Tuesday, February 22, 2011
we're fine, folks!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Off to Nepal soon!
Dear Family and Friends,
If ya already got this in an email, you don't have to read it again!
As most of you know, three years ago I traveled to Nepal to volunteer at the Harka Self-Sustaining Orphan Home in Chitwan. During the three months I spent at the orphanage, I found myself in a myriad of situations- from completely overwhelmed to wholly thankful. I traveled with friend Rebecca Smith, and though we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, we both knew that we wanted to work with children.
The children that we worked with, and the experience of living in the orphanage changed our lives. Over our time at Harka, we went from outsiders to big sisters. Not speaking any Nepali (and no one at the orphanage speaking any English), we created a language that led us to understanding with the 17 children. We were the first volunteers to the orphanage who stayed longer than two weeks. It took a while to get over the rift that had been created by other volunteers, unintentionally, by staying for such short periods of time. The children had come to view others, especially international volunteers, as transient beings and never became close to them. I remember distinctly the night that Sirjana, the eldest girl at the home, followed me outside after I said goodnight to the children, and gave me a hug. “Good night, Didi” (big sister).
To have children, especially abandoned children, put their trust and love in your hands is not something to be taken lightly. When Rebecca and I left the orphanage, the children asked when we would be back. We figured two years to be a feasible time frame, and promised to return then. It has now been three years for me (Rebecca visited this past July), and I feel as though I am in a place financially where I can splurge on a plane ticket to Kathmandu again! There has not been a week that goes by where I don’t think about the children at Harka, and thinking about going back is just as overwhelming and exciting as going for the first time.
As a volunteer, my main task will be to care for and entertain the children (which isn’t very hard, let me tell you!). Laxmi, the orphanage director, works 7 days a week to feed, clothe, and support the 17 children at the home, while two houseparents monitor them on a daily basis. My only hope as a volunteer is to provide them a little bit of a break! However, as a volunteer I will also provide crucial funds necessary to start small projects at the Harka, projects that Laxmi cannot afford on her own. In 2008, our donation funded a new toilet facility with piped water- a large improvement in sanitation from the previous toilet. When Rebecca visited this past July, she raised enough money to purchase and install a solar panel- the first of its kind in the village!
There have been many projects, small and large, that have taken place in the three years since I was at Harka, all funded by volunteer donations. There is a new building, with several bedrooms, so that all 17 children don’t have to sleep in the same room. There are more animals, and there is even a shower room! Laxmi always has a new idea up her sleeve to help improve the home and make it more sustainable. Her ultimate goal, of course, is to have it entirely self-sufficient. An amazing woman, who has dedicated the rest of her life to supporting and loving children that are not her own, she deserves something in return.
This time around, I would like to fundraise for a new scooter for Laxmi. When we were at Harka in 2008, Laxmi zipped around town, to and from work, on a little purple scooter (see attached photo). The mobility of her own transportation allowed her to visit the children frequently, keep tabs on the orphanage itself, and still maintain her job in town. However, Rebecca noted that while visiting in July, Laxmi’s scooter was no longer around. Due to her lack of transportation, she is unable to visit the children as often, and when she does, it is costly. Paying for tempos and taxis is not cheap, and takes a long time, cutting into valuable hours that she could be working. Being a mother herself, she would never think of putting herself and her needs first, but in this situation, a new scooter would allow her to be more attentive to the well being of her children, and that benefits everyone.
A used scooter in Nepal is around $800 USD, while a new one is around $1100. The volunteer “fee” is normally $350, but if I could just raise that little bit extra- we could provide a wonderful woman, who has dedicated her life to the children of Harka, the small gift of mobility, something we often take for granted.
Thank you all for being such great supporters of my efforts around the world!
