Trying to Stay Busy

So as I was saying last week, it is a pretty slow time of year out here. There just isn't really a lot going on. A lot of people are busy with the fall semester of school or just starting jobs (a lot of big jobs hire in waves at certain times of year). So a lot of people have been too busy to do things. I've been able to keep up with a few of my friends though.

On this past Friday night I went and ate dinner with the environmental engineer that I have met. We went to this place a couple of blocks from my house that is this coffee shop. I had seen it before, but over the past few months I had forgotten that it was there. So we went there and had some American food. It was really good and not too expensive. He insisted on paying though, which made me feel a little bad. It isn't uncommon for people to point blank ask about things that are usually a little off subject in America. So during dinner he started asking about things like how much my apartment costs and how much money I would make in America and things like that. He also told me how much he makes, which is about $150/month being an environmental engineer. So when the ticket for dinner came I tried to pay, but he wouldn't let me.

I also had a basketball game this past Saturday morning. We played at the number one middle school in our town. I'm still not 100% sure how the whole school system works because everyone there looked like they were at least in high school. I think some people call middle school high school and others call it high school. I really have no idea. Anyway, we had a big game out there and there were around two hundred students surrounding the court watching. It was a lot of fun except that the rims were about three inches too high. So it was an ugly shooting day, but it was a good chance to get to meet some new guys.

Finally, I've started meeting again with my tutor. He has been missing in action for the past couple of weeks, but we have met together twice this week. Usually we meet for about two hours. We end up talking for about the first forty-five minutes, then always get off subject on something, and then end up playing basketball or watching an episode of Man Vs. Wild. No joke, during one of the episodes he saw something Bear Grylls was eating and said "oohh, that looks pretty good." We've had a few opportunities to talk about other things while we've studied too. He is a guy who has gotten a little off track over the past year or so, but within the past month he is starting to have a renewed interest in things. So even though there are some frustrations, it has been a good time.

Pretty Much a Normal Week

So life out here can be kind of funny sometimes. There are some days where I am out traveling or out heading to some remote village, but for the most part, life out here seems pretty normal. Well, normal to me I guess. It is amazing how quickly we can adapt to different things and our day to day life, no matter how strange it seems to others, can end up being pretty normal. With that being said, the last couple of weeks out here have been . . . pretty normal.

This past week has been pretty slow, which has actually been a blessing. Because I haven't had a lot going on I've been able to get back to normal things like playing basketball, getting to see my friends, and going out to eat with them. I've had a lot of opportunities to catch up with some of the basketball guys this past week. We had a surprise game on Friday afternoon and we played some gov't team. The team was actually really good. They had a guy who was bigger than I am (and who actually knew how to play a little post) and another guy who was at least my size and knew how to get to the basket. I honestly have no idea how we beat them. Well, I kind of do. We basically stuck a big older guy on their big guy and he just fouled him every time he touched the ball. It is kind of cheap and really not the way you are supposed to play basketball, but at the same time they do it to me everyday, so I didn't complain. After the game I went out with five of the guys and we went to some random restaurant that they had heard about. I have no idea how they heard about this place because it was a shack and the food wasn't even all that great. I made the mistake again of letting them order, so we had some pretty random stuff. There were some potatoes cooked under pig fat, some kind of gelatinous intestine thing (which wasn't all that bad), and then, my personal favorite, stinky tofu. I didn't eat it this time though. I figured I ate it last time they ordered it and, since I've tried it once before, I could take a pass on it this time. It was a great time of getting to catch up with the guys and hopefully we are going to get together again this weekend.

I've also been able to run into my environmental engineer friend. I talked to him at the gym last night and we are planning on going out to eat sometime this week. He speaks really good English and he also has some of the best local language out of anyone under thirty that I know. We were talking last night and he was explaining to me about how most people under the age of thirty or forty can't really speak the local language all that well. He is actually the third or fourth person that I've heard that from. With that being said, his language is really good and he is willing to get together and he can give me some tutoring.

Other than that, not a lot is going on out here. I'm planning a few things for next month but other than that I'm just going to class and doing things in town. It is also getting a little colder here. It still gets up to about seventy degrees during the day, but it gets a little chilly at night. All things considered it is really nice for mid-November. I think it just seems colder because there is no carpet, heating, and I have to ride my bike everywhere. Hopefully it'll stay warm for another month until we get out out of class for winter break.

