On the Basis of Unproductivity

Months ago I was the in city one morning and decided I wanted to spend it having breakfast with tea, pastries, and my Kindle.

I found a nice, friendly-looking bakery, decided what I wanted from the display case in front, and sat down, eager to get lost in my book. But every time I tried picking it up I found myself distracted. I instead looked idly at my phone, flipping through various applications and checking on conversations with friends. And so it went: I would click open my Kindle, try reading a few paragraphs, put it down to send a text, look outside to the street… then, remembering that I wanted to be reading would pick up my Kindle again, only to realize that I hadn’t absorbed anything from the first pass... So then I would start to reread the passage, and then take up my phone moments later, and so on and so on.

Let me say that the chocolate croissants of this bakery are to die for.* I have developed the habit of eating them in a very particular and disassembling way, peeling layers of pastry off one by one to reveal progressively spongier and chocolate-dusted insides. It is a gutturally methodical, quiet-minded, and slow-twitch activity which, as I have come to realize, is why I like it so much. It requires two hands, periodic examination of the croissant, and careful decision-making; and inadvertently forces me to be slow and quiet and relaxed. I can perhaps talk to a companion during this time if I have one; or take moments between leisurely undressing golden pastry strips to gaze out the window; but I certainly, absolutely cannot rush croissant time.

*My friend Bradley says they are middling – but then again, so is his opinion. He also hates cheese. And that’s all I need to say about that.

One of the inaugural cafe croissant times.
My Kindle sits serenely on the table waiting to be read.

So there I was, struggling with my Kindle at the bakery. I had ordered tea, a chicken pastry and a chocolate croissant. (After several following visits to this bakery café this combo has now become “my” order. The cashier addresses me with familiarity when I walk in, and I have found myself, to my chagrin, a firmly established semi-regular. I digress). My pastries arrived shortly after ordering and I thought, Great! Now I can start reading in earnest. And I tried. I really did. But at that time I was naïve and uninitiated in the ways of the croissant. As I found out, reading and eating at the same time was perfectly impossible. I was forced to give it up – at least for a few minutes. And so I ingratiatingly submitted myself to the croissant, my two hands occupied, slowly and painstakingly peeling layer after layer of soft pastry away. Brooding. 

You see, reading this book felt important to me – in part because it was quite productive ("The UX Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide," by Leah Buley, the cover read). And so I felt disappointed, and perhaps mildly frustrated, at my failing to read it; because this seemed to me the reason why I was at this café in the first place: to bolster my understanding and exploration of the UX profession in which I have been interested.

Suddenly it occurred to me: I don’t need to do this. I don’t need to be productive. Not right now. Do I? In my mind I was seeking to make the most of this slow morning time. I imagined a wonderful date with my book, blissfully engrossed and simultaneously productive in my studying. But – what if that didn’t happen? In fact, what if I was wholly disengaged and unproductive? What if I not only failed to read a book but simply sat there eating my pastries, sending banal text messages and looking out the window for the duration of my breakfast, thinking about whatever I wanted to think about in all of its potential modicum and unproductivity? What if I did?

I decided that the prospect seemed perfectly alright. So that is what I did.

And what a nice time it was.

 Two friends chatting over a delicious spread of pastries and tea (and Bradley's coffee, but that isn't delicious, is it).

***

In the West we are obsessed with movement, progress, and productivity. We are obsessed with filling our lives; filling our minds; filling space and time; filling our present and futures. We walk, drive and commute with podcasts and audiobooks streaming through our consciousness. We often work, recreate, and fall asleep with screens blaring at us, vying for our attention. “I need to have something on in the background”, a partner used to say as they broadcasted a movie or a YouTube influencer or a video essay on Disneyland theme park rides on one monitor, while playing a video game on another. We are always seeking to “do” things, our dopamine circuits propelling us to look for more and more. Sometimes because we are conditioned to; sometimes because we are driven to; and other times because we have to.

In the East – and elsewhere out of the parasitic reaches of capitalism and industrial living – there is boundless space and time. I call it slow time. This can look like deciding to visit a neighbor without notice to ask a question, staying for three hours, and leaving without the answer to it. It can look like sitting on the stone patio in the sun all afternoon completely listless. It can look like attending a community meeting that you know only needs to last a couple of hours that lasts instead from midday to dusk.

Even as someone who has always appreciated a lot of space and quietude in life, the difference hits me constantly in the Peace Corps. It is both excruciating and vitalizing.

The view from the doorstep of my room in the village.

***

Some days ago I found myself at the same bakery café as before. I, again, wanted a slow breakfast with tea and pastries; and again had brought a book with me (with the intention to read it). I put in my order and settled into a center table from which I could benefit from the warmth of the sun while watching unaware passersby crossing the storefront’s large glass façade.

Once again I failed to read my book. But this time was different – I was less fixated on results. Instead I sat and watched, slowly enjoying my snacks: I watched the sun slowly creep further and further into the café; I watched two commuting motorcyclists stop in for their morning pastry fix; I watched a mixed couple on their walk buy treats for their gamboling children; and I watched the construction workers in their hard hats and reflective gear pace slowly back and forth on the other side of the street.

A group of young friends wandered to the bakery and lingered about. As one of them stood by the cashier's counter a motorcyclist drove by with a delivery. Before either of us recognized what had happened, a newspaper had slid across the floor and hit his sneakers with a flippant ‘sssthwap!’ He turned toward me to pick it up. We made eye contact and I shrugged playfully.

The young Nepali unwrapped the bundle into two stacks and placed them on the round table next to him. I could tell the version he was inspecting was written in Nepali. I pointed to the other pile. “Is that in English?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, handing it to me. He scanned the issue in his hand for a few moments, unusually curt for a Nepali; but, not finding anything worth his attention, returned to his group of friends standing outside. I looked at the bundle of paper he had given me. The Kathmandu Times, it read in bold type.

