This is the first time that Peace Corps has suspended its program in Nepal, which had run continuously for 42 years. That’s thousands of PCVs having served in Nepal and returned home to tell others of their experiences.

But, more importantly, what does this mean for our well loved staff of Peace Corps/Nepal? Much uncertainty, I’m sure. Very sad news indeed.

Peace Corps Suspends Program in Nepal

Washington, DC, September 13, 2004 — Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez today announced the suspension of the Peace Corps program in Nepal effective immediately.

The Peace Corps has had a successful 42-year program in Nepal, making great strides in the areas of small business development, education, environment, youth development and working on health and HIV/AIDS education and awareness. The safety and security of the volunteer is the number one priority of the Peace Corps and in light of the current conditions in Nepal, suspension of the program is a necessary action, said Peace Corps Director Vasquez.

Currently, Peace Corps volunteers are being consolidated.

The Peace Corps program in Nepal began in 1962. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers in the East Asian country.

My group, Nepal 194, will become the last PCVs to COS in country. I hope that not too much times passes before another group of PCVs is able to have the Peace Corps experience in Nepal.

Looking back on my service, I realize how damn lucky I was. Everything finished according to plan. Fast forward to five months later, and PCVs are waiting around a five-star hotel in Kathmandu for boarding passes for flights to Thailand, where they will spend a week or so on their COS and debriefing, i.e., ending their service.

Well, maybe I wasn’t totally lucky. That is one adventure I never experienced.

Getting some clothes made seems like a mission impossible, and it has almost consumed me wholly, thinking constantly about seems, stitches, and pleats.

There’s a man near Indra Chowk in Kathmandu who at this very moment is masticating a pair of pants for me. He’s shrinking the inseam because I said they were too constricting.

The coffee cup has nothing to do with this story. I just like the photo.

He’s taking inches off the waist because I could barely button the pants when I tried them on. He’s adding pleats, lots of pleats, because pleats look awful. He’s doing his work with a smile, freely lopping off weighable amounts of fabric, because there’s nothing else to be done.

If you’re going to be bad, Deepak the Tailor must be thinking, might as well be the worst.

A week ago Moser and I ventured out into Kathmandu searching for the illusive linen shop that friends have found and lived to speak about. After an afternoon of searching near Dubar Square, we found it. No sign. Nothing.

All we had been told was that the store had wooden floors. And linen fabrics.

First of all, I’ve never had any success with tailors in Nepal. The major problem is that the style for slacks and dress shirts is exactly opposite of what I want—and find comfortable.

The front and back of the slacks are cut to be exactly the size of my body, affording cotton blends the same affect that spandex achieves. And for dress shirts, the shoulders should be no higher than just above the elbow.

Most dress shirts I’ve had made look like a nightshirt that 7′ woman might were.

I knew this. I knew what would probably happen, but I had a small flicker of hope. I fanned this flicker into a huge blaze until I knew that my pants and shirt would be cut well or at least accurately.

But when the day came, and I went to see Deepak and get my shirts, what I found was nothing less than absurd. The shirt ended just above my knees while my pants’ cuffs dangled two inche above my ankles. I couldn’t button the pants.

I was sent home reassured that tomorrow everything would be fine, that I could return the next day to pick up my clothes in the afternoon. I had set myself up for disappointment, which angered me even more.

But Deepak had seen the clothes on me and had taken new measurements to amend the ones he surely must have lost. Once again, I hoped.

When I returned the next day I found the shirt to be so small that I couldn’t button the bottom two buttons. The shirt cuffs couldn’t be buttoned and were maybe 4″ from my wrists. I stood there, like an idiot, and Deepak smiled.

He started with a shirt that would have been an XXXL in the United States and arrived with one that was a woman’s XS, for a man who was a men’s L.

Deepak looked me in the eyes and told me that he could take out the shirt, the woman’s XS comprised of about 1.5 m of fabric, and make it into a men’s L, about 2.25 m of fabric.

Where’s his magic wand? I wondered.

If I had a blowtorch, I would walk into Deepak’s shop and burn it to the ground. The dusty fabric, the piles of thread, everything, would explode upwards from Indra Chowk in a magnificent fireball.

All the shirts with one sleeve longer than another and all the pants with 19 inch waists and innumerable pleats all burning while Deepak watches, happily.

I’m sure Deepak didn’t want to be a tailor. Clearly he did not receive any formal tailor training. I asked. Deepak’s father and his father before him and his father before had all been tailors. Possibly terrible, too, but he didn’t volunteer this info.

