Arjun’s note: Here is part 3 of my good friend Dougal’s description of life in Nepal. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here.

My host family is awesome.

There’s a baa (dad), aamaa (mom), hajurbaa (grandfather), a 14-year old bahini (younger sister), a 9-year old bahini, and a 2-year old bhaai (little brother). At first, it was hard to get any communication through, but every day, there’s been slightly more than the day before. Playing with my bhaai was also critical on the first day, as was showing the family calendar with pictures of all the relatives on my mom’s side. My baa’s daai (older brother) lives about forty feet up the hill with his family — a wife, a 16-ish son and 18-ish daughter, and another student on the program. My Nepali name is Suman Khetri and his is Saman Khetri, which is a little ridiculous, but they didn’t coordinate it beforehand or anything. My baa works for the recently-privatized drinking water company, and my aamaa is an elementary school teacher.

We live in a village called Jygata, which is pretty rural, on the foot of some hills that in the US would be mountains. With the Himalayas in sight when it’s not too foggy, though, they’re hills. It’s about a 40-minute walk from the program house, which I thought might be a problem, but it really hasn’t been at all. The four of us who live in the village walk together, and the fields on the way are beautiful.

I’ll upload pictures at some point, but I don’t have my camera with me. I’m in Kathmandu, at an internet cafe that’s faster, but also more expensive. (About two hours ago, I used one that was slower than the slowest one I’ve used in the village here, but just as expensive as this fast one….couldn’t even update my Facebook status.) This is also the first one I’ve been to that isn’t running IE6, which is nice. (It’s an actually-updated copy of Firefox 3!) Plus, this one I can set to use Dvorak, which means I don’t need to stare at the keyboard the whole time! All the computers here have been exclusively Windows XP, though; the standard matches in the program house and at the store are these crappy plastic ones with the Windows logo on them.

This cafe is probably so much better because I’m in the touristy area, called Thamel. All the students on the program just ate really good Italian pizza at this place called Fire and Ice, supposedly the former king’s favorite restaurant. Actually, one came in to Kathmandu with us but is still at the aforementioned internet cafe, working on some scholarship thing, which is horrible when the rest of us had a good time.

Yesterday was the first family day, where we’re required to hang out with our families, doing what they do. For me, that meant washing clothes, bathing, peeling vegetables, and playing with the kids. The first two are made significantly more complicated by the fact that our house doesn’t have running water. We washed clothes in buckets at a little stream, which was thankfully pretty clean, but we had to walk almost a mile to get there. It took a long time, though — the washing machine was a good invention, and whoever was the actual inventor, I salute you. Bathing meant using a mug out of this bucket — which, since it had been in the sun for a while, was actually much warmer than the water in the program house’s shower. I had to do it relatively in public, though, ie on the porch which is in full view of the (not-frequented) road that goes by our house. Nepali modesty customs make the whole deal somewhat complicated. Other than that, though, not having running water really isn’t as big a deal as I thought it would be. There’s a tap relatively close to the house, and though of course I can’t drink the water that comes out of it without boiling, it’s fine for washing and the like.

I saw some big animal in the fields the other morning. Because they had warned us that leopards sometimes come down from the hills, I thought that’s what it was, and so that’s what I told people at school. Seeing a leopard is apparently very auspicious, and since my house is kind of low in the hills, it was kind of a big deal — nobody that low has seen one. Turns out, though, that it was actually a jackal — not auspicious.

My room is the nicest in the house. There are mice that make noise at night, but my bed is covered, so they won’t fall onto me (as happened to my “cousin” Saman on the first night).

Next week, we’re going down into the Terai, the lowlands. First, Chitwan National Park, where we’ll ride elephants, and probably see both tigers and real leopards. Then, we go somewhere completeley the opposite — Buddha’s birthplace.

I’m out of time now — need to get back by around five, since that’s what the family dictated I be home by.

Arjun’s Note: Here is part 2 of my good friend Dougal’s dispatches from his semester abroad in Nepal. I hope you find it interesting. You can find part 1 here.

- A story: One of the program directors is this guy from eastern Nepal. When his dad was like twenty, so maybe fifty-ish years ago, to get to and from Kathmandu, there was no way to do it but by walking…which took three or four weeks. Not an easy walk, either — a not insignificant portion of the people who tried never made it. His dad went, though, to look for a job. Once he finally made it there, he had to wait in line to actually get a job offer. The way they did it, apparently, is that they would have a wood-chopping or long-jumping contest — to get a clerical job. He did win one of those long-jumping contest, but then he couldn’t read or write, which makes clerical jobs a little harder. So, he went out and learned how to, and then by the time he retired, he was a judge.

- The temples are amazing, and we saw like ten million monkeys around one of them. Also some musk deer, which are tiny — there was a baby musk deer and a baby monkey running around next to each other, and they were the same size.

- Two of the kids on the program just walked past on their way back from Kathmandu. They were on the bus there and some guys were trying to collect money for some political organization. Nobody gave them any, so they got mad and started beating up women and old people, as in punching in the face more than once, before jumping off the bus. We drove past some Maoist youth group yesterday marching down the street.

