Making new friends is always an adventure

Dear all,

As some of you already know, I'm back in kathmandu, eagerly awaiting a visit from my parents. In fact, they will be here (if all goes according to plan) in less than 24 hours! Predictably, I'm all a flutter, and I spent most of the day running here and there to make sure everything was as ready for their arrival as I could manage it.

And it was in the midst of all this running around that I met my new friend. I was walking to a nearby store when I first spotted him. He was standing just a ways down the street from me with a look on his face that I've come to know very well. It's a face I often see on tourists around the Thamel area, and it universally translates to "oh my god, I'm so lost." I generally stop and offer help if there is any indication that my tourist in distress speaks english or spanish, so I took a quick inventory of the most recent victim I'd stumbled upon. He was tall and white, in a black north face style jacket and I guessed he was American, so I walked over to him and asked "Where are you trying to get to?"

Usually the answer to this question is "Thamel", which always makes me laugh because it often comes from tourists already in Thamel, but this time the answer was very different. After a moment of confusion, he managed to say "I from Russia. Russian? " Now it was my turn to be confused. Of course, I don't speak Russian, but while I tried to figure out what to say next, he started speaking very quickly in the most broken english I've ever heard (and trust me, I've learned to speak English through the lens of several languages). I managed to catch the letters U.N. and so I figured he was working for one of the U.N. development programs. "Ok", I thought, "We're in luck. If he's U.N. staff, he must speak Nepali." So I switched over to Nepali and repeated my original question. He managed to say that his nepali wasn't good, but it was clear that it was actually terrible. So now we were back at square one.

It was at this point that I noticed he was clinging to a small business card as though it were a string of prayer beads, and so I motioned that I'd like to see the card. He handed it over to me, and to my dismay I found it only had the name of a neighborhood and the name of a shop written on it. I don't know what jerk thought that would be enough for this poor guy who speaks neither English nor Nepali to find anything, but I knew right away he was never going to make it anywhere without a full intervention. So I grabbed him by the arm and towed him to the nearest shop with a female shopkeeper. Then I politely asked her how to get to Sundhara (the neighborhood he was looking for.) Fortunately, Nepalis are generally very helpful when it comes to directions, so she pointed us in the right direction and told me we were about a 15 min walk away. So I once again grabbed a hold of my new friend and towed him in the direction the woman had indicated. Of course, because I didn't know where we were going either, I stopped every other block or so to ask other shopkeepers for directions. Finally, someone explained to me that the shop we were looking for was a hair salon in Kathmandu mall.

Looking back on it, I realize now that my friend had also tried to explain that he was going to get a haircut, but I hadn't understood the first time through. In fact, the poor guy tried his hardest to keep up a conversation the entire time, as I pulled him through side alleys and traffic. But with questions like, "Your American friend kathmandu is big?", we didn't really get very far. Still, the whole thing was so silly, I couldn't help but enjoy myself, and I found myself giggling through most of our pathetic exchanges.

Finally, we found ourselves standing in the salon. And once again, I wanted to hit whomever had given him that stupid card. The salon was by far the fanciest salon I'd seen in Kathmandu, and it was full of upper class Nepali guys who looked like they'd walked right out of a fashion photo shoot in New York or some equally trendy place. This was no place for my simple seeming Russian friend. But what could I do?
So I marched him up to the counter and for some reason, I turned to him expecting him to explain either to me, or the fashion plate behind the desk what he wanted. Eager to please and by now a little flustered, he held his hand near his head and made a scissor motion with his hand. The guy behind the counter looked disgusted and told me in perfect english, "He can tell me what he wants in English. I understand." I tried to calm the now disgruntled stylist by explaining to him that my friend only speaks Russian. But then I had to try to explain how I'd found myself in a salon with a guy I didn't know, who didn't share a single language with me. I started to say that I found him on the street, but that didn't sound right in any language. Then I tried to explain that I didn't know what he wanted any more than the stylist did, but that didn't help the situation. Finally defeated, I asked when the stylist could fit my friend in for a quick simple haircut. We agreed that he'd see my friend in an hour and by pointing at the time on his cellphone and showing him one finger, it seemed that my Russian friend finally understood that he would need to come back an hour later.

