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CORNELIE – Holland
It has
already been 2 years (about) since I left Ganganagar, but
now finally, a note from me. I had the best As you know I will be coming back and I will help you whenever I can. BUT because I usually come back as a Dentists Assistant, you have to promise that you will help same project next.
Host family Q. How long has INFO Nepal been placing volunteers with your family? A. INFO Nepal has been placing volunteers with my family for 2 years. Q. How did you first get involved with this programme? A. Maybe they thought that volunteers would be comfortable staying with my family. I was interested in our social development, that's why they chose me. Q. Do you feel that it's been a positive experience for your family? A. Yes, I think it is good for my community also because our community gets good knowledge from the foreign volunteers about education, about health problems and also other countries and civilizations. Q. How have the volunteers generally adjusted to living with your family? A. I think very well, and I think the volunteers feel very comfortable with my family. When they return to their country, they write telling me that had a good time and have many fond memories of the time they spent with my family. Q. What problems, if any, have you had? A. No problems at all. Q. Is there anything you would change in the way INFO Nepal place volunteers with Nepali families? What advice would you give to volunteers who will be living with Nepali families in future? A. I think there are some problems for volunteers living with Nepali families because the lifestyle is different. Actually, I think when they come to a remote area; they must adjust to the host family. If not, it can be a problem for the host family also. It's a Nepali family; they eat the same dishes all the time, dhal bat. Only on a few occasions do they eat different dishes. The Nepali family, they talk frankly, very frankly, so volunteers must also be frank and they must co-operate with the host family.
JOOST EN KARIN - Holland After two months in Nepal, working for INFO Nepal, we had like many other volunteers, an unforgettable experience. We took four months of from our jobs to go traveling and working abroad. Through internet we found INFO-Nepal. After a few e-mails back and forth we decided to join them and it turned out to be a very good choice. A week before we left Holland, we read the news about the deteriorating political situation in Nepal. The strange thing about this is that while we were in Nepal we haven't been in any threatening or dangerous situations. It was no restraint for our stay and travel in Nepal. Before we started in our placement we enjoyed our Nepali classes in the Happy Home, together with Shin another volunteer, who started at the same time. We worked in Faram, a little village close to Chitwan National park, in the South of Nepal. We taught English to the children in our village did a project on the environment and recycling on 8 primary schools in the region and worked together with the local social work committee. Our host family is a traditional Hindu family. The family consists of amaa, buwa, their two sons and their families. They have their own land and grow rice and vegetables. They have two buffalo's for the milk. At four in the morning the women get up to milk the buffalo, start up the fire and start to make tea. Our wake up call, around six, was the smell the fire from the stove just outside the kitchen. We knew that working in the Nepali context was going to be different. But knowing and experiencing is something else! On request of our local social work committee we decided to give them some training on project management. We both have a background in training and HR. We thought we taught them only the basics, and we thought they were really enthusiastic, but after the first lesson, with 11 students, the student numbers gradually went down to one on the last lesson. Luckily our last student turned out to be our best student and together with him we worked on a project proposal for a library in the village! Teaching English to the children of the village was very rewarding. The class kept growing every week. Even though it was very hot (over 40 C) the children kept coming to our class. The last weeks we taught outside under a big tree and we had over 50 children in our classes. The children came an hour before to ensure a good view on the whiteboard. Our good bye after 6 weeks was very warm and heartily, and we can really say that we had a wonderful experience working and living in Nepal.
WIM GETKATE - Holland On this festival day, the New Moon day of the Nepali month of Falgun, the birthday of Shiva is celebrated. Festivities take place in all Shiva temples in Nepal, but especially in the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, the most sacred of Shiva’s temples. Worshippers from throughout Nepal and India come together to pray and celebrate. Together with Asim, Santi (our 'Didi' at Happy Home) and the other volunteers (Rose, Anja, Nadia, Christie and Greg) I went to the Pashupatinath temple. When we arrived, there was already a queue extending about five hundred meters, four persons wide, waiting to get into the temple; and the queue kept on growing. This was an impressive sight: all those devotees, with all the different colours. waiting so patiently to get in. Because of the heat we did not want to wait that long and decided to take a short walk to the other side of the river in order to observe the temple complex and the pilgrims. We were welcomed many times by Sadhu's, holy Hindu-men devoting their lives to the service of Shiva. Often they wear red or yellow clothes, have remarkable faces with big beards and foreheads painted with red, yellow or white, or a combination of these colours. A lot of these people, however, turn out to be fake and only want some money in exchange for having their photograph taken, or expect a financial contribution after giving a tika. However, many of them are real, genuine and deeply religious people. So, a certain amount of respect is definitely appropriate. A tika is a blessing by the gods and can be worn by women as well as men. It varies from a small dot to a mixture of yoghurt, rice