- The caste stuff is pretty intense, though some of it I’m sure is just cultural differences that make it seem worse. We went on a tour of Patan yesterday, and the (high-caste) tour guide dude just stopped and pointed out things related to (low-caste) people’s cultural things — how some of them had tatoos on their legs, etc. He was grabbing at one guy’s ear talking — in English — about his earrings, and didn’t even talk to the guy until afterwards. He did know his stuff though, and it’s hard to tell whether that was actually really offensive or not. I just know that we were all really uncomfortable about it.

- We also saw these artist people, who make amazing metal statues, and saw a little bit about the process and stuff. So cool.

- There was a bat circling in our room the other night, and a giant spider outside one of the girl’s room’s today. Both left (or were coerced into leaving) peacefully.

- Prices here are weird — a 150ml soda, about the size of a can in the US, is 15 rupees; a 650ml beer, twice the size they are in the US, is 135.

- We’re moving into our Nepali families tomorrow, which could be as much as an hour’s walk away. I’m kind of scared — we really speak very little Nepali, and there’s so many little things I’m going to do that are going to be offensive. But we also went to a “village dinner” the other day with one of the host families, and that was a lot of fun, and the food was also amazing, so we’ll see.

- Apparently they teach us how to make traditional food stuff before we go — very excited about making that this summer, when there’s no Sharples.

Arjun’s Note: So I know I haven’t been doing a lot of my own writing lately, but I’ve had a lot of stuff going on. I recently brought you Federalist Paper No. 420, by my good friend Jeff. Now I want to bring you something entirely different; another one of my good friends, Dougal, is abroad in Nepal for the semester, and occasionally sends dispatches via internet cafe. Here is his first one.

Part 1

I’m in Nepal now; have been for almost a week.

We’ve been living at the program house, which is this awesome little courtyard with a few buildings in the middle of this pseudo-suburb — it’s like a rural village, sort of, but also not at all. On Monday, we move into our family stays; haven’t found out who it is yet.

The scenery is amazing, and it’s still too foggy to even really see the tall mountains.

We’re learning Nepali really quickly compared to a college class, but that’s probably because we do it two to five hours a day, six days a week, plus practice with each other and actual Nepalis outside of class. The class sizes of two to three also help.

Very different, in a lot of ways. The eating with your hand is fine (the food is awesome, so much better than Sharples — it’s amazing how much variety you can squeeze out of dhaalbhaat, rice with lentil soup), “charpi business” (charpi = toilet) isn’t as bad as you think. Nepalis don’t like dogs a whole lot but they’re all over the place, possibly with rabes, and every night they bark nonstop form nine to sometime after midnight. (I’m not really sure when, because I’m generally in bed before eleven, and up before seven.)

There’s way more demand for electricity than there is supply, so each of six regions gets only about eight hours of power a day. This is fine except for the computer / phone situation, because we’re busy all the time and the only internet access is at cybercafe type places (which actually aren’t cafes, generally, just computers; it’s way cheap, though, and there’s one right down the street).

The program has 13 kids: 7 from Pitzer, 3 from Pomona, one from Wesleyan, one from Colorado College, and me. Everyone’s pretty cool.

The caste system, officially illegal for the past 40 years, is still definitely in place. The low-caste (and poor) kids who live nearby, who some of us have made friends with, are uncomfortable coming into the program area because the landlord, who’s a highest-caste priest, would get mad.

Everyone is really nice, though, especially to Westerners. (Little kids wave and shout “Hello” as we walk down the street to get the bus to Kathmandu.) The neighbor kids are also fun; I played badminton with a few today. Karomboard (I think?) is also fun — similar to pool, but you flick little poker chip-type things. Much harder than it looks.

I’d post pictures, but the internet here is soooooo slow. Maybe it’d be faster from a place in Kathmandu. Kathmandu, by the way, is crazy — bustling city, tons of traffic and very crowded streets, vendors selling everything imaginable for way cheap, and then you turn a corner and there’s a sixty-foot tall pure white tower, a guard tower from at least five hundred years ago. I bought this cool touristy traditional Nepali shirt for 250 rupees, or about $3.25.

We’ve also had cool lecturers, including one who is currently involved in writing the new Nepali constitution. This guy is a former education minister and top development planner, and he’s been speaking at our program for thirty years….

Still not really sure what I want to do for my project, but I have a month or two to find out.

Family stays next week, and then in March, we go to Chitwan National Park, where we will ride elephants.

by Nat Lavin

Yesterday, I returned from Birthright Israel. I can honestly say that no blog entry could possibly do the amazing experience justice.

About two weeks ago, I was leaving New Orleans to spend a few days in DC before heading off to Israel. I was being driven to the airport by my best friend and his girlfriend. The girlfriend, “TG,” has a Jewish roommate, and two Jewish suitemates. She, however, is Catholic. I made a comment to her, something to the effect of, “Why don’t you just tell them you’re Jewish and come along on the trip! It’ll be awesome” and she responded something to the effect of “No thanks. I can’t stand the Jewish people any longer.”

