Bridging Worlds Volunteer Journals

Bianca Sonnenberg Online Journal
Bianca Sonnenberg California, USA Manushi - Kathmandu, Nepal

May 24, 2004 The Village People

Hello everyone!

Here is an email that I wrote about a week ago. Since then Mark has arrived and we have been doing lots of fun touristy things around Kathmandu. We will probably head to Thailand on May 28th.

May 12, 2004

Wow, I just had the best two days of my trip so far. Last weekend I stayed in a village called Panchkal which lies high in the hills east of Kathmandu. I traveled with two colleagues from work, Sanjana and Era. Manushi, the organization that I am working for, spent two years doing gender awareness education and income generation projects in Panchkal, and Sanjana and Era played a key role in this endeavor. These programs have had an incredible impact on this village.

After a treacherous ride on narrow winding roads through steep hill country I arrived at the village of Panchkal slightly shaken. The ancient bus came to a screeching stop and Era, Sanjana, and I stepped off onto a dusty road lined with a few roadside shops. My feet on solid ground once more, I was able to relax and take in the incredible scenery. The steep hills were covered with green forests and terraced farms. I was overwhelmed with happiness to be away from the big city. It felt so good to breathe fresh air and see trees and animals.

We walked down a dusty road to the office of the women's cooperative. This cooperative was established about eight years ago and has had an amazing impact on the region. Each month the women pay a certain amount of money to the cooperative, then as a group, they decide how to spend the money. They give out individual loans so women can do things like buy livestock or seeds for crops - something they were previously unable to do. The cooperative also serves as a pressure group for issues like child marriage and girl trafficking.

When I read about girls being sold to India for prostitution I was deeply saddened. But, when I saw the faces of people personally affected by girl trafficking it truly broke my heart. When we arrived at the cooperative office there was a mother and father whose only daughter had been missing for 5 days. Tears slipped from the mother's eyes as she gripped the only photograph of her 14 year old daughter. With a shaky voice the mother explained that her daughter excelled in school and was afraid to leave home and therefore didn't seem the type to be lured away by a stranger. The family suspected that she was kidnapped. Era and Sanjana explained that girl trafficking is rampant in Nepal, especially in rural areas. Sometimes families sell their own daughters and sometimes girls run away with men who falsely promise them jobs, money, or marriage. Most of these girls end up in brothels in India. Once they are taken across the border these girls are rarely seen again by their families. Many die of AIDS. Sadly, there is little hope for the safe return of this girl, but her tiny photograph is imprinted on my brain and I have been haunted by images of the horrors she is probably experiencing. The cooperative was sending an official letter to the police since they don't take these cases seriously - especially if it happens to poor people.

After visiting the women's cooperative, we visited a nearby school. The walls of the school were covered with Maoist propaganda. Era and Sanjana told me that it was not even safe to mention the word Maoist, so we had to call them "Ms." I also had to remember that I was Canadian, not American, "What are you talking a-boat?" The school was donated by the Japanese and the facility was much nicer than the school that I work at in Kathmandu. Unfortunately this school was very understaffed. It had three classrooms full of children but only two teachers and today one was absent - so the one teacher I met was responsible for teaching the entire school! Plus, he only makes about $15 a month and he hasn't been paid for the past three months because there hasn't been enough money. He must really care about those students.

After visiting a beautiful Hindu temple on a hilltop, we headed off to the house where we would spend the night. We walked down a narrow dirt path and arrived at a beautiful farm. Fields of bell peppers, eggplants, rice, corn, chili peppers, tomatoes, squash, and beans stretched out in front of the farmhouse. Goats and water buffalo grazed in front of a barn attached to the house. The floors of the two-story farmhouse were made of clay and if you looked at the ceiling you could see the branches, logs, and mud that were used to construct the floors. I immediately fell in love with their dog, Sweetie, and their kitten, Salty. I had great respect for this family when I saw how they treated their animals with such kindness. The dog and cat were well-fed and constantly being cuddled and kissed. Dinner was prepared using a wok over a fire.