Love,
Britta
Donations may either be deposited into my account (email me for info) or mailed to Lynette Schroeter, 4120 N Springfield, Chicago, IL 60618 (I am currently in New Zealand)
While in Nepal, March 6-April 19, please follow my blog here! I plan to work more on personal photojournalism projects, and write more about Laxmi’s history and the founding of Harka. I also plan to visit a project that I found out about while in New Zealand, a NZ based non-profit that works in the Eastern Himalayan region and is aimed at young mother and early childhood development: www.
Monday, January 17, 2011
the truth
I realized yesterday that I haven’t written in a long time. Unlike my other travel experiences, where I feel the impulse to write every few days or so (usually with too much to write about) living in New Zealand has been the complete opposite. The truth is, my New Zealand experience has been neither good nor bad, leaving me to contemplate the mediocrity of such an excursion.
At times this mediocrity has caused me distress, as I have some innate desire to delve into the exotic and new. I have become frustrated with being here and thus frustrated with myself for being frustrated with it! I think I may have just recently gotten over the hurdle of accepting this experience for what it is, instead of constantly wishing it to be something else (a book I just read centered around Buddhist principles may have helped). On the other hand, it could be that I see the end in the future. Either way, this lack of stimulation has led to lack of inspiration for writing!
Ben and I have been in Takaka now for a little less than two months, my first month spent unemployed. That month was actually quite great and Zen-like, as most of my days were spent getting up early, reading, going to the library, looking for a job and making food. I do not like to think of this process as lazy. Though, I really wasn’t doing anything.
About two weeks in, I accepted a position at the Pohara Store, a general store and take-away shop in a town about 5 miles up the road. I was excited to be working in the kitchen, as I have never worked in a kitchen before. Starting the day after Christmas, my first shift coincided with the onslaught of tourists to our area, known to be a holiday destination for its fantastic beaches. Lets just say that the 200 spot campground in Pohara was empty before Christmas. The day after Christmas, it looked like a white collar refugee camp- each family cramming their boat, car, 4-wheeler, 6 bedroom/ 2 living room tent and entire kitchen furnishings into a 20’ square. I have never seen such ridiculousness in my life.
About three days into my job, I was riding my bike home from work in the rain and a car clipped me too close. Swerving out of the way, I hit a puddle and went flying over the handle bars, catching myself in the unforgiving bed of asphalt. At first I thought I was fine, picking myself up and walking my bike home. A little razzled. But later, as things started to stiffen up, I realized I couldn’t unbend or bend my right arm. The next day, I couldn’t move it more than 20 degrees.
I went to work, told them what happened, and said I couldn’t carry anything. After a week of taking ibuprofen and hoping that it got better, I tripped while getting off my bike, and fell on the same arm (I realized then that the problem was the show straps on the bike I have been using. I have never had a bike where your shoes are strapped in, thus I kept forgetting to take my feet out). Now I was just angry. I was angry at myself for being such a klutz, and angry at my employers for being so unforgiving about an injury. I would repeatedly tell my managers that I could not carry heavy objects, and they would repeatedly ask me to get things for them out of the freezer. When I told them no, they would act angry about it. I finally went to the doctor a few days later, and I had a torn tendon. The only remedy? Rest for three weeks. As there was no way I could be unemployed for three weeks and still have the funds to remain in New Zealand, I just continued to take ibuprofen and rest as much as I could.
During this time at work, we were working 6 days a week (sometimes 8 days in a row), and I was working nights, cooking. Mind you, I have never worked in kitchen before. Taking a job as a ‘kitchen hand’, you think that you will be doing something like, cutting vegetables. One night I was making both burgers and pizzas for our takeaway stands. 50-some burgers and 28 pizzas (from scratch, mind you). The fact that I was getting paid minimum wage made me insane. I continued to look for a new job, but to no avail.
At one point, a café across the street from where Ben works had a help wanted poster in their window, so I went in. The cute, hippie vegan café seemed just up my alley (and, it was only 2 blocks away from our house)! I was called in a second time to chat with the owner, where he proceeded to tell me how much he liked me, how qualified I was, but how he didn’t have a job for me. Um, excuse me? Did you not have a help wanted poster in your window? Ahhh, hippies. Butter you up to keep their karma strong. Just freaking tell me that you hired someone else.
