Jules Henze
Arriving in Kathmandu is an emotional process, above all when you intended to stay in Nepal for five months. You probably didn’t expect the things you see, or you never thought about them before coming here. Some people don’t have just a simple life here but rather a difficult live, and this is negatively impressing.
After the introduction period with VIN I was happy to arrive in Kaule. The traffic doesn’t disturb you anymore, nor the local people do it. Life is still looking poor here, but not under the bad conditions the capital “offers”, and not with people in between able to enjoy Nepal as tourists and somehow provoking the locals to rip them of. Ok, I still felt like a stranger or intruder.
This feeling never dissapeared really, but while working, especially while working on some of the farms participating in the project, It feels easier and easier to live here for a longer time. I got to know people from the village, most of them are really friendly and invite us into their houses for a meal.
The work I’ve done varied quite a lot and included somehow everything from teaching English to children and adults in the village to the more rough work like building a rain drainage out of cement. In between I planted trees, pulled other plants out, counted nitrogen-lumps on roots while helping Vera on her research work, coloured wood, built up something out of it, and so on and so on. Most of the things I’ve rarely done before. That was one of the reasons why I went to Nepal, to live under different conditions and do something different from only mental work in school, what I will continue in university this year.
All in all, after my five months in Nepal I can say that it was a rewarding experience, even if I suffered from some illnesses in between, which sometimes really made me feel like flying home the next day. In the end, flying home was as emotional as arriving in Kathmandu, not because of what you see – I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but you were not surprised by the living conditions here any more – , but because you weren’t sure about going home. Somehow it just started to feel like a home.
