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.

Chad from Nepal

I have been in Chad for a month now. Though currently I’m in Nepal, but this is the first time I’ve felt like typing on my computer in a long time. When you spend the day in the office typing emails, proposals and translating French reports into English, it is hard to be motivated to get the thing out again when you get home.

Blurry but shows that even office Bible study time is done
on electronics. Chadians are advanced.

Also, I don’t feel like I have too many stories, except for all the driving ones. Yes, in  Chad I am driving. A Lot. As you know, I hate driving, but I like mobility, and I don’t like being dependent on others for rides all the time. So far I have only been pulled over by the cops one time. And not for anything illegal, but he did make me pay him 12,000CFA. He had wanted 16,000, but I told him I didn’t have it. I thought I was telling the truth, but I realized later that I wasn’t. I gave him 10,000 and he said, “Give me the 2,000 too.” So I did. I also made sure to talk in my most halting broken French and open my eyes at him in wide confusion. He realized that he didn’t care to keep trying to have a conversation with me, and let me go. The next day my colleagues showed me a new way to get between my home and the office that doesn’t have any cops. And so I am learning my way around N’djamena in an effort to avoid paying a lot of bribes.

Ginger juice. It's good.

Not being pulled over by cops helps my stress level, but driving is not something that competitive people should be allowed to do, especially in Chad. I find myself reminding myself that this is not a game of bumper cars. When I get mad, I MUST NOT ram my car into the offender who cut in front of me wildly and dangerously. I cannot even gently knock his bumper. (Oh the depths of my self-control that I am discovering!)  But since no one expects anyone else to follow any traffic etiquette, I have dispensed with socially accepted niceties altogether. I tailgate beautifully, just to make sure no stupid motorcycles cut in between me and the car in front of me.  I make sudden right turns from the left lane. I dodge pedestrians, leaving mere inches between the car and their bodies. I have even run red lights, once when the light was actually working and I’d been waiting two cycles already for the interminably slow cars in front of me to move.

One thing I can’t do, though, without risking grave danger, is go against the French traffic rule that cars entering the traffic roundabout have the right of way and cars already in the circle must yield. First of all, who in the world ever thought it would be ok to let the French make traffic laws? Seriously. There are many things that the French do well—croissants, art museums, public parks. But traffic? No. Even they are terrified to drive in their own capital city. And now they have foisted off ridiculous rules on unsuspecting Francophone African countries, which, let’s be honest, were not going to be naturally inclined to follow traffic rules anyway, and look what we have!

Diagram of Chadian Traffic Circles-legibility not important

Anyway, so far I’ve survived. I have no pictures though, even though there are a million things I wish I could have photographed. I’ve deemed it wise not to whip out the camera while driving. Of course this hasn’t stopped me from slapping on my veil (I have been living across the street from a mosque and getting home right at  Maghrib, so veils at home have been important) while dodging cars, motorcycles, pedestrians and changing the radio from French news to Arabic news to who-am-I-kidding-of-course-I’m-going-to-end-up-listening-to-music. I’m sure you’re all amazed that I’m still alive. I am too, actually, but mostly amazed that I haven’t wrecked the car, though I drove to work on an almost flat tire, and only realized that it was completely dead when I drove up over the curb and heard a crunching sound. But I was NOT the cause of that scratch on the front bumper, and whoever told Kandos it was me is LYING. I have not hit anything yet.  I’m saving that for my second month in Chad.

Himalayas in Nepal

Post script:

Traveling from Chad to Nepal is an exciting journey. Possibly you will be seated next to a very pungent man who recites the Koran loudly all the way to Addis. Possibly one or more of the passengers on the plane will fashion the Ethiopian Airlines blanket into a posh-looking turban and wear them proudly off the plane. (I really need to learn how to do that.) Possibly once you get to Addis you will meet a French citizen from Gabon who has been trapped in the airport in Addis for several days and is really happy to vent her frustrations to someone in French. Possibly a Chinese man that you tried to help find the internet will find it for you and bring you the password without you even asking. Possibly when arriving in New Delhi you will meet a girl from Bolivia who speaks no English traveling to Nepal to meet her online boyfriend. Possibly with your terrible Spanish you will help her navigate the airport and try to warn her off the boyfriend while introducing her to the wonders of Masala Dosa. I tell you, anything can happen when traveling from Chad to Nepal.

Masala dosa con Maria