Reconnecting with Friends

So I know this is a little late. I usually try and post blogs on Tuesday evenings, but this week things were a little thrown off with a surprise birthday party. Everybody out here actually did a great job with the surprise except for one guy. About thirty-minutes before I was supposed to meet up with everyone a local guy called me and apologized for not being able to go to the party and wanting to wish me a happy birthday. So I kind of knew going into things. It was still a great night. We went to eat at this local pizza place that is run by an Italian guy. It is about the only place that you can get decent pizza in town. Afterwards we went back for cake and watched some downloaded football on tv.

Other than that this week has been busy with school and meeting a lot of new people. I've started meeting with one of my friends for tutoring. We met a couple of times this week and it has been a lot more fun than tutoring has been in the past. Up until now I have mainly focused on working out of books and learning sentence structure. Now I am finally to the point where our tutoring is mostly conversational. It is a LOT more fun than just learning vocabulary. We are actually talking about going out one of these weekends with my tutor's uncle and going hunting. The word out here for hunting literally translates as 'bird and dog' because you hunt with a falcon and dogs. So that'll be interesting.

I also met a guy this week who is a 24 year-old environmental engineer. He speaks great English and just moved back to town a few months ago after he finished up at university. We've gotten to talk a few times in the gym and we're going to plan on getting together sometime this next week. I've actually had a lot of opportunities this week to reconnect with some people that I haven't seen in a few months. I've made sure and gotten their phone numbers so that, hopefully, we can keep in better touch. I'm currently looking for a local guy to be a roommate. Hopefully one of these guys will work out.

A Crazy Week

So I’m finally getting around to updating this thing. Sorry it has taken a little longer than I was expecting. Things out here have been pretty crazy over the past few days. Classes have all started back and are in full swing. On top of that we had a health clinic this weekend. The clinic was in the village that I spend a lot of time in so I went and helped out. Friday we had some training, and I learned how to take blood pressure (which is a lot harder than you’d think when you have grannies with five layers of clothes on). We had a dental hygienist and a physical therapist come and help out with things. Mostly all I did was help out by filtering water, taking blood pressure, and talking to old grannies who were just sitting around. We made a lot of contacts though and had some really good talks when we went to visit people with follow up. One of my friends also moved back to the U.S. on Sunday after living here for three years. So there was a lot going on with getting her moved and goodbye parties and things like that. Things are definitely going to be different out here. I think I’ve eaten noodles about two meals a day since she’s been gone, and I don’t know when I’m going to get another home cooked meal. There have also been a lot of people sick out here. My roommate and a couple of other guys have caught some kind of bug that has knocked them out of commission for a few days. Today I was the only one in my class. I don’t know if I’ve said a lot about my Tues/Thurs class, but it is pretty hard to sit through. The teacher doesn’t speak English and (literally) for the past week and a half we have been working on learning local songs. So I was a little freaked out when I was the only one who showed up to class today. It actually turned out to be one of the best classes I’ve had since I’ve been here. We still worked on songs for about the first forty-five minutes, but then we spent the next hour having a conversation. We talked about all sorts of random things, but I was just proud I could hold down a conversation for that long. Granted, she can understand a little English, but about 90% of it was in the local language. So maybe all of the random songs I’m learning are paying off. Hopefully things will slow down a little bit this next week. I don’t see how they could be any busier.

A Busy Holiday

So I'm going to apologize up front for this being a little bit late this week. Things out here have been a little bit crazy. Most of last week was spent working on a project, which took up about forty hours. It is going to be a long thing and we've spent about nine hours/day working on it for most of this week too. Being out of school has really helped with getting things done around here too.

One of my good friends is leaving this next week and heading back to The States. Things are definitely going to change around here. For starters, I bet I drop about five pounds in the next month because she won't be around to cook every time we show up at her apartment. It will also just be different because she has been here for the entire time that I've been here (including summer visits). So I guess what I'm saying is, please send food to my roommate and me so that we won't starve.

To celebrate her leave we took off and hiked the Gorge on Monday and Tuesday. There were four of us Westerners and then we had three local friends go with us. Even though the weather wasn't the best, it was still a good time. It was mostly cloudy and you couldn't see the mountains nearly as well as last time, but everyone enjoyed just getting out of town for a while. It was also a good chance to get to talk to our local friends and encourage them.