By this time, I was running incredibly late for my own appointments (I have salsa class on tuesdays and while I love a good deed every once in awhile, dancing is still my oxygen.)So I tried to leave him at the salon and started walking back out to the street. But like any other lost puppy, he started to follow me. I thought maybe he didn't understand that he was supposed to wait, but then he said "Seven." Just like that, as though it were a complete thought. Funnily, I understood it as though it had been. He was asking if he could call me at seven. I rushed through an Ok, eager to get my shopping done before class. Fortunately, seven o clock has come and gone without a phone call. Not that I didn't like the guy or anything, but I just can't imagine how we would manage a phone call. It would be impossible.

Still, a part of me hopes I'll run in to him again on the street, just so I can hear the rest of the story (and maybe see what those stylish boys did to his head :P). But next time I see him I hope he's with a friend who knows at least one of the five languages I speak.

Anyway, I hope you find my day as entertaining as I did and I'll be writing about my parents' adventure very soon. All my love and some of my giggles to you all!! Read more on "Making new friends is always an adventure"!

Dilemas, Dilemas

Hello all,

Lately, in addition to working here in Kathmandu and preparing to finally return to the field, I've been contemplating my future and desperately trying to decide on that next step. And I know I've had discussions on this already with many of you, but I'm still finding myself to be torn to such a point that I've already spent 30 min this evening in serious conversation with the web's best version of the magic eight ball. (Interestingly enough, it's hosted by Purdue...maybe I'm not the only one who had grad school decision making dilemmas.)



In any case, in order to minimize my stress levels, at least a bit, I'm currently only considering two options. Of course, all of my fretting is based on the assumption that I will be admitted to both of these two schools and that enormous amounts of funding will be delivered to my door by grad school elfs (or is it fairies?) In any case, as I'm preparing to formally request recommendation letters in order to get the application show on the road, I'm using every spare moment to torment myself over what my future ought to hold. So I thought, instead of keeping all that delicious torment to myself, why not share it with all of you? That way you can contribute your thoughts, and suggestions, or at least sadly shake your head and sigh, "Oh silly silly girl". Either way, it's better than continuing to brew over it in solitude.

So here they are, thing 1 and thing 2:

Thing 1 (Aka Why go home just yet?) The School of Oriental and African Studies in London, a school of enormous merit and recognition in my field, offers a one year masters program in Anthropological methods. Despite the fact that a masters is not a pre-requisite for my career track and that I may need to take out a scary loan, the program is attractive because:

1. My resume up to this point is very vanilla. It basically reads: U of M blah blah U of M blah blah blah blah U of M blah blah in collaboration with U of M professor blah blah blah. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that I'm almost 100% sold on getting my Phd from U of M.
   
2. Despite constant re-assurances from my professors and my own growing confidence from experiences in the field, my lack of formal training in methods is a concern for me. I've been told that having experience in the field is training enough, but I think methodology is too important to be learned entirely experimentally and I've yet to be fully convinced of the strength of U of M's methods program.
   
3. Did I mention that SOAS is an remarkably impressive school. Yeah? Well, I'm just reminding you then.
   
4. It's a year in London. I won't even bother to illucidate this point.

But then there's thing 2 (the path of least resistance). This plan involves me immediately entering into a PhD program at U of M and spending the next 3-4 years back in A2. (Followed immediatly by more fieldwork here in Nepal) As I said, at this point, I can't see myself doing a PhD program anywhere other than at U of M, so the question is merely one of timing.

