The trip over went great, and I made it with no major mishaps...quite the accomplishment if you know my track record with flights and airports. Over the course of my first week, I was introduced to my house, roommates, Godavari (our town), St. Xavier's (our school), and lots and lots of Nepali culture.
Our house is a mixture of blessings and frustrations. I will make sure to get pictures up on another post. The house is big, especially for Godavari...but cold. We have running water, but only in the bathroom and shower...not in kitchen. (I never thought a kitchen sink could be such a wonderful sight.) The neighbors are great! Two Nepali families live on the first floor of the house and we have the second floor. My roommates have also been wonderful and I am excited to be sharing this experience with people who have already made me feel at home. The school is a very short walk from our house, and my few short visits have already made me love the students. They are full of smiles, Hello Misses, and candies for your pocket even if they don't know you. The food is also good...yummy, spicy, and filling...I just don't know how to cook any of it yet. One major accomplishment was also taking my first try at washing clothes...we have to do it by hand and hang it out to dry, but overall it was a successfull attmept.
Two of the only negative parts of living in Godavari right now are 1) we have major hours of load shedding right now, which are power outages and means we only have power about 4-6 hours a day and 2) our phone line has been cut...literally the physical line in the village was cut and stolen and there has not been very promising news about it getting replaced.
My first weekend, we got to hike to the next village over and spend a night in Lamatar. One of the in-country Jestuits has helped establish a guest house in Lamatar and it is a great treat when we get to be the guests! Fr. Greg has been here for years and filled me full of lots of Nepali history and the food cooked up by Chundra was amazing! I also got my first decent view of the Himals from Lamatar. They are usually hidden from view in Godavari by a massive cloud of dusty, smoggy, hazy, polluted air that hangs over Kathmandu.
THE HIMALS!!!
I have also started language training which has been good because language is a major barrier for me right now, but it is also difficult. The Nepali language has a different alphabet and script which I am trying to learn on top of conversation. It is slow going!
Godavari is about a 30 mintues bus ride south of Kathmandu and it is great to live outside of the city, which can be pretty loud and crazy. Our house is surrounded by a big open lot where the local animals have free run. The only horse in the area tends to just wander to the field eat and wander home each night...we don't really know where he comes from but he lets me pet him. The goats are also quite entertaining at times...getting heads stuck in buckets, climbing through gates, jumping up trees. And, the horse and goats are joined by numerous cows and dogs on any given day. We also have some pretty but very loud green parrots that like to visit our trees during the day.
Overall, things have been going great! With the power outages and lack of computer access, my blog posts and emails may be sporadic but I will do my best. As I get more settled and comfortable, I will also take more pictures and get them posted so you can see the house, school, and village.
You are in my thoughts!
Emily
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