Recent adventures and a training (long)

This blog may be a bit long, but I’ll try to keep the words down and keep the focus on some of the rad pictures I was able to snag recently.  The first week I was here there was training at my health post about mother and child nutrition.  It lasted for five days and was run by SUAHAARA which is the NGO I am working with here.  It was given to 10 Female Community Health Volunteers.  The FCHV’s are the medically trained people in the communities around here.  The hierarchy for my area is as follows: I work at a Village Development Committee (VDC) health post which has a boss guy (my counterpart) and 3-4 FCHV’s.  Each VDC is broken up into wards, and in these wards there are sub-health posts where the women who were in the training work.  The FCHV’s are paid a nominal amount to deal with mild health problems and give advice about various health topics such as mother and child nutrition.

Overall, I was very impressed with the training.  After seeing how competent the SUAHAARA trainers are, I sort of questioned why I am even here.  They knew their shit, and I learned quite a bit just sitting in on the trainings.  I did, however, lend the trainings some credence being the local white guy.  Also, the women asked me if I was so big because my mother followed these steps when I was a baby.  I said yes.  This is probably partially true, but also Nepalese are just short people.  I tower a good foot over the average Nepalese man, and even more over the women.

Anyways, they covered all the important parts of what is called the “First Thousand Days” which is from inception to two years old.  And they had a lot of good visuals and hands on activities such as making a baby doll out of cloth, newspapers, and rubber bands and then using it to practice proper baby holding position for breast feeding.  Here are a couple pictures from the training:

The group of women being led by the lady in the black coat

Learning Materials

Zoom in!

The SUAHAARAA trainer in action

 

I also went for a quick overnight trip with my host sister and her friend to “Tatopani.”  Tatopani means hot water, and as you might imagine the name describes what is found there: hotsprings.  Now, saying I went with my host sister is only half truth.  We walked down to Beni, wandered around for her work, and then we all got on a bus to Tatopani.  The ride was beautiful.  The river was its usual beautiful glacial blue, and there were some pretty rad waterfalls which I really enjoy.  We arrive in Tatopani and she says, “Get off here.”  I do, and she hands me some bags through the window, and then the bus starts to move and my host sister says, “See you tomorrow!!  Stay here with that guy (points), and we’ll meet you tomorrow.” And the bus is gone.  I’m like, “What the fuck just happened?”  I turn and say hi to this old guy who is my older sister’s husband’s dad.  He leads me to a hotel, gets me a room, and then takes me down to the hot springs pool.

My sister may have told me that we weren’t all staying in the same place and I just didn’t understand, but that was quite a surprise and made the whole experience quite a bit different.  It was a lot lonelier.  I get along well with my host sister, and was expecting to sit around and chat with her and her friend in the evening as we usually do, and so didn’t even think to bring a book or journal or anything along.  I attempted conversations with other people but they just weren’t interested.  Also, my usual game was a little off from being out of my element (which I enjoy, but it probably doesn’t help my friend making skills).  So I ate and went to bed around 7 and fell asleep at a normal time of 9 or so.  Luckily, I got really good at staring at the ceiling and thinking in Mali, so I passed the time pretty easily.   Also my older sister called me and asked where the younger one was.  I truly had no idea and told her so.  Apparently, they stayed with a friend up the road a ways who came back with us the next morning.

The hot springs were very nice.  It was just a big pool that had been built out of flat stones with a rope across the middle: one side for men and one for women.  About ten seconds after entering the pool I managed to find the little ditch that ran around the rim for drainage with my ankle, and gashed it open nicely.  I couldn’t see anything under the water because it was pretty murky, but should’ve just walked more carefully.  Anyways, it’s not infected yet.   After a nice soak, you can take a bucket bath outside using hot water that pours out of a pipe in the ground.  This seemed nice, and also like a good idea after sitting in the grungy water.  It was the first hot bath I’ve had in a while.  Very nice.  A lot of people were drinking the water.  I wasn’t up for this, but when I got back pretty much everybody asked me if I drank it.  They say it is good for your stomach, but I don’t know.  Sulfur water just doesn’t seem appetizing too me.

The next morning, having no idea what the schedule was or when my sister was coming back, I was getting ready to go down to the hot springs again when my sister called and said they were on the road and would be there soon.  They came, and seemed very much in a rush.  They kept telling me to hurry, and that they didn’t have time for tea or some food.  I grabbed my stuff and we walked out of town.  At the last shop, we stopped and got…you guessed it, tea and some food.  I just started laughing.  I’m still not sure what the hell was going on.  We jumped on a bus, which a little ways down the road hit a motorcycle.  No harm done to people, at least.  The motorcyclist was stopped and the bus was going its average of 3 MPH on the bumpy dirt road.  The motorcycle was pretty thrashed though. 

