The Biggest Loser Nepal: Day 3

By day 3 the sore legs had kicked in. I struggled out of bed and up the hill to the NEWAH house. RP was clearly worried about me being able to make it to Deurali Banelgod, our third community, a couple of hours uphill, and he sent an old woman off to find me a hiking stick. It obviously belonged to somebody before (it’s nice and smooth) but RP said I could keep it, so I really hope there isn’t an old woman in Mathillo Semrang falling over as she walks downhill because the evil white girl stole her walking stick…

RP also told me to roll my pants up so that I would notice any leeches on me. Hmm…

As we made our way up towards Deurali, I realised that this field trip had put me way out of my comfort zone. Physically I was struggling, but I knew I could handle it. Mentally, having everyone laugh at me every time I tripped, was starting to get to me. I was really starting to feel like a Biggest Loser contestant.

Eventually we made it up to Deurali Banelgod, and I took this photo- those tiny houses you can see in the left at Mathillo Semrang, where we began the day’s trek. I was pretty stoked with both the gorgeous view, and the fact that I had made it that far.

Once I had recovered somewhat (and been teased for drinking water of course), we held a community workshop with the Water and Sanitation Users Committee (WSUC), Community Health and Sanitation Volunteers (CHSV), caretakers and sanitation masons. It was awesome; I got to ask heaps of questions about the water and sanitation situation from the perspective of the community (of course, RP translated for me). As the meeting went on I started to get a bit cold, and realised that was because there were now clouds INSIDE the room. Very amusing until I started shaking with the cold (it didn’t help that we’d climbed up in the rain so my clothes were all soaking).

Halfway through the meeting I ducked out to go to the loo. I hadn’t brought the She-Wee because I felt I had gotten the hang of squat toilets. Alas, this village didn’t have toilets yet. So, out I went in the rain with my umbrella to try to find somewhere semi-private. I must have been an absolutely hilarious sight. I managed to find a spot behind a building, and with major difficulties hold my umbrella up with one hand, pull the leeches off my shoes with the other, try to relax enough to pee, and hope to god that there weren’t also leeches attacking my bum!!

I tried to creep back into the meeting, but alas, I’d managed to pick up quite a few leeches on my shoes. Because my shoes are black, I didn’t notice the leeches straight away, and the community thought it was hilarious when, every few minutes, one of them would jump out of their seat, point at me, and start rambling in Nepali because they could see a leech heading up my sock!! To be honest, at least this endeared me to them, and I couldn’t help laughing about the whole thing (I was laughing at the toilet situation at the time too, I could tell just how ridiculous I must have looked!!).

At one point in the meeting, the NEWAH social crew were trying to find out about the involvement of women in WSUC meetings. The community explained that the women were always represented, but often didn’t offer their opinions. RP got up then and said (in Nepali) that I was a woman who had come all the way from Australia, and I wasn’t afraid to get up and talk to them, even in my dodgy Nepali, so why were they afraid to speak in meetings? Although I was slightly flattered (I needed the ego boost after all the laughing at my climbing) I felt it was a completely different situation. For one thing, I don’t live in this village, and even if they did make fun of me behind my back for my dodgy Nepali or whatever, I’d never know. That was entirely different to getting up in front of a meeting with the people you see every day to explain what hygiene and sanitation behaviours you perform when you have your period. Personally, I’m not quite used to everyone asking/talking about my toilet behaviour yet, and I blush every time RP asks me something- for example, if you need to go to the loo he’ll ask whether it’s ‘short toilet’ or ‘long toilet’- because ‘short toilet’ can be done in the bush, but ‘long toilet’ requires some sort of infrastructure, so there needs to be a toilet around. So I could completely understand the women’s hesitation to participate, even though I could also see that it is essential that they do.

After the meeting, we went to look at some of the existing infrastructure. The boys had an argument over where this particular tank fit into the system schematic, and it was determined that the schematic was (very) wrong. Not a good start to an engineering project!

After this, the chairperson of the WSUC invited RP and I in for tea and biscuits. His wife was very excited to meet me and put a tinsel necklace around my neck. RP said something about them being Christians, and that the tinsel was to welcome me to their house, but I couldn’t figure out whether the tinsel was because they were Christians and/or because they assumed I was Christian. Anyway, it features in the next few photos as my new bling.

As we drank tea, the whole town seemed to come and gather around and drink with us. RP called out something to Kopila that made everybody laugh, and when I asked for a translation it was ‘Dani has drunk lots of water and tea, please take her to the latrine before we leave!’ Oh man. So then two people took me to the loo (one on each arm) which actually just made it more difficult, and at one point we all fell over climbing through a paddy. On returning to the group, my toilet helpers had great joy in telling stories about how uncoordinated I am, and it turned into a town meeting about my unco-ness. At one point somebody criticised my ($200) hiking boots for being too slippery, which I thought was a bit rich given they were all wearing thongs. Not sure what they expected me to be wearing…

We then started on the trek back- this was where it got particularly emotionally difficult. Firstly, the WSUC chairperson asked what my weight was (??) and guessed 200kg- I pointed out that perhaps he meant pounds. But seriously, what is this obsession with my weight? They don’t even have scales in the villages (barely in the cities), they just use those ‘libra’ like scales, where you balance the weight on the other end. I suddenly had this horrible image of me sitting on one end whilst they tried various livestock combinations on the other, just to figure out exactly what the uncoordinated white girl weighed…

I think the trip back down the hill can be best explained by the following photos (RP grabbed my camera at some point because he thought it was hilarious). I have 19 photos of me looking like a tool, falling down rice paddies holding a stick with a piece of tinsel around my neck. Not a great look. Plus, I hurt myself a few times, including one point where I landed flat on my back- ouch! But still, I kept up the (maniacal) laughing, because it was better to laugh with the staff than cry over the pain (/humiliation).

Eventually we made it back to the house, and I just about fell onto the grass mat to eat dinner. A random homeless cat decided to come into the house, and of course rub up against me since I’m allergic. Kopila told me that cats are very dangerous; and that if you’re in an enclosed room with them, they’ll go for the throat (I KNEW Luke’s cat was evil!!). Then she gave me a stick to hit the cat with to try to make it leave- but I wasn’t having a bar of that after the last story, vampire cats scare the crap out of me!