Rhinos and Monkeys and Crocs. Oh My!

Freaked out for a second. 

“Let’s leave, let’s leave,” begged my mother to the mahout.

A few minutes beforehand, one of the rhinos we were following on our elephant ride through Chitwan’s jungle had charged at us. Thankfully, the elephant’s massive size and the mahout raising his stick in the air stopped the rhino in its tracks. But because we had spotted the rhinos again and were heading in their direction, my mother was about ready to jump off the elephant and run out the jungle if the rest of us were going to stay.

Read the rest of the post, which I wrote for Parakhi.com, here.  

Medicine and Business

Goa: My cousin and I struck up conversations with anyone and everyone in Goa. Here's a part of one with an auto-rickshaw driver who was the sole financial provider for his family.

She couldn't be R's wife :(

Us: So you would like your wife, who has to be Goan, to stay at home?

R: Yes!

Us: But what if she wants to work? You know, open a store to sell clothes to tourists?

R: No, she will have to stay at home and take care of the house work.

Us: But what if she’s a doctor? Would you marry a woman who is a doctor and will be working?

R: Yes, of course, if she is a doctor.

Yup, I was definitely in Asia.  

Backwaters of Kerala.

Kerala: As I walked through Jew Town, a girl who could not have been more than 13 years old stuck her head out of the auto-rickshaw. We looked at each other and I immediately felt connected to her. When I passed by her again 5 minutes later, she, covered from head to toe save her face in conservative Muslim attire, peeked out from behind a woman and quickly and confidently blew me a kiss. Day Made.

Reminder: Whether it's something as seemingly silly as showing affection to a random stranger or serious and nerve-wrecking as making a career switch, step up to the plate and just do it. 

Food carts in Pondicherry beach.

Pondicherry: As a former French colony, Pondicherry has remnants of its colonial past scattered throughout the city, especially in the French quarter. I hadn’t heard this much French being spoken since I was last in France more than 5 years ago. After I got over that initial shock, another wave of shock hit me: there were so many young professional foreigners, as well as Indians who grew up abroad, living in Pondicherry. The situation was the same in many other parts of India. The country had been able to draw in entrepreneurs and other professionals, while 27% of the workforce has left Nepal.* It didn’t seem to matter that they were neighbors or that they had similar cultures. Nepal, with its one major city that experiences up to 18 hours of power cuts a day and drought-like water supply, protests, countrywide shutdowns, an unstable government, and on and on, presents serious impediments to working, learning and living safely, securely and sanely here. India, on the other hand, because of its size, population, economy, education system, government, history—I don’t know what mixture exactly—appeared to be a viable place to work and live in.

  

Temple in Chennai.

Chennai: A friend I visited is a prime example of someone taking advantage of India’s well-established business environment. She moved there for a year to run her father’s company temporarily. The end of the year has come and gone, but she’s not planning to go back to the US any time soon. Instead, she wants to explore other business ventures in India.

Working in India, of course, isn’t without its problems. She complained of random power cuts. She felt that a large number of people lacked a sense of accountability and responsibility, as well as the determination to do the job well. Then there was issue of being a female boss, which seems to be hard for people to fully digest no matter what continent they're in. She’s known to be aggressive in Chennai. When a businessman approached her about how she’s viewed, she shot back that if she had been a man, that same aggressiveness would have been an expected and applauded characteristic of a good boss.

So, I'm dedicating the following quote to Roma, who has inspired me to look beyond the US for a career and no matter where I am and what work I do, full-heartedly believe in my potential. 

“I want every little girl who [is told] they're bossy to be told instead, ‘You have leadership skills.’” 
 

*2011 Demographic and Health survey-Nepal

Admirers? Or Harassers

Since this Sherpa* is no longer in Chile, my now extremely inaccurately titled blog will cover travel and life adventures in other parts of the world . Let’s start with India.

My two weeks there struck a cord with me. Because of men.  

Before India, I hadn't bothered addressing street harassment because I wanted to focus my energy on what I considered more important women's issues, such as rape. But India had plans to change that. Perhaps I was more affected than usual because of the recently highly publicized case of gang rape in India and because I had been warned about men and clothing there. Or maybe I was getting exhausted from seeing relentless attention given to women’s appearance no matter what country I was in. Nevertheless, the following is what I experienced on one of my days in India:  

Feel this, not me.