It was a moment for me where I was so offended, I didn’t really know how to respond. In her defense, I knew where she was coming from. He roommates are not exactly welcoming of her Catholicism (her roommate thought she was doing her a favor by allowing Christmas decorations in the room). Her roommate also got offended at TG’s use of the word “Jew,” not even in some sort of bigoted context. She got offended at TG saying something like, “My roommate is a Jew”. The fact that anyone could think “Jew” is an offensive word is beyond me, and the amount of shame and self-loathing you must have as a Jew to find that word offensive is sickening. I say this for two reasons. TG’s comments, although horribly bigoted and offensive, and certainly a little broad, were somewhat founded. The Jews she knows the best and spends the most time with are horribly misguided and annoying. Secondly, it shows what a horrible sense of Jewish identity many Jews in the US have today.

I finally responded to TG by saying “um….I’m a Jew”. She and her boyfriend both argued back, “Yeah Nat, but you’re not a real Jew.”

I was, again, deeply offended, but I really had no way to respond. What makes me a Jew? My mother is Catholic. I don’t believe in God. I haven’t been to a synagogue since sophomore year of high school. At the time, I silently decided they were right. I wasn’t a real Jew.

About 3 days later I boarded a plane for Israel. I sat between two kids who would end up being on my bus, one from Tulane, and the other from American University [in DC]. We didn’t know each other well, and we were all very tired. There was not a lot of talking on the flight.  We landed in Tel Aviv and went through immigration and customs. We got on our bus, and headed for a hotel just outside of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean Sea.

The next day we saw some of the sights in Tel Aviv and then drove to Jerusalem. As we got to Jerusalem, we stopped at a pavilion on top of a cliff, overlooking the city. I have two distinct memories of that moment. The first was, “I feel nothing.” The second: “Someone in my family would probably want a picture of this anyway.” It was not a bad looking city at all. In fact, it was beautiful. Everything was made of limestone. Every building looked beautiful.  The city certainly has a unique aesthetic.

That night we were taken to hear the former president of Hillel speak. I remember thinking it was going to be a waste of time, but what he said may very well have been life-changing for me.

” ‘Jewish’ is NOT a religion!” In order to get the point across again, he yelled it again. “‘JEWISH’ IS NOT A RELIGION.” He spent the next hour or so talking to us about how there are plenty of secular Jews in Israel, and they are all just as welcome. He made a metaphor about how Judaism as a whole can be compared to a table with 5 legs. Each one of those legs represents something different. For example, one of those legs was religion, another was Israel, another was a sense of Jewish memory (and/or history). His point was that a table made for five legs will still stand with only 3. There’s no such thing as a “bad Jew”. He talked to us about “converted Jews”. I didn’t know this, but apparently, it is against Jewish law to remind someone who converts to the religion that they are a convert. The phrase “converted Jew” refers to a Jew who converts to another religion. He said something like “Yeah….that guy may think he’s a Catholic…..what a sucker”. He talked about how Judaism really only became strictly a religion in the time since World War II. He let me know that no matter how I felt about God or religion, I was still a Jew. I was still a Jew and I was still welcome in Israel.

The next day we walked through old Jerusalem. I saw the Western wall from a distance and felt nothing. I walked down to where the wall was and was suddenly hit by a wave of….I don’t know what. For that brief moment though, I believed in God. Perhaps that’s not the best way to put it. It’s not that I believed in God, its that I couldn’t not believe in God. I thought back on Jewish history. An unbroken chain of Jewish families and cultures and for that moment, refused to believe that Abraham and Moses made it up. They saw something. They talked to something. Maybe it wasn’t some supreme, infallible creator of all existence, but they saw something.

I walked closer to the Western Wall, wondering if I was “Jewish enough” to touch it, despite the pep-talk the night before. As I was about 20 feet from the wall, a Rabbi saw me, and could tell I was American.  He rushed up to me, and extended his hand for a handshake. I shook it, and that’s when he said words that I know will always resonate in my head for the rest of my life. This rabbi whom I had never met, mere feet away from the holiest sight a Jew can visit, looked me in the eyes and said “Welcome Home.”.

He offered me anything I needed to pray at the wall. At the time I was horribly confused about God, so I opted out of prayer, but the Rabbi was so clearly still thrilled that I was there. He left me to stand at the wall in peace and collect my thoughts. I saw people shove notes in the cracks of the wall, and part of me wanted to. The other part of me decided I should leave space for those who know they believe in God. I listened to the latter voice in my head.

I then thought back, with bitter disdain to what TG and her boyfriend had told me less than a week earlier. “You’re not a real Jew.”. Those words only offended me more now. I was now sure, more than ever, that I was a Jew. I was never more welcomed in the house of a family member than I was in the land of Israel. I walked to the holiest sight a Jew could visit, and a complete stranger welcomed me home. I think I’ll trust the Israeli Rabbi at the Western Wall over the Catholic college kids from Missouri.  I am a Jew, and I am damn proud of it.