The next morning we visited a Dalit village. Even though the Hindu caste system has been outlawed in Nepal, the Dalit people, or "untouchables," remain segregated from the rest of society. They are not even allowed to enter the homes of higher caste people. These Dalit women gave me one of the warmest welcomes that I have ever experienced. They arrived one by one and piled huge bouquets of magenta bougainvilleas into my arms. They had put on their best clothes, scarlet saris, especially for the occasion of my visit. Their generosity brought me to tears.

Era and Sanjana explained that when they first arrived to do their community development work, the Dalit women were so afraid, they refused come out of their houses. They had no self-confidence and no hope. They were so used to being dominated by others - people of higher castes as well as their own husbands and fathers. When the Dalit women finally began to talk, they could not articulate the problems they faced. They were very poor, not knowing where there next meal would come from. Many families didn't have any land at all and those that did had such a tiny plot of land it could only feed them for 3 months. The other months they had to travel to harvest crops on a rich landowner's field and they were paid very little. And, the women earn much less than men for the exact same work in the fields, plus after a long day of hard labor harvesting crops, they had to return to cook and clean for their families. Then the women were only allowed to eat after the men, so they were malnourished as well.

As I listened to each woman introduce herself in our circle, I realized how much Manushi's awareness raising and income generation programs have helped these women. Manushi helped them become more independent by helping them to buy a male and a female goat. When the goats had a baby it was given to another member of the cooperative. This process continued and now most of the women in this village have a received a baby goat. They can sell the goat milk and/or breed their goat and sell the babies. The money raised by the goat raising project is entirely controlled by the women. So, for the first time in their lives these women have money of their own, they do not have to beg for money from their husbands. This has facilitated a remarkable change in the status of women in this village. One of the women will even be running in the local election!

Still, so much more needs to be done. These women told me repeatedly that they feel the only way for them to truly escape poverty and prejudice is to educate their children. But at the present time, this is very difficult. There are schools nearby but they are all private and they can't afford them. They must go to a government (public) school which is a very long walk away. These schools are incredibly crowded with 70-120 students in each classroom. During the monsoon season they are not able to make the long walk to the school, so they miss a lot of school. Many families cannot afford basic school supplies in order to send their children to school, or they cannot afford to lose the valuable help with farming. And once they are at school, they are discriminated against because they are "untouchables." At a very young age they internalize a feeling of being less than others - they are not allowed to sit with children of other castes at school and teachers do not treat them equally.

After leaving the Dalit village, we went to eat lunch at a family's house. We had polenta with fermented vegetables, a staple dish of the region. In this house I really saw the impact of Manushi's gender awareness training. For the first time, I saw a son helping with the cooking and cleaning. When other families asked why their son was helping with the cooking and cleaning the mother and father said because boys and girls are equal and they should both help with the work. This almost brought tears to my eyes. The mother will be running in the local election. The father seemed so kind and supportive of these changes. It was so amazing to see. I mean not long ago no one would dream of a boy/man with many female tasks. I was very sad to board the bus home. I didn't want to leave this beautiful place!

Thanks for listening. Hope you are all doing well.

Love,

Bianca

May 4, 2004 We're Gonna Party Like It's 2061!

Hello everyone!

Sorry I haven't written in a while, but I have been very busy with work. I finally got around to finishing the email that I started three weeks ago. So, the following email is a little outdated, but hopefully it will still be interesting!

We're Gonna Party Like It's 2061!