The monochrome print crinkled delicately, unfolding in my grasp like a pair of whispering butterfly wings. I scanned the articles slowly and started to read. (Trump’s implications on the imminent TikTok ban in the United States; the state of illegal mining in South Africa; and the potential of Nepal’s hydropower in fueling the tech industry). It was riveting and (dare I say?) fun.

Once I exhausted the articles that interested me, I noted the sudoku puzzle at the back of the issue. I still had my book with me. But I felt like giving it a try anyway. This isn’t my newspaper, my anxiety alarm-bells rang. Whose is it then? What if it belongs to the manager and they do this sudoku puzzle every day? What if I'm about to ruin it for them?

It took me a moment to realize how ridiculous that sounded. That it was likely no one cared, and that, even if someone did care, it was a reasonable thing for any patron of an establishment such as this to do.

So I sat in the window and systematically worked through the rows and columns of numbers, logicking my convictions onto paper one after the other. I felt myself melting into flow – that is, until I realized with dismay that I had made a fatal error. The 4 I had confidently written down had a duplicate in the same row. This would take some investment to correct.

I looked at my phone for the first time in a while. I don’t have time to fix this, I thought. Nor the patience. In fact I had an appointment to prepare for. So I put the paper down, gathered my things, paid, and bid goodbye to the friendly cashier to whom I am now acquainted, feeling light and utterly relaxed.

What exactly propelled me to read a newspaper? I have not read a newspaper in years and years. And I had brought my book to read after all. I am a naturally curious person, so that might have been it. Perhaps some delight in entertaining the ‘newspaper-reading in a café’ paradigm (which surely one day will cease to be a paradigm) played a role. I am also sure, however, that the morning and all of its parts – the interaction with the young friend, the newspaper reading, the sudoku-filling, and even the conversation I had afterward with a stranger as I was returning (“You were visiting Seattle?! I’m from Seattle!”) would not have happened if I had driven deep into my book as I had wanted. Yet with the perception and allowance of unfettered time and affordance, they did.

***

Not by chance the second book I brought to read to the cafe was “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention” by Johann Hari. My personal lack of attention has been causing me some low-grade strife (and is why I bought the book). You would think, as I did, that living in rural Nepal, surrounded by beautiful hills, heartwarming community, a lifetime experience, and nothing but time would be supremely motivating. That it would allow someone to work on themselves in healthy ways, being inextricably grounded in nature and simple humanity and connection. Right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately, despite this reality I feel frustratingly attached to my phone and computer living in my rural village. Instead of stretching in the mornings, spending quality time with my community members, reading books, or being creative, I fall back into the familiar feedback loops of scrolling through my WhatsApp messages, email, Reddit, and Instagram. This is what I wanted to get away from in the States only to be placed at one of the most electricity- and internet-stable villages of my cohort. The irony has not been lost on me, and the perpetuation of these bad habits turned me to Hari’s work.

The book of the hour with all its modern and digital condemnation

Hari argues many factors for the apparent decrease in our inherent ability to pay attention as members of a modern, technologically literate, and collective society. Among these factors lie the increase of “multitasking”**, “the crippling of our flow states”***, stress, social media and its predatory grips, and decreases in mind-wandering. Many of these factors strongly resonate with me, but the art of mind-wandering seems especially relevant in the cross-cultural lens of the Peace Corps.

Backed by the literature of accredited scientists, Hari states that mind-wandering is “essential for things to make sense,” allowing our brains to connect sometimes seemingly disparate concepts, inspiring creativity and insight. “‘If we’re just frantically running around focusing on the external world exclusively,’ states one of his interviewees, ‘we miss the opportunity to let the brain digest what’s been going on.’”

Similarly, Hari muses: “I thought back over all the scientific studies I had read about how we spend our time rapidly switching between tasks, and I realized that in our current culture, most of the time we’re not focusing, but we’re not mind-wandering either. We’re constantly skimming, in an unsatisfying whirr.” Reading this, I felt validated.

I understand the elemental privilege of my circumstance. Living here in Nepal with my basic needs taken care of: shelter, food, and healthcare, and a bit extra to cover an occasional excursion to the city – something out of reach for many of my villagers. That being said, something they have naturally ingrained that we do not is their state of relative ease. Of mind-wandering; of just being. Of taking things as they come, asking for a newspaper from a stranger and reading it, of marinating in the moment and the mundanity. Not that this is always beneficial, either. As I said, it can be frustrating... but there is an argument for the benefits that come with a slower and mind-wandering propensity. And therefore an argument for cultivating more of one in our lives. Certainly, in mine.

Cousin-aunt-in-law Bishnu didi sitting on a straw mat at the edge of our patio.

A friendly kitten enjoys her company.

I feel like I talk a lot about slow time, and I also feel like it is something that volunteers can struggle with, coming from a society that experiences constant movement and stimulation. If you don’t move quickly you get left behind! It seems to shout. You won’t reach your goals!  You’re not enough if you are not in a state of production! Your worth is the quantity of your activity and effort!

But are you?

And is it?

I think about a commuter in a typical American city walking quickly to work, a coffee in hand, avoiding eye contact, earbuds feeding them the newest episode of their favorite podcast. Then I think about my host mother on our mud-caulked patio, sitting on a straw mat, warming her legs in the sun and engaging any of the many faces that have the habit of wandering past our house, neither party having any particular necessity or purpose.

In the example I have illuminated here I struggled to find production in a single morning. But periods of low activity are quite common during Peace Corps service and can last a very long time. Volunteers find themselves in trenches of inactivity which can leave them feeling aimless and deeply uncomfortable. These marathons can last days… weeks… and months when there is simply not much to do; not much that can be done despite their highest desires and best efforts. Village life is like that. And so is the Peace Corps.