While measuring lazily for generations, they must have wondered, Why can’t I do something I’d be good at doing? But no, it can’t be, Deepak thinks, writing 22 when the tape measure read 42.

I’m not mad at Deepak for butchering the linen fabric I had given him for my clothes. He is, in a way, good at his family trade.

He destroyed the linen fabric it had taken me weeks to find in mere moments. He had taken something so fine and pure and made it into something gruesome and absurd in one afternoon.

There’s really no story here, just an incident that I am forced to observe. I am powerless to change the fate of whatever fabric finds its way to Deepak’s shop.

Deepak is a serial fabric murder, unable to control himself and what he does.

Or so he wants us to think, lest we judge him harshly.

The new volunteers were arriving on Wednesday. Along with Mary, Ravi, Mike, and Alayne, we rode to the airport in a Peace Corps jeep as the welcoming committee.

Even though Alayne and I were still a few months off from our year anniversary of swearing-in as PCVs, our one year anniversary of arriving in Nepal had passed less than a week ago.

Just a year ago I had walked out of the terminal to Sara, a N/191, who gave me my tikka and malla. Just a year?

I remember that I rode in the back of the bus next to Sara. I don’t think I was too talkative—blame it on the marathon flight from the US or just being overwhelmed by Kathmandu.

Later that night, the PCVs in town met us at our hotel and took us in groups to various restaurants.

Tradition, they told us.

I went with Sara to an Italian place just across the street from the Kathmandu Guest House. Alayne was there, too.

I remember Sara saying over and over, I just don’t know where they’re going to put all of you.

She’d just been pulled for her site in the eastern hills and was waiting around in Kathmandu for something. With peace still holding, I can say that the groups that were leaving when my group arrived were all skeptical that Peace Corps would remain in Nepal much longer.

They had seen the country’s situation go from ‘not OK’ to ‘awful.’ I’ve seen it go from ‘awful’ to ‘maybe OK.’ Time will tell what the new folks will see.

That night I took a group of the new volunteers to eat at the same Italian place still across the street from the Kathmandu Guest House. Alayne and I answered the same questions that we had asked of Sara a year ago—some things you can rely on, unlike Nepal’s peace.

Well, that, and some authentic pasta.

I had spent the night in Hetauda, which I can’t complain about since I drank tungba and ate sekuti, throwbacks from PST and unavailable in Birganj, but I was on the first bus the next morning as I was anxious to get back to school.

There's nothing eerier than an empty classroom, like this one at Bal Mandir.

I should have known. As I walked across the mall towards my school, I knew something wasn’t right. The grounds were quiet and the muffled hum of children was absent.

Actually, everyone was absent. I walked in the empty school unshaven and a bit gross from a long run without a shower.

After a moment, the groundskeeper walked in. No school, he told me, Too cold. Come back on Monday. He continued on his way to the toilet inside the school. I went home.

My first week in Kathmandu was spent at my education group’s IST, which went quite well.

Just east and a bit to the south of Kathmandu proper by an hour, Dhulikhel is one of many mountain resort towns built around stunning views of the Himalayas. After five days of sessions, we returned to Kathmandu on Friday for a few days off before the yearly All-Vol.

After two months of training when we were around one another all day every day, these two weeks were the first time we would be together in seven months.

Being away from the stresses of post, being back together with friends, and the outlets of the big city, affected us in ways not unlike pure oxygen—or cocaine. I think some of this madness stemmed from our lost ability to socialize normally; our days had to count, and count they did.

Waiting to board the bus and return to Kathmandu after IST in Dhulikhel, January 2003.

We were energized, reckless with our sudden freedom from our responsibilities at post where we were upstanding people. But suddenly it felt like a summer vacation. We sat together planning our evenings giggling like children, intent on pursuing fun by all means necessary.

Monday night was a necessary break from the first weekend of being back together in Kathmandu. Dhulikhel sits along a ridge of the valley and the city exists only because of the guest lodges that dot the ridge.

Before dinner I took a short walk by myself to the top of the ridge where the actual city is. Most of the people live below the ridgeline where the terraced farmlands are easily reachable.

Following the ridge line to more remote places, the Arniko Highway is a smooth two-lane road that runs at least as far as Dhulikhel and the hotels. To the east of the highway are the hotels, situated in view of the Himalayas; to the west are the peasants and their farmlands.

Kids playing on a hill near Dhulikhel pose for a photo.

As I was composing a photo, a mother hauling cut grass in a large, wicker basket slung from her head passed me with her two daughters in tow. The two girls were carrying khukuris and looked as if they’d been working all day.

As they passed I said, Namaste, and struck up something of a conversation.

