Firsts in Hetauda

From July 19th – 27th…

Monsoon Beer – First night in Hetauda @ Bastipur Training Centre, I hung outside in the middle of a field with the big boss during a freakish monsoon rainstorm while drinking beer. It was an awesome, invigorating, yet slightly intoxicating, “natural shower” as my boss said. Monsoon Beer would be a great name for a nice light lager.

My umbrella saved my life – On my second day we visited the field offices in Parsa, Bara, Sarlahi, and Rautahat districts. On the way to the Rautahat office, we encountered a bandh road block where we inevitably had to abandon our vehicle and walk the rest of the way. We were only about a half-hour walk away but at 9:30, it was already a 37 degrees-blazing-hot-muggy weather and they only thing between us and certain delusional cries to our mothers was my emasculating umbrella (i love my umbrella).

That fresh feeling at work – offline.

Birganj jaane? – After only waiting for a mere 5 minutes, my Nepali colleague asked me if I wanted to take a truck to the infamous industrial lands of Birganj. Reluctantly, I said yes but after figuring it that it would cut the journey in half and it would be much more comfortable and enjoyable to ride a monster vehicle through the valley, we quickly hitch hiked with the first truck we saw. Apparently, people do it all the time.

Mad cow(s) – nope, not the disease but literally on our way to Birganj we encountered another road block where to bulls were jousting with each other. Just another typical commuting day in Nepal.

Ra RA, malaai Tamang ho!!!! – infiltrated my first Tamsaling bandh rally march with my fellow Tamang people. My first social rights rally ended prematurely when my colleagues burst out of the office gates to pull me out of the crowd (hey Rahkes! Ke garne?!?!?).

It’s the cookies! – Had dinner with my Kenyan and Ugandan colleagues one night and then enjoyed an evening television episode of Untold Stories in the ER. There was one story where a man accompanied by his wife was taken into the ER and was suffering from something that made him delusional and his body was slowly deteriorating. Marveled by American reality television, I noticed that the director of the story unsubtly kept showing us that his wife kept feeding him her “special” homemade cookies (duh?!?). Suffice to say in the end, we discovered that the wife was poisoning her husband with arsenic cookies.

H2O – drinking at least 3-4 litres of water per day and haven’t had the need to do number 1. The water is constantly evaporating from my skin turning it into rubber.

Motorcycle Diaries – Riding in the back of a motorbike to and from Birgunj and Chandranighapur, witnessing a horrific wipe out, getting hit in the face by giant yellow butterflies, getting rained on, battling gusts of wind, letting my mind wonder while taking in the landscape (and quickly coming to when I notice I am about to fall off the bike). I totally understand the allure of riding a motorbike.

Good (hot) times.

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