- I was taking photos by a line of people when a man walked by and stood next to me. I felt something brush my behind. It was so slight I thought he must have touched me unintentionally. I continued taking photos. He walked by again, and again I felt something brush my butt. Definitely intentional.

- At least three groups of men tried to surreptitiously take a photo of me, and not in that I-want-to-capture-the-local-culture-when-traveling kind of way. One group asked if it could take a photo with me when it realized I knew what it was doing. Um, no.

- As I was paying for my food at a restaurant, one of the workers whispered "I love you." I asked him to repeat what he said. His response was something about paying the bill.


Why didn't I do something? Language played a part. Because I didn't speak the local language, I wasn't able to mouth the men off or have a conversation with them. I uttered a few words in English but I don’t know how much the harassers understood.

As an anthropology major, wasn’t I supposed to be culturally respectful? I wondered if by making an issue of what happened I would be that outsider who claims her action is the appropriate reaction.

I began to think I was dressed much too inappropriately, as if my lack of clothing was an invitation for men to stare and touch. Within days I felt I had something to hide: my body. Imagine what years of dealing with this does to a woman.

My workout outfit.
It's comfortable-that's why I wear it.

(To be clear, harassment isn’t a problem specific to India; it happens everywhere, on different levels. In the US, a group of men clapped at me and another group shouted as I passed them on my way to yoga class. I actually looked down to make sure I hadn’t forgotten to put on my shorts because I couldn’t understand why I was getting such strong reactions from strangers. Some may think the men were just having harmless fun, but are their actions harmless when they are unsolicited, unwanted and frequent, and leave the woman feeling uncomfortable and objectified?)

I traveled on in India, uneasy and upset by men’s lingering stares at any exposed part of my body. But towards the end of my trip, I saw a message-filled wall that restored some faith in change, in giving women some power to be more than just sexual things. It appeared new, as if in response to the gang rape that eventually took the life of a young woman in December 2012. One of the messages read:

Tell MEN [emphasis mine] to not go out past 6 pm. 

Do I have the right to opine about a culture of which I am not a part? Maybe, maybe not. But I am also a woman who felt objectified, disrespected, and threatened by men of that culture. And I admire the writer’s message to question simplistic and restrictive solutions, such as limiting women's freedom, to end sexual assault and harassment.

Food on banana leaves-one of my favorite parts of India. 

Note: While street harassment is not sexual assault, I wrote this post to address both. Travelers do not have immunity from being raped. A few days after I left, a Swiss woman was gang-raped in central India while traveling with her husband. I am not saying this to scare women from going there, but rather to help people understand the reality of the country right now and take caution when traveling to India, and really, anywhere. India is an intense, beautiful, and vibrant place that inspired me in ways I will not get into here. So go and discover for yourself what I mean. Or, if you want to be an armchair anthropologist, read my next post about the amazing people I met there. :)

*I am not actually a Sherpa. I don’t have unique hemoglobin-binding enzymes and definitely don’t do doubled nitric oxide production to be able to breathe with ease at high altitudes. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d need an oxygen tank if I were to go above 5,000 meters.

Things Fall Apart (Torres del Paine)

The towers of Torres del Paine.

My friends and I took a bus, a plane, another bus, and then two other buses to go backpacking through the famous Torres del Paine National Park park in southern Patagonia. With enough rice and beans to last us a week, we headed into the mountains for 3 days of fun around 2,500 miles north of Antarctica. I was happily walking along the park when I tripped—on nothing. I felt relatively no pain so I continued on. After dropping off our hiking bags stuffed with sleeping bags the size of a 1-year-old at the camp site, we headed up to see the famous torres, or towers. The view was spectacular, with a pristine blue lake accepting the ice making its way down from the imposing towers surrounded by misty clouds. The low, heavy clouds are one of my favorite parts about southern Chile. Instead of ruining the view, I think they add a mystical appearance to the landscape.

Trafficked was stopped for 2 hours on our way back
because there was a car race on the highway.

Later that night, I was getting ready to go to bed when intense pain started to seep into my ankle. I was told by the camp site employee that I should return to Puerto Natales, the nearest city, in the morning. I had come all the way down to the end of the world and was not ready to end this trip, so I decided to wait until the morning to see how I felt. The next day, we woke up to soaked hiking bags and wet tents and sleeping bags from the 10 hours of rain during the night. We finally left, a few hours behind schedule thanks to the rain, for me to go back to Puerto Natales and for my friends to continue forward with the trek. Despite the fact that I had a waterproof jacket and boots on, I was soaked from head to toe. The rain was so miserable during the three hour hike back down that two of my friends decided to return to Puerto Natales with me.

