A Nation (and Stomach) In Recovery
It has been a bit since my last post, but in my defense it finally happened: I finally got food poisoning in Nepal. I can’t say I wasn’t forewarned. Thankfully, the only symptom I had was abdominal pain and after three days of bed rest I was feeling much better. I did have to go to the hospital here but it was a hospital for travelers and I was surprised at the affordability of services. I have tried being extra careful with the foods I’m eating but it has been a challenge. The produce here is certainly not the pesticide-filled, organically modified foods we have back home (for better or worse) and cleaning that produce requires boiling water and giving it enough time to cool or using bottled water, which is not exactly an environmentally friendly solution, nor a cheap one. Foreigners also have to be careful what establishments they choose to eat at as we have no idea if the food is being prepared to the standards to which we are accustomed.
Being more conscious of the food I’m eating from a food safety perspective has also made me give more thought to food from a health standpoint. It would be easy to live off of wai-wai (ramen) noodles, but I want to make sure I’m getting enough protein and nutrients while I’m here. As a result, I’ve had to start getting a little creative with the foods I’m making and think ahead of time of what foods I will need for the week since going to the supermarket requires a 25 minute walk in 80+ degrees and I want to make sure I get home before dark. In the U.S. I would stock up on groceries for weeks but with daily power outages, it’s best to only refrigerate what I’ll need for a few days. Also, my kitchen consists of one small gas stove burner so I’ve had to learn to cook on a wok, a skill I’m excited to show off upon returning home.
Last week I worked on the survey Hamro Samman will be conducting at various government-operated shelters. My portion focused on responses from the survivors. I was able to draw upon my past experience working with domestic violence shelters, both as a volunteer and as a pretrial officer, in considering the basic needs for shelter quality. When I left corrections, I remember one of the challenges the local shelter was dealing with was the role of technology in jeopardizing the safety of residents (i.e. GPS tracking on phones and people being able to "check in" and provide the shelter's location on social media sites like Facebook). But here I had to consider so many of the things we overlook in the U.S. as givens - food, clean water, bathroom sanitation. So many things I saw as “necessities” in the U.S. are really luxuries in so many parts of the world.
I have also started my research on the counter trafficking-in-persons (CTIP) district profiles. Hamro Samman will be working with 10-12 districts it has identified as trafficking hot spots and my job is to compile research to determine if these districts are suppliers of trafficking or destination points. So far my research on the Banke district of Nepal has taught me a lot about cross-border trafficking; Nepalese and Indian citizens do not need passports to cross into either country, which traffickers have used to their advantage to take victims out of Nepal.
Perhaps, it’s because I’m working with an NGO but so many of the Nepalese citizens I’ve met are so hopeful about their country. They’re proud of the progress Nepal has made and want to take part in making it better. My co-workers are also not afraid to share their political opinions with me in a respectful way, which has been eye-opening and I am grateful for their perspective and candor. I have truly been blessed to work with such an inspiring group of people. Not to mention our Chief of Party, Carolyn, who must actually be wonder woman in her free time. Her career seems to be such an array of fascinating work. From criminal work as a lawyer to working at the Canadian equivalent of wall street to spending ten years in East Timor and now serving in Nepal, she’s a powerhouse who has done more early on in her career than most do in a lifetime. I hope I can find work that is as fulfilling as hers and I believe this summer with Hamro Samman will bring me one step closer.