After I answered some expected questions like how I knew Nepali, which isn’t a question of “Where did you learn it,” but of how I know how to speak it, they asked me to come for tea.

Their house reminded me of my host family in Gaidankot. They lived in a crumbling concrete structure with the kitchen outside, a good thing considering the chulo produces a harmful amount of smoke.

Just like in Gaidankot, I was led upstairs on a notched, log of a ladder. I sat on their floor and answered questions about why I was in Nepal and just spoke with them casually until, sadly, my tea was followed by questions I should have foreseen.

I’ve heard the same speech dozens of times. It begins with an explanation that Nepal is a poor country, that there are few jobs, and that if they could only get a visa to the United States they’d be able to live a better life.

While true, the logistical reality of travel to and life in the Untied States hasn’t occurred to them. They see America as an idealized version of life, not as a thing to try and obtain. My response varies, especially based on who is asking me.

There’s nothing worse than someone you’ve gotten to know and befriended making clear his or her intentions when they suggest that you should sponsor them for a visa and then quickly disappear when they don’t get the answer they want.

These folks’ intentions were earnest enough so I smiled when I thanked them for the tea. As I ascended to the highway and back down into the east, to the hotels, I waved goodbye hoping they’d have better luck with the next American lured in for tea.

One night at the deraa I was fiddling with the necklace that I was given during training. In the first weeks we spent in Nepal, the N/190s had their COS, meaning they had completed their two years and were on their way home.

One had been stationed in Narayanghat. A bunch of us were staying at the Rhino Hotel, and Kath, a N/190, had arranged quite a party for herself. She brought her stereo and arranged for a buffet-type meal that night at the hotel.

Her imported liquor and the Nepali beer flowed quite freely. And as a gesture that every N/194 remembers, she gave us all malla. Sorting of passing the torch, I suppose.

I took one for myself and was later given one by another friend. The latter fell off just after swearing-in and was forgotten in a room at the Rhino Hotel the day after I swore in as a volunteer and left for Birganj.

Volunteers pitched in and kept shared flats in Kathmandu, like the Spice Deraa. In 2003, they were closed.

The other was a little more resilient, though it had developed this strange habit of collecting lint from my shirts. So on occasion I had to cut off strands of lint that had woven their way onto my necklace. It’s sort of an arduous task, looking down at my neck while I try to cut off the lint without taking off a finger, too.

Back to the deraa: A bunch of us were sitting around killing time before we went out for dinner. The TV was on and I was letting my mind wander.

I felt that my necklace had some lint on it so I reached over and grabbed some scissors on the table. I was fumbling around until Cindy noticed and said, Need some help there?

As I nodded she took the scissors in one hand and my necklace in another. In one quick moment she snipped off my necklace, letting it drop into my hands and saying, There you go.

All-Vol is memorable only for what happens after the dull sessions. Months ago, Zach and I had been burdened by the All-Vol planning committee, VAC, to plan the second annual scavenger hunt.

Zach and I argued about ideas and still hadn’t finalized what we’re going to do up until the day before, but it worked out. The scavenger hunt was divided into two areas: feats of intellect and feats of strength.

The feats of intellect were riddles that led teams to find something they had to take to the judges, Zach and I, for points. The feats of strength were acts of bravado, i.e., acts beyond the scope shame inhibits one, that were judged by VAC members for points.

I’ll never forget seeing Andrew and Jane-Erie running through the streets with two dressed mannequins, dragging the lifeless but sharp dressed objects up the narrow stairwell of Pub Maya. They were trying for points for a feat of strength that required bringing something ‘impressive’ to Trey.

Sadly, they were taking the mannequins to the wrong bar. After a minute, the came back down the stairwell amid stares and darted off through the streets again. Though a the life-size mannequins were impressive, another team managed to find three GAP volunteers willing to moon Trey, which took the cake.

Things can get out of hand during All-Vol, especially on the night of the yearly 'talent' show.

For another feat, teams had to organize a parade through Thamel, down the main road and probably the most trafficked spot by tourists in Nepal. Curtis, a huge guy with a massive presence, stood atop a rickshaw followed by his teammates who had made signs.

They were chanting something as Curtis threw popcorn out like confetti as they paraded down the street. Suddenly a tourist yelled in English, Don’t you know there’s a war going on?

Curtis, stationed in the east in Taplejung, has been on security hold more than most volunteers still around. If any foreigner were to know there was a war going on, it would be Curtis.

Yes I do, Curtis replied in Nepali.

