Odds and Ends

It's week 8 of PST, and I'm feeling a sort of impatience kick in. I'm ready to leave this land of limbo—a period where so much is happening, but nothing feels like it's truly started. I'm still practically living out of my suitcase. PST presents a unique set of challenges, and maybe I'm crazy, but one is that it's too straightforward: the days are completely scheduled, you go to class, are surrounded by other Americans, and then practice skills to meet clear criteria. I should relish the defined expectations while I still have them, but part of me wants to be in the thick of things already!  My experience in Germany taught me that life abroad requires a complete surrender of control: every insecurity is magnified, and there are very few shields to hide behind. Obviously, I don't enjoy being subject to a series of ritual humiliations, but there is truth in worn-out phrases: you learn more during the hard times than you do during the easy ones. As it stands, it's too convenient to fall back into my American bubble during PST. And that brings another challenge that is exhausting my stores of enthusiasm. There's a cohort effect in place (and this is true of every cohort I've belonged to) that encourages a faux overfamiliarity. I'm a deeply private person, so when the conversations veer into this territory, my left eye starts twitching, and I feel the urge to bolt. 

Okay, I'm done with the self-indulgent writing (please excuse me as I wring out the last few drops of teenage angst). The day-to-day work of PST is enjoyable enough. My language is coming along nicely, but I've discovered a weird quirk about myself: I'm much more comfortable speaking with community members than I am speaking with Peace Corps language teachers—even though everyone on staff is super approachable and encouraging. The conspiratorial part of my brain kicks in while talking with staff, and I feel like every mistake is recorded and cataloged and added to my permanent file. Totally irrational, but the result is that I am more at ease approaching random aamas and didis on the street and practicing my language with them (or, more accurately, bumbling through one-sided conversations). My tactic is to point to whatever they're carrying and ask what it is in hopes of starting a conversation; I have a very high success rate. The other day, I saw a woman carrying a bag of sugar and asked if it was flour (we had learned the word that day, and I wanted to practice saying it out in the wild). She corrected me and then launched into a whole diatribe on tea preferences that I somewhat understood! 

My favorite neighborhood dog. Meet Ready!

I don't have a cohesive theme for this post, so I thought I'd include some observations and experiences I've had in the last few weeks but haven't written about: 

Recently, I noticed dried pokeweed berries in our kitchen. To my knowledge, pokeweed is poisonous, so I asked my host mom what she intends to do with the berries. She explained that she will plant the pokeweed seeds and then harvest the young leaves later in the spring to make saag (I believe she was saying jaringo ko saag). I'm still a bit hesitant to try pokeweed saag, but the moment was nonetheless a valuable exchange of knowledge. 

On February 26th, I celebrated Maha Shivaratri with my host family and our neighbors. During the day, the neighborhood kids tried to stop me with rope as I walked to class, hoping to extract a few rupees from me. I was able to placate them with biscuits and chocolate. The night honors the Hindu god Shiva and his triumph over darkness, and it includes fasting, worship, chanting, and dancing. My community built a bonfire around which we danced and sang; some people worship throughout the night, but my community was in bed by 9:30 p.m. 

Shivaratri bonfire

I woke up to my first Nepali earthquake in the early morning of Feb 28th. At first, I thought my host father was tinkering around downstairs and that was producing the movement I was feeling. I lied in bed as the situation defined itself until finally, I had the aha moment: Oh, this is an actual earthquake. In my half-conscious state, I didn't feel any sense of urgency and I continued to lie in bed. When the movement stopped, I got up, went outside, saw that everything was still in its rightful place, and promptly went back to bed. The real fear kicked in an hour later when I was shocked awake by my host mom pounding on my door. Apparently, I had slept through all attempts to contact me via phone, and Peace Corps staff called her to check on my well-being.  

Last week, I visited the tallest Shiva statue in the world: the Kailashnath Mahadev Statue, standing at 143 feet. As with all massive monuments, too large for anything other than cognitive overload, I saw it, respected it, and left. I'm still trying to find out the sculptor's intention with the face, as it's different from any other depictions of Shiva I've seen. I would characterize Shiva as a pretty boy, almost androgynous in appearance (as the god of creation, he both possesses and transcends all dualities), whereas the statue's face is contorted into an unattractive smirk that fails (in my opinion) to communicate any sense of power or grandeur. 

Shiva statue in Sanga (say that 3x fast)

That's it for now. Swearing-in is looming larger and larger. There are about three weeks left in PST, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter of my Peace Corps experience. 

Here I Yam! On a walking bridge over Araniko Highway