In the past few weeks, I have come to realize that I am not going to get a job somewhere else. I have asked Ben’s boss twice now about jobs, and his responses are equally vague. Thus, I have decided to be content enough with what I have. Hey, it’s stability, right? This week I was told that my hours would be cut, and then pulled aside and told that my hours actually weren’t going to be cut… that they just told me that because another girl was in the room. The owner is manipulative, the manager plays favorites, but I guess as long as I am on the favorite side…I’ll be okay. I think I have proven my baking skills now, and they have started letting me bake whatever I want in the mornings (btw, I requested all morning shifts, as the night shift made me feel crazy in the head). Yesterday, they even let me make macaroni and cheese on my own (I could make it however I wanted) for our hot-meal line. So, I made “Good ‘ol Fashioned American Mac and Cheese” with four cheeses, and croutons on top! I hope they labeled it as such. If this freedom continues, I actually may enjoy work by the end of my time here!
Unfortunately (but fortunately for our wallets), work has dominated our lives for the past month. Working 6 days a week is now over, but as we do not have a vehicle, we can’t really go very far. Last week we rented a car and drove to Nelson Lakes National Park, which is about 3 hours from Takaka. Though awesome to get out of town and finally get to use our tent (got to break it out of the box we bought it in!), the scenery wasn’t that different. The lakes themselves were just lakes, nestled in some low mountain ranges. I must sound like a real downer, eh? Well, to substantiate the point, a Canadian guy we met kind of expressed my feelings to a tee. We decided to free camp by a river while in Nelson Lakes (free camping means you can camp anywhere where it doesn’t say “No Camping”), and ran into a Canadian couple. We chatted for a few minutes with him (he was from Vancouver) and he said he found the thermal pools and coastline of the North Island pretty cool. Then, as if to solidify my own thoughts, he said, “Yeah, but the South Island just kind of looks like western Canada. I mean, I guess it’s cool, but nothing is new and it just makes me think, why don’t I just go home?”
I must just be spoiled by living in Montana, and traveling around the west coast so much. The typical American syndrome, though I have never experienced it before. Yeah, well our mountains are bigger than this. Have you been to Vancouver Island? Have you been to Yellowstone? The Columbia Icefield? I am no longer waiting to be awed by anything here, and if I am, I will be gratefully humbled by it. I think that expectation for something fantastic (impressed by everyone that told me before I left that New Zealand was the be-all and end-all of awesomeness) has definitely passed. Instead, I am learning what it is like to live in a small town (somewhat boring and repetitive, but also safe and calm) and how to consciously live each day.
I’ve started doing yoga, which I actually haven’t attempted since that Eastern Philosophies class I took in high school and passed out in repeatedly, and I really like it. I got a book from one of our roommates, but I think I would benefit from a class as well. There is a community class in town, which I think I may start going to, but there I am also thinking about going to an ashram in Nepal. Oops. I haven’t mentioned that yet. I am going back to Nepal to visit the kids sometime in late March, for one month. That is the plan, anyway. I now have enough money saved up for the flight, I would like to raise money for the donation, and anything else I make can just be traveling support. I haven’t completely sorted my thoughts on it yet, so I will explain more at a later date. The only thing I know is: I am going. I told those kids I would be back in two years, and that was three years ago. Plus, that is about the time when the high season stops here, so we will be out of jobs.
Ben has a massive expedition of Australia planned out, at least roughly, so we will be parting ways for about a month. He planned this trip through Aussie before we were dating, and there is no way I will let him not do it now, while we are so close. Otherwise, he’ll be dreaming his Crocodile Dundee dream forever. Hopefully I can meet him somewhere in Australia for a week or two when I leave Nepal, before we come home in May!
Ta for now~
Monday, November 29, 2010
Takaka!!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
finally...
More pictures
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