Teams also had to organize a mini trash pickup in Thamel with the help of tourists and Nepalis. From our lookout we watched group after group convincing people to help them pickup trash. Oddly, many people (perhaps those quite concerned about the war) were reluctant to help even though we had provided gloves and bags.

I remember Mariko talking to a Japanese woman who just walked away, stopped for a moment, and picked up some half eaten food and brought it back to Mariko, who wasn’t sure what to do, except laugh.

The last day of All-Vol all of the wardens were asked to stay after for a meeting. The volunteers are split up across Nepal into regions that have a warden, a person responsible for relaying messages and being the point person in case something bad happens.

It’s not a job that’s assigned so much as it’s inherited. I inherited it from Luke and will pass it on to someone else when my time comes. But for now, being the warden pays my phone bill and gives me even just a slight impression of being responsible.

All-Vol was made quite tense by the presence of two Peace Corps folks from outside the country. One was the regional security director, based somewhere in the Pacific. The other was a woman from the Office of Special Services in Washington, DC.

Everyone had generally the same idea why these people where in Nepal, though the significance varied on the spectrum of severity from volunteer to volunteer. Some heralded their presence as the beginning of the end, suggesting that they were here to help with the evacuation. I didn’t think so.

Instead it seemed that their presence was a reminder to the Peace Corps/Nepal office that someone was looking over the shoulder.

During the warden meeting we discussed the two different kind of emergency action plans. Plan A was something initiated by the office in Kathmandu or Washington.

If Plan A is enacted, the warden contacts people to come to the consolidation point, Hotel Vishuwa in Birganj for my area (Birganj, Kalaiya, Hetauda, and Janakpur). From there we would either make our way together to Kathmandu or cross the border into India and then to Delhi.

Plan B is a little scarier. Plan B is enacted locally because either communications have been destroyed or time necessitates immediate action, as if there is an earthquake or if Armageddon occurs.

Basically, it’s everyone for themselves and people are responsible for grouping themselves in smaller, local clusters. If Plan B is enacted it will be done without any contact with any Peace Corps or US office anywhere. We’ll go to New Delhi and make contact with the US Embassy there.

This was the final meeting for the All-Vol conference and it was a somber one.

In a place that’s highly unstable, both politically and geologically, I don’t find the thought of being responsible for the wellbeing of volunteers scattered across the flatlands of Nepal comforting as the potential that someday soon Plan A or Plan B might come to life is good; however, it’s something someone has to do. I think that one of these new volunteers coming to Birganj in May will make a fine warden.

After leaving the warden meeting, I met up with Andrew. We were on our way to the Hyatt, the swankiest hotel in town. Thanks to the deathly slump in tourism and the power of numbers, Peace Corps had arranged it that we could stay in the regularly priced US$ 200 rooms for US$ 30 for one night.

We had also arranged to use the restaurant/bar for a costume party that the VAC had organized. The theme was Good vs. Evil.

Andrew is awarded the opportunity to drive a Tuk-Tuk around the Hyatt fountain.

Standing on the street, Andrew and I decided to get a tuk-tuk to take us to the hotel, which was on the other side of the valley. Some call the tuk-tuk an autorickshaws since it’s a step down from the tempo, also a three-wheeled, two-stroke pollution mobile.

The tuk-tuk has a basic steel floor pan, but the rest of it is canvas and PCVs often refer to them as hearses. They’re cheap and usually make it to their destination, but they’re the lowest form of public transportation in Nepal.

So Andrew and I are sitting in the cramped tuk-tuk on the way to the most upscale hotel in town. After a forty minute drive that would have taken ten in a taxi, we arrive at the front gates of the Hyatt.

The driver is reluctant to go in, since the gate itself costs more than his tuk-tuk, but we nudge him into going inside. We don’t get far, since the guard at the main gate is quick to stop the ghetto cruiser, but once he sees that there are actual foreigners inside he lets us pass.

By the time we get to the front doors we’ve gotten everyone’s attention and were stopped again by another guard. And there was this one gardener who I think wanted to stop us as well. The doorman was happily surprised by the arrival of guests in the decrepit machine.

The image is pretty hilarious, since just opposite the front doors is a magnificent fountain, surrounded by a brick roundabout, reminiscent of old brick roads in the historic districts of towns in the United States.

I ask the tuk-tuk driver if I can drive. He says, No.

I tell him I’ll give him 25 rupees. He says, No.

He is uncomfortable in the swankiest hotel in town and is itching to get the hell out of there. I ask again, but it isn’t until the doorman says, Awh, let’em drive it, that I get into the drivers seat.

