Week 1 of Training

So it is Sunday night here and it has been a great weekend of relaxation and rest after an intense week. I spent the week taking different classes to prepare me for my time here. The morning was spent either spending time in learning stories to tell the local people or learning the mechanics behind preparing a “field”, planting “seed” in the field, helping the field in its growth process, and taking in the “harvest”, and using the new good seed to start the process over again. It is called the 4 fields principle. That was how my morning was spent. My afternoons were spent walking around the local community and engaging them and getting to know the local people and culture. Sometimes it was a blast and others it was nerve racking. After engaging Boudha, me and my team would venture over to our language class. Now Mr. Ganesh is a great teacher. In a week I have learned a lot about the language, but still can’t speak a word to save my life. I can read Nepali in Romanized script and understand most of it. I can’t speak it or hear and translate it well. Hopefully after another week I’ll be ready for some time in the mountains. So I have spent a lot of time in class this week. I had no idea I was going to be going to school while I was here.
One of my favorite parts about here has been the food. Now those of you who know me well would say that food is a major part of my life. I love it. One thing that I do love about this culture is that it revolves around food. It’s ok to eat until you want to throw up, and many times you have to with people here to not seem rude. The local food is not as bad as some places I’ve been. If you don’t have rice then you didn’t have a meal. People may eat again if they didn’t get rice with their meal. One of my favorite traditional Nepalese meals is mo mos. They are a dumpling filled with just about anything. Chicken, buffalo, vegetables, potatoes, cheese, and maybe a few other things. They come steamed, fried, and kothey *half steamed and half fried). My favorite is chicken mo mos fried. Now I also have some favorite restaurants. A local one is Garden Kitchen where they serve my favorite mo mos. I have discovered my favorite place of all this week though. It’s called Flavors. Now Flavors is not your typical Nepal restaurant. It doesn’t serve any of the traditional Nepalese meals, but they do serve BEEF! I’m not talking about water buffalo, but actually cow. The first meal I had there was one you would not expect to find in a place like Kathmandu, Nepal. I had beef Hungarian goulash. It was amazing. Later that week I returned and had their bacon cheeseburger. For a brief second as I took that first bite out of that juicy burger I thought I was sitting in a Chili’s back home. It was a small piece of Heaven on earth. To top off the week of crazy fullness I created something at home that has given me more joy that any physical thing here has. Sweet Tea. Me and my team got through at least a 2L pitcher a day, sometimes two.
So two cool things I want you guys to know about that I had this week. I have two new friends here. Both are shop keepers in Boudha around the Stoupa. Was is an older man named Som. He is a 45 year old man who lives with his wife, a 22 year old son, a 17 year old daughter, and his mother. I learned a great game from this man called Bagh Chal, or the tiger and goat. It is a great game of strategy. After playing with him for about an hour he invited me and the team to his house for dinner. Now through some confusion we missed the first time he offered (we thought he said 8pm, but he said 8am). We are going to his house this Tuesday afternoon and I’m super pumped to be entering my first Nepal home. The other person I met was a young man by the name of Milan. He owns a few items that he sells out in front of his uncle’s store. I sat down with him for a while and eventually he brought me to meet his father and uncle. We sat for about 45 minutes talking about life. We covered a little bit of everything in that time. Including my own story of where I used to be and the change I’ve gone through to become who I am today. It was an awesome opportunity. I plan on meeting with him a few days a week to continue this friendship.
Everything here has been great and it has far exceeded my expectations. There is a great work ahead of me and my team and I feel blessed to be a part of this opportunity. I’m about to enter into another crazy week of classes and learning. Please be lifting me up as I go through this journey.