Of course it is important to have some sort of drive and ambition in order to accomplish beyond the bare minimum, in order to achieve success. But it’s also okay to be unproductive sometimes. To exist for no reason. To exist in slow time. It’s okay to not be constantly driving yourself toward being harder, better, faster, stronger ... or even simply, less bored. It’s maybe even good. Hari and his cavalry of scientists say it’s definitely good.****

For me sitting in that café, deep in croissant time, watching the slow goings of the morning with a mind relaxed and wandering-prone without any expectations… it felt pretty great. There were (and still are), of course, personal problems to worry about… work activities to plan… the rest of the day, and the day after, and the day after that, and the weeks and months after that, to think about… and the list goes on (Oh – trust me, it goes on).

But the bouts of unproductivity have also opened me to a state of engagement and possibility that I would have otherwise shut down. And in some ways my still café moments led me to be more productive and fulfilled than I would have been normally. Perhaps we would feel similarly if we were to replicate this in other facets of our lives as well.

And that, I think, is worth a lot.

 

A wary cat perches on the step of the bakery cafe.

**The title of this chapter is “The Increase in Speed, Switching and Filtering”. It's an impactful chapter but less topical to the moral of this blog piece, so I neglected to speak about it here.

***”The Crippling of Our Flow States” is another pregnant chapter of the book that I gleaned a lot of insight from. After reading this chapter I realized that when I was first at the bakery with my Kindle what I was desperately seeking was pleasure derived from the flow state of reading. But it wasn’t attainable in that moment. So what ended up happening was that, being unable to achieve flow (a healing activity that builds up attention and happiness, argues Hari), I replaced it with another attention-healing activity – mind-wandering – which was likewise pleasurable. This made so much sense to me.

****in moderation. Note that too much of anything can be bad. I found this passage from the book poignant: ”Given that mind-wandering has been shown to have so many positive effects, why does it so often make us feel bad? There is a reason for this. Mind-wandering can easily descend into rumination. … In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.”

 

 

 

Leopards, Tigers and Bears! (Okay, maybe not...)

Nepal is known for its abundant biodiversity*. For being a small country the size of 6 Rhode Islands it spans an elevation range of almost zero (59m) to 8,848 meters (that would be Mount Everest - the highest point in the world)! Much of its land is tropical or subtropical and its central location in Asia serves as a migration destination for many birds, which helps to explain this. You can find almost 9% of the world's bird species here!

Animals have always fascinated me. Nepal is home to many exotic species -- and a lot of threatened ones at that: the Ganges river dolphin, red panda, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger, and snow leopard, to name a few. Although my chances of seeing any of these charismatic megafauna at site are pretty much zero, I am happy to report that there is still plenty to marvel at. Here's what I have seen out and about in the village.

*It was not known to me when I applied to serve here, but I was delighted to discover this after my arrival.

My trusty identification guides bought in the capitol.

MAMMALS
Mammals make up probably the smallest percentage of the wildlife I see, surprisingly. According to my mammal book a variety of animals live in the jungled hills around my village: felines, canines, civets, porcupines, boars, cervids, foxes, mustelids, bats... That being said, however, most of these animals live in the jungle and stay there. Some of them might venture into the village on occasion, but this would be at night when the lights are out and villagers are asleep.

Mongoose are fairly common and seeing them scurrying past is a delight every time. Unfortunately they are a menace to villagers due to their propensity to steal eggs and chicks. Three chicks at our house got carried off by a mongoose a week ago, in fact. I have a lot of respect for these ones regardless for their intelligence and vigilance. They are wily, fast, and fun to watch.

A snapshot of a mongoose that I took through my binoculars. I staked out this spot for an hour or two watching mongoose come by to pick over slaughtered chicken remains one morning.

I have on two occasions heard (but not seen!) what were likely leopards that came for a night visit. (The first time it made a great racket trying to break in to our goat shed -- I woke up irritated at whatever the @$#! my host father was doing in the middle of the night, turned over and went back to sleep... then found out in the morning that it was, in fact, not my host father that I had heard, but a hungry leopard).

Compared to leopards monkeys are a fairly common sight around the village. They are typically assaulted by anyone who sees them with aggressive shouting, chasing, and rock-throwing. And for good reason - they peruse the villages for easy meals and eat almost everything. Their indiscriminate penchant for theft and destruction cuts into farmers' stomachs and their profits. I said mongoose were menaces, but monkeys are a huge threat to food security here, especially for poorer folk who live on the outskirts of settlements and near the jungles. It's a country-wide problem.

Mammals I have identified at site:

• Small Indian mongoose
• Rhesus macaque
• Irrawaddy squirrel
• Asian house shrew
• Langur*

*There are, according to my Nepal mammals book, two species of langur that are perhaps difficult to distinguish from each other and have overlapping ranges, so I'm not sure which I have seen.

A rhesus macaque cautiously appraising me as I walk to a neighboring village.

I passed it and its troupe in the jungle a few days ago.

INSECTS

While I have much respect for insects, I don't have enough interest (or a good enough camera) to be able to capture and identify them. (Though volunteer Mark's mother is a retired entomologist, so sometimes we send him photos of insects to search for and identify for us. This will become relevant later.)

I find myself spending a lot of time admiring the insects I come across. The other day I noticed a dragonfly laying eggs at a waterfall in the jungle; had never seen that before. On more than one occasion I have stooped to watch lines of ants following their formless chem trails across the steps and stones of the villages... reveling in the serenity of the moment. And there are soooooo many beautiful butterflies that can be seen in so many colors and forms. The diversity and beauty of the insects here is stunning. Beetles, flies, dragonflies, bees, bugs, snake flies, praying mantids, katydids, grasshopppers/locusts, walking sticks... yes, even the spiders.

My favorite insect here has got to be jumping spider ant-mimics. (I am not sure if they can truly jump as their name would imply, but they are in the jumping spider family nonetheless). I spotted these early on during pre-service training and was shocked the first time I came across one. You have to wonder how many hundreds of thousands of years they took to evolve.

Ant-mimic spiders are quite small. This probably just looks like an ant to you.

Photo credit to my friend Colton.

Does it look like an ant now? How cool is this guy?! (Super. Don't argue with me!!)

Photo credit to OrionMystery.

