This is Marvin

My photo
Harichaur, Baglung, Nepal
Let's see, I'm currently 23 years old and I'm from Los Angeles, CA. I studied Latin American Studies at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), woot woot class of 2012!!! I let optimism and hope lead my way and I love it! I'm also currently a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Nepal as a health volunteer for the next 27 months, so I'm super excited for the next adventures awaiting to come!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Red and Yellow on Your Face & This Sh*t is Hard!


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


No comments:

Post a Comment