Let’s see, so I have been in Nepal
for almost seven months now and WOW, time really flies doesn’t it? The time
that I have spent in Nepal has been filled with many ups and downs. Ups that I
expected to have and many downs that I never imagined experiencing. I never
thought that my stomach would give in where I got REALLY sick and had to get
SEVEN bottles of IV injected into me! I don’t want to get into the details, but
let’s just say that I didn’t think that I could get that sick, I thought I had
a legit stomach but Nepal wanted to prove me wrong lol. I never imagined that I
would read off seven Harry Potter books, which I absolutely love or lose weight
seeing how I was going on an upward trend. In any case, many things have
happened to me since being in Nepal and I bet many more are in store.
This blog
entry will focus on two experiences that I had since being in my permanent site
in Harichaur, Baglung. For one, I found my new favorite Nepali festival, Holi,
but I call it Red and Yellow on Your Face. So on Phagun 13, 2069 (March 26,
2013) Nepal celebrated the festival known as Holi, the Festival of Colors. It
sounds like a really pretty day, but in all honesty it’s a war of colors. This
day is when kids throw water balloons at one another and anyone they could get
to. You may think that it’s a simple water balloon fight, but the difference is
that the water is colored with many different colors. In other words, your
being targeted with colored water that will stain you with all different
colors, however my village only had red and yellow available. Furthermore, mostly
kids play that game, however the teenage crowd plays with color powder. The
objective is to get anyone they can and smother them with colors all over their
face, hair and clothes, every inch on their body counts.
I knew this
day was coming and I was really excited to see how it would be celebrated. My
group of friends invited me to go another VDC (county) to play Holi and watch a
dance program and volleyball game. I was down for it, not realizing what it
meant to agree to this invitation. It was a very warm day and Malma is about
two hours away from my village. I got ready by making sure I wore ugly and worn
out clothes, because that was the advice my host mother gave me. As I descended
down my hill and stopped at the volleyball field of my village where I had a
first glance of what I got myself into. It was war on the field! Little kids
running everywhere, throwing water balloons at one another. Some kids were
drenched in red and yellow water from head to toe. Some kids were spraying each
other with water bottles filled with red and yellow water. I was like OMG, how
am I suppose to get out of this one? As soon as I reached the field every kid
froze and directed their little eyes at me, Kamal Dai (brother) the “American”.
I had to admit that I was scared of what would happen to me! I wasn’t even out
of my village yet! How could I possibly go to this program already smeared with
color? The silence broke when one little kid asked me if I wanted to play while
he raised one hand with a water balloon and another filled with red powder,
ready to strike. I had no intentions of getting colored like a coloring book
this early in the day, thus I said “Ek Chin Pachi, ma Kam Cha” (One moment, I
have work to do) and I ran for it!!! Fortunately, the little army bought it and
I was safe. I ran off to meet my friend who was waiting for me on the road and
then we took off to pick up the others. I was so happy that I evaded the first
attack, but as we headed towards Malma one of my friends approached me and said
“HAPPY HOLI!!!” and next thing I knew my entire face was covered in red and
yellow powder, luckily I had my sunglasses on to shield my eyes. I stood there
trying to figure out what just happened a minute ago. My friends were laughing
at me and I couldn’t do anything but laugh too. We took off and continued on
towards our destination.
Everywhere
I went I saw little kids at war with one another, teenagers trying to smear
each other with red and yellow. Girls were running for their lives and boy were
battling with one another to see who could get who with more color on their
face. The road ahead was a scary one, but luckily I wasn’t attacked again. As
we were walking uphill it got pretty spicy and I was sweating everywhere. This
is the bad thing about having color powder all over your face because once you
start to sweat you can’t wipe it off because you’ll have to get color all over
everything else, thus I left it on! I could have washed it off throughout the
journey as we passed many water taps, but I knew that the minute I had a clean
face it would be colored all over again. I quickly gave up the thought because
I knew I was safer with a colored face rather than a clean one. At last, we
made it to the center of Malma where chaos was taking place. The small village
center flooded with people running all over the place, red and yellow powder
flying everywhere, music playing in the background and a huge crowd surrounding
the stage where dances were taking place. There was no way out of this. As I
saw jets of yellow and red flying around the air, I imagined being in a Harry Potter war of yellow and red
jinxes flying around. Once back in reality, I gave up the minute that I saw the
scenery and greeted everyone who wanted to smear me with color by gracefully
leaning forward with one of my checks extended out. I cannot even count how
many red and yellow hands touched my face with a “Happy Holi” along with it. I
got a couple of people too, but I was very unprepared, as I did not have my own
set of colors to attack with. I was wand less. In other words, I entered a war
without any weapons or armor expect my sunglasses. The dances were great and
the volleyball game intense and the enthusiasm around was contagious. People of
all ages where present enjoying themselves on this fun and colorful day. No one
was worried about anything except to protect any fortunate spot on his or her
face that remained uncolored. Such feelings of joy and happiness engulfed the
scene and myself as I too was having a blast.
After three
hours that seemed to have lasted days, the time to take off came around 4pm
seeing how I was about two hours way from my house. I turned around to tell my
friends to get ready so we can go, but next thing you know complete strangers
surrounded me. I was looking at the volleyball game and did not pay attention
to where my friends where because I was confident that they where right there
next to me. I was turning all around trying to make out their figures amongst
hundreds of yellow and red faces. Where the hell did they go? I couldn’t find
them at all so I gave in and decided to take off by myself. How rude of them!