My least favorite is also a kind of spider. This would be the up-to palm-sized Huntsman spiders that occasionally share my room space. I will not disparage them without cause... but I will say I would not mind whatsoever to develop a sudden and selective blindness for them.

I do have one story to tell about trying to identify an evasive insect. A few months after my initial arrival at site I was taking the goats out with buwaa when I saw what I thought was a giant flying insect sucking the blood of the leg of one of our goats with a proboscis several inches long. I was absolutely mortified... but also fascinated. So naturally the first thing I did was ask my friend Mark if he could help me identify it based on my description and a poorly drawn reconstruction. (He couldn't).

Fast forward a year later and I saw the insect -- again! I was elated to know that I did, in fact, not dream up this grotesque nightmare creature. I was in the jungle with farmers at the time when one started hovering by us. The farmers tried to swat it dead as it buzzed round, apparently eyeing us -- more likely, our blood. They said that it is painful when it bites and they told me that this insect's name is दाँस -- daas. Surely a local name but a name nonetheless. They couldn't tell me much else.

I asked around until someone mentioned it in relation to horseflies. That turned out to be the crucial piece of information I needed as I turned to Google and began to sleuth.

That night I learned a lot about horseflies. It took some slogging but I eventually did find what I believe is this insect's genus. And a contender for its species as well: Philoliche longirostris! It struck me how I could, after a few hours, find information about this not-well studied, yet documented, wild, bloodsucking horsefly that I stumbled across in the Nepali jungle. Apparently they habit areas of water and moist soil and are only prevalent in July, August and September. That explained why I saw it once and not again for the next year. They have co-evolved and specialized to feed on a specific species of flower. However, the females require a blood meal to reproduce (it's the protein in blood they need) similar to mosquitoes. Really interesting. I found myself, in my stupor, getting familiar with some horsefly anatomy...

I was also unfortunate enough to get pricked by one a week or two later. Can confirm it is an unpleasant experience.

Behold: the bloodsucking Philoliche spp. of the Nepali jungles! (cue 1960s horror flick damsel in distress scream)

Photo credit to Knobag.

REPTILES

Snakes abound though I have not seen many. Generally, when someone sees a snake in the village proper, frantic yelling, the calling of elder men, and the subsequent death of the snake, ensues. They can get sizable, although according to my host family there is only one in the area that is venomous enough to be a serious danger -- it is bright green and camouflages perfectly in the grass. I have since forgotten which species this is but I have not seen it. (I will say that someone did get bit by one in the fields several months ago and had to visit the hospital. He was alright after.)

Lizards are an occasional sighting. During the warmer months geckos sometimes crawl around the walls of my room or window looking for snacks. I'm quite fond of them. And there are other species of lizards as well but a somewhat rare sighting.

AMPHIBIANS

Lots of toads during the rainy season. Some as big as my palm and others as small as a fingernail. Small frogs are also fairly common throughout the year.

A rather stoic toad. Photo credit to my friend Colton.

BIRDS

Birds! There are so many birds in my village and the birdscape changes with the seasons. I was startled to see Egyptian vultures soaring the canyons coming out of my first winter here. Now that summer is past they have started to dissipate with the onset of the fall season. And only recently I noticed that I no longer wake up to the wooden krok-ok-ok, krok-ok-ok of blue-throated barbets, which somewhat gratingly permeated the airspace for the muggy summer months. I remember getting tired of their calls, but now, in their absence, look forward to hearing them again.

The excitement of seeing a bird you don't know is captivating. It is also frustrating when you get home to review a combination of faulty memories, blurry photos, and several pages of bird species with seemingly identical morphology. That happens a lot, so for every bird I am able to identify there are probably 3 or 4 I have seen that I have not identified. Birds of prey, for example, are a nearly daily sight, but there are so many that look the same that it is very difficult to pin them down with a species-identification.

As I mentioned before, I was not much of a birder until I came to Nepal. I wasn't really planning on becoming one, but the allure came to me after seeing so many varied and colorful types of birds in the first months of being in country; so I indulged and bought an expensive, but nice, set of binoculars that my family sent over to me in the mail. I suppose I traded one hobby for another: the kalimba that I brought to learn to play has sat virtually untouched. So it goes.

Photos of a bird you take in the field...

...vs. your bird identification guide when you go to look it up.

Birds at site I have been able to identify:

• Red-vented bulbul++
• Himalayan bulbul++
• Black bulbul
• Egyptian vulture
• Blue-throated barbet
• Great barbet!
• Black kite
• Himalayan vulture
• Spotted dove++
• Oriental turtle dove
• Asian koel!
• Collared Scops owl!
• Himalayan swiftlet
• Barn swallow++
• Red-rumped swallow++
• Black-winged cuckooshrike
• Scarlet minivet
• Long-tailed shrike++
• Grey-backed shrike
• Indian golden oriole
• Black drongo++
• Ashy drongo++
• Grey treepie++
• Yellow-billed blue magpie
• Large-billed crow++
• House crow++
• Common tailorbird++
• White-crested laughingthrush
• Rufous-winged fulvetta
• Jungle myna
• Common myna++
• Chestnut starling
• Blue whistling thrush
• Oriental magpie robin
• Common stonechat
• Crimson sunbird
• White-rumped munia++
• Grey wagtail
• Eurasian tree sparrow++
• House sparrow++

++ common resident throughout the year

! identified by sound

Living Conditions At Site

Yesterday I walked five minutes down to the spring by our house to bathe. The spring is so beautiful this time of year. Look at it!

The neighborhood spring under an open sky. Villagers use this on a daily basis to bathe and wash clothes.

The spring is sometimes occupied by other villagers but I only had to wait a few minutes to have the spot to myself. I relished the peace. Moments like these bring me profound contentedness and root me in gratitude -- bathing in a mountain spring under a warm sun surrounded by green fields of rice, millet, a banana tree, and verdant hills. Not even the foreign service and embassy workers in the capitol can enjoy this!