Beginning of the W circuit of Torres del Paine.

The hike being cut short wasn't the only thing that went wrong on that trip. Bus tickets, a wallet, souvenirs, and a cell phone were lost, causing moments of panic before most of them were found. Bus tickets were sold out, preventing us from going from one city to the next when we wanted to. This was the most frustrating trip I had taken in Chile and probably anywhere recently. It felt wrong to fly all the way down there only to be lounging in a cafe in a city enjoying cake with wine instead of raising one sore leg after another across the mountains of Torres del Paine. I felt restless. Because we couldn't physically change our location to somewhere outside the city, the only thing we could do was change our attitude. Be grateful for the fact that even if we weren't doing the hike, we were still in Chile.

Enjoying the moment by watching soccer practice.

I decided to take advantage of my situation—being in a touristic city—by going out for brick-oven pizza that night. We squeezed in next to a couple of Australians on the only table in the restaurant. The table was actually a long bench, perfect for travelers to enjoy one another's company. Ten minutes later, a French friend we had made in Chiloé 2 weeks beforehand sat down next to us. And then I remembered why I loved traveling: the people. It's not just the locals whom you meet along the way, but also the travelers from all over the world. You hang out with the travelers for a day or two, or even a few hours, and accept the fact that you will never see them again. You store them in your mind and heart as a memory of your trip, as much a part of your travels as the locals and the sights, and move on. But then, out of nowhere, you run into some of them again!

We thought we even ran into former president Bush!
The locals told us that was definitely not him.

Travelers are the people I want to see over and over again. A love for travel and an interest in the place where we meet one another bring us together and give us the fuel to ignite engaging, eye-opening conversations. That night, we talked for hours with the Australian couple as if we were old friends. Then we left them as abruptly as we had met them. No plans to see one another again. Nothing tangible of them to carry on with us: no photos to remember their faces, no e-mail addresses to write a quick hello, and no Facebook names to look up. Just our memories of them. And a regret that we didn't at least ask for a photo with them.  

Three Languages

On volcán Osorno.

When my parents came to Chile, I spoke three languages: English, Nepali, and Spanish. I translated a lot from Spanish to Nepali instead of to English even though I am far more fluent in English than Nepali. Shifting between Spanish and Nepali was easier because the two languages phonetically flow in a more similar manner, at least to me. For example, I could continue rolling my ''R'' when I switched from Spanish to Nepali.

Because English and Spanish are substantially more similar in their grammar and vocabulary, I have been guilty of trying to translate the exact word and not the idea. But a direct translation often doesn't work. For example, in English, "I am hungry" is generally used to express hunger, but in Spanish, it is "Yo tengo hambre" (I have hunger), not "Yo estoy hambriento" (I am hungry). 

My attempt at practicing Nepali in Chile.

I never explicitly learned Nepali grammar rules; therefore, I don't think about them when I speak Nepali or translate the language. The language is also so different that even if I knew the rules, I wouldn't even think about translating each word into Spanish the way native English speakers do with English. Instead, I would continue to translate chunks of thoughts, which makes for a much smoother translation.

Coming back to how to express hunger in different languages, in Nepali it is "Malai bhok lagyo'' (me to hunger happened). I am not at all confident that lagyo means "happened." But I know when and how to use the verb correctly, which is what properly grasping a language is about. Who would have thought being in Chile, more than 10,000 miles away from Nepal, would help me explore my native language?  
 

High-caste Hindus are not allowed to touch sheep
with long tails. Who knew?

I'm not sure how my parents communicated with Chileans here. They don't speak Spanish except for the few words they had managed to learn before and during their visit. Although my host family's English is better than my parents' Spanish, they can say only very basic things. Somehow the language gap didn't stop them from understanding each other. My host father took them on a tour of the campo when I was in school. While catching up with my parents, I found out that they learned more than I did about the campo on the tour. Another day, my mother cooked Nepali food for us at my host parents' house in a kitchen completly unfamiliar to her. She didn't know where anything was or how to ask for the cooking utensils and ingredients. But somehow she and my host mother were able to figure out what the other was saying to come up with a delicious meal.

 Only organic peanuts, please! I'm so picky about peanut butter
that I had my parents bring a jar from the US.

