Arrival

Namaste!

After about 23 hours of being on a plane, not including time spent during layovers, G200 (group 200) has finally arrived to Nepal, our new home for the next 27 months, or 2 years and 3 months. There's a final total of 27 volunteers including me. We all met each other for the first time in San Francisco on Sept. 5th for Staging, a.k.a. Orientation, and flew out of SFO together the next morning. 

Saying goodbyes was weird. Watching our plane grow farther and farther away from San Francisco was weirder. It wasn't until that moment that I felt the most anxious about the new commitment I've made. I saw my home grow smaller and smaller and thought, "I'm not coming back for over 2 years?!?" Miniature freak out moment.

Our first layover was in Tokyo, Japan, for only about two hours. This airport gave me such a hard time! First, I forgot I packed my Swiss Army knife and pepper spray in my undies bag in my carry on, so when going through security they confiscated them. Great, now I'm left to my solid punches for defense. This was also peculiar because I got through security in San Francisco just fine. Interesting huh? Then when I was about to board the aircraft, the lady collecting boarding passes refused to let me on because she said I had too many things. I had pulled out my laptop case from my backpack so it looked as if I had three carry on items. Luckily she looked around for assistance but everyone was busy, and I was holding up the line, so she said, "eff it" and let me go. 

Tokyo, you've lost some coolness in my book.

Our next layover was in Bangkok, Thailand. We landed at about 11pm on Saturday and so we spent the night at a nearby Best Western hotel and flew out the next morning. We had barely any time that night so I didn't walk around, plus I wanted to take advantage of one last shower and free wifi. The hotel was faaaaaaaancy (thanks Peace Corps!) and the complementary breakfast the next morning was pretty great. To be honest, being in Bangkok aroused anxiety in me.  The place was so foreign, we didn't know the language, and I was thinking a lot about all the friends and family I left behind. 

The next morning we flew to Kathmandu, Nepal. As we began our descent, my emotions once again flipped 180 from the previous night. Nepal looked beautiful, and it was exciting to finally see the place I've been reading about for the past 4 months; my new home. We were ushered into a VIP room at the airport and shook hands with the ambassador and met the country director of our program. We took a bunch of photos and went on our way to the training site. It was all pretty surreal, and very exciting. 

So, currently it's 4am and I can't sleep anymore. The mosquitoes are very good about stealing my blood, and I took my first squat toilet poop this morning. I'll be real with you all, and for my homies in the States, you can't poke fun at me! But there's no toilet paper so the other volunteers and I are all learning how to clean ourselves with a bucket of water and our left hand. :) am I still datable? I hope so. 

We're pretty frickin lucky here with wifi and showers, so we're taking advantage of it, or I am at least. Gotta go back to studying some Nepali. Love and miss you all back home.

Ma Ali Ali Maatra Nepali bolchhu. 

Namaskar,

Bora