Although we have had a shower at home for many months, I have started bathing at the spring on sunny days whenever possible. Winter is coming: it will soon get too cold to make this comfortable. I am also forcefully aware of how finite this experience will be.

I was originally planning on just sharing the photos of our spring with a glib "That's it. That's the tweet", but I figured I should make this post a little more educational (cue disappointed audience "awww..." sound clip). So, if it pleases you, continue reading for a tour of my host family house.

The homestead, mostly traditional with a splash of modernity.

This is the front of our ghar. It is an old house and has probably been in the (paternal) family for several generations. My host parents like to talk about how, decades ago, 20+ people used to live here all crammed together. Phew!

You can see the stone-and-mud-caulked veranda below the painted posts supporting the upper floor.  Our previously paraplegic kid wanders the agan. The bottom room to the the far left is the kitchen. Then there is the main section of the house next door which serves as a bedroom and living space for my host parents. Vines of giriula snake up from the garden to the attic on the second floor that sits on top of this. On the right side, starting at the second set of steps, is the renovated annex: the window of my room is mostly obscured by vines but you can see it if you squint. And in the very back stands our livestock shed.

We'll explore left to right according to this photo. First off, here's the kitchen.

The kitchen with a fresh coat of mud-plaster in preparation for the holidays.

It is extremely narrow, the most narrow kitchen I have seen in all my time in Nepal. Most of the cooking is done over the fireplace in the far back. Aamaa prefers to cook over fire -- it is cheaper than using the gas stove (out of frame on the table in the bottom right). Food also just tastes better when cooked over fire (I was at first skeptical about this, but it really does). Traditional urns such as our gagri are used to store water (though there are so many varieties of containers and urns with specific formations, shapes, materials, and uses... don't ask me what they are, I don't work here). Next to the copper gagri is the silauto, consisting of a flat stone and a handheld rock, which gets daily use grinding garlic, spices, and peppers for cooking.

The walls and floor are red because they are plastered over their stone foundations with a mixture of red soil, cow dung, and ash. All areas of the original house are maintained in the same way. Aside from being a natural cover for the house foundation, it imbues pest-resistant and temperature-regulating properties, keeping things cool in summer and warm in winter. Its upkeep is laborious (aamaa applies a fresh coat of mud to the oven area every evening to keep things clean, and the floor of the front porch is supposed to be coated every morning), but it is really beautiful and calming. I will definitely miss Nepal's mudded walls when I leave.

"Living quarters": a double bed, cabinets for storage, and an open cupboard for kitchenware.

Adjacent to the long and narrow kitchen are the "living quarters". To the right my host parents' bed can be seen - the left, our open cabinet for dishware, cookware and utensils. Out of frame on the left is a small shelf-shrine for Hindu worship. Cabinets on the side and in the back are storage areas for dried goods and household effects like soap; the staircase in the back leads up to the attic.

The attic filled with your standard inventory: hoarded curiosities and keepsakes, clothes and dried goods.

Here is the attic, full of dust and random stuff, some of which gets touched occasionally but most of which sits in dust for years. Not much difference there from its American counterpart.

In the back on the right is a large woven silo for unmilled rice (this spell-checker is telling me that "unmilled" isn't a word -- what other adjective am I supposed to use, then?? As an agriculture major, should I know this? ... I digress.) As the milled-rice stores become low, the family pulls some raw rice out of storage, dries it in the sun for a few days, and then aamaa carries it to the mill to be hulled.

There is another level of the attic evidenced by a narrow ladder in the far back corner, not visible in this photo... to be honest, I have not had any inkling of desire to see what is there. I leave it as the rats' realm to reign. Occasionally I hear them fighting or snacking on crumbs in my ceiling and am amusedly reminded of my late pet rats from the States.

A newly-built house constructed of nearly all wood and cement before painting.

Before I had any idea where I would be living for my two years of service, I was speaking with the Peace Corps staff member who assessed all of our volunteer host houses. "It's an old house," she said about my family's house. "I like it -- it's really nice." And, after seeing a lot of houses since then, I have to agree. I love the natural look and feel of dhunga-maato houses which are increasingly being replaced by concrete houses.

 

The guest room.

Next is the renovated annex. You can see the plastered brick-red mud has been replaced by a concrete floor and walls and modern-style paint. In this section of the house is the downstairs bedroom (above) which is used for guests -- or, alternatively, when my host mother is menstruating, because she is compelled to sleep in separate quarters during the period (pardon the pun). Generally it is empty; though sometimes it is occupied by the chickens when someone props the door open and forgets to look after it.

Mother-in-law style stairwell to my room.

The stairs leading up to my room above. The stairs and railing were a modification imposed on my host family by Peace Corps; the previous stairs were more haphazard and deemed a safety risk, so this nice set of stairs was built for me during my first month or so at site. I thought the railing was overkill at first but really do enjoy it. I use it for exercise and for hanging clothes up when it is raining. One family kid in particular likes to use it as a slide.

You can see a mosquito net door on the outside which was recently installed with the help of a carpenter. For some reason mosquitoes swarm on my doorstep every night (that is, during mosquito season ... or half the year). I can now have double the daylight indoor, a breeze moving fully through the room, and can wear short sleeves and shorts in my room in the evenings -- so, so nice.

My room in its natural state of chaos.

My room when I am expecting guests (almost never).

I honestly love my room so much -- it is spacious, comfortable, clean and has a huge window through which I can see the hills and mountains on clear days. I couldn't ask for nicer accommodations. It gets a lot of natural light (very important to me -- without it in my living space I get depressed). And it has a lot of privacy by virtue of its mother-in-law side entrance and second-story leveling, which is very unusual for Peace Corps volunteers. I love my room!!

Livestock accommodations -- outdoor.

Inside the goat shed, bottom floor.

Inside the goat shed, upper floor, feat. one of our beautiful roosters (not for long...)