My host mom, a few days later, cooked cauliflower and rice, Nepali style. I was so touched that she made the effort to learn from my mother and make Nepali food! My host sister said that she liked this style of cauliflower more than the salad we usually have. Score! My host family also has been incredibly accommodating to my diet. At first I was worried that my being a vegetarian and somewhat of a health freak would be a nuisance to the family, but they seemed to have adjusted really well. In fact, my host mom told me recently that because of me, the family is eating more vegetables and she is trying to eat more healthy. Score again! This week, I was eating mantequilla de maní (peanut butter) for once when my host mom took some of it and made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So proud.

English +

Stereotypical sopaipilla haircut of flaites.
We've discussed flaites to question the stereotypes.

I would like my students to walk away from our semester together not only with a better knowledge of English, but also as more open-minded, conscientious, and empowered human beings. As I strongly believe that the images we are exposed to can affect our attitude and sense of self-worth, I try to promote diversity and confidence through the ones I use. For example, I avoid using photos of women with heavy make up or of model-like people. Since I have not seen any Asians and only a few black people in Osorno, I choose images with racial and ethnic diversity. I regularly show them videos and photos of Nepali culture to expose them to countries beyond the Latin American and English-speaking worlds.

To get their minds working harder, I showed one of my classes, for a lesson on traveling, a video of an Amazonian tribe that had never been exposed to the world outside their own. I explained to them that the speaker in the video feared that logging around that area would lead to environmental destruction and the wiping away of the isolated tribe. We then discussed, in simple and broken English, if we should make contact with these people. I was impressed with the teenagers' ability to consider the situation from various perspectives. 

The swastika used as decoration for a Hindu wedding.

While many of my kids are open to thinking critically about the world, I sometimes have to nudge them in the more tolerant and sensitive direction. When a student calls his or her fellow classmate gay I tell the students that there is nothing wrong with being gay and that I have plenty of gay friends. Another issue that I hope to have effectively dealt with by the time I leave is the swastika in reference to Nazism. When I first saw it drawn on a whiteboard in school, I approached my host teacher about it. He told me that while the kids knew about World War II, they may not have understood the extent to which people suffered under the Nazi regime and the twisted usage of the Swastika (an auspicious Hindu symbol, as well as other peaceful symbols in other religions). I am planning to integrate the concept of religious tolerance and cultural diversity and information about the holocaust into a lesson or two.

In the meantime, I have been addressing the issue as it comes up, such as when a student jokingly wrote the word ''Nazi'' as one of the words for a game of Bingo. I've been wary of this class since seeing the swastika drawn on the whiteboard of its homeroom. I paused the class and tried to have a discussion about WWII with the students. They thought it was irrelevant to them because Jews, people they probably never come across, were murdered. I told them that other people died as well, but giving examples of such people on the spot wasn't easy. For example, to kids who say that being gay is gross, the torture and murder of homosexuals may not be something that hits home to them. Last week, some of the students from this class requested to watch a movie in class. Perfect. I am going to show them a movie about the holocaust or videos on how the Nazi regime tried to obliterate not just Jews, but also other groups of people, people my students could potentially relate to.

Another time, I approached a middle school student when I saw a swastika drawn in his notebook, hoping that he didn't understand what the sign meant. But when he told me he knew about WWII and the holocaust, I called for all of my students' attention. I explained to them that the swastika was not a sign they should draw because its usage led to the murder of more than 6 million people. I wrote out the number so that they understood just how many people were killed—numbers in English are hard for the kids to get. I explained to them that different kinds of people were killed, lest they thought only Jews were and therefore the holocaust was irrelevant to them. To drive the point home, I told them that people like them were killed too just because they weren't German. This point caused some tension between the students because a reference to Germany and Germans is tricky in Chile. Germans to my children meant those of German heritage living in their own city. They accused the ancestors of one such student of participating in the holocaust. She defended herself, saying that her family had told her about the genocide and that it hadn't supported the Nazis. But they continued attacking her. Because the students' conversation was in rapid Spanish, it took me a minute to clearly understand what was happening. I then stepped in and explained that the holocaust happened in Germany, not in Chile, and if the girl said her family was not involved in it, we had to believe her. Looks like I have a lot more explaining to do than I thought.

Apple strudel made by my host father.