I could technically be kicked out of the Peace Corps for driving the crappiest form of transportation in one of the world’s poorest countries around a fountain at the Hyatt Regency, the swankiest hotel in one of the world’s poorest countries.

I’ll say this: I had fun.

I’d been in the Terai, i.e., Birganj, for a couple of months and I was ready to get out of the flatlands and into the valley.

The day I was to leave Birganj I was doubtful my flight would leave. The irony of Nepal is that Birganj is around 90 miles from Kathmandu as the crow flies; however, by private jeep or taxi the trip takes around 8 hours and by bus it’s even longer, sometimes 10 hours.

Royal Nepal aircraft parked at Simra airport, waiting for passengers.

Peace Corps is benevolent enough to fly us to and fro for official business, though the flights are anything but pleasurable. Most of the airlines operate weathered Twin Otters: small, prop-driven planes that seat around 12–18 people. The flight between Birganj (nearby Simra, actually) and Kathmandu from take-off to landing lasts around 14 minutes.

While I was waiting and wondering if my plane was going to show up, I went just outside the airport to the concession stand, which is a small building made of corrugated steel and about the size of a building someone in the States might keep a lawnmower in, precariously aloof on wooden stilts, raising the structure about a foot off the ground.

Besides me, the only other folks sitting around the pasal were the armed police guarding the airport, a favorite target of the Maoists.

A few months earlier the Maoists had blown up a radio relay tower near the airport. Alas, the missed the airport’s communications tower, knocking out Birganj’s only radio station, Manakamana FM, for several days. This did not help the People’s War’s already dwindling popularity in Birganj.

I love Manakamana FM, if only for its self-promotional jingle, which is in English that goes

It’s raining,
And it’s snowing.
It’s . . . all of the excitement,
And none of the resentment . . . 92.9 FM!

Yes, it’s strange. It made so much more sense after the Maoists did what they did, because with the radio station out of order there was none of the excitement and all of the resentment, as someone told me.

While I was sitting and having my Coke with the cops, a big, yellow mutt (it clearly had some golden retriever in its blood) came from behind the dhaba and towards us, looking for something to eat I suppose.

When the dog meandered its way over to me I saw that something was written across its forehead. I thought that someone given the dog a black tikka.

Actually, someone had written ‘D’ on the dog’s forehead.

D for dog, one of the policemen told me.

Laxmi's dog at the Simra airport, complete with 'D' and 'Laxmi' written on its side.

Then when the dog turned so I could see its profile, I knew who the culprit was: Laxmi. Someone had written the name ‘Laxmi’ in Nepali on the side of the dog. And on its other side was a large heart with an arrow shooting through it.

The dog’s decorated presence seemed to amuse the policemen endlessly or maybe it was just that there was this Nepali-speaking foreigner taking photos of it. They chuckled occasionally jabbing the dog with their machine guns and telling it, Bas, so the tourist could take his photos.

I needed to get away from this place before I went insane.

Let’s go back to January 1, 2003: the first day of the new year and also the first sunny day in a month. It had rained through the night and into the morning of New Year’s, but by the time I’d had my coffee and biscuits the sun had come out and the day seemed promising.

I was walking to school, enjoying the sun on my face and seeing Birganj in somewhat more flattering light. About a block from my school, I turned north and headed towards town hall, next to which is my school.

What I’m about to say may sound strange or even ridiculous but stay with me. After I rounded the corner I was thinking about polishing my shoes or some such nonsense. I wasn’t even aware that the large white bull in the road was pissed off. It was just one of a dozen feral bulls I had passed that morning.

Anyhow, I’m moving right along thinking about my lesson plan or what I might have for lunch when I finally noticed the bull as it’s angrily rolling its head to and fro. I noticed it then just because the bull slung its saliva almost landing on me.

And my first reaction is to see if in fact any saliva landed on me, but I don’t do this for long because my peripheral starts shouting, Run you fool! This bull is about to gore you to death right here on this dirty street!

And so I turned and began to run. But I looked behind only after a few steps to see if the bull was still actually chasing me, which it was. I ran down the road, opposite the town hall, with its corrupt directors, crooked administrators, and evil police security no doubt staring in wonderment as a foreign development worker was chased across the thoroughfare to a violent death.

Thankfully I didn’t have to run far. When I rounded the corner from where I came, the bull slowed to a standstill and grunted while tossing its head a few more times as if to say, And don’t come back.

I was a bit shaken as I walked away, going the long way around the town hall to get to school, my adrenaline quickly manifesting as mindless giggling. For some reason after escaping a gruesome end—probably it was the adrenaline—I started laughing, imaging myself pinned against the wall of town hall with a bull’s horn through my gut.

