Final Nature Essay

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.

view from the jholunge pul 

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.

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.

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.

one of my homestay family's plots of land

team of oxen plowing the land

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?

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.”