and sindur (a red powder) that is smeared on the forehead. The tika is the symbol for the all-seeing, all-knowing third eye, and receiving this blessing is a common part of most ceremonies. It is a recognition of the divine presence at this occasion and a sign of protection for those who receive it. On this day it is very common for people to smoke Ganja (hash) in order to get “into higher spheres”. So, the group of volunteers who went to the temple shared a couple of joints too. Undersigned also smoked, so as not to miss experiencing the very interesting Nepali culture! I must admit that it did nothing to me or the other volunteers in our group, however, we noticed several other people who were somewhat away from this world. After a very nice walk through the temple complex, we decided to return to the Happy Home to finish this day with a delicious meal together with the children. Greg and I shopped at the local shops to buy two chickens, a water melon, a pineapple and some bananas for our dinner. In the evening our host Asim prepared a delicious meal, while my insignificant little person took care of preparing a fantastic roasted chicken. Okay, I must admit that Asim’s mix of spices made a small, but not unimportant contribution to the taste. The chickens had been previously cooked (to exclude possible germs ) and after that roasted above a wood-fired barbeque on the balcony of the Happy Home. From the fruit Greg and I bought, the men in the house prepared a superfine fruit cocktail to finish our meal. After sending the children to bed, the volunteers sat round the fire and talked for some while, once again inhaling the toxic and intoxicating fumes of a joint. Once again, the author of this article did not experience any extra-terrestrial things, so I decided that this is not a thing for me. The other volunteers decided to call it a day and went to bed. Asim, his younger brother (bhaai) Dinesh and I stayed some time warming by the fire. I have got one big problem: always when there is something to celebrate, I cannot leave. I think I have some kind of “separation phobia”. During the late hours we ate one more Nepali dish, called Kurauni. This dish is obtained by boiling milk for quite some time and allowing it to thicken to a kind of crumbly cheese with powder like characteristics. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to tell you all what it’s like. So when anyone comes to Nepal, try it yourself and figure out how to describe it. After a day full of impressions, culturally and culinary, I laid myself to rest, tired but very satisfied, knowing that Nepal will offer me a lot more of strange, exotic, weird but especially delicious and fantastic experiences.
LUCIEL - Holland I would like to thank the whole INFO staff for giving me the opportunity to learn from and experience Nepali culture and volunteering in the health post. Some things were difficult (like the lack of privacy, getting up at 4.30 am and dealing with dishonest people.) Some things were great (my family, most of the people from Sanrangkot, grass cutting, millet cutting, tarkaari cutting, eating Dhal Bhat) Everyone was very friendly and patient, my Bhaai and Bahini were great and I could go up to the view point of Sanrangkot to see the Annapurna Range every day if I wanted to. Working in the health post was unfortunately different to what I expected (I didn't do any health and sanitation classes), but still I got a cvary good insight in how the medical system works and how the people of Sarangkot deal with 'going to the doctor.' So I learned so much in this country about the culture, myself and volunteering work. What else do I want? ......Maybe staying in Nepal??
Three Placements in Three Months with INFO Nepal
I visited
Nepal and
Sikkim in the end of 2004 with a friend and during 1 of our
walks through the countryside I told him I think it'd be awesome
to spend some time in a small village and live with the locals.
Now, in 2006 I had the opportunity to do just that and I took
it!
After relaxing in
Kathmandu for
a few days (spaghetti again!) I went to my next placement in
Chitwan, near the National Park. I went to a village called
Ganganagar (and could even pronounce that after a week!), where
Asim supposedly grew up. My job this time was not to teach but
to garden and clean up the library. I wanted to do something
more fysical and so I did! After some time a second volunteer
(Liam) came there and we worked together which was great! We
re-organized the garden (cutting grass however was next to
impossible even though it looked much better for some days. It
just grows too fast in the monsoon!) and really cleaned up the
library which was in terrible shape when we first got there. The
monsoon and sun made it next to impossible to work from time to
time. When the sun was out it was way too hot and when it was
raining, well, it was just too wet! We had to work while the sun
was behind the clouds (it was still rather hot at those times as
well, but what can you do…). And of course it was (for me) great
to see how people in Chitwan lived (which was, obviously,
different from the people in Langtang. They had a whole
different attitude. I'm not sure this is a regional or religious
or whatever difference though….) and worked. Suddenly there were
vast areas of rice and corn which needed to be planted and
harvested (respectively). I was happy to help them harvest and
clean the corn and later on even planted some rice (something
everybody should do at least once in their lives)! Hard work!
The food was more bland though…A lot of dal bhat and really
kinda bland. I sometimes still felt a little hungry but refused
to eat more because I'd had enough dal bhat already!
Fortunately, my co-volunteer Liam and I could go to Narayangat
(the 'Big City') in weekends and eat something different…After 3
weeks, this came to an end as well and I went back again to
Kathmandu (well, but not before visiting Lumbini (the birthplace
of the Buddha!) first...). Thanks Info for this opportunity!
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time in Ganganagar. It was a real experience, especially with the
family you put me in. During the year I was here and also
during all the times I have come back, I enjoyed helping you
with culture classes, answering mail etc.