Docile looking, at least. Feral animals such as this are usually pretty tame. Usually.

But what’s really funny is what happened to me on my way home after school. With the bull incident mostly forgotten, I took my time getting home, taking photos, going down explored paths, and just being leisurely in my existence.

Trouble came just a block from my home when a drunken rickshaw driver rode alongside me, trying to coax me into getting into his rickshaw. I used all of my usual lines for rickshaw drivers, but he was drunk enough to not comprehend anything or just didn’t care.

When I got to the gates of my place I ran into three friends of mine who go to the private school just down the road. I stopped and talked for a while, ignoring that the rickshaw driver was still talking to me. When I finally grew tired of the background noise I asked my friends to come in for tea.

Just as I was walking through my gate the rickshaw driver dismounted his rickshaw and came at me, first just getting in my face and demanding money.

When I refused he said something in Hindi that I didn’t follow. My friend translated, He’s saying he’s the bigger man, he stood about 5-foot 4 inches, and that he wants your money.

Perhaps laughing wasn’t the best response, but it’s what I did. I put my hand on his shoulder and walked towards the gate to get him outside, away from my friends, but he suddenly and with agility I hadn’t expected from his earlier drunken swagger, put his arms around me, trying to wrestle me to the ground.

While he didn’t have the strength or stature to take his aggressions much farther, the suddenness of the situation scared the hell out of me. And then just as quickly as it had begun, it ended.

Deepak, my friend who runs a store opposite of my house, had come over as he saw the rickshaw driver push his way inside the gates. He came from behind and put the rickshaw driver in a headlock, dragging the drunken maniac kicking outside.

Without thinking I went outside to see things through, but Deepak, releasing the man who fell to the ground, told me to go inside, that this was finished.

My friends, startled by the sudden fighting, were quickly on their way without their tea. I went inside and took a cold shower and made myself a cup of tea.

I called it a day at 5:00 p.m. and sat down with a book wondering what I had around to cook, since I was done wandering the city for one day. My flight left in three days for Kathmandu. I was hoping that the rest of the year would be better than the first day, though it seemed that the farther from Birganj I was the safer.

Three days later I was watching men prodding a vandalized dog with machine guns.

I was drinking a Coke that tasted like ketchup.

I was about to fly 90 miles in a plane that Al-Qaeda wouldn’t bother taking down.

Clearly, I needed to get out of this place—a place that I call, with some trepidation and some pride, home.

Testing evaluates, but when that means of evaluation is ineffective then the answer is to find some other means, which as of time of print I haven’t figured out exactly. It’s coming, though.

Just as few days ago I found myself being on the other side of an exam for the first time in Nepal. I signed up for the Foreign Service written exam, which was given Saturday, September 21, 2002.

More than anything else, the test was an excuse to take a break from my school situation (recently improved thanks to a visit by my PO from Kathmandu) and see some friends.

At the Vishuwa Mandir in Birganj, kids light candles on the occasion of Buddha Poorima, Buddha's birthday.

I had gone to the Birganj bus park on Thursday, September 19, 2002, to get on a bus to Narayanghat where I’d stay just one night to break up the long bus ride to Kathmandu. I hadn’t taken a bus all the way from Birganj to Kathmandu yet, but I have been told that it is long (8–12 hours). I thought a trip to Narayanghat (only 3 hours) would help break up the travels.

I taught my classes and then rushed to my deraa to get my bags. I told my family that I’d be back in a few days and boarded a rickshaw for the bus park. However, when I finally got to the bus park by 4:00 p.m., I found that all the buses for Narayanghat had left.

Very danger, I was told by a man in the ticket office.

Because Narayanghat is in one of the regions heavily affected by the Maoists, the buses don’t run at night for fear of being attacked by the Maoists or the police. People see both as equally dangerous in affected areas.

So I bought a ticket for Kathmandu for early the next morning and left my bags in the bus agency’s office and went home, dreading explaining to the family why I wasn’t leaving until the next morning. Their questions would be fired at me much like an automatic submachine gun.

The next day’s travels seemed to last forever. Unlike the Air Bus’ air conditioning, traffic was thick and constant the entire way to Kathmandu. And by the time we got to the final ridge just outside the valley, a landslide had reduced the main pass to one lane, holding us in backed-up traffic for nearly three hours.

You know what I suggest you bring to Nepal? Bring endless and enduring patience to sit in a crowded bus with no moving air, so you can watch for hours a trail of buses and trucks crisscrossing the mountainside and not feel complete desperation.

