The Biggest Loser Nepal: Day 5

With local and NEWAH staff: Durgo Ale (Health and Sanitation Facilitator), me, Pabidra Lamichhane (Health and Sanitation Facilitator) and Kopila Lamichhane (Health and Sanitation Senior Educator).

With Mathillo Semrang in the background. Durgo Ale, me, Pabidra Lamichhane and Rossan Karki (Project Supervisor).

I woke up Thursday morning and tried in vain to find some item of clothing that wasn’t wet. Because we’d been running around in the rain, and were living, literally, with our heads in the clouds, nothing had managed to dry all week. So, with complete disgust at myself, I threw on a wet shirt and pants which actually smelt MOULDY. It is bad enough when you can smell yourself, but being surrounded by the stench of mouldy, as well as dirty, clothes was my lowest point in taking pride in my own appearance. I pulled on my headband to cover my greasy hair and stuffed my wet belongings into my backpack.

At 7am we started our descent back down to the river. My legs were like jelly from all the climbing, and again some of the NEWAH guys helped me out. It was hard work, and of course everyone was laughing, and by this point I was fighting to hold back tears- I just wanted a shower, dry clothes, to sit down, and a HUG! Then RP told me that from this point on I wasn’t allowed to look up or down because I would be too afraid. That was when I realised that we were going back down the way we’d come up. We were at the point in the trail where they’d blasted the cliff face to make a path.

At this point I had one guy on either arm, I HAD to look down because every placement of my foot was important, and this was when I started crying. Not sobbing, but there were tears rolling down my face because I seriously thought I might die. This was much worse than the ‘Taxi/Bus Rides of Death’, because I couldn’t choose something else to focus on- I had to get down that cliff without tripping. Eventually the boys figured out that I was crying, which just made it worse because I was so embarrassed. Those were possibly the longest two hours of my life. It turns out that we’d taken the ‘dangerous’ route back down because the ‘safe/flatter’ route was washed out from the rain. At one particularly steep juncture where I had to step down about 70cm, I tore my pants.

Now, these pants cost me $10 from K-Mart, so I wasn’t particularly attached to them. But as the day went on the hole got bigger and bigger until it wrapped around from the inner to outer seam of my pants, and had also ripped down the seam, meaning I had about a 2”x8” hole just below my bum. Thank goodness you couldn’t see my undies (which would definitely have contrasted with my khaki pants!). I laughed about the hole for the first part of the day, but it was getting a bit old later when kids started following me, laughing and pointing!!

Once we got to the bottom of the cliff, we crossed back over the swing bridge (no less scary than on Sunday) and hopped back in the jeep. The jeep broke down halfway through our journey, and the guys decided to try to do a running start- normally something I could see the advantage of, except this time I was in the front of the jeep and it was downhill into mud and rocks. Eventually they got the car started again (I think from sheer luck of just trying the ignition a few thousand times) and we drove on.

At Arukhat (very possibly spelt wrong) we had some food and waited for the local bus. Whilst waiting, Kopila pointed out some men carrying a body down to the river for a Hindu cremation. Like the event with the sick girl in Tallo Semrang, this was something everyone seemed interested in, and it delayed our bus whilst everyone watched. It was really interesting, though of course sad.

Our bus got stuck again on the way back, and all of the guys (and Kopila and I because we were apparently the more hardcore of the women) had to walk for about 20 minutes whilst the driver tried to get the bus through the mud. This was when the little kids were laughing at the hole in my pants. During this time I met a 108 year old- Give me some of that mountain air!

The local bus, before we got stuck

Eventually, after 10 hours of trekking and transport, we arrived in Gorkha. Kopila and I went to stay in her sister’s one bedroom flat, and as we collapsed she said that we’d rest for 10 minutes and then shower. Kopila’s sister pointed out that the water wasn’t working in her building, so that was out of the question. I just laughed. By that point I’d gotten used to the smell of myself, and had adjusted to the fact that nothing ever goes as planned in a developing country!

I pulled out some of my gear, noted that my only long sleeve top had somehow been bleached in patches by water-treatment chlorine, and Kopila pointed out that the current cost of the trip was one pair of pants and one cardigan (and later on a shirt- none of these were items I was particularly attached to, but if I have the same luck every field trip then I literally won’t have any clothes left!). I pulled off my socks and noticed a heap of blood on my left ankle- I had picked up a leech 10 or so hours beforehand. Yum yum yum. Anyway, the leech in my sock was dead, probably from the smell of my feet. Kopila gave me a look of horror, but again, I couldn’t do anything so shrugged it off.

Because it was essential that Kopila and I wash, the three of us headed down to the public tap once the sun went down. This was my most truly ‘Nepali’ experience since getting here, and I laughed and shrieked the whole time.

Imagine all those photos you see of Indian and Nepali women at a communal tap/bath wrapped in sarongs and trying to wash- that was what we did, but with the dark, my unco-ness, and the freezing cold water, it proved more difficult than it looked. As I stood there in my bra and towel, Kopila’s sister repeatedly poured gagris of cold water over me as I shrieked. I know it doesn’t sound like a particularly exciting experience, but the chatter and laughter of all the women around us reminded me that I should never take running water for granted, and that I was having a truly local experience.

Plus, it was nice to wash the blood off my leg.