The First 72 Hours

I’ve never been in a city quite as busy or as fascinating at Kathmandu.  There’s so much to take in.  To keep this interesting, I’ll focus on some observations from my first few days here:

The traffic: there are no stop lights, stop signs, or crosswalks.  Want to cross the road? Just make your way through the taxis, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, minibuses, and three-wheel public transport vehicles that are weaving in and out of a 4 or more lanes. Piece of cake.  

The sidewalks, where they exist, are equally crowded. On the way to work, I saw several stray dogs and a disgruntled cow hanging out on the sidewalk. On the way back? Monkeys.

My internship:  I am working at ECCA, a Nepali nonprofit that runs a number of programs focused on environmental conservation and community development.  Their programs increase sanitation and health practices and improve the quality of education in the central, southern, and eastern regions of Nepal. I’m very excited to be working here for the next 2+ months. I just got back from a meeting at the Bagmati river (most polluted part of Nepal) with one staff member and I’ll hopefully be visiting some government schools later today with another.   

ECCA staff is very nice and, because the organization publishes most of its work in English, nearly everyone speaks at least some.  Though I’m hoping to learn Nepali, it’s really nice to have English as an option.  My contact, Prachet, (chairman of ECCA) has gone above and beyond to make sure that I’m settling into the organization and the city.  I’m so thankful for his support!

My apartment: I’m living in a cozy (bright pink!) flat in the southeast part of Kathmandu. I’m renting the flat from a retired doctor and his wife.  When I mentioned I was from Ohio, he started chatting about a visit he once made to Dayton, Ohio for medical training. Small world. I have a housemate through May, Lilian, but she's been traveling with ECCA so I won't meet her until tomorrow. 

The City: ECCA is located across the river to the south in the town of Lalitpur, which is an easy 35 minute walk from my apartment.  Most of the touristy and historic areas of Kathmandu are in the northern part of the city, but it should be easy enough to visit different areas of the city by walking or using public transportation.  Kathmandu is really the only city in Nepal, so I’m looking forward to visiting the villages and rural areas.   

In Kathmandu, people work from Sunday to Friday, so Saturday is the only day off.  We have power outages every day (called "load sharing"), but they're on a schedule so you can plan your activities around them.  

Okay, that’s all for now. I will post pictures soon.  I have to admit that I haven’t taken many yet. You know how intimidating it is to try to take a picture when everyone within 50 feet of you is staring directly at you? I’m sure I’ll start caring less, but it’s certainly unnerving. 

Miss you all and please keep in touch through email! I’m not entirely sure how often I’ll be able to skype, so email is probably the best way to get in touch at this point. 

Love!