For my final reflection of this semester, I have chosen to
expand upon my experiences in the village of Khibang in Nepal. I want to begin
by sharing how we trekked up to the village, because it is important in this
age of connection and globalization to realize that there are still extremely
hard to reach places on Earth that require a high level of dedication to visit.
Visiting these places have costs: unreliable and sometimes dangerous
transportation, language barriers, and limited accommodations. But I promise
that the benefits that you receive from stepping outside of your comfort zone completely
outweigh the costs. This is my story of what I learned living in Khibang.
Trekking to Khibang
My classmates and I woke up early
to pack our bags because today we were trekking up to Khibang village, the
village we would be staying in for a week. I walked out of the room that I
shared with two of my friends and I am welcomed by the sight of Nilgiri, one of
main peaks in the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. This was the only mountain
seen from the village of Tatopani because the steep hills block the rest of the
range. Nepali people classify hills and mountains in three ways: (1) DaaDaa
= rolling hills, (2) paahad = mountains, and (3) Himal =
mountains with eternal snow.
We ate a big breakfast at the tea
house before starting on our way because we knew the trek would take about four
hours. Before we left Kathmandu, one of our last language lessons was trekking
vocabulary. We learned words for swinging bridge, rest points, and steep
cliffs. As we walked up, we practiced our language skills by pointing out
landmarks and quizzing ourselves. We crossed a jholunge pul (swinging
bridge) and looked out to the river valley. A major problem in the Himalayas is
flooding due to rising temperatures that cause glaciers to melt. The floods can
sweep away entire villages, leaving nothing but large boulders and debris in
their place. As I looked down at the giant rocks in the riverbed, I tried to
imagine the force of the water and the ultimate power that nature has over
humans.
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| view from the jholunge pul |
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| river crossing on the trek up |
I have asthma so I stayed a little
behind some of my friends. I am thankful for this ailment because it forced me
to take small breaks to catch my breath. While walking, I kept my eyes down on
the rocky terrain but during these breaks, I looked around and admired the
views. After a few hours, we came across a group of construction workers who
were working on a road. They stayed in tents while building the road; they
completely uprooted their lives in order to obtain higher wages. This level of
sacrifice is common in Nepali culture where remittances (money earned in
foreign countries that is sent back to Nepal to support families) is a third of
the country’s economy.
Another example of being
constrained to the land – I ran out of water before we got to the village. There
weren’t many villages or homes on the path up to Khibang, so I wasn’t able to
refill my water until we reached a small shop. While I was able to use their
tap, I still had to wait 30 minutes before I could drink since I was using
iodine tablets to purify my water. I was worried because I had no idea how far
we were from our destination and was starting to feel lethargic and sore. It
ended up working out because soon after, we saw the distinctive blue roofs of
the village. Seeing our destination inspired a second wind in the group and we
pushed on towards our home for the next week.
Life in Khibang
Every morning I wake up cold
because the temperatures drop to freezing every night this time of year. I
don’t want to crawl out from under the two large comforters my homestay
provided for me. I am wearing my thickest socks and jacket, but I am still
cold. I wonder if I can see my breath in the crisp mountain air but there is no
light coming into the room except for the small crack under my bedroom door. I
check the light switch, but I am not surprised when nothing happens. We haven’t
had electricity all week. My hosts don’t seem to mind, so why should I? I try
to open the sheet metal door, but it sticks because the lower right corner
scrapes the cement frame. I consider for a moment if my homestay family is
awake; our rooms share a wall that rises only three-quarters of the distance to
the roof. I can hear whispers, so I unjam my door as quickly as I can without
making too much of a noise. There’s a quick scraping sound and light bursts into
the room. It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust but when they do, I am
standing before some of the grandest mountains in the world. A layer of wispy
clouds sits in the foreground among the hills, moving slowly and greeting
residents with a chill in the air. Above the green hills are bright, white
peaks that part the next layer of clouds and at first glance, it looks like the
snow is being blow off of the mountain.
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| view from my bedroom door |
Life in Khibang is slow, but
deliberate. There are no roads for cars and the homes are connected by narrow,
carefully planned stone pathways. A path runs in front of my homestay and it is
one of the main thoroughfares for residents and their livestock. I dodge water
buffalo patties as I skip towards the schoolhouse a few hundred meters away. My
bedroom door faces the path so wanderers at night whispering in low tones cause
my heart to race and blood thicken. I am quick to assume the worst and my body
responds with symptoms of fear. From the safety of my locked bedroom, I try to
reason with myself that the passersby mean no harm but there are so many
unknowns that my brain feels like it is always on high alert.
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| water buffalo on the side of a path |
My homestay sister is my main
source of company. She is a few years younger than me and is always wearing a
smile that stretches from ear to ear. While our communication is limited, we
connected instantly through her kindness and eagerness to serve. In Nepali
culture, guest is god – everyone I stayed with treated me too well. She had
many responsibilities within her household since her father was working in
another country and her mother had taken over the farm. We sat together during
meals and exchanged small glances whenever her grandfather would make funny
sounds.