Last Monday was New Year's Eve 2061 here in Nepal. I met up with Lin, a Jagriti volunteer from Australia, for a night out on the town. We went to a restaurant in Thamel, the tourist area of Kathmandu, and ordered pizza and enchiladas. It was such a relief for me to talk with someone who has gone through similar struggles and to have some familiar food. There was even a Nepali blues band playing! At the end of the night we found ourselves in Tom & Jerry's, a bar with an amazing cast of characters. There were a lot of tourists and quite a few Nepali men scamming on foreign women. The first character to capture our attention was an older man wearing sandals, knee-high socks, and shorts. Lin and I immediately pegged him as a German. We would have bet each other, but we were both thoroughly convinced of his nationality. He had a drugged out look in his eye as he performed what seemed to be a very slow form of vogueing, well imagine vogueing with one broken arm. I could not resist a dance with him and an opportunity to confirm his nationality. And can you guess where he was from? The Bay Area of course! His "job" was to bring lunch to the tree sitters in Northern California and Oregon. He said he would be a tree sitter too, but he is afraid of heights. As I tried to mimic his poses, my eye fell upon a man prancing toward Lin. He was clad in tight black jeans, a tight black T-shirt (tucked in of course!), and black tennis shoes - and was most certainly German! It almost looked like he was tap-dancing as he hopped and pranced about on the dance floor. Well, he turned out to be not German, but Belgian - I should have known! And what backpackers' bar could be complete without the token British guy drunk out of his mind? He could barely stand up, but that didn't stop him from pulling down his pants and showing us his bare butt! We danced to a round of the hits, including "Hits from the Bong," and then headed off to the Fire Club. We entered a club packed wall-to-wall with Nepali men. As I hugged the bar for safety, I heard a huge thud, and looked down to see a gun had fallen on the floor. A man nonchalantly picked it up and put it back in his pocket.

New Year's Day

For New Year's Day, Lin and I went with my host family to Bhaktapur, a city not far from Kathmandu. This is where Chandra, my host father, grew up. I felt like I was stepping back in time. Bhaktapur's narrow winding brick roads are virtually free of cars. Tall brick houses, with intricately carved wooden windows, line the streets. Groups of old men chat in the shade wearing traditional Nepali outfits - a white long sleeve shirt, a vest, white pants that are tight around the ankles but have a saggy butt, and a colorful hat. Chickens, goats, and cows roam the streets. There are beautiful old temples and ancient altars everywhere. People get water from communal fountains throughout the city. The water often pours out of a beautifully carved, stone snake head.

We went to Chandra's mother's house for lunch. She is seventy years old and still runs a tiny shop. The shop is on the street level of her hundred year old house. From the shop, we entered a dark stairway and ascended ladder-like steps. The floors were made of reddish brown clay and the ceilings were so low, they are only an inch above my head! We ate our lunch of dahl, rice, curry and vegetables in traditional Nepali style: sitting on the floor of the kitchen and eating with our hands.

After lunch we went to the New Year's Day festival in the town square. People were everywhere - hanging out of windows, sitting on rooftops, and crowded into the square. For the first part of the day, men try to hoist an incredibly long, narrow tree trunk into an upright position. (Hmmm, slightly phallic?) When they finally get it up, they have a competition to see who can make it to the top by climbing the long ropes hanging from it. Chandra told Lin and me that the previous day the tree had broken and two people had fallen to their deaths. It didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirits. There was so much going on it was hard to take it all in. People were sacrificing chickens on the New Year's chariot and bringing food and offerings to a god in the temple next to us. Cymbals crashed and drums pounded as chickens, goats, and sheep waited to be sacrificed.

All right, that's it for now. I hope you are all doing well. I miss you!

Love,

Bianca

April 22, 2004 My First Day of School

Hello everyone!

So, my passport has been returned and things are starting look up. My host father, Chandra, put an ad on the radio saying not to worry about the money, just return the passport. The taxi driver heard the ad and returned my passport! That taxi driver saved me $85 and a huge headache by returning my passport. If he hadn't already helped himself to my 50 bucks, I would have given it to him!

My First Day of School

Lovely Angels English Boarding School, a private school for very poor families, is located across from a small dirt field littered with bricks at the end of a narrow winding alleyway. On my first day, Ramola, the school principal, welcomed me to the school. Her singsong English and huge smile immediately put me at ease. She has a round face and sparkling eyes which emanate intelligence, warmth, and humor. Ramola expressed her deepest gratitude to me for having traveled so far to volunteer in her school. She was elated when I told her I had five years of teaching experience. Apparently Ramola has trouble finding teachers and holding onto them because the public schools offer higher salaries, better benefits, and more job security than her school - though public school teachers may have many more students in their classes. The low tuition at Lovely Angels, so necessary for poor families, prevents her from paying the teachers more.

