Week 2: A Reflection on the Past Thirteen Days
It is a quiet Sunday afternoon in Kathmandu. I am sitting in my Airbnb, the sun peeking through the curtains I have tried to draw close in a somewhat fruitless effort to keep my room cool. At this point, I have officially completed my first full week of work, and when I try to think of how to best express my feelings about being in Nepal this summer, I am left with one resounding truth: I am so privileged to be here.
If you saw me at work, you would quickly realize there is nothing too glamorous about my job. Most days, I am hunched over my desk stowed in the corner of the office I share with Ramesh and Punam, editing the English versions of newsletters and reports that will be distributed to shareholders or reading through Nepalese laws related to human trafficking. I keep an English copy of Nepal’s Constitution close by, usually next to a cup of coffee or tea graciously prepared by Shobha didi.
It is also true that moving to Kathmandu has not been the easiest transition. Navigating a new city with limited knowledge of the language is hard. If I want to venture into other parts of town beyond walking distance, I spend the first part of my day negotiating cab fare with taxi drivers who are often set on giving me an inflated tourist price, several hundred rupees above the usual rate. Air conditioning is a luxury here, but its absence has made adjusting to ice-cold showers a little easier.
Despite these realities, I still feel so excited about my time in Nepal. Each day, I wake up to do work I truly care about. Currently, my main assignment is to create a guide to distribute to Hamro Samman’s partners on what local governments can be doing to counter human trafficking based on the Local Governance Act. It is tedious work, as the English translations of Nepalese laws are not always clear, and the project requires me to make thoughtful cross-references to the Nepalese Constitution and Criminal Code. Recently, a local official lamented to our Chief of Party that she knew human trafficking was an issue in her community and she wanted to do something—but she did not know what to do. Although challenging, this project is the kind of work that made me want to go to law school; it centers on meeting people in the midst of what feels like an insurmountable problem and trying to introduce a wave of practicality and real solutions.
My time adjusting to Kathmandu has also been filled with little victories. I love seeing the mountains peek through the background of a busy city landscape during my weekly commute to the supermarket. I have learned how to introduce myself in Nepali, and I am slowly mastering the art of crossing highways where yielding for pedestrians is taboo. However, all of this pales in comparison to my greatest accomplishment of the past thirteen days: a local from Kathmandu stopped and asked me for directions, explaining that I looked like I knew my way around—and in this instance, I actually did!
All of these events serve as gracious reminders to me that I am so privileged to do the work I am doing, and I am so privileged to be here in Kathmandu.