Trekking thru Nepal

Indonesian patriotism in Monaco

When I was about 9 or 10, we were in the US at conference with other TCKs. We were given a piece of paper and told to color it like our flag—meaning the flag of the place we called home, not our passport countries. I grabbed the red marker and started the long, monotonous task of coloring the top portion of the paper. Indonesia is a great country, and Bandera Merah Putih is a catchy tune, but the flag is not representative of our national creativity. So I was intrigued when the girl next to me raised her hand and said, “Um, I can’t do this because I live in Nepal and our flag is not shaped like a rectangle.” Even at that age, my nerd self knew what the Nepali flag looked like from hours of staring at globes and that map that has the flags of the nations all along the bottom of it. Side note: that map is also how I found out that Monaco has the same flag as us, and I was full of patriotism the whole time I bounced around that tiny country. So this Neverthirst trip finally fulfilled a childhood dream of getting to the country with the cool flag.

Also, now I can wear the Neverthirst Nepal shirt without shame. One of my endearing TCK quirks is that I won’t wear a T-shirt from a country I haven’t been to. I also won’t wear a t-shirt from a country while I am IN that country because that makes me look like a tourist, which is one of my biggest fears. I also don’t wear clothing with American flags on them for the same reason and because too many other people wear those, and my middle child endearing quirk is that I can’t be like anyone else. But we were talking about Nepal so let’s not get side-tracked by my lack of passport-country patriotic clothing.

Nepal was lovely and it was so nice to see the projects our partner organization is doing. I enjoyed spending time with the people and reading signs in Devanagari script. I love the food and the colorful clothing and the proximity to India. I did realize, probably too late that I needed to stop laughing at the trials of life that people kept warning me about.

“Kathmandu has the worst international airport in the world! You will be crawling over people to get your luggage!” To which I replied, “We would die for an airport this nice in Juba.”

“These roads are the worst anywhere. You will be bounced around so much and it will make you really tired and sore.” But not for people who have bounced around in South Sudan and many parts of Chad.

Somehow I made it out of Nepal before everyone started to hate me for being a “one-upper” of horror stories.

See how far behind me they were?

Our Himalayan adventure was also great. I really enjoy the great out-doors, and hiking around the beautiful Anapurna range was amazing. I did not one-up anyone there for sure, though I did have to be at the front and beat all the boys. I can’t help it. This sickness started young when I had to win every spelling bee and be the first finished with every test in my elementary school classroom, where I was consistently the only girl in the room. I should note: I’m not and never have been a tomboy, though I always wanted to be, since all my favorite book heroines were. But the fact is, I don’t care much for watching sports on TV and I won’t play them unless I know I’m pretty good at the sport in question (and I’m not good at many) and I am completely uninterested in video games and I know dangerously little about cars and I am terrible with directions.  Of course the real deal-breaker for being the stereotypical literary tomboy is that I hate horses. I think they are arrogant and rude and one time one of them bit J.J., the nicest kid you would ever meet, for no good reason, while she was just gently petting him on the nose under the supervision of his owner. That said I’m also not very good at being a girl.  I have no idea how to use a curling iron. All the make-up I own in the world can fit in one hand, and I almost never use it. And that includes the tinted SPF 30 moisturizer. My wardrobe consists most of t-shirts (Neverthirst ones) and jeans, and every time I am in the states and I go to a store to buy better ones, I end up with more jeans and t-shirts for some unexplainable reason. Anyway, I wasn’t trying to be “one of the guys” but I do think it is important to be better than all of the guys.

PROTEIN 

So our Anapurna trek to Poon Hill and beyond took two and a half days, when most people take 4 to go the same distance. I liked going fast because endurance is something I’m good at. Others in the group were less happy about that because doing push-ups on their heads is something they are good at. I’m not good at that, so you can see that it is OK that I rubbed it in a little bit that my bag was bigger than theirs (another stereotypical girl move, though it was mostly empty, because my small backpack was in the looted Mundri house) and that I was carrying Mark’s protein powder and weird martini protein shaker maker thing. As I told him, “Do you really think you deserve to have this if you can’t even carry it in your bag?” Which made him seriously consider leaving it behind, but he really couldn’t fit it in his tiny manly bag, and I had room because I was so cold I was wearing most of my clothes most of the time.

And here is where I would like to give a shout-out to my family for their very convenient Christmas presents. Joanna & co: without your hand-warmers (a joke, I know, about surviving the Arctic temperatures in your house), I would not have lived through the first night. Marian & co: your fancy head-lamp was great for our night-time trek (unplanned) and our sunrise trek (planned). Cherry [Pie]: your battery charger is the reason why I was able to take photos all three days on my phone. Thanks, family!

There isn’t much else to say about the Nepal trip that my wonderful photos won’t improve on, so here are some wonderful photos by yours truly, genius photographer.

At the spring that the village is drinking from

Happy kids

Spring-tap water

Popcorn Nepali style. It is very crunchy.

Washing clothes down stream from the community spring

Elephant safari

I was on the other elephant taking this photo of the rest of the group

Rhino with baby (not pictured). Super-cool prehistoric-looking animals

I wanted our elephant to step on this guy just to see what
would happen, but he was a gentleman

Our elephant and driver

Antony wanted me to take this photo of water containers
in the home

Getting a drink of water

Blurry photo of the donkey train that Mark really wanted to try out

Steps and steps and steps

Hey-ODF in Nepal! Sanitation program people will appreciate

Watching a cool sport called Kabaddi in the Guest House on the trail.
I think I could really get into it. It's like a cross between tag and Red Rover
with tackling. And Patna, my old hometown, won!

Cool guide Ram

That is snow

Map of treks

Deep fried momo

Hem and I were the first ones up Poon Hill

Just a horse buying postcards. NBD.

The last day after I found out that Noor lived in Malaysia for 3 years
and we could communicate in Bahasa

Dye your dog purple, because why not?

Finally eating pani poori with Uma!

Pani poori action shot

Nepali gummies are made from stinging nettle and spinach--
if that is not healthy, I don't know what is.
Or even if I do know what is, I don't care.