I was out doing the bidding of Peace Corps when I met Alfred. He’s the headsir of St. Xavier’s, a private school next door to Shripur, a government secondary school where I had been doing some scouting for a possible site for a volunteer.
St. Xavier’s facade suggested that it was an upper-tier school. Like its [...]
About three weeks ago I left Birganj and headed into the Kathmandu Valley. First, I went in for my education group’s IST. The week after was the yearly Peace Corps Nepal’s All-Vol, something that is talked about from the moment of arrival in country.
I’d been in the Terai, i.e., Birganj, for a couple of months [...]
I’ve edited and rewritten this preface more times than the entry it proceeds. I guess what I want to say, really, is, this story isn”t mine to tell.
To read what’s here is to open to the middle of a novel and read a single page. I know that the volunteers past and present who read [...]
Way back in July it was hot—really hot. The hot that you can’t escape, that makes you uncomfortable in your skin.
Since it was July it was also the thick of the monsoon. Since it was July I still wasn’t half sure why or what I was doing in Nepal or if I’d even be here [...]
What I did on Friday, October 4, 2002, does not constitute a normal day in Birganj.
A normal day in Birganj begins with coffee at Himanchal Cabin and ends with a book in bed by nine o’clock. The Friday of October 4, 2002, began with a shot of a starter’s pistol and a hundred Nepalis sprinting [...]
