NEPAL

I haven't updated my blog in a while and a whole lot has happened since the last one so I will sum up the last few weeks concisely.

I left my placement on March 9 after swimming in the Maekong river collecting snails and eating nothing but rice and fried vegetables with a dump load of MSG every meal. I left happy to have gotten close to Sang Jun, Ying and their many children but left ready for something different. I left for several reasons but basically there was no real working eco-tourism project. We received one tourist in one month and the one guide who I was to teach English to was unmarried and fifty years old and had started saying inappropriate things to me. Plus there was only one home-stay to improve and that was the one I was staying in. So I headed back to Nong Khai city where I met with three other volunteers who also left their eco-tourism placements. Coincidentally we all left around the same time dissatisfied. We all stayed in the same guesthouse and I was not alone. During that week took a daring step and met with the two heads of the volunteer organization twice. They were intense meetings and we compromised that I would reieve 10 weeks money back of the 12 weeks that I still had to go. I found this unfair as it is a volunteer program and I am paying to give a helping hand but I guess I'm lucky to get any of it back. I spent about five days in this the Mut Mee guesthouse where everything was luxury, easy and right on the river. It reminded me of a place that my father would have stayed at. And at one point I sat next to a group of people who seemed just like they would be my father's friends. Listening to them talk, I was sure my father was there.

I headed to Chiang Mai in search of a Burmese refugee camp. I never made it to the camp but I spent a day at an excellent relief and development program that centers around sending releif efforts inside of Burma - where there is the most need. It was called Partners. This week in Chiang Mai was my loneliest yet. I was in a guesthouse alone and doing several tourist things. I took a Thai cooking class, a Thai massage class and I got two massages each for about 6 dollars.

I left on the plane to Nepal one week ago and have been here in Kathmandu staying with a family and learning Nepali. The family I am staying with is wonderful. They have two young children and two servants a mother and 12 year old daughter. My relationship with the servants has been complex. Initially I was drawn to get to knw them and be their friends. I treated them as equals and enjoyed the little girl very much. But the mother of the house soon told me to not get close to them. She said that she didn't know them well enough and that I was more important than them because I am educated. The mother servant Rhadika left for two weeks and she told me before she left that while she was gone I was her daughter's friend and implied that I had some responsibility for her happiness. It's been hard, very hard. I don't want to put Radhika and Lux Mi's positions and security at risk with my compassion and making the family feel uncomfortable about the way they treat them. So I've been playing and joking with Lux Mi when no one is around. I often ask her if she wants her mom and she answers yes.

I really like Lux Mi's nose ring and one day as we sat around the table eating I told the mom and dad, "I want to get a nose ring." and they told me, "If you have a nose ring some people in Nepal won't let you into their kitchen." That's how I found out that they were untouchables and what distinguishes girl untouchables in a group of people. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I visited the farm that I will be staying at for two and a half months. It's high i n the "hills" as they call them here. They are mountains to our standards. Nepal just happens to have the tallest mountain in the world so these mountains to us are hills to them. The family has two children 14 and 19. A girl and bor. A grandma and grandpa and a mom and dad. I will sleep with the fourteen year old girl. The house is made of mud and wood. The people are untouchables which I am grateful for so that there is not a concept of these people feeling the power of being higher than anyone else. But there will be a concept of being lower...
I liked the family. And the farm is beautiful. It's situated on the side of the hill, terraced with tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, coffee, mango trees, one cow and one buffalo, and three goats. I hope I like this place.

I miss home right now and do not really look forward to living in a totally new place again. Plus the people barely speak any English...

But here I go,

Love from Nepal,

Julia