Next we have the livestock shed. During the day the goats are tied as pictured; we bring them inside at night to protect them from animals (mostly leopards which roam the villages at night and snatch cats, dogs, and any poorly-kept livestock that can't defend themselves). The chickens are kept on both the bottom and top floors of the livestock shed. For the first 8 months or so at site the top floor was more of an attic storage space until my host parents bought a batch of chicks for raising, and then it was converted into a chicken coop.

The toilet/bathroom from the porch area. We use its tin roof to dry a variety of items when the sun is out.

Asian-style squat toilet. These things are great. I don't know how I will go back to using Western-style toilets... I know I am in the minority opinion on that one.

Simple bathroom/shower room with a faucet above (tank water) and below (spring water).

Last and likely least, the toilet and bathroom! These are made of wood supports and cement. When I arrived in village there was a much smaller and rougher toilet that didn't have much room to move around. My host family tore it down and built this nice new one, again a requirement from the Peace Corps office as part of the housing agreement. It is quite nice. From the toilet you can look out and see the hills if you leave the door open -- which I often do because, 1. I am lazy, and 2. I would rather have a view while I am on the toilet than be sitting in the dark. Nepal is alllllllll about the views.

Water for the toilet, bathroom and our (also newly built) tap run from two sources: the natural mountain-fed spring and one of the water tanks that serve the community. Our house and family are quite lucky: we rarely run out of water compared to other community members who have to fetch water by hand when supply runs out, sometimes for days or weeks at length, which mostly occurs during the dry season.

How often are you going to have a view like this from the toilet?

One night I was talking with my host parents about the future of the house. Aamaa and buwaa were sort of laughing -- my host brother will be inheriting the house after they pass. They wonder what he will do with it, though their hope is that he will keep it in its basic state as a testament to the family and traditional values. Though I have no stake in the matter it is hard to disagree after living here for a year. I hope when I return to Nepal in the coming decades this house will still be standing -- though there is no doubt that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Mid-Service Crisis

Not a romantic title. Then again, it’s not a very romantic time.

I write this from my desk. Reverent guitar chords from a YouTube video I am listening to glide wistfully into perception. Beside me sits my external hard drive, its rectangular blue light spinning in mute obsequity. I am making a backup of my Peace Corps mobile phone – it came down with a severe case of dead-spotting this morning and I want to make sure I can recover my files if anything gets worse.

Outside, it rains. An aunt-in-law yells for my host mother from the shelf behind our house; the monkeys have arrived looking for an easy meal and need to be driven off from the gardens. Views of the hills and the Annapurnas are obscured by enveloping fog – silhouettes of their cascading bases misting in and out of sight like the ancient talons of a Cambrian time. (Or the contemporary talons of the pixelated and jungled hills of Feralas in World of Warcraft. Admittedly… not as poetic.) 

I sit, and write a few sentences, and sit. I look outside. Contemplating.

It is known that Peace Corps volunteers phase through periods of emotion and stress during their two years of service. In many cases these periods fall into a somewhat predictable timeline that has been observed over decades and hundreds of thousands of services (over 240,000!).

Allow me to direct your attention to this:

 

The Cycle of Vulnerability and Adjustment. A staple of PST dogma around the globe.

A quick look is fine, no need to read the fine print. As a volunteer, this is more what it feels like:

The Cyle of Vulnerability and Adjustment, volunteer edition. I am here.

We volunteers are inundated with discussions and references of the “Cycle of Vulnerability and Adjustment” during our pre-service training, to the point where it becomes something of a meme; but as trite as it becomes it is still prescient for many of us.

I was doing well, getting along with my projects and assimilating into Nepali life and my village. Through pre-service training and our first months at site I felt I didn’t struggle as deeply as some other volunteers. Then as my one-year mark loomed this pre-ordained trajectory occupied my mind. I hit a few rough spots here and there and every time I thought: Is this finally my mid-service crisis? I wondered.

Then the real crisis hit.

It came at a time when I was already feeling underwhelmed and undermotivated following the busiest time of year for farmers that left the village empty-handed and any project work equally empty-handed. I came down with a bout of COVID and endured a 10-day isolation. I expected things to get better and then they just got worse. A few things had already been affecting me and they were finally topped with a catalyst that cut my heels and left me in a bad way.

I was wretched. Like ugly crying into the phone with multiple people over multiple days wretched. So yeah, it was pretty bad. Kinda still is.

We're working on it.

A drunk man, alone, yelling into the fog. A dog trots down the road in the distance.

Sometimes we are the man and sometimes we are the dog.

While talking to my friend Sydney about self-care she pointed out that her normal routines are inaccessible here. Hot showers are not available; treat-yourself spa days are not possible. Me, I might leave the house for a long, quiet walk; but here I find it less refreshing when I am constantly asked over my whereabouts and stopped by villagers a half a dozen times in ten minutes. There are no dances to go to. No comfort restaurants in the village. No friends you can call up for an adventure – or a cry. And as connected as we are digitally here, it is still isolating. The world, the people, the places you know move on without you. 

As prepared for Peace Corps as I was, I wasn’t quite prepared for the depth of my crisis. I knew that serving in the Peace Corps was going to be worth it despite its challenges. Now I found myself thinking, how worth it would it be? And what would be the cost?

I already paid a hefty price. I gave up a lot of things that I loved to be here. A home. A great job. A loving relationship. Comfort. Stability.

I was sure about leaving them a year ago, misgivings notwithstanding. Now I am still sure but less so. I left them behind for… this? What is “this”? And what is it doing for me?

It feels clearer on some days than others -- which is to say, not by much.

(Though meant to be rhetorical for the purposes of this post, there are a number of deprecations that I could easily insert… Let’s just break to the optimistic vignette.)

***

A few days ago myself, Mark, and Kim made a trip to our friend Kiehl’s village to help drop off some project-related supplies. Due to the monsoon rains the roads to her site were completely destroyed and hauling the supplies up the mountain would have been impossible for one person (that is a story for another time).

