More random photos

Me giving out Certificates of Appreciation at the Third National AIDS Conference at Yak and Yeti Hotel.

Priti getting a henna tattoo (mahendi). I got one too but didn't take a picture, sorry.

The Nepali month Shrawan is the time to wear mahendi and green bangles (or a mix of red, green, and yellow). We like to fit in.

A close up - it was so intricate. It cost about $2 for both hands.

More Nepal Photos

Prakash's son, RN, still not sure on the spelling.

In the courtyard outside Devaki's house in Mangalbazar, Lalitpur.

Ferns inside the (unused) well.

Thought this was a fun depiction of a Newar house. That's Ginny, my friend who is a professor at Kathmandu University for half of the year, taking the photo. I met her in 2005 on the Fulbright.

In the upper right window is Devaki's husband's brother, in the upper left, his wife, and two of their children and a friend in the window below.

Devaki, her husband, and Sydney.

Sydney! It is difficult to catch her in a photo smiling. They asked me what her shirt meant, and I tried my best to explain!

I'm baaaaaack

Hi Everyone,

I’m back in Nepal! This is my first update, though I’ve been here since June 23rd – sorry about that. This time, my purpose for being here is a required 400-hour summer internship/field work for my UCLA MPH degree. Though I could have stayed in the US, I figured that this could be another opportunity to come back to Nepal – it was! Here I am at Family Health International http://www.fhi.org/ , helping work on the ASHA Project http://www.fhi.org/en/CountryProfiles/Nepal/res_ASHA_Project.htm : Advancing Surveillance, Policies, Prevention, Care and Support to Fight HIV/AIDS (asha means hope in Nepali, as well). FHI is an international non-governmental organization which, in Nepal, works by partnering with and providing funds to local NGOs working in the field of HIV/AIDS.

My work here is multi-facted. I have worked on editing the standard operating procedures for Positive Prevention, which are guidelines for NGOs working with people living with HIV/AIDS. FHI also performs yearly integrated biological-behavioral surveys of the most at-risk populations in Nepal (female sex workers and their clients, injecting drug users, migrant laborers, truck drivers) – this year female sex workers are being surveyed. After visiting the field sites where the surveys take place, I am suggesting improvements to the monitoring checklist already in place. I also worked at and attended the 3rd National AIDS Conference here in Kathmandu – the 2nd one was in 1998, so this was quite an opportunity. I met people from all over Nepal who are involved with different aspects of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, treatment, or advocacy.

I have my own cubicle in FHI’s fancy office building, and have almost learned everyone’s names (maybe 30 employees). Fortunately, my Nepali allows me to understand almost everything going on in all of the meetings they have here – I would be missing out on a lot otherwise!

Enough about my internship (that’s where I’m spending the majority of my time anyhow)… My office is too far away for me to live in my old friendly neighborhood of Patan/Lalitpur. I am staying with Priti’s mom’s good friend she knew in Hawaii who we call Auntie, within walking distance to my office on very winding back roads. It’s very hot and humid here, though, so I have to take about ten minutes to recover once I get to the office, even though I walk under an umbrella, rain or shine. Living with Priti’s Auntie is different from other experiences I’ve had here (living with my Nepali families or living on my own in an apartment).

Priti and I are staying in the room that used to be Auntie’s dining room – which would be perfect except for the fridge which remains and prevents us from locking our door… I have included some mystery photos which magically appeared on my camera (very similar pictures have also appeared on Priti’s, as well). Up until yesterday, our method of evening entertainment was TV in Auntie’s room (there is one very good drama meant as an awareness program about the plight of dalit (untouchable caste) people in Nepal), but I finally got to a bookstore to buy a couple of (expensive) used books. Though I should have remembered, I forgot about the boring evenings here – there is no good way of getting around after dark, so unless you spend a lot of money you have to stay put somewhere. I suppose I’ve been so used to spending every waking hour on homework that I forgot about ever being bored… I’m also planning on renting some movies. Priti had me watch the one Hindi movie she likes: Tare Zameen Par (Every Child is Special), about a dyslexic boy – it’s good if you have a chance to see it.

On the weekends I’ve been busy as well, in fact, I don’t believe I’ve had a real ‘day off’ since I’ve arrived. I’ve been to visit my Nepali families spend weekend nights with them. This involves packing my belongings and setting out for a two hour ride on crowded tempo/tuk-tuks (I’m sure I’ve described them here before, three-wheeled little vehicles that run on what sounds like a lawnmower engine). There is an extreme gasoline shortage here, though they’ve increased the prices recently again, and it’s pitiful to see the lines stretching for miles just to get a quarter-tank of gas. I don’t know what the new government is up to, but it’s nothing constructive that I can see yet. The parliament tried to elect a president yesterday but they weren’t able to reach a 51% majority.

It’s beautiful here even though muddy all over the place – the rice fields have just been planted and everything is green from all of the rain. That is one of the great things about visiting my families – getting out of regular yucky Kathmandu. Even though Sarita, my Nepali didi, lives in a city area of Patan, it is still a world away from the traffic and signs. Her husband is a bronze-worker, as are many of their neighbors, and the entire day is filled with the sounds of them pounding on metal. Despite the stench of garbage on the street, there are wafts of incense and curry cooking as you walk along. Sarita’s son, Swoyam, has just turned 2 years old. For a birthday present, I brought him and Sarita on the half-hour plane ride to Pokhara to visit Kamal’s family. Swoyam was excited for the plane and enjoyed everything but the landing, which was scary (it scares me too, they really swoop around abruptly). We met Kamal’s sister’s new baby boy (no name decided yet) who is three and a half months old and mainly just smiles. I brought Sarita around Pokhara as she had never gotten to explore there before. Swoyam unfortunately refused to walk anywhere, so she had to carry him the whole time (I carried her bag), which made for slow going. He terrorized the couches in Kamal’s parents’ living room, but they were good sports about it and used various methods of ear-grabbing or ghost-threatening to get him to behave.

Swoyam’s official birthday was last Saturday, when the family performed an elaborate puja (religious offering). I was fed copious amounts and berated for trying to diet, and told that if I go back too skinny it means they didn’t take care of me. I am in fact not trying to diet, really – though I am taking the stairs at work, six flights, to counteract all of this rice.

I’ve also visited my house in Balkot/Utephal. They have thankfully moved the kitchen to the bottom floor of the house. This means that my aamaa and bhauju (brother’s wife) don’t have to carry huge containers of water up three flights of stairs, and it means I don’t have to cringingly step down the top flight with no railing and slightly off-kilter wooden slat-steps. My didi Bandana was visiting with her son Supreem when I visited the first time I went (he’s maybe 16 months old). He is walking around but not talking a lot yet. In Bungmati, the new baby is 9 months old and chubby (also no name decided yet, every person I asked gave me a different name – Ronit, Aakash, etc.)

So, basically Nepal has turned into the land of babies……….. I still didn’t even mention my Balkot brother’s baby whose name Aryan, or Devaki’s serious little daughter Sydney.

It is getting dark out so I must depart --- my camera software has just now finished uploading but I don’t have time to add photos today – I promise to tomorrow!

Kamal's nephew (Cheena's son) - it's really hard to get a good photo of him smiling, so I settled on sleeping instead.

Devaki and daughter Sydney (asleep - named after her uncle who works in Australia).

Sarita and Swoyam (and Swoyam's cousin) during birthday puja.

Priti and I with Sarita's dad at Swoyam's birthday party. We're sitting on Sarita's bed.

Sarita and I snapped photos in the rain as we waited for the bus going back from Bungamati. All recently planted rice fields.