I used to plan everything.
My first solo trip through Europe - every flight,
connection, bus, hostel - all perfectly lined up. I’m sure I even had a daily
itinerary of tourist activities planned out months in advance. At that time,
planning was half of the excitement for me. The anticipation of where I would
be and what I would be doing.
But something changed.
I specifically remember meeting a girl in Italy who had
plans to travel for a year. When I asked her where she planned to travel, she
nonchalantly said she wasn’t sure. She didn’t even know where she was going
next week. She would meet people, get recommendations, and check the cheapest
flights online. She would live this way for an entire year. It was something
like modern society’s attempt at a nomadic lifestyle. It inspired me. It
terrified me.
Perhaps it is disorganization, a lack of time, or the
realization that I can’t control everything in my life – but I don’t plan like
I used to. I’m no travelling nomad – but other than an arriving and departing
plane ticket, my two weeks in Nepal was a virtual blank slate. And it was that
lack of planning that brought me to the Tamang Village outside of Dulikhel,
Nepal.
After a few days in Kathmandu, Lauren, Daniel and I decided
we should get out of the city and do some trekking. While monsoon season
brought with it warnings of washed out trails and the unpleasant prospect of
leeches, we desperately wanted to escape the chaos of Kathmandu’s claustrophobic,
dirty, yet colorful Thamel quarter. We pulled out the guidebook and started
reading.
The plan: two days in Nagarkot – two days in Dulikhel. I
sent a few emails and we left the following afternoon.
Hotel at the End of the Universe, Nagarkot.
Perched on the top of the mountain – there was little more
than fresh air, dogs, a vast green expanse, and a small temple. Our two days
were spent simply hiking, relaxing, eating, and bit of temple-side amateur
yoga. We were out of the city and finally surrounded by that beloved Nepalese
nature. We met school children on our hikes who daily trekked over five miles
back and forth to school , we met leeches, we met breathtaking views of the
Kathmandu valley.
Departing Nagarkot after two days, we set off on an
ambitious 10+ mile hike that would bring us to our next town – Dulikhel. We had
our backpacks and a hand-drawn map that I couldn’t make rhyme or reason of. I
felt confident we would reach Dulikhel by dark. Perhaps serendipitously, only a
short while after lunch, those seasonal monsoon rains began to fall. And they
didn’t stop. We held out for an hour, then gave into the fact that we would
have to take a taxi.
We were shuttled down the mountain, then promptly up another
to find ourselves in Dulikhel. After asking several locals where our guesthouse
was located, we began to drive out of the city and higher up the mountain. 15
minutes later we were in a place that could hardly be called a village, with no
more than 7 small building lined along the dirt road. A whitewashed home with streams
of colorful prayer flags stood in the center. This was our home-stay.
When I signed us up for a home-stay I didn’t really know
what I was doing. I was thinking something like home cooked meals in a
family-run guesthouse. What I didn’t quite realize was that we would be living
with the family in their home, eating meals with them, and learning about their
culture and daily life. My last minute decision to stay at the Tamang Family
Home-stay wasn’t in error though. Just a few days with this family taught me that
people across the world aren’t so different after all and that we struggle with
many of the same issues – though in varied ways.
On a morning hike to a massive hilltop Buddha, led the
husband of the Tamang family, we got to talking about many things, including my
work. In general, most people were slightly confused by the fact that I am
American, but I live in Russia and work as a volunteer intern for an NGO. But
this man was no stranger to NGO work, especially that which related to health
and women’s issues. He went on to tell me about how his family was involved in,
and really the leaders of, several development projects within their small
community. The first was established by his mother-in-law. An uneducated woman
who had spent her entire life within this small agricultural community. She saw
how everyday the women, regardless of age or health would work in the fields
and sometimes even spend their days gathering wood in the forest. As they aged,
this work was increasingly difficult, but it was their basic means of survival
and couldn’t be avoided. The truth was though, that this was no way of life and
something needed to change in their community. Despite a total lack of
education, she decided to establish a women’s collective within her community.
Together, the collective of women could support one another and develop
alternative methods of income that would diversify their means of survival.
Today, the collective has 100 members and are starting a small business where
the women will make hand-made bags for sale in Kathmandu and abroad.
As a feminist and a hopeful gender studies MA student,
seeing an uneducated woman from a small, rural and very traditional community
identify a major need specific to women and to develop a solution to that
problem which says that life as it is for women in this community is not enough
is incredibly inspiring. In my own setting, within Russia, I can see that while
women have education, they lack autonomy in their relationships with men. The
consequences of this play out in many ways such as increased risk of HIV, domestic
violence, and lack of support to develop themselves as individuals and within
their careers. It goes on, but life for Russian women as it is today is also
not adequate.
The homestay family is also working with international
donors to establish a local clinic in the village and eventually an orphanage. A
girl from the village is receiving medical training in London so that she can
eventually return to Nepal to run the local clinic.
What I had imagined as no more than a home cooked meal and quaint
guest house, was instead the sharing of cultures and the sharing of ideals.
That someone from such a different context could devote their life to the
promotion of women’s issues in a way similar to my own dedication made a people
whose language, culture and standard of living are so different than mine, seem
oddly familiar and comforting. It wasn’t my home for more than two days, but it
could have been.
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