Admittedly, I originally had some reservations about the program because it's already very clear which proffessor would be over seeing my work, and while I adore that proffessor, our work styles are very different. But just this evening, I've finished reading his latest publication and saying that I was impressed would be a gross understatement. The piece was phenomenal and more importantly for me, reflected an attitude about anthropology and a writing style that I identified with immediately. I've read works by this proffessor before, and I was always disappointed that the way he spoke about our work and the way he wrote about it didn't seem to match up, but in this piece...wow. I work from the belief that as anthropologist we have 2 major responsibilities; the first is to stress the human aspect of our social science, and the second is to continually use (and openly acknowledge that use) of our fieldwork as a means of coming to know ourselves and in any discussion with my professor it was clear that we agreed on these points. But it was not until this most recent publication, that these views became explicit in his writing as well. And now, despite my complaints about disorganization and over commitement to numerous projects, I can't see myself working long term with anyone else.

Ok, so without sounding too silly, I'm thinking of this as a romantic relationship. I know U of M is the one for me, and if U of M will have me, I'd be foolish to consider a long term relationship with anyone else. The problem is I'm just not sure if I'm ready for the commitement. A big part of me still wants to play the field a little, and one last fling with London is just so tempting...

Sigh. what to do? or as Nepalis would say "Ke Garne?"

Oh and just because I think it's funny:
I've recently come to realize that the Nepali equivalent of "How's it going?" or "What's up?" is (in nepali of course) "Have you eaten?". I'm not sure why, but no matter how many times I recieve a text message from any one of my friends that says "Hi Sarah, Have you eaten?" it makes me laugh. Fortunately, I'm able to supress my laughter in conversation. Anyway, just a tidbit... And yes, yes, I've eaten! Read more on "Dilemas, Dilemas"!

Free Gift Coupons!?! Does it get better?

November 12

Dear all,

I just wanted to take a second to share a few funny moments from today. To begin with, our darling Jyopsi has learned to pretend, which is very exciting and has opened up a whole new range of games for us. When I returned from visiting the cyber café today, she had placed every one of her stuffed animals on top of their own individual pillows all across the living room floor. As I opened the door, she looked up at me, and informed me that the animals were napping. It was sooo cute. Of course, she immediately began to scold me for being to loud, but even when she’s being bossy (so basically when she’s awake) she’s still the cutest thing in the world.



The other funny moment happened while Didi and I were out shopping. I think the humor was lost on Didi so I felt that I needed to relay the incident to an American audience. Today, Didi and I had several errands to run, and so we headed out to Jawalkhel, where the main street is lined with shops of every kind. I needed a warm jacket as the fabled cold that I had heard about for so long has finally appeared. Of course, it’s still 80 degrees by noon here, but at night, I’m sleeping with a blanket and a sleeping bag. My nepali friends find the cold to be absolutely torturous, but being the good michigander that I am, I still find it to be rather pleasant. That said, I’ve been shopping for my scootie lately and I think that at least on the road a warm jacket will come in handy.

We looked at a few of the smaller shops first, but as I’m the nepali equivalent of Gulliver in the land of the Lalliputs here, everything was far too small. So we went to a larger department store. To my delight, I was able to find a jacket that I think is super cool, super warm and fits great. Now here’s the part that tickled me. Since the jacket was a little expensive (though still probably less than $25 USD), I handed the woman at the counter my nepali ATM card. She politely asked if I had cash, saying that she could put the purchase on credit card, but that I would get more “free gift coupons” if I paid in cash. Being the silly American that I am, I assumed that the coupons would really be for a discount on future purchases, but as it turns out, the 20 or so coupons I was handed were really the equivalent of Chucky Cheese tickets!! How cool is that!?! I was instructed to go downstairs where I found a long glass counter in front of floor to ceiling shelves. On the shelves were an assortment of items, all with small signs in front indicating the number of coupons required for the item. I was given the choice between a set of colored pencils, a pencil case, and a set of 3 small Tupperware containers. Since I’m obviously so responsible, the choice was clear and I passed up on the hours of coloring fun for the Tupperware containers. Though, in all fairness, I must admit that my first thought was that they were the perfect size for storing candy, but we’ll pretend I was going to fill them with nuts or lentils or something equally healthy.

Anyway, I was just so excited to walk away with a cool jacket and three new teeny tiny tupperware containers that I just had to write home about it. And now I should get back to work! Love you all!

Read more on "Free Gift Coupons!?! Does it get better?"!