Back in Beni, I followed my host sister and her friend around at their money collecting job, and then in the afternoon we all went to a wedding a couple kilometers up the western valley.  It was pretty fun actually.  I danced a lot, and no matter what I did everyone cheered because once again I was the token white guy.  They really did not like it when I needed a break from the dancing, and I managed to convince my sister and her shy friend to dance which at first they were pretty adamantly against.  And the food was good.  My sister was going to stay in Beni that night so she sent me up the 1000 feet of stairs with some middle aged (for Nepal, meaning 30’s) women.  This was also pretty nice for me as the entire way up they just told me how handsome I am, and that I should marry one of them (even though they have husbands) and take her to America where I can promptly divorce her, and return to Nepal for the next one.  Sorry, the gument already thought of that one; gotta be together for like 5 years before you can be official.  Also, I carried a five year old kid on my back the whole way because he sure as hell wasn’t going to make it.  The ladies were very concerned for me, but I just saw it as good training for playing in the mountains.  Gotta whoop these here legs into shape!

Unfortunately, I managed not to take any pictures of the hotsprings or the wedding, but I’m sure I’ll go again.

The final chapter of this post is about the hike I took recently.  I decided to give my mountaineering boots a test run on a nice hike.  As I figured, it was very similar to walking in ski boots.  Those bad boys have very little give.  But since I am pretty stoked on hiking in ski boots it was a good time.  Actually, they aren’t even that bad.  They’re heavy and stiff but manageable.  It was a great success because 1) I was able to figure out a pretty good lace tying scheme, 2) identify hot spots to pad with tape and pressure points that I’m just going to have to deal with, and 3) got some awesome views and pictures of mountains!  I hiked up to a saddle on the ridge to the east of my house which was a whopping 7,300ft (2,200m).  My house is at 1,200m, so not a bad elevation gain all told.  Now check out the pictures of the Annapurna range!  (Annapurna III is a goal of mine in the next few years, so it was nice to finally see it).

Looking South down the valley early on in the hike.

A Quaddle of Monkeys hanging in the rice paddies.  I spotted them on the way home late in the afternoon.

A Monkey Puppy! (behind his mommy)

Cool and very old stonework along the road

An ancient wall in the middle of the forest

Dhaulagiri on left, looking North towards Mustang Valley

Some very impressive mountains in the Annapurna Range

Close up of the summit bloc of Annapurna Dakshin?  Cool glacier action.  The little point just above the massive cliff with the shadow on it is actually a seperate mountain.  Annapurna I maybe.



Annapurna III possibly?

Smaller peak to the west.

I was told the name of this peak as well, but I've forgotten.  East of Dhaulagiri.

III?

The South Face of Dhaulagiri

Annapurna Dakshin

What looks a lot like Macchapucchre, but based on where I was standing could also very well be Annapurna II.

I like this peak a lot it seems...lots of pictures

Dhaulagiri, the twin summit peak pictured above is on the right hand side of the photo.

I've struggled to identify these mountains because the one on the right looks so much like Macchapucchre, but based on the map it should be Annapurna II from where I was standing.  If that is Annapurna II then my best guess for these mountains from right to left is: Annapurna II, Machhapucchre (little point to right of center mountain), Annapurna III (in center), and then Annapurna Dakshin hiding Annapurna I.  But if that is the case, then Annapurna III should be behind Dakshin more than it is.  Or maybe these peaks are just so big that they really give you some good optical illusions.  I'll take any help in identification I can get.

On the walk up, this was the first view I had of the Annapurna range.  This is the big mountain in the center of the above pics.

Dhaulagiri on the right, and the range to its west.

More zoomed out view of the above photo.

Annapurna range from a different angle.  Late afternoon storms hitting the summits.

 

Before I left my host father told me not to go far, and when I got back and told him where I went he had a good talk with me.  “I told you not to go far, and you went far!  This isn’t America.  You have to be careful.  People are going to think you have a lot of money, and there are thieves and drunken people.  If you want to go far I’ll go with you sometime, until you’ve been here a while at least.”  I thought of arguing, but that would have been fairly pointless, plus I was angry about this “talking to” I was getting, and I’m not as good at getting what I want to say across when I’m annoyed so I just let it pass and said, “okay.”

Now, he is right, this isn’t America.  America on average is way more dangerous.  There is way more murders per capita etc.  No one here has guns, so thieves would also have a pretty hard time because as I’ve said I outweigh most Nepalese by half again as much as they weigh.  I guess if I run across a well-armed gang of Nepalese who survive off of the one lone white tourist who passes by their rural village every five years then that is just bad luck.  Of course, the point is to avoid trouble which I understand, but 1) being their equivalent of a yeti avoids trouble, and 2) I met quite a few older people on the road who I would start a conversation with and then they would walk with me for a while.  And when I got to the village on the saddle of the ridge, I was approached by an older woman who asked about me and where I was going, and then told me the names of all the mountains that I could see, even the smaller ones.  I forgot the names, and I didn’t have a paper to make a little map with, so hopefully some of the names show up on Google Earth.  I’m still working on identifying the mountains in the pictures because after looking at a map I think the names the lady told me were correct, but for the wrong mountains.  It was very nice and Nepalese of my host father to be worried, but his worries were largely baseless, and also I’m a big boy so if I want to walk far by myself, I will.