Baby Goats In Nepal

There are two very important things that I must mention:

1. Mariah Carey's "always be my baby" should never be remade or performed as a cover. Not only can you not compete but the only reason that song is good is because Mariah sings it.

2. Baby goats are adorable. In many instances they seem more cute than human babies.

I have been in Nepal for less than two months. I have been working with two different organizations. For one, I am assisting in their efforts to strength these youth telecenters. These are basically techonology centers that are run by youth but also serve a purpose in helping their community. Some are called Youth Managed Resource Center (YMRC). I just got back from going to two rural villages set outside of Gorkha. I hiked to these villages with three other friends, one being my translator and the other two representing Gorkha's YMRC. The hike was only four hours and I have heard of others that have to hike for two days, but I was always asking myself why anyone would live this far away. For the highschoolers to go to school they have to walk up a mountain both ways. Did you know that 85% of Nepal lives in the rural area of Nepal? So the hiking was a little difficult for me. I will admit that the last time I went hiking was the summer of 07. But I was wearing my chaco, shoes especially designed for exactly what I was doing. And here my Nepali friend were wearing cheap flip flops. On the way to Maskichap I feel four times! They just told me it was not my habit to walk in such a way. But even the last time i went hiking in 07 i fell all the time, and so I tried to convince them that it was just because of me that i kept falling not because i was American but that seemed too hard to believe.




For some reason it is always a big hit when I start to dance. Here is me dancing at a wedding that was just down the street. Yikes!

I went to the year 2066, not much has changed but they live underwater

This blog goes out to my gal pal Cassi. She is out in the Pennsylvanian woods teaching young impressionable minds how to make rad books and how to transform large t-shirts into funky tops. She claims to always say 'we live in the future.' Her phrase continued to come to me as i would ask other nepalis when such and such happened and they would say 2064, or 2060. Currently, in the nepali calendar it is 2066 and i am becoming increasingly more convinced that we live in the future.

I just spent 4 days with youth leaders from around Nepal. These are leaders that work with technology centers, trying to help the community through technology. Youth is a very loose term and basically means anyone still relying on their parents so some of the youth were 28 and one was even 45. We had a good time talking about social capital and teaching others about facebook, blogs and wikis. I think even I don't realize how much technology impacts my life.

shout out to anyone who knows the origin of my blogpost title

Mero naam

These kids are sooo cute. They stole the welcome tikka and put it on themselves!

So I received a Nepali name a couple of weeks ago and it is my favorite trick. I guess people don't expect me to know Nepali and I know close to nothing, but i can say my name is Fulmaya (love flower) and I am from Gorkha.
I know some people are wondering what I am doing in Nepal because before i had no answer and right now I am not ready to answer. It has been hard to be alone but I am growing and as my parents told me when I was younger, it is character building experience.

A Nepali Swagat

In Gokha, I have been going to small villages a couple of hours away on foot. It is exciting to be trekking along the Himalayas with other Nepalis and talking about traditions. And I can’t help comparing all my experiences here with India. And in this time India is a sweet memory.

My purpose in these villages is still somewhat puzzling, but learning more about development than I could in a classroom. Twice I have been welcomed in to the village with a traditional Nepalese welcome, which includes flowers and pink powder that is smeared on my face by the women.

Today, I got attacked by a beggar. She urgently wanted money from only one person in the crowd and that lucky person was me. When at first I didn’t give way she began to push and punch and moan. I shielded myself with a group of people but she was determined. I then went inside a bus and sat down and she stretched herself across two people to jab me in the arm, several times. But before I was sad that I couldn’t give her money and then I became just as stubborn as she. My friends mother gave me two rupees to give to her, but she threw it back at me. She then changed gears and walked around the bus. She found herself a rock and threw it inside the bus through the open window. She was trying to kill me! Even when the window was closed she still continued to throw the rocks. And even when the bus began to drive away she chased after it!

picture next time?

