Everest!

Cultural considerations of volunteering...

There are many things at our placement that are just downright awful, such as constant negative reinforcement, hitting, and lack of educational materials, but there are many other aspects that we are skeptical of or disagree with that make us wonder if their way is inappropriate or just unfamiliar because of different cultural norms.
For example, there is one young girl, about five or six years old, who is incontinent. The first day we watched her pee in her clothes three times during nap time. Every time, the teacher/didis would just change her clothes. The next day, a didi had the girl sit on a little baby potty, near the teacher’s desk and the center of activity of CBR, for long periods of time. She almost never went when she was sitting on that toilet! As volunteers, we both asked each other, “Is this called toilet training? I don’t think so!” The teacher would plop the little girl on the toilet, make a, “ssssss” sound, and expect the girl to pee! After being appalled at this seemingly degrading activity, we came home the next afternoon to see the mom in our host family making that same “ssss” sound to her 18-month-old daughter sitting on a similar blue potty. Even with the age difference, we realized that maybe that is a culturally appropriate way to toilet train children. It is so hard to cope with the fact that they do not wear diapers, especially because children with disabilities have to deal with changing their clothes all throughout the day! But, even the 18-month-old in our house does not wear a diaper.

Some other cultural differences that are difficult to keep in mind as “normal,” especially when it is our job to help take care of children, are the fact that it is completely normal in Nepal to bathe once a week, and hair and bodies are constantly oiled. Oily hair at home would look unclean and unacceptable, but here it is what is normal and even expected.


WE SAW EVEREST!

This past weekend, we spent most of our time touring and sight-seeing. We got into Thamel on Saturday, July 12th, and made our way to Pashupatinath, the holiest Hindu temple in Nepal. It is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, and it is absolutely gorgeous. Because the temple is reserved for Hindus only, Rachna and one of the other girls on the trip went in. There are huge doors made of silver and gold that lead to the main temple (inside of which no one, except for priests, is allowed), and there are many smaller buildings in the area that are available if someone wishes to pray or make an offering to the temple. Outside the temple, we all walked across a bridge to a ledge overlooking the temple... the view was gorgeous even though it was pouring down that day. One of the most interesting things about the temple is that they performed public cremations right behind the temple. None of us had seen a cremation, so it was a very new experience. We had always thought of cremations as a more private ceremony. We later learned that the river that runs behind the temple leads to the Ganges River, the holiest river for Hindus. Once the body is cremated, the ashes are spread over the river.

The next morning, we all woke up at 4 am, got on a mini bus and drove to the Kathmandu airport to take a flight to go see... EVEREST! Before we bought our tickets for the flight, we were told that the flight might not take off because of the weather. It is currently monsoon season in Nepal, so many of the flights get cancelled due to rainy weather. When we got to the airport, the sky was overcast, and many of us thought that the flight would be cancelled. We got into the airport, and they informed us that the flight was still leaving but we were all aware of the fact that not many people get a good view of the Himalayas during this season. Well, it seemed as if we had picked the perfect day... we saw every single mountain that broke above the clouds. It was the most amazing experience! To see mountains that floated above the clouds... Mt. Everest is close to 30,000 ft high, and the other mountains around it are not too far off.