On the return trip I caught a jeep back to my village from the local junction. The seats in the front were full up with passengers so I was offered a spot in the bed of the jeep on a bag of grain with all the other luggage (I was elated not to be crammed in the cabin with 11 people. What a boon!). I loaded up my things and clambered into to the piles of suitcases, bags, and bales of supplies.

It had just rained and the sky was clearing into a bright open sky. As we began our ascent there were dark clouds and spools of fog curling the distant hills across the valley in dramatic contrast. On the other side of the jeep sat an elderly woman in a dull red lunghi – she made unpleasant faces at every bump in the road. I clung one arm to the metal bar above my head and peered out through the back, watching the landscape peeling away before us – the muddy road cutting through rich fields of grass, rice, and jungled patches of trees and shrubs. A motorcycle rumbled past us, then hung suspended on the curve of the road to get its bearings. A dhoko-and-grass-laden woman waited for us to pass before lumbering onto the path to head uphill with a slow and surefooted cadence, her back bent under the weight of her basket. Water trickling in wayward streams through the rocks undertire. Red dragonflies hesitating, hovering in intermittent congregations above the sea of emerald green. Sparkling in the sunlight.

I thought about this place, about Nepal. I thought about all the times I would be able to see this -- and all the times I wouldn't. I thought about the last time I would see this, when I would have to say goodbye... and I wondered if I would be able to have this – this moment, this beauty, this feeling, in this sunflower-yellow-tarp-covered luggage-jeep ride – as an American worker with a week and a half of vacation under another timeline.

I am not sure if it was because I sometimes feel these ways when I am driving through beautiful moments – but I felt something then, a certain sort of feeling. For someone it may have been God. For someone else it may have been the cosmos. For me it wasn’t. But it was something.

Emerald fields as seen from atop a sack of rice in the back of the jeep.

***

Sure. I left behind a lot. But what have I picked up?

Confidence in my gut health (this counts for a lot). Confidence in myself. Confidence in rugged travel. A higher tolerance for risk (but perhaps the same amount of anxiety). A broader, and more flexible, perspective on life. I do believe a more generous disposition. Friendships. A lot of laughs. Other things yet to be revealed. And the rest of this... for all it is worth. 

Part of my broodings has to do with my future (what future?). I'm 29 years old. It seems that there are many paths that I could take after Peace Corps and each seems important. However, they also feel exclusive to each other in a way – like choosing among a set of talent specializations in a video game – only, unlike in a video game, you can’t visit an NPC to reset your investments if you want to change them later.

As my uncle put it, entering your 30s is a watershed moment. What do I do with this?

While looking for a picture of the “Cycle of Vulnerability and Adjustment” I came across this Peace Corps Jamaica blog post from 2015 about how to combat your mid-service crisis, directed toward serving volunteers, that I appreciated. (Putting that out there for any current PCVs reading this – and, look, 10 years later LinkedIn says the author is thriving in Washington, D.C. with a number of accolades and impressive professional experience. That should be encouraging, right? Right??)

Is this going to be me in 10 years?

Peace Corps had always been a brutally and wholly uncompromising phase of my life. In a previous relationship when my partner and I talked about it I told them that there were two possible future scenarios: one in which I would serve in the Peace Corps with our relationship, and another in which I would serve without it (I ended up without it). Regardless of what could have been – I ground myself in the knowledge that at least for me there was -- is -- no alternative but to be here right now. Despite everything, I am here, and I am grateful for it.

As my conversation with Sydney implied, new ways to manage and cope are needed if your old ones are unavailable. I picked up birding some months into service and have found a lot of happiness in that. I started doing affirmations in the morning: I will serve myself and my community with integrity and determination. I will be kind today; and a gratitude journal in the evening: Aug 13, 2024. Dahi @ Seluki. Solo hike + beach-lying concrete time. Both of these things I have never before considered doing in my life. So, you might ask: do they help?

Probably.

Ha!

A meme I made and sent to my sibling who is a seasoned birder. I feel like you have reached an important hobby milestone if you can make memes about it.

It should be mentioned that not everyone goes through a mid-service crisis. I talked to one of my fellows yesterday who said that struggling in the United States was more difficult than life here. So everyone is different, the levels of struggle are different, and what those struggles are can be different, too. I told my friend Pearl that with some of my country struggles I feel like there has been a harpoon aimed directly at me -- and that while you expect to struggle going in, discovering exactly what your struggles will be is part of the intrigue.

Our revered colleague Jim Damico would say: when things are hard, think about your “why”. Why you joined the Peace Corps and why you are here, and let that remind you, guard you, and guide you.

So I try to do that. I try to give myself the time and grace that I need. I feel and I think. 

Through better days and worse days I expect my feelings to pass; more likely to stick around but in a perhaps more suffusive form, transformed into something different, more acceptable, comfortable, soft, or manageable. And in one year's time my service in Nepal will come to pass as well.

Wild, huh.

Instagram: Dogs of Nepal

It feels a bit weird to promote my Instagram on this blog, like I am reaching across decades of social media. Like it is somehow a violation of what should be possible.

Nonetheless, I'd like to make those of you who are not aware, aware of my Instagram page. It can be found here under the handle @dogs.ofnepal. It does, predictably, feature dogs; it also features a lot of landscapes and everyday snippets of Nepali life; and is a collection of photos that I have taken during my service. Please give it a look if it sounds interesting. I post every three days or so there. Here's a peek.

Khukuri

"Hey buwaa," I said. "The khukuri that was used yesterday to slaughter the goat. Whose khukuri was that?" I was referring to the long, thick blade that Birendra used for butchering.

He smiled. "Ours," he said. "Why?"

I told him I wanted to take a picture.

"Oh, you want to know about it? Well..." he said...

and my lesson on the khukuri began.

Three khukuri of our household in various sizes - ordered and handcrafted decades ago and still in excellent working condition.