I missed call you

There is a phenomenon among the people here that has to do with cell phones. I don’t doubt that some of you are familiar with this phenomenon. It is the missed call. Here in south east asia, most phones are pay-as-you-go. So when a young person’s balance is low, instead of calling their friend, they call let it ring one time and then hang up. They tell me that the friend is supposed to call back and they can chat, because it doesn’t cost any to receive a call. But most likely the friend also has a low balance. So they just miss call each other all day long. I ask them why they don’t just message each other, thinking that is what young people do so avidly in the United States but that also requires balance. So if you get a missed call from me, I was thinking about you…

The youth center here holding a program for high school students to come and compete. Luxmi was explaining this to me, saying it was a chase program. I asked her what chase was. She was so shocked and tried to explain to me that it was a computer game and you competed, but that was as far as her limited English would let her go. The next day in the office I inquired further to the nature of chase. The next clue I got was that there was elephants, and a prime minister and a princess. Mario? What the heck? So finally Pren took me upstairs to show me the game on the computer. Can you guess what common household game this was? Chess.

I wish I could truly give these mountains justice. I wish I could capture with my camera the supreme beauty of the Himalayas. Everytime I look up there are the mountains,so close to me and i stop to thank God for his marvelous creation, this earth.

For the past five days I have been with Ramita and Brittany running around Kathmandu Valley like we owned the place. I had the opportunity to spend today in a village called Sankhu with four very dynamic and innovative young adults. Part of my stay in Nepal is dedicated to supporting youth managed resource centers that are basically community technology centers run by the youth. These four young folk have been fighting against the elders of the community that want to shut them down and have shut them down in the past, but Sunni, Ramita, LP and David find ways to reopen and to continue to serve the community. They inspire me. But today they let share my knowledge about the english language, specifically the use of the word 'yet'. I may only know one language but I was able to use that skill to it's fullest, because later I edited content on a website and then taught an english course to eager fourth and fifth graders. Head, shoulders, knees and toes has never come so handy.

Tonight I got the best compliment, my host family told me that I eat just like a Nepali. You would thin eating with your hands was not a complicated matter, but there is a clear form and finally I have mastered it!

Anywhere you go in the world they know the movie Titanic

I lost my birthday somewhere between los angeles and Tokyo. I boarded the plane at noon on the 19^th and arrived in Tokyo at four in the afternoon, the next day. My mind has been so preoccupied with the flight, I would have to continue to remind myself it was my birthday. I told the passenger next to me that it was my birthday. 22 seems so anticlimactic.

When we landed in Tokyo a herd of medical suit personal came on and questioned each person about their possible exposure to the pandemic commonly known as ‘swine flu’ or H1N1. Yes, I traveled to mexico, right into the heart of it all and I am fine!

I was in the Bangkok airport for eleven hours! AND btw Thai Airways is superior to all other airlines I have ever taken. Airplane food has never tasted so good. And they gave me a orchid boutiner as my parting gift. Who does that?

I was scared to land in Nepal. What if no one was there to pick me up? Do I really want to be doing this again? I looked out the window as the most majestic view. The Himalayas were in partial sight and I was breathless. Ten years ago I had gone trekking in Nepal with my family, I remembered the slaughted goats and the isolated tea shops, but I had forgotten these mountains. Accented with terraced rice patties and curvy roads, these mountains holds sublime qualities, they are so majestic in stature and poetic in beauty. Our plane touched the ground and I began to remember this sad little airport. It is so sad, it doesn’t even have a proper jet way and so dirty.

When I got out to the prepaid taxis and hotel salesman there was no one with my name card. Soon enough I had a flock of men trying to help me. I had to think fast. I got a prepaid taxi into the city, to a guest house that had been recommended to me. At this point, when I am in the taxi driving through the city, I am still asking myself if I really want to do this again. India was a hard place to be and isn’t Nepal going to be the same? But I smell the air, it is a mixture of burnt trash and marsala. I feel of rush of comfort come over and I am joyful. I excitedly talk to the man in the passenger seat who is trying to sell me a trekking package. He drops his pitch and we talk about his home town, the place I will be staying for the next three months. The conversation reassures me.