For my second paper, I began to write about my experience
with the environment in Nepal. I never completed that paper but I thought I’d
share the contrasts I saw throughout the country. First, the first portion of
that essay from the Mountain town:
I
awoke. While slipping out of my sleeping bag that rested on the bed-shaped
cement block I slept on, I wondered what this place looked like in daylight.
Having arrived after sunset the night before, I couldn’t make out much of what
my surroundings were going to be for the next two weeks and I couldn’t wait to
scope it out. I grabbed my wash-up kit and ran through the unlit cement hallway
and up to the rooftop where we kept the sanitized water. I stared without
moving for five minutes with my mouth agape. When I gained sensory back I
finally started to get ready for the day, I was still in disbelief at the image
my mind was telling my eyes I seeing. I had just brushed my teeth to the most
majestic view of the Himalayas, Mt. Everest and all, and even better; everywhere
I turned, I was surrounded.
Here’s some visualization from that
While I was in the city of Kathmandu, I scribbled down a few
thoughts from my first time being shown around:
I now know why
people write books. I'm in a place that is the most literal definition of the
word "unbelievable". When the lights go out during dinnertime,
instead of screams and panic, there's peaceful silence as flashlights are
brought out just like every night when this happens. You walk down the street
and never look back because there's still so much wonder up ahead. Mountains
surround every busy street off in the hazy distance. Cars and motorcycles rush
by, barely missing you as you stare into the mix of stray dogs, cows, chicken
and people scattered around fires on streets. Learning that by putting your own
hands together in 'Namaste' can create a more powerful connection than a
handshake. You can't even imagine that you're on the same planet that you
boarded your plane on. That is until you look up at the polluted night sky and
see the dim stars, just barley catching Orion's Belt, remembering that the same
person who first pointed those stars out to you is sitting on a porch in
California, looking up at the sky that we do in-fact share.
And here’s some
photos from what most of the cities looked like.
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