This next week is going to be pretty crazy. I'm trying not to schedule anything of my own because I know that I'm not going to have a lot of free time. Classes start back on Monday, we have a new family that just moved out here that everyone is trying to get settled, my friend is leaving to head back to the states, and we are also hosting a health clinic in a village. The village is the one that I spend a lot of time in, so I'm helping out with things too. The plan is, as of now, that I'm going to be in charge of the dental hygiene training. I think there is a video and I'm supposed to show how to brush your teeth. I don't know how much more complicated it could be than that though (since they don't sell floss or mouthwash out here). So next week is going to be a little crazy. I'll try and make sure and update this when I have a chance.

Pig Farming

So I don't know if the technical name is pig farming or pig ranching, but either way, I'm going into the business of it. This past week I was out of town and spent about eight days down on a farm. It was a great environment and I learned a lot. There was a hog expert from the states that came out and did a seminar for four days. It was really interesting and I learned things like pig nutrition, how to build sanitary pens, pig development stages, genetics, pig breeding, and how to perform artificial insemination (which definitely falls under the 'more than I ever wanted to know about pigs' category). It was a lot of great information. Also during the week we talked about soil testing and applications in rural settings. It was a great week of training and I'm going to be applying a lot of what I learned soon. The hope is to take what I'm learning out to villages and use that to create some access and build some relationships. Things are really picking up with it and soon we are hoping to create a testing facility in town to use as an example to bring local villagers out to see the technologies. We have actually found a potential site and, hopefully, I'll be working with some locals to get that up and running here in the next month. So things are moving pretty quickly on the whole thing.

In other news, we have a two week holiday from school. It is kind of sad that I'm excited about having a holiday when I've been gone so much lately. I enjoy school and I'm learning a lot, but can you blame me for enjoying a ten day holiday? I have a lot going on in town at the moment, so I don't know if I'll get to do some traveling. Some of us have been tossing around the idea of going out and hiking the Gorge again. We can travel out there, hike it, and travel back in under two days and it'd only cost about $30. So that might be an option. I'll try and keep this updated a little better over the next few weeks now that I'm going to be in town more.

Himalayas

So this week has been a little bit different than most out here. I still had class last week (and went to most of it), but I also had two friends fly down and we took some vacation and backpacked for a while. We traveled out to the deepest gorge in the world and spent two days getting through all of that. It was pretty amazing. On one side you have an 18,000 foot mountain rising straight up from the river, and then on the other side there is a 17,700 foot mountain. It honestly has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. It was hard to actually hike the trail because we spent so much time looking around at the scenery. Also along the path there were tons of waterfalls and different surroundings at every turn. Because the elevation changed so much we would go from a forest, to a mountain forest, to rocky cliffs in just a few hours. It was a great time of getting to go out with some friends and just enjoy being in the wilderness.

After the two days of hiking the gorge we went and stayed at the bottom of the 17,700 foot mountain. Just to put the mountain in perspective, it would be the second tallest mountain in the United States, behind Mt. McKinley, and it is well over 3,000 feet taller than the tallest mountain in the lower forty-eight states. So it was pretty big and an amazing sight. We set out to climb the mountain on Friday and hiked about six hours up to Base Camp. While eating dinner at Base Camp one of the guys who came to visit started throwing up and had a serious case of altitude sickness. I guess going from 1,000 feet to 13,000 feet in just a few days is not a good idea. Because he was sick the other two guys decided to go down the next day and not attempt to summit with us. My roommate and I took off with our guides at about 4:45am on Saturday and reached the peak at about 9am. I wish that I was cool and could say that the climb to the top was easy, but it was one of the physically most demanding things that I've ever done. We started off taking breaks about once every twenty minutes and by the time we reached the top of the glacier we were taking breaks about once every twenty steps. It is crazy how much altitude can slow you down. We made it to the summit though, took some pictures and then headed back down to Base Camp. The trip down was much easier, however it still took about two and a half hours. At Base Camp we took a short break, ate some lunch, and then made the three hour hike back down to the village. Overall, it was a great trip; however it was incredibly exhausting.

So pretty much the rest of this week I have been trying to catch up on sleep (getting up at 3:50am to climb a mountain will really mess with your sleep cycle) and I've been working on school work. Class is continuing to go well and I'm finally starting to pick up more of the language. I can't really put together complex sentences yet, but I'm getting a lot closer. Hopefully that will fall into place soon. As far as other things going on, I'll be heading out of town on Thursday to spend some time down on a farm. I'll spend about a week there working on some agricultural projects and learning fun things like how to immunize pigs and plant soybeans and all sorts of useful life skills. So if I don't get this updated next week it is because I'm out of pocket and I'll make sure and add more once I get back.