The German population here isn't linked with World War II as far as I can tell. The biggest wave of immigrants came beforehand, from the 1850s to the early 1900s. One conspiracy theory is that Adolf Hitler escaped to and lived in Chile. I'm not sure how many people actually believe that one. Since things on the political and historical front are a bit fuzzy for me, I'll focus on what I do know about German ancestry here: pastries. There are a lot of pastries to be had, such as berlins and strudels. My host father's side of the family is of German heritage, and he, as well as my mom and sister, makes the most amazing apple strudel. Like, I'm obsessed. I dream about it. I await with anticipation the day I can have it again. It's so good it's even made a name for itself at my school, where my mom works and my sister studies. Other German influences include schools. There are German schools scattered throughout southern Chile. I don't know if anyone speaks German except for those who attend or attended German schools. My host father and his side of the family can—hence the family singing Happy Birthday in German for all birthdays in the family. My host father and his family have told me that when they want to translate a word for me in English from Spanish, they first think about the word in German to figure out how to say it in English. Maybe I'll learn German on the side. Maybe.

Fiestas Patrias

Teenagers dancing the cueca.

Chile's Independence Day was on the 18th of September, which somehow meant schools would be closed for the entire week. Día de la Patria, or simply the dieciocho (18th), is celebrated by gorging on massive amounts of meat, empañadas, and other yummy goods; dancing the cueca, Chile's national dance; wearing the national clothes; drinking fermented apple or grape juice called chicha, and other Chilean drinks; and living it up Chilean style. There is a month-long buildup to the 18, with people practicing the cueca, cueca music blaring out of stereos, and stores and stalls selling an abundance of clothes and accessories. Every household is required to show its patriotism by displaying the Chilean flag. If the flag isn't taped to the window or hung in or around their home, the homeowners get fined—or so I've heard.

Bahía Inglesa, near Copiapó.

For my fiestas patrias vacation, I first went to Copiapó, a city in the Atacama desert, the driest desert in the world. I attended my first asado, or BBQ, in Chile. Since I don't eat meat, I grilled veggies smothered with teriyaki sauce. Chilean food generally lacks spice so much that at least 3 people said the teriyaki sauce was spicy. I don't know what they would do if they tried wasabi!

Our take on Mexican food.

On Monday, we headed off to Coquimbo to celebrate the 18 in style. Upon our arrival, we found out that almost everything would be closed for the next few days, including banks and supermarkets. ATM machines had run out of money in several areas in Chile. One store owner gave us the hours for her grocery store, but whenever we went by at those hours, the almacén was closed. For three days, we walked from one grocery store to another in the hopes that something would be open so we would be able to consume more than salt and water. Thankfully the stores in the neighborhood did open sporadically and we were able to prepare feasts with the few ingredients we could find.

The biggest fonda was at the Pampilla.

On the 18th, we put on our red, white, and blue clothes and headed out to the Pampilla, the biggest fonda in Chile. Fondas are essentially state fairs, with stalls after stalls of food, drinks, games, clothes, and other goods. Later that night and at other points during the trip, we not only danced the cueca, but also a myriad of Latin American dances. What I really appreciate about living abroad is discovering how the people of that nation know so much about their neighboring countries and the world. With a universally shared love for music, dance, food, and good company, we are more similar than different. Forget trying to create a dialogue, maybe we should throw a dance party for conflicting groups to settle their disputes. 

Our next adventure was at El Valle de Elqui, which is famous for producing pisco, Chile's unofficial national alcoholic drink. As we were on vacation, we decided to shed our American tendency to rush and embraced Chilean time. We woke up late, headed out the door after noon, enjoyed a slow lunch in a hut-like restaurant, and happily walked through Pisco Elqui with our artisanal ice cream in hand. By the time we decided to get our act together and go on a pisco tour, we had missed the last one heading out of the town. We then decided to head back to Coquimbo by walking along the highway into the next town to take the bus. On our stroll we came upon a sign for a pisco tour by another company—we had missed the ultimate last tour of the day by minutes. 

View of volcanoes on my flight back to Osorno.

I haven't figured out how to incorporate Chilean time into my life but still get things done. On my trip home, I got held up at a restaurant (food took forever to arrive, bill took even longer) and ran to the security gate when I was supposed to be boarding the plane. Once I got there, I was told that the security gate hadn't yet opened for my flight even though it was supposed to take off in 20 minutes. Now you're probably thinking that I should accept this tendency for the transportation system to start off a journey late and take my time getting places. But when I do that, I miss pisco tours and I nearly missed a bus once. My friends and I had to run after the bus as it was exiting the bus terminal. It barely stopped for us as it sped away.

Hopefully by the time I leave Chile, I'll understand how to be late without being late. Until then I'm going to arrive early just in case.