Ramola spent years teaching English before becoming a principal, so I asked her if I could observe her teaching for two days before I began. I knew there would be a lot of cultural differences for me to adjust to and new techniques for me to learn. I felt that if I could just observe a few classes, I would quickly get the hang of it. On my first day of observation, she introduced me to the class of fifth graders and began the lesson. I looked around and could not believe the dilapidated state of the school. The classroom contained nothing more than a tiny chalkboard and a few long, narrow benches and tables. There were no books, no colorful bulletin boards, no construction paper, in fact, there were not even working lights, thank god there were windows! The fifth grade classroom had three walls, two real walls that formed the side of the building and one wall made of thin plywood with huge holes in it. The fourth side of the classroom was completely open, and the noise created by six classes going on simultaneously was deafening. I was just sitting down, preparing to watch Ramola teach, when she asked me to take over. So much for easing into things!

Before rushing off, Ramola requested that I check the students' comprehension of a story I had not yet read. Hmmm . . . how will I do this? Let me take a deep breath, and begin by writing my name on the board, that's what all new teachers do, right? I glanced at the board, a thin, warped piece of plywood painted black, and noticed it was covered with white chalk marks. Where is the eraser? Oh, there is no eraser. Ok, Plan B. I asked if anyone could summarize the story, a life saving technique for the unprepared teacher. No one volunteered. Suddenly I realized that I didn't know anything about Nepali classroom procedures. I didn't know how the students showed they knew the answer to a question. Did they raise their hands? Did they just call out? Did they only answer if they were called on by name? Perhaps they hadn't understood the story, maybe they couldn't understand my American accent, or maybe none of them understood English at all! I was pondering these issues when two boys asked to use the bathroom. Red light! I was certain they were taking advantage of the new teacher, but what could I do? I let them go.

I turned back to the class, "Alright," I yelled, trying to be heard over the noise, "forget the story! I'll tell you a little about myself. I'm from the United States of America." I was speaking as slowly as possible, pronouncing each word with utter perfection. "Do you know where the United States of America is?" Blank stares. "Have you heard of the United States of America?" More blank stares, some whispering, some giggling. Man, this is going to be harder than I thought. Before long, the two boys who had gone to the bathroom returned. They stood in the back of the classroom while all the students frantically pointed at them and yelled, Miss! Miss! After a while, I realized that they were waiting to be given permission to enter the classroom.

Next was seventh grade. I was welcomed to the next class with a chorus of, "Good morning miss!" I smiled, said good morning, and frantically tried to prepare myself for class. I sifted through my backpack, looking for the English workbook, then searched for a piece of chalk. After a while, I realized that the children were still standing, waiting patiently for permission to sit. There were only five students in the class, all well behaved, studious, and eager to learn. I relaxed and prepared to go over their homework with them. They had read a poem called, "The Customs of Bombagarh." The first three vocabulary words were: pouffe, catarrhs, and pate. I awkwardly tried to go over the answers, but had never heard these words before in my life. I was struck by the fact that they spent their time memorizing words like this when they could not speak the language coherently.

So, as you can see, teaching is going to be quite a challenge, but it is the kind of challenge I enjoy. When I saw the children's smiling, hopeful faces I knew why I was here. I feel like I can really make a difference in the school, and I am learning a ton. I may not have an overhead projector, a copy machine, or even a pair of scissors, but I still have my enthusiasm for teaching. It has been about ten months since I have been in the classroom and I am amazed at how excited I am to be there. Teaching can be so interesting and so much fun, and it feels so good to make a difference in the children's lives.

Hope you are all doing well.

Love,

Bianca

April 08, 2004

Hello everyone! Greetings from Kathmandu, Nepal. Well, I have been here for about 24 hours and what an amazing adventure it has been. Upon arrival I was completely overwhelmed, but now I am feeling much better now. This place is so different, so completely different from anywhere I have been before.

