On Friday, April 24th, I woke up at 5am and left my home at 6am to walk over to Tulsipur bazaar, a somewhat large market area roughly 6.5 kilometers from my village.
It was a beautiful walk between homes, across a dried out river, through a forest, and ends in a beautiful and green clearing before reaching the bazaar area. I usually enjoy such walks, but this time of year is much hotter and drier than other seasons, and although I left my home in the wee hours of the morning I was pretty tired once I reached my destination.
I met with a Nepalese woman whom I often collaborate with on projects, and after we ate breakfast together we hurriedly left to our first village of three spots we had to make that day. I didn't realize how dehydrated I was until after we left for the bus, not realizing I had gulped down more than half of my water bottle.
After our bus ride we had to walk roughly another 40 minutes to reach the community women's meeting. By the time we reached out destination, I was very tired. I began to doze off a bit during the meeting, but afterwards we stopped by a villager's home where the young housewife fed us tea and crackers. It was a much needed and delightful treat.
We walked the same distance back and beyond and grabbed a coke cola at a local shop. I chugged the drink as I was feeling very tired and dehydrated. We reached our second destination shortly after and I was still dehydrated but had no more water left. Although it is not safe for foreigners to drink the local water, I prayed for safe tummy travels and filled my water bottle up with the local well water before we left for our third and final destination of the day.
As we set off again on foot the weather had dramatically cooled off. This felt like a real treat as the sweltering heat of the morning through midday was very exhausting. However, moments after we reached our final village, lightning and thunder began to roll in the distance. We got the work done we intended, creating the beginning stages of a nursery farm for trees and monitoring the construction of two new wells, but as we thought to set off back to the main road the rain began to pour. We found shelter in a local villager's home and decided to wait out the rain before heading back as we were an hour's way away from the main road.
Quickly the rain turned into hail. The hail then turned into very large balls of hail, maybe 1-2 inches in diameter! This was the first time I've seen ice in a while and it excited me, except for the fact that this would mean we might have to sleep in this village for the night. I began to doze off in the dark room I was sitting in and woke to the family serving us tea. Soon after the family quickly prepared a meal for us. It was a beautiful gesture and sign of hospitality often found in these remote villages. The family spoke in a local dialect known as tharu, in which I've only learned how to say "hello" and "tasty!" so I couldn't communicate with them much.
We peeked outside and found that the rain was beginning to thin out, so we made a game time decision to try and make a break for the main road. One of the ladies of the house borrowed umbrellas from her neighbors for us to use and walked with us up to a swing bridge she knew of as she predicted we would not be able to walk out the same way we came in because the river water will have risen from the heavy rains. She was right. This detour we had to take to the swing bridge was much longer than we predicted, and we had to walk through a shallower end of the river to get to the larger swing bridge. The walk was difficult to say the least, but after we crossed the bridge the kind lady took the umbrellas but let me wear her shawl which was wrapped around me as she knew I would be cold the rest of the way. I promised to return the shawl the next day and she began her journey back to her own village by herself.
After the bridge, our journey was not complete. I had to take off my flip flops and walk barefoot through the muddy substance that used to be the road, mixed with debris, rocks, and poop of all sorts. The shawl wrapped around me and over my head was quickly getting soaked through as the rain began to pick up speed. After approximately another 50 minutes-1 hour of walking in the rain and lots of mental exercise, we made it to the main road.
I caught a ride to finish my journey home, but along the way I passed a tree up in flames. As I was approaching the tree I thought, "who would light this tree on fire in the middle of a storm?", but quickly realized with the background lightning and thunder that a lightning bolt must have struck the tree. The branches were ablaze and a large crack was noticeable through the center. The next morning the tree was still burning, however all the branches were burned through and it was merely a stump.
April 25th, the next day at approximately 11am the 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in/around lamjung district.
Peace Corps volunteers are all on stand-fast since the earthquake, meaning no travel within the country. Large aftershocks and tremors are still being felt. Many Nepali families have moved their beds outside to sleep in fear of the danger of their homes collapsing in the middle of the night.
All in all, it's been a wild past couple of days and there has been a lot of destruction, but lots of luck as well. All Peace Corps staff, volunteers, and trainees in country have been accounted for and are safe; quite lucky considering the circumstances.
I am safe and unharmed and so is my host-family and village. Thank you all for keeping in touch!
With love,
Bora
No comments:
Post a Comment