Volunteering in Nepal: first week

I forgot to mention in my last post that there are some other volunteers who maintain a weblog as well. Collin Chase has a weblog, Peter Northdale has one, and Julia Letschert has one too, in Dutch. Also make sure to check out Collin’s Flickr account, he has a better camera and better lenses than me and he managed to take good photos at times when I deemed mine to be not good enough and threw them away.

My first week was spent on the language class and sightseeing around Kathmandu. Days begin with waking up at 7:00 to 8:00, after waking up I go upstairs where I drink some tea, served by Sobha. Around 9:00 breakfast is served. Then during the first five working days my language class would start on 10:30 at the VSN office, which is five minute walk away from the house of my host family. During the time in between I tried to read the instruction manual for the language, but I still need a lot of practice to reach basic proficiency in the Nepalese language, which is very similar to Hindi, India’s national language. After the language class ends around 12:00, we would go to one of the three restaurants close by the VSN office, after lunch we would grab a bus to go sightseeing at various locations around Kathmandu.

Saturday is a free day, but on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I had language classes and sightseeing. We saw the following places (I recommend to search for the place names on Flickr, so you can find more photos):

Bouddhanakh is one of the largest Buddhist stupa in the world. I was not impressed though, it’s not anything architecturally remarkable, it’s a simple structure with barely any decorations, unlike other Buddhist monuments such as Borobudur in Indonesia for example. Maybe I got spoiled by all of Rome’s architectural splendor and seeing so much Buddhist art in San Francisco’s Asian Art museum during my last holiday in the USA, but I was not impressed. All sightseeing was done with my language teacher, Bishal. On this day I was accompanied by another new Australian volunteer, Jessa, but she would leave to Pokhara tomorrow. For the next day it was just me and Bishal, but during the last three days I was accompanied by another new Dutch volunteer, Julia, and her language teacher Rupa.

So the next day we visited the Durbar Square in Pathan. As I approached to show my volunteer card to get free access to the site (Nepalese get free entrance) I was approached by two guides who wanted to show me around the place, but they put up a long, incomprehensive story about why I needed them. Bishal had to make a phone call and told me to go ahead, so that’s probably why they approached me, because I was lone white person. Bishal joined me and engaged in a long discussion with the guides. I knew Bishal would tell me more about what I was going to see and that I didn’t need these guides to show me around for 600 rupees. Yet when I asked Bishal what we were going to do because I was getting tired of the long discussion which was going nowhere it took a while before we declined the guides’ offer. They were quite annoyed by our refusal, apparently because it’s hard for them to make a living. The square itself had some interesting temples and palaces with nice woodcarving, but nothing to get me excited. I ditched the photos I have taken of this place because my camera screwed up because of clipping.

Boudhanath stupa

On Saturday I followed the other volunteers living with my host family to go to Thamel, Kathmandu’s tourist district. It has many small streets with a lot of pedestrians. In a western country such an area would be a pedestrians-only zone, but here it’s not, which makes walking here a very stressful experience because you have to watch out all of the time. It is not unsafe though, because the traffic drives slowly and makes liberal use of the horn to inform everyone they need to pass. It has a lot of stores and restaurants geared to tourists and eating there is much more expensive than eating in Pepsi Cola: 300 Rupees versus 50. Not a nice neighboorhood, I’d only go there if you’d need to do some very serious shopping.

Slaughtered pig for sale on a street near Thamel

In the evening all of the volunteers living in Sugandha’s and Sobha’s house, which includes me, were invited to a wedding. Apparently Sugandha was related in some way to the groom, and the Nepalese are very hospitable, so we were invited along. The wedding party was surprisingly Western. The party began with serving some nice snacks for all the visitors, and then a DJ started the music. It was both Western pop music and some Indian or Nepali (pop) music. A lot of people started dancing, me, the other volunteers but also Nepalese people both young and old. As Westerners we were quite the attraction and quite a few people took photos of us or started dancing with the Western girls. After that we had a buffet with a lot of different delicious Nepali and Indian dishes. Then we had to leave early. But this was only the party, a Hindu wedding ceremony would follow the party. That ceremony is totally different from what we do in the West.

On Sunday we visited Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. This square was much better and larger than Pathan with more temples and palaces, but yet again I was not impressed. At the last day of sightseeing I noticed there had been a pattern. Every day Bishal would take us to a place which was more interesting than the previous one.

Kathmandu’s Durbar Square

Next came Old Thimi. This is a community of ceramic producers located on the road to Baktapur, to the east of Pepsi Cola. Bishal told me tourists don’t visit this place, only VSN’s volunteers have. Indeed, it was very different and Julia and me were the only white people present. People were busy making ceramics, which they would bake in ‘ovens’ of sand heaps. Life is very easy going there, with the elderly sitting near the sides of streets, observing everything which is going on. Other adults are working on producing ceramics, school children were walking on the streets near the school. Because white people are a rare sight in this place, the inhabitants were looking at us with an even more investigative stare than in other places. Great place to visit.

Pottery production in Old Thimi

Pottery production in Old Thimi

The last day of sightseeing was today, and it definitely was the cherry topping the pie. We visited Swayambhunath, also known as Monkey Temple because many monkeys can be seen there. After climbing some stairs it provides a great view over the valley of Kathmandu. The monkeys desire any food you’re having though, and will be prepared to steal from you, possibly biting and transferring rabies. I decided to buy a slice of coconut street vendors were selling near the temple for five rupees. As we moved on, a few monkeys caught sight of my coconut and approached me. Bishal quickly told me to throw the coconut away to avoid being attacked, and I did so. It turns out plain coconut isn’t very appealing anyway. After the temple we visited three huge Buddha statues which were located nearby.

Stairs to Swayambhunath

Monkeys near Swayambhunath

Me near Buddha statues

Wednesday the 2nd of March was a free day because the Maha Shivaratri festival is held at this day. This is a Hindu religious festival to honor the god Shiva. Because Hindus think Shiva was inspired by the use of marihuana to create the world, this will is the single day during the year when marihuana use is legal. Many people will be smoking it, so I could expect to see a lot of people being high on the streets.

Early in the morning we went to a temple called Pashupatinath with almost all volunteers living in Pepsi Cola to witness this, but because we went so early to avoid the large masses we missed out on the people being high. As we were walking there one volunteer, Sjoerd, apparently interviewed for a radio station. The interviewer inquired about his understanding of the religious festival, but Sjoerd’s knowledge of it is quite limited I was told.

Front of a Hindu temple near Pashupatinath

Besides all the sadhus I noticed a beggar. This was nothing new as beggars, some of them crippled or with amputated legs, are often begging on the streets, but this beggar suffered from gangrene on his toes. I hoped that my visual knowledge of this condition would remain limited to the photos seen on Wikipedia, but to see it in reality was quite gross. Almost none of the beggars we see are given any money by the volunteers or the language teachers while we do sightseeing because it would encourage begging, but seeing this beggar in particular made me regret we can’t help everyone, even as volunteers.

On the way back our guide Keshab, another host for some of the volunteers in Pepsi Cola, showed us that mushrooms were grown in Pepsi Cola, in some kind of structures covered with hay to maintain a moist environment.

Growing mushrooms in Old Sinamangal

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top