***

The khukuri is a traditional Nepali blade (some may call it a sword, a shortsword, and others a knife). Though it has many uses the sword is most famous as the weapon of choice - and emblem - of the Gorkhas* - Nepali soldiers conscripted into the British and Indian armies. The history of the Gorkhas began in 1815 when they were recruited into the British East India Company following the Anglo-Nepalese War.** They are renowned worldwide to this day for their valor, fearlessness, and ferocity in battle. 

"Did you see the khukuri at our Pokhara house?" buwaa asked me. "It's in the big display case." He was referring to a scabbarded khukuri and pedestal on which it sat in the family's other house in the big city. I recalled seeing it in the past and recognized the installation as a sort of military plaque at the time - but had never taken a close look at it.

A small, sheathed khukuri - for show only. Blades like these are used for dances, parades, and showcasing.

You see, buwaa is a retired Indian army veteran. He served, like many other Nepali, in its Gorkha battalion. His military career lasted about 28 years. Eight years ago he retired from the army and settled back in Nepal, though he still remains a soldier at heart despite the growing distance between then and now.

***

I was squatting on the porch one afternoon, down on one knee, my binoculars trained on a bird perched on a nearby wire. "You remind me of my army days," said buwaa, who was sitting on our porch armchair. "Ask me why. Go on," he said. He walked over, laughing. "We used to have to sit like that while we were on duty -- watching and hiding, like this, right?" He squatted next to me and demonstrated. "And if someone came along we had to pay attention: to what they were wearing, what they had on them, if they had guns, how many people there were, where they were, and where they were going," he explained. "Like if we're here, and they are there" -- crouching on the red clay of the veranda, he drew lines in the dried mud with his finger, lining out the trajectories -- "we had to relay the location, distance and direction to our supervisors." 

We have moments like these all the time. It is apparent to me how proud he is of his identity as a soldier, a Gorkha, a Nepali. His sense of honor, duty, and right and wrong is very strong - this runs in the family. When he talks about his army days he emanates a wistfulness that may only match that of his childhood memories (when he recalls them). There are many stories to tell. But his time in the army was also extremely difficult; brutal; painful; and sometimes painfully boring. Buwaa is ever a practical man, honest, open, and difficult to shy. But I have yet to ask him for any of his more harrowing stories. I wonder if I ever will.

***

Buwaa regaling me with khukuri lore, blades laid bare on the bench.

Buwaa explained the use of the swords as a soldier. "We had to wear our swords at all times on our belt, like this," he said, patting his hip to indicate it hanging down from a belt. "And these ones, like I said --" he took the small knife in his hand "-- are just for show. For display only. But we used them as part of our Gorkha dance." His eyes lit up. "Shall I show you how it went?"

Buwaa stepped back from the porch and onto the mud-and-stone-leveled patio. "Here, I'll show you a little bit." Thus followed a series of dance steps - whirling, brandishing, stomping, and slashing. Proud, disciplined, confident. I could imagine him in line with dozens of other foot soldiers in uniform, their movements in sync, the rapping of their feet echoing in formation. A formidable sight it must have been. After a couple minutes of this buwaa stopped, winded, to catch his breath. "You really sweat a lot," he said. "I can't remember the whole thing anymore."

Of course, khukuri are most famous for their use in battle. But they are an extremely versatile tool that can be used for a variety of utilities:

• Trailblazing - hacking plants and bushes in the jungle, as a machete.
• Building - used to cut wood, bamboo, and other materials.
• Food prep - animal slaughter.
• Warfare/defense - a deadly weapon.

"You see this?" Buwaa pointed to a notch on one of the large blades a few inches above the hilt. He then pointed to identical notches on the other khukuri he had brought out to show me. Beside the notch a U-shape was carved out of the metal. "These notches - what do you think they are for?"

I suggested it could be for hanging the blade. For example, hanging it on a wall by a nail. "That is true," he said. "We would sometimes hang our blades on the wall, you can hang them by these notches." He paused. "But what it is really meant for is wicking blood."

The blood-wicking notch.

"As you are fighting, and cutting things, and blood is running down the blade, it runs down your hands and arms," he explained. "It gets all slippery and messy. But with this notch the blood drips off the blade instead of getting on your hands." A delicate, but notable, distinction - one that must make all the difference in battle.

These days the khukuri throws a lot of weight around as a symbol of Nepal. You see its likeness on clothing, stationary, and logos everywhere - sometimes in the form of two crossing blades, other times with a crossed blade and its sheath.

A pair of WWII (left) and WWI (right) khukuri crossing***. The image of two crossed khukuri serves as a symbol of the Gorkha warriors -- sometimes, Nepal itself -- and can found on traditional items and keepsakes.

A clip from a Peace Corps Nepal video of Kim wearing a dhaka topi emblazoned with the two-khukuri crossing symbol.

Other types of blades certainly exist in Nepal - but none as charismatic as the khukuri. As buwaa and I were sitting together discussing swords, aamaa had been watching us with some interest and amusement. A few minutes later she sat down with another blade in her hand -- the dao. (This is an Indian blade originating from the ethnic Naga group, as buwaa enthusiastically explained).

 "This was given to me by my older brother," she said, hoisting the blade in her hands. As the story goes, decades past she had needed a knife for household chores. He was in India at the time serving in the Nagarian army, so he bought and sent one to her. Some time later he faced an untimely death while he was in service. She held the blade by the hilt quietly, turning and gazing at it in her hands - no doubt thinking of that time.

Aamaa gazes at the dao that her late brother gave her, reminiscing.

Perhaps khukuri feel as familiar and comforting to buwaa as Nepal itself does. They, the Gorkha, and Nepal have such a strongly defined and intertwined relationship that it would be remiss to separate any one from the others. Whatever becomes of the Gorkha in the future, the khukuri will surely remain a part of Nepal: a blade as venerable as its people.

*Not to be confused with the people who live in the Gorkha district of Nepal.  

**The Gorkhas have a centuries-long military history that is fascinating -- I won't get into details here; though recent political developments have threatened their existence as a branch of the Indian Army.

***From this directory stumbled on of historic khukuri manufacture. Very cool.