Week 2

Ah Nepali life…still trying to get the hang of it. So immediately after my last blog, all my exploration plans were ruined due to the fact the stomach gods cursed me with some food poisoning. How I miss the days of constant stomach activity of the negative kind...NOT! So I spent my 3^rd and 4^th day in the country ‘cleansing’ my system from and thinking that I’ll never eat again. Luckily I recovered and now I am on the path of becoming a healthy plump woman. Ever since the forsaken illness I just can’t stop eating. I am still not brave enough to cook my own food, so I buy things from the nearby bakery and eat delicious vegetarian dishes in the nearby ‘trusted’ fast food restaurant. I get fed at my office as well, and curried vegetables, rice, and flat bread will never get old. I hope the Azeri 20 kilos doesn’t catch up to me, because I do not miss the days when I had only 1 pair of pants that fit.

So this past week I started going to the office, where I got to meet everyone and figure out how the next 3 months will go. The rest of the time I spend fighting with internet and hang ing out with my coworkers. My field visit schedule was set this week, and it looks like I’ll be taking two 10 day trips in 2 and half districts. The districts completely changed from what I was originally anticipating, but I wasn’t in anyway expecting that thing’s won’t change. So on March 2^nd I head out to Makawanpur which is a hilly region near the Terai (plains) known for human trafficking. The program has existed there for only 4 years, which is not that much, but they insist I should go there since a lot of girls get sold to Indian circuses from the local villages. Then I will go to Syangja and Kaski which are in the mountains and have had the scholarship program active for 12 years. I’ll go there at the end of April for 2 weeks. In the middle I am on my own, doing background research, teaching myself Nepali, and hopefully not getting fat. The week ended in hanging out with Brian, Giulietta, and Su from my program in Utrecht, and a new friend we met here, who is doing research on the expat community of Nepal. I feel grateful that I can have some sort of social life, because I know how dreary it can be without, and my hat goes off to those friends who are doing their internships alone in non-tourist centers.

In other news, my supervisor keeps hinting that I have to move out of her parents place and since I have started looking I am realizing that where I am at now and what I am paying for it is not actually a good deal at all. I have paid up for a month and looking to move out in the second week of March. Wish me luck!

Current observations on life in Kathmandu: There are dogs everywhere! Some look happy and fat, living next to butcher shops, others are the most miserable sites ever, and break my heart; The pollution leaves black gunk in my nose; Text messaging to the USA works, but not to India; Kids throw bags full of water at you because a 'festival' is coming – I guess water is an improvement over rocks, which is what boys used to throw at us in Azerbaijan; and finally, brushing your teeth with Sprite is better than using the water from the tap.