One afternoon, we prepared the khaja
(snacks) for the workers in the field. She loaded the plates and containers
into a large basket with a thick, padded strap that allowed her to carry it
using her forehead. Carrying the basket requires great balance so I was
astonished by her gracefulness as she maneuvered up the steep and precarious
steps that led to the field. When we arrived, my homestay mother and the man
who owned the oxen met us on the ridge above the field to eat and take a break
from the work. We sat for about half an hour, eating and chatting and laughing;
Nepali people are infectiously joyous and laugh often. After the break, my
homestay mother invited me to help with the planting.
They were planting corn in this
small plot. She pulled me aside and showed me how to hold the corn in the palm
of my hand and gently funnel the individual seeds into the gap made between my
thumb and pointer finger. It took me more than a few tries to get the rhythm of
the movement and I spent a lot of time bent over, looking for the extra seeds I
accidentally dropped. A team of oxen were tilling the soil as we walked behind
them planting corn every few feet. More than once, I was caught in their path
and had to be pulled away. The large animals were yoked and guided by their
owner. He was behind them holding onto the till, moving quickly because this
was not the last field he would have to work that day. These fields provide the
main source of income for families in the village, unlike farms in the United
States which provide food for thousands of people. The scale of agriculture is
smaller and more intimate – the farmers know the soil and can feel the
nutrients in it simply by holding a clump in their hand. They are more in tune
with the land than I could ever be.
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| one of my homestay family's plots of land |
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| team of oxen plowing the land |
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| my homestay sister carrying the large basket using a strap that is fastened on her forehead |
Every morning my classmates and I
met our language teachers at the community hall that was converted to our
schoolhouse for the week of our stay. We sat and practiced our language skills
for three hours; learning more complex grammatical structures and explaining
complex topics like the American political system. I was challenged in new ways
and for the first time, I felt insecure in my language ability and vulnerable.
I had to be willing to engage in conversations with Nepali people knowing that
I would mess up, that I would mispronounce a word or fumble with the sentence
structure. I had to be willing to give up my pride and fully allow myself to be
immersed in the experience. When would I ever find myself in this place or
position again?
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| my homestay mom and sister on the day I left |
I pause and reflect on the choices
I have made that have led me to this moment. I knew that when I started
university that I would take a semester off and study abroad. When the time
came, looking through the different organizations and program locations offered,
I was overwhelmed by the options. It sounds strange but I felt a calling to
Nepal like there was some unknown, cosmic reason that I needed to go there.
Now, after months of reflection and immersion back into my life in the United
States, I can clearly see that this calling was true.
Before I left, I felt immense pressure to perform and be the
best. I was involved in multiple organizations that I could never fully give my
time to and my classes seemed like a chore. I was uninterested in the things I
used to enjoy, and my life was not what I thought it would be. Living in Nepal
was my wake-up call; I am now a more thoughtful and considerate person. I
approach my responsibilities with a forgiving perspective and I no longer carry
the burden of trying to be perfect. While reading Thoreau and his experiences
at Walden Pond, I felt like he was articulating exactly how I felt when I
realized the simplicity of life during those four, short months. “At present I
am a sojourner in civilized life again.”
My experiences in Nepal are
difficult for me to write about. I feel the need to be extremely well-written
and comprehensive because I want to give the country and the people my highest
praise and admiration. This usually leads to me not talking about my experience
because I am afraid of failing in accurately conveying how this place and
experience has changed me. I am thankful for this class because reading the
works of authors like Thoreau, Leopold, Lopez, and Abbey have put words to the
feelings I couldn’t explain. Their view of life and our relationship with
nature has permanently changed the way that I approach environmental issues,
especially in my resource economics class.
In resource economics, we take the
commodification of natural resources as the base assumption for the entire
semester. It is a necessary step in understanding the economics of how humans
value resources and make decisions regarding their consumption and use. One of
the main themes in this course is the open access externality which states that
if a good is non-excludable but rival in consumption, people are going to
overconsume that resource. My role as a student of economics is to figure out a
way to deal with this market failure in a way that benefits society. Nature is
rarely taken into account. We focus on how to practice sustainable harvesting
methods solely because we are concerned about our future, not the planet’s
future.
Overall, I am thankful for this
class for allowing me to think deeper and more critically about environmental
issues. I feel more prepared to engage in meaningful conversations about how to
be a better global citizen and the responsibility that comes with that title. I
look forward to learning more; I want to learn more about environmental justice
and how pollution side effects are targeted disproportionately at poor
communities. These issues lie at the intersection of many of my personal
interests: resource economics and management, sustainability, and race issues.
The current affairs of our world are scary and need to be addressed. We have to
make changes to our daily lives and change can be uncomfortable. Despite this,
I agree with Edward Abbey, “Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”