As I was heading out of the war zone I found a group of girls who live in my
village and that I very much like and thankfully they were taking off too thus
I tagged along. Once on the outskirts of the village center I saw my group of
friends in a fierce battle with other teenagers and my small annoyance quickly
vanished. They were having a blast, so why bother them. I had my escorts ready
to go and with one final glance at the war of color I took off with a face
covered in red and yellow! In all honesty, Holi definitely lives up to its name
as the Festival of Color! : >
Now on a
bit more serious note , the second part of this blog will revolve around the way
that I see the work that I am doing in Nepal with Peace Corps. In short, let me
say that THIS SH*T IS HARD!!! Even since I traveled to different nations in
Latin America during my time at UCR, I got the travel bug. I wanted to further
explore the world! After coming across the career of public health and its
concentration of global health, I set out to seek an international career.
Fortunately, I was accepted to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, thus I knew that the
experiences with Peace Crops would give me the necessary hands on experience
that will help me solidify my desires and wishes to pursue this specific type
of career. At the beginning of my Peace Corps experience I thought that I had
this in the bag due to my past experiences and encouragement that I received
from many friends and colleagues. I was sure that I would hit the ground
running once placed in my permanent site and that I would see change happening
all around me as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Nepal has once again told me
otherwise. I never imagined that my Peace Corps experience would be this
difficult! I came to the conclusion that development work is very difficult to
accomplish with the desire goals at mind. Many people do not realize how hard
it is to implement development projects in an international field because they
are only presented with numbers on a power point slide. For those like my
fellow PCVs and I who are on the ground, living and breathing with the Nepali
community know what really is happening. We can see beyond the numbers because
were immersed into the community’s daily life, we take many different aspects
into account that cannot be displayed on a power point slide. When I have such
slides presented to me, I find it difficult to pint point that information with
what’s going on in my community. Of course averages and generalities have to be
made.
Well the
main point of this little spiel is to let you all know that even though I’m
having a really hard time to make it happen here, I’m very glad that I’m
experiencing it. What’s life without a little challenge…right? For one, I’m very
happy that I’m being pushed to think outside of the box. Development work is an
art that you have to be very careful on how you approach it. I can’t just go
out into my community and say “hey I’m from the states and you’re wrong and
were all right”. I find myself thinking back to my anthropology classes that I
took at UCR and now I clearly see the importance and essence of immersing into
the community and culture. Trust is sometimes overlooked, but it’s something
that will take you very far in any career path that you’re interested in pursing,
but I bet that it’s something that will help you in the development career
field. I will admit that I things are moving slow for me, but I finally came to
the conclusion that I can’t have immediate results. I’m the type of person who
wants to make things happen as quick as they can, but again, Nepal has forced
me to slow my roll! I have learned to really appreciate every day that I get to
experience amongst my community, Alida, host family and Nepal. I’m optimistic
that things are going to work out. I may not make a huge impact, but I know
that my presence within my community will mean something in the long run. My
role as a volunteer is not to be on the stage as the main star of the show, but
to be behind the curtains where I can help as many people as I can to tap into
their fullest potential. Sometimes a kick of optimism is all it takes to make
things happen. Nepal is clearly showing me that I don’t always have to have
everything under my control to make it happen, something that I always believed
that I had to do in order for things to work out well. When looking back to the
three months that I have spent in my village, I am very happy to see what I
have accomplished. For one, Alida and I made a garden and showed the Female
Community Health Workers a new form of gardening. With this garden that I see
as my baby I’m beginning to find the fun in working out in the garden and
field, which is something that I tended to avoid. I stopped caring so much
about what I put on my hair because in any case no one ever notices whether I
put mouse or not. However, the one thing that I am very happy about and the
thing that is keeping me strong is the relationship that I have developed with
my community. After completing a population survey where I forced myself to go
to all 74 houses of Kaoleni, I got a chance to meet the vast majority of my
villagers. I do admit that it was a draining two-day walk, but I don’t regret
any minute of it. I truly felt the love that my fellow villagers have towards
me. Developing these friendships with people of all ages has really made me
feel that I belong. I literally cannot go anywhere without being drawn to talk
to someone on the road or stopping by one of my friends house for a quick cup
of tea. I love the mothers of my village, I know for a fact that they see me as
one of their very own children and even though I think it’s a Nepali thing I
definitely welcome it. Seeing how I’ll be away from my real family for a full
27months, why not welcome all the love that I can get? Amongst my host family I
truly am I son. My host mother constantly reminds me of it and seeing how I now
cook in the morning for my family and have to feed my little brother and sister
before they go to school, I take it as proof of their love.
Even though
things are not where I would want them to be in regards to my work life, the
relationships that I have developed amongst my community definitely makes up
for it. I have so many ideas that I want to suggest and now that I know I have
the community’s trust and love I know that big things can come from it. This
sh*it may be hard, but it’s not impossible. Slowing my roll has made me realize
that I have so much to live for and that I should stop and smell the Nepali roses.
I know that the experiences in Nepal that are waiting to blossom will be worth
the wait, thus I’m not tripping. Like I always say, I let optimism and hope
lead the way to make it happen. : >
Sinceraly,
Marvin Gamez-Crespin
Small random things..
- My Harry Potter character is Gildoroy Lockheart
- My 30 Rock character is Kenneth the page
- Amongst my group I was ranked the one who LACKS INHIBITION
- A little 2 year old calls me “Tourist Kamal Dada (uncle)”
- I now have 11 pairs of shoes seeing how my mami sent me a pair
- I was attacked by a hail storm while weeding the garden
- My own rabbit bit me
- I lost 5 kilograms
- I read all seven Harry Potter books
- I was sorted into the Hufflepuff house