By the time I finally got to the Spice Deraa (the name of the apartment in Kathmandu I share with a number of other volunteers, pronounced “e-spice”) it was half past 7 o’clock, the time I had arranged to meet friends in Thamel.

I showered and took to the streets, hoping that I’d just run into folks in Thamel, which is exactly what happened.

I finally found people at Pub Maya. I hadn’t time to finish my first beer before Zach left the pub and returned with five new N/195 PCTs who’d just arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday, September 17, 2002.

The next day they were due to leave for their host families near Butwol. They seemed nice enough, and I found their complete disinterest in my advice outstanding indicators of better sense than what I had exhibited. I know there’s some cliché I can use for such courage, like “The dead have no fear,” or some such nonsense.

Anyhow, the next day I took the exam and ate nachos at Phora Dubar, the American Club where the test was administered. We met a guy named Richard who was passing through Kathmandu on his way back to America after finishing two years as a JET volunteer in Japan.

That Saturday was a full moon and several of us had made plans to visit Bouddanath, a Buddhist temple in the valley that has a huge candle lighting ceremony. It’s quite a peaceful place. Andrew, Richard, and I got there somewhat before the ceremony began and did a bit of wandering around the temple.

The one thing that was disappointing about this temple was the lack of monkeys. Some things you just come to expect of holy places in Nepal. One of those things is monkeys—lots of monkeys.

When it came time to light candles, Andrew and I entered one of the rooms where candles were kept. It was not much larger than a walk-in closet (here I am explaining the size of a holy place in relation to a closet) and quite hot, since the room held nothing more than a full sized table covered in oil lamps, most the size of tea light candles.

At the Bal Mandir school during Laxmi Puja, one of the younger students prays (until disturbed).

In the center of the table elevated on small stands were several very large oil lanterns. Being in that room crammed with smal fires was not unlike being in Birganj.

When our turn came around to light some candles (sort of for prayer, sort of for vigil) Andrew looked at me solemnly and said, I’m going to light one for Thumba. Thumba is a Doberman pincher that Andrew bought for a friend from Kolkata. Thumba is not well. Actually, Thumba is long of this world.

As the English dailies in Nepal would report, it was an auspicious occasion. Heartiest felicitations. Et cetera. Shortly thereafter, we met up with several other PCVs, namely two PCVs who were being sent home for stealthing.

Stealthing is the Peace Corps term for being away from post without informing anyone officially. Most every PCV does this at some point, except these two were caught and paid a hefty price that most would say was excessive.

Anyhow, these two knew of a hidden Italian restaurant near Bouddanath. It’s one of those places you have to know someone in order to find. Getting to the dining area including knocking on someone’s front door, walking through a family’s kitchen, and finally sitting in the dining area, which was clearly the family’s living space.

Oddly enough this wasn’t your normal family in Nepal. The woman who answered the door, a small, stout, and cheery woman who seemed to heave with excitement when she spoke, was something of a surprise. I came in first and began speaking to her in Nepali, asking her about where we’d sit and other questions that she answered in Nepali.

I asked her, quite stupidly, where she’d learned to cook Italian food.

In Italy, she answered in Nepali.

I then asked where she was from.

From Italy, she answered again. Here I was speaking Nepali to an Italian woman who’d been living in Nepal for some time.

The dinner, my friends, was splendid. What she made for us was nothing more than home-cooked Italian food. I’ve never had an experience like that before.

There we were: eight or so volunteers, sitting in an Italian expat’s living room, drinking wine that had already been opened (no doubt they’d been drinking from it earlier), over-looking the still glowing candles of Bouddanath, and I couldn’t help but think, What a strange, strange life I’ve gotten myself into.

I’ve been in Kathmandu (Thamel, actually, which is the tourist district) for four nights. I’ll be away from Birganj for almost a week more before I get back to teaching and facing the devils who are my students.

Two weeks ago in Birganj I developed an upper respiratory infection, which worked its way through my sinuses and into my ear—my inner ear to be specific.

I had jinxed myself by telling one of the PCMO nurses that because I had been in Nepal six months without any problems, I should be rewarded with a break from my post with a visit to Kathmandu.

And when I did get sick, I was suddenly afraid that perhaps PCMO would think that I was sick of post instead of other things. I was in a situation I hadn’t been in since elementary school.

I finally made a trip to Dhunche to visit Zach, and Lang Tang was extraordinarily beautiful.

I had to go to nurse, tell her I didn’t feel well, and have her send me away from my responsibilities with a comforting pat on the back. After all those times in elementary school when I told the nurse my stomach hurt (I can’t remember how many times it did hurt), I had the notion that the nurse secretly knew I was merely trying to indulge myself.

