Ruth, a med student from the UK, also left last week - and in her three weeks here we got to experience some intense things like paragliding and sleeping in a Nepali village home together. (Some day I'll even manage to put up some blog postings on those times.) Below are pictures from our last day together at work, Ruth, me and Christina, and then the three of us with the OT department staff.
Roz, my housemate since we both arrived in Nepal in January, completed her 4 months of language training, and last Sunday moved back to Kathmandu where she will start her work as a counsellor there. She has made so many Nepali friends, so her last few weeks involved many dal bhats (ie going to Nepali homes for dinner, which means you will eat dal bhat). I was included in a couple of them too.
The night before I headed to Nepalganj, we went to Ruku's place. She lives down the street from us, and works at the INF office. Her sons taught us to place the game we see being played by children and young men all over the place. It seems a cross between crokenole and billiards, involving shooting flat disks with your finger into other disks and knocking them into holes in the corner of the board. I thought it was quite fun. We are here playing on a small board, the larger ones are set up like a table outside shops, usually with a large crowd gathered round.
A couple of weeks ago we also went to Dilmia's house for dal bhat. Dilmia is the women who comes in to cook and clean for us. She is a lovely woman, and it was nice to finally get to see her house, and meet her daughter and son. And get a reality check. The three of them live in two rooms, probably smaller than our living room. Working in an ex-pat home is probably one of the best paid jobs she can get, and yet it still is only barely enough. The general community curiosity and the expense to Dilmia of having us come for dinner, made us both a bit uncomfortable, but we felt honoured to eat in her home. She was thrilled as well.
Last weekend also was when my good friends from Canada, who have been working in Kathmandu since Jan, came to visit Pokhara (and me) for the last time before leaving Nepal. After my crazy few days in Nepalganj, I really needed a break, and having Clayton and Catherine-Anne in town was a fabulous excuse to take Friday off. There was shopping and nice dinners (including smoked salmon sushi at a Japanese place we tried), and scrabble games in the pub. Saturday was Catherine-Anne's birthday, so like we did on my birthday, we spent it by the pool, relaxing, soaking up the sun and eating good food. It was such a great relaxing weekend with good friends, which was exactly what I needed.
Clayton, Catherine-Anne and Roz all headed to Kathmandu on the same 8am bus on Sunday, and so I came to see them off. I was envious of C+C-A heading back to Toronto to see all our friends there. And sad to see them go. Catherine-Anne took this last picture of me as I stood outside the bus, waving them off. And then they were gone.
I walked home from the bus station, and by the time I was home, I was able to focus again on being here, and how much this is where I want to be right now. The work is interesting and fulfilling, and the people are so interesting. This is my place for now.
It was good I got that sorted, as Sunday night we had our last monthly expat service before a big chunk of them leave - next month we'll be down by a third from the 25 people there were last Sunday. And in July there will only be a remnant. On Sunday night, I did get some good news, Jenni, a nurse volunteering at the hospital for a couple months, asked if she could move into Roz's room. So almost immediately I had a new housemate to keep me company in all this leaving time - a very good thing for me.
Jenni is good to live with, and it makes all the Nepalis quite relieved, as they were very concerned that I was going to be living 'eklai' - alone. In a culture where most people live with their extended family for your whole life, the idea of living alone seems terrible. It was lovely to have them all invite me to drop in whenever I felt lonely - but I was a bit concerned that they might take it upon themselves to also drop in on me unexpectedly, to keep me company. The idea of personal space, and wanting alone time seems pretty foreign to them. It is nice to be looked after though, and it makes me feel better about how things will go when I really am 'eklai', come the summer.
1 comment:
A memorable post, Carol -- the simple statement "this is my place for now" is very much in keeping with GCF discussion throughout this past year, re growing even in very temporary spaces as "emerging adults" and so on; it has New Testamenty parallels too, esp in 1 Peter and Hebrews.
...Is "eklai" only an adjective, or can it be a noun (or a substantive participle) too? - Matt Lowe
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