it more (she is Buddist, exploring India and Nepal in order to gain more understanding etc). I've really enjoyed chatting to her. Lots. Now I'm off to the hotel for a hopefully warm shower and bed. Tomorrow I go back to the home to direct the play. 2 weeks till home time. Its going fast. Happy New Year lovely people, I hope it brings you happiness. Look after yourselves, and KEEP COMMENTING! Love.

The adventure continues...

Well, hello! So I've been hanging out at the home the last couple of days, took some kids to the clinic cos they were sick which I found interesting. The clinic itself was easy, the manager of the home came with me so he knew what was going on and everything. We had two kids with us, one just needed a blood test so that was all good, last time he needed five people to hold him down but this time he was fine, he just squeezed my hand real tight when the needle went in. Then I waited with him while the girl went with the home manager to get her check up. So I was sitting there, the only white person in a local clinic with local people playing clapping games with a nepali kid with downs syndrome. I got a fair few weird looks, and I suppose I understand why. I came into town yesterday so I could do my mountain flight this morning. We met a lot of new volunteers - an interesting bunch. There is a group of 9 kiwis from Wellington who know each other through church. My first thought was 'great, people who I can relate to a bit and not be embarrassed to admit I go to church!' but its these kinda people that make me embarrassed of that fact even more. Seriously. Some of them are really lovely, a lot like me I think, young, belong to a church but still working that stuff out, willing to admit it but not willing to shove it down anyones throat, that kinda thing. But some of them are just awful. It makes me sad when they are so willing to shout out the wonderfulness of God to us whether we want to hear it or not, and also totally willing to skull their red wine and smoke. And they talk about the spirit of god being like flowers bursting from their heart, and jesus juice and all this stuff, but it makes me so sad because it seems so fake, and it gives anyone who is 'real' no crediblity whatsoever. And VSN work with a 'christian' home that is so hideously corrupt, so christianity has such a bad name anyway...Its hard. Really hard.
In other news, I saw Everest today. Man. Blew my mind. So we were told we needed to be at the airport at 6am, then last night I got woken at 11pm and told that the flight had changed and we didn't need to be there till 7.30am. We got there a bit early, got into the departure lounge no problem. Then just waited. At about 10.30am we were told our flight had been cancelled and we could go to the office to re-book for another day. At the office, the same man that told us it had been cancelled came up to us and asked us if we would like tickets for a flight in half an hour. Weird. So we got on that flight about 11am. Good old Nepal! The flight was incredible. I was pretty nervous, never been on a plane that small...But the views just were stunning. Took my breath away. The photos I took would never do it justice, but I'll show you all when I get home anyway. I got to go into the cockpit too which was awesome. Wow. It was so worth it.
Tomorrow I head to Lumbini, another early start. It takes 9 hours by bus, I've probably told you that. I'm in Nepal though so it'll probably take longer. I'm low on money, I owe people money, my stomach ain't right, this country is insane and I'm loving it. Absolutely. But don't worry, I also can't wait to come back and tell you all the stories first hand!
Love you all, Happy New Year!

Christmas

Well, Merry Christmas, friendly blog readers! I hope you enjoyed it, whatever you got up to.
I got into town on chirstmas eve, and that night we went out to dinner. We had a Secret Santa, which was exciting, I got a photo album, then we went to a pub and played pool and other exciting things till the small hours of the morning. I got woken up in the morning with a phone call from my family, which was the coolest phone call ever, and I chatted to everyone and unwrapped the presents that they had put in my suitcase...it was really cool. Had bacon and eggs for breakfast, then went out and bought fruit, blankets, chocolate, lollies, books etc for our adventure to the jail. We went to central jail with the view of giving christmas gifts to the non-nepali prisioners (in a nepali jail your family are meant to look after you, so foreginers generally have it harder). When we got there we had to go through a big check - had to give up phones, cameras, most other electronic equipment, and they checked through our bags and did the feel-you-up check which is weird but fair enough. Then we went into the 'public relation' room where there was a list on the wall of all the foreginers in the jail. We weren't allowed to visit them all, we had to randomly picked one we liked the sound of and visit them. On the list there was their name, home country and what they were in for. We went in twos so Katie and I picked a Thai woman whose crime was 'drugs' (they only ever wrote one word for the crime...). She was 36, had been there for two years, had 13 to go and was in for smuggling herion (I don't think thats spelt correctly but thats the REALLY BAD drug). She had done it once before and not got caught. It was cool to give her gifts but hard to feel sorry for her...The amount of lives she could ruin by smuggling drugs is enormous, and surely she knew what she was doing, as it was her second time. We talked to another woman though, and she made me cry when I came out. She was 25, but looked younger, from the Phillipines, married. From what I could understand, her brother-in-law got her to help him out in his 'business' that turned out to be doing illegal fraud stuff. When they got found out, he ran and left her to deal with it. She has been in for 5 months, and her trial is this wednesday. If she gets out, I'm hoping to be her pen-pal (email pen-pal at least). Crazy. Yeah, so she upset me a bit.
After the jail we came back and I used the internet - Mark was online! What an awesome christmas present! Then we went out to dinner and had a pretty early night. Good times.
I'm heading back out to the villiage today, hopefully will get Cinderella underway. Coming back into town on the 29th for my Everest Flight on the 30th, and my trip to Lumbini on the 31st. I get back to town on the 2nd, go back to the villiage on the 3rd, and leave placement on the 10th. Its crazy, its going to go so fast now. I'll be home before you know it, scary stuff. But home will be another (smaller) adventure, or I'll turn it into one if its not. Love you all, keep in touch, keep commenting, have fun!

If You Thought Getting Lost Was Dramatic...

Well, after my day in Thamel I headed home without incident, there was a little girl with a balloon on the second micro and we played little kid games and I tried to chat to her folks without much success.
When I got off the bus, I had a short walk to get home. Some old man starts chatting to me, talking about his son-in-law and how he makes good daal bhat and how I should join them sometime. And I was like, actually, I have my own daal bhat but thankyou anyway. Then he started talking about his son and how his son would love to study abroad and how if only he had a western wife...And I had to say that there was NO WAY I was interested in his son, actually. So that man went home then I got a bleeding nose. As I was getting blood all over myself and my bag and my hand while trying to get tissues out of it, two guys came round the corner and asked what was wrong, did I fall over? And I was trying to explain that I get bleeding noses lots and its normal, I just needed my tissues...So they help me find my tissues and carry on their way. (It occured to me later the amount of things they could have taken from my bag as I was in such a flustered state. Its cool when genuinely nice people turn up at the right times.) So I go back to the home, clean myself up, and go into the playroom, where one kid has this great idea that I should tell a story. So I did Rumplestiltskin for the obvious reason that I played the title character, and they loved it! It was so cool. The next one we did, Snow White, I got them helping out with sound effects and then we did some of Cinderella, and I got them acting it out (you can see where this is going right?) then I asked if they would like me to write a play so they could act it out to some kids from another home and they said yes. So now I'm writing and directing, so to speak. Kneller better be proud. Heh.
So that was my day.
By the way, today marks the half way point of my time in Nepal.
Congratulations, Sophie!
Love.