But my ear was bothering me. I just had to let it go on long enough so that there would be no denying that I was ill and that something needed to be done. I wasn’t crying wolf, yet why was I feeling so guilty at the possibility that the PCMO would have me leave the sweltering heat of Birganj for the temperate climate and delicious food of Kathmandu?

The first time I had called the PCMO the nurse told me, Play it by ear.

I realized that my symptoms would have to be more severe before I’d be called to Kathmandu.

I thought that finally having an ear infection for two weeks merited another call to the PCMO and, ergo, a departure from Birganj. I had the feeling of some disembodied finger being in my ear, but nothing painful.

I often had the inclination to take something, like a Q-tip, a pencil, or my Swiss Army knife, and try to get at whatever it was that was bothering my ear. It was driving me crazy.

My hearing had been affected and my students were developing this especially annoying habit of mimicking me when I asked them questions by saying, What? Sorry? Say again?

The best part of this was being referred to a Nepali doctor by the PCMO. When I went to Phora Dubar, the location of the medical offices for both Peace Corps and the embassy staff, and the nurses looked at my ear and told me stories about finding roaches and leeches in PCVs’ ears, but that my ear was free of bugs and such.

All this talk reminded a nurse that she had some intestinal worms in formaldehyde and insisted that she show them to me, which she did.

This one, she said, holding up a yellowish tapeworm about a meter long, was vomited up by embassy staff.

She then showed me a book of horribly infected ears and gave me an idea of what the swollen membrane in my ear looked like. After she looked through the book with a grotesque eagerness, she took another look at my ear and said to herself, Oh, I’ve seen worse.

The worst part about seeing the Nepali doctor was the awful preferential treatment I received because of my skin color. The doctor’s office opened at 5:00 p.m. and he saw patients until 10:00 p.m.

Odd hours, I thought, but apparently common in Nepal. My appointment was for 5:30 p.m. and I got the office just a few minutes early after a painless cab ride from Thamel.

Maybe there’s some sort of Nepali cab dispatch office where the cabbies are taught how to try and chat with passengers who are possibly American. During any given cab ride in Kathmandu a cabbie will at least use one of the three standard conversation starters:

Osama bin Laden.

September 11th?

George W. Bush!?

But these aren’t even intended to start conversation. They’re just statements, like a complete sentence needing only an understanding nod. I’ve tried to engage drivers in Nepali to talk about their notions of any one of those subjects. I get the same responses, time and time again, which are (respectively)

Na ramroo manche. (not a good person)

Na ramroo. (not good)

Confusion. Al Gore. (even the United States has its day)

This driver mentioned all three topics, but left me only with a perplexing Na ramroo.

I’m not sure if he was talking about Osama bin Laden or September 11th or just the lot.

When I came into the waiting room I saw about six or seven individuals and several kids with waiting parents, all Nepali.

A sign welcomes visitors to Lang Tang National Park with a prohibition against honking.

I hadn’t been in the office two minutes before they led me to the doctor, who spoke with me for a bit. His English was soothing since I was slightly concerned upon coming into his office slash examination room.

On one side of the room sat his desk and several chairs in front. The other side was an examination table with a trey next to it filled with peculiar, stainless steel tools. All of this was illuminated by a single, 60 watt light bulb. The lighting alone made me think something illegal was going on.

But he practiced just as any doctor I had ever known. He asked me a few questions about how I was feeling, looked at me for an equal amount of time, and then wrote out a prescription for some antibiotics and said I should be better in three days.

His assistant gave me some hearing tests before I left. The machines, though skillfully manipulated by the doctor’s son, were circa 1965. I have a BA in English, so who am I to say if that’s a problem?

But I’m feeling better. I was planning to return to Birganj last Saturday, but since that would require me flying back and then returning in three days time on another flight, I asked the PCMO just to keep me in town so my ear wouldn’t have to suffer all the pressure from the flights.

It’s been tough occupying my time in Kathmandu. Today I walked to Patan, and old historic district to the south of Kathmandu. One of the Peace Corps’ drivers asked me to go to Dhunche with him on Tuesday morning.

Dhunche is the main city of Lang Tang National Park, Rasuwa district, one of the more beautiful places in the world, so that’s definitely something to do.

After getting back from Dhunche the next day I’m working with Trina to help plan the regional peer support conference, a quarterly excuse for everyone to get together at least regionally. The conference is being held in Nagarkot, which is a beautiful city just to the east of Kathmandu and famous for its views of the Himalayas.

And then it’s back to facing the kids. I think my stomach hurts.