I am living with a family in the northern part of Kathmandu. My host family is made up of four people: Chandra (father), Kala (mother), Kripa (daughter-14 years old), and a son who is attending college in Australia. They have been incredibly kind and welcoming to me. Kripa and Chandra both speak English remarkably well, so we have had many long conversations. Chandra teaches economics at a university and is the executive director of a company that sells fair trade handicrafts made in Nepal. Kala stays at home and does the cooking and cleaning. She is an amazing cook. I have been completely intrigued just watching her. She squats on a small, short bench and spreads out her cooking materials on the floor. She cuts the vegetables with a curved blade that she holds with her foot and crushes spices on a large mortar and pestle-like object. Her hands fly as she washes, peels, and cuts vegetables, crushes spices, and adds ingredients to a pot on the single gas burner before her.

The day begins at 4:30am with temple bells echoing throughout the region. This morning I went to the temple with Chandra. Their family is Hindu, but the temple, built in honor of a goddess, is both Hindu and Buddhist. We walked up a very steep, narrow staircase to the top of a hill. The temple was crowded with people circling, touching, and pouring water on images of Hindu gods and goddesses. The air was thick with the sound of ringing bells and Hindu chants.

The Nepali meal schedule is very different from what I am used to. The first meal is at 7:00am, the second and largest meal is at 9:00am, the third meal is around 2:00pm, and the fourth meal is around 8:00pm. After Chandra and I returned from the temple, we ate vegetable soup, fried dough, and a fried egg. A couple hours later I had my first taste of dal bhat tarakari, the standard Nepali meal. It consists of rice, lentil soup, and a variety of curries: spinach, potato, and chicken. I also had my first taste of chiya, Nepali tea flavored with milk and sugar. I had heard that Nepali food was bland, but it has been delicious! For lunch we had sweetened wheat porridge and more curry, and for dinner we had noodles and yogurt with bananas. I will certainly not go hungry here!

This area used to be farmland not long ago and has been gobbled up by housing. I guess Kathmandu is growing at a very fast rate because people are pouring in from the countryside. My host family's house is four stories tall and very narrow. Various rooms branch off of a narrow, concrete staircase. These rooms remain locked unless in use, since the entry door remains open during the day. Every time I leave my room, I must lock it behind me. Children attending a nearby boarding school live on the first floor. They seem so young to be living on their own. My bedroom and the bathroom are on the second floor. From my window I can see the Vishnumati River. It is only a trickle because this is the dry season before the monsoon starts in June. Slums line the river on the opposite bank and piles of trash cover the river bed and its banks. From my window I watch women washing clothes and dishes in the water of the polluted river while huge plumes of smoke from burning trash fill the air. I made the mistake of opening the window that faces the river and my room was quickly filled with an awful stench. The bathroom is tiny, narrow, and crammed with buckets of water since we only have running water for a = hour every few days. The shower is just a shower head coming out of the wall and a drain on the floor. The shower doesn't work due to the absence of water, so you bathe by scooping water out of a bucket and pouring it over yourself. The toilet, of course, must be manually filled with water. I'm just happy it is a Western-style toilet and not the more typical Asian squat toilet. On the third floor is the common room where I have watched Nepali news, Indian MTV, and overly dramatic Indian soap operas. The fourth floor is where the kitchen is and from there you can go up to the roof for a panoramic view of the entire city.

I have been really struck by the amount of noise and movement around me at all times of the day. Presently I hear birds chirping, dogs barking, roosters crowing, women yelling, men conversing, boys playing cricket, babies crying, bells ringing, a motorcycle starting up, and a radio off in the distance. When I look out my window there are people everywhere.

I went for a walk this evening with Chandra to Thamel, the tourist area in Kathmandu. Walking on the main road was quite an adventure. It was filled with people walking - women in brightly colored saris, men affectionately holding hands (not a gay thing here) and people riding bicycles, rickshaws, mopeds, and motorcycles. People in motorized vehicles just lay on their horns as they swerve through the crowds of people. I saw so many close calls. Today the Maoists called a strike, so businesses were closed and very few cars and buses were on the roads. I can't imagine what it would be like on a normal day. Well, that's about it for my first day in Nepal. I miss you all!

Love,

Bianca