Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Today is my last day in Nepal for this trip. I didn't get up early enough to take a new sunrise picture, so I'll use one of the ones that I took last week.

Last night my colleagues and I had Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up at an Italian restaurant since the place we had originally planned to go to have meat closed early. So instead of turkey and potatoes, Thanksgiving dinner was pizza and pasta. As promised, we did have pumpkin pie for dessert, though it took a while for the wait staff to bring us the pie. We were beginning to suspect that they had eaten it themselves...

The only thing missing was the whipped cream for the pie. I was told that if I come back to Nepal next Thanksgiving then they would have pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

I was asked several times yesterday when I would be coming back to Nepal. I imagine I will get similar questions today when I go to the office for the last time. There is a lot happening in Nepal right now, a lot more than I had originally thought was happening when I agreed to come here, so they really want me to come back and stay a while. I would like to, but I really don't know how yet. Of course when I left last year I didn't know if I would come back...

I was asked by one of my colleagues which of the countries that I worked for Build Change in that I liked the most. It was like asking a parent which child he or she likes the best. While I like all of the countries and all of the offices, there is a special place in my heart for Indonesia and Nepal. Indonesia was the first country that I worked in, so it is like my first born child. Nepal is the baby in the family. I do have the feeling that this will not be my last trip here.

I'm treating myself to flying home in Business Class for the first time. I'm excited to see if I will be able to actually sleep on the plane now that I will get to lie down and won't have anyone sitting next to me. If I get used to Business Class and can afford it, I may make more trips to Nepal, or for that matter Indonesia...

Nepal Speakers Forum

This afternoon was the lecture on confined masonry that I discussed in an earlier post. It went longer than I thought (52 minutes compared to the 45 minutes that I thought it would take), but despite that it appeared to go over well. There were about 60 people in the room and there were no walkouts. I could see a few people who were starting to get bored towards the end but I also saw a few people who looked like they were engaged. At least I like to think that they were. I was invited to attend a dinner tomorrow night "in my honor", so I guess I can take that as a sign that the presentation was good.

I was nervous going in since expectations were pretty high. While waiting to speak I also felt a new reason to be nervous, since there was a protocol for calling the speakers up to be seated that I didn't realize until I had already sat down. Then I ended up sitting directly in front of the rostrum during the other presentation when my seat got wedged in between the rostrum and the conference table. Hopefully these breaches of protocol won't get me banned from the country.

The university that sponsored the event gave me a gift, which is very nice, perhaps the nicest gift I have ever received for speaking:

Now I just have to figure out how to pack it in my suitcase...

And yes, they still referred to me as "Doctor"...

Saturday in the Park

I think it was two-thousand and six...

So today's itinerary was: sleep in, breakfast at Cafe Soma, shopping at the food market, browse the Internet back at the house, munch on beef jerky for lunch, work on one of my guideline documents, dinner at Roadhouse Cafe, post to the blog while watching a Premier League football game on the TV, and try to sleep on the hard mattress.

"Strong" latte at Cafe Soma

Sure, it might sound boring, but this Saturday was very much like many of the Saturdays that I spent here last year. Things to do seem to have settled in, especially once the TV in the guest house got fixed just in time for the North London Derby.

Arsenal 2, Tottenham 0, my sister would be happy... I'm happy the TV is back

I haven't decided yet if I'll watch the India-Sri Lanka cricket test match tomorrow. That may be too much back to normal.

I went out for dinner last night with my 3 housemates, our first night out together. I don't know if there will be many others between now and Friday when I leave. My housemates do tend to keep to themselves (as do I, as many of you know). They have each settled into their routines and now I have settled into mine. We will we having dinner together tomorrow night as the lead engineer has invited us to her place for dinner. It will be Newari food so I'll see how much I will be able to eat. I did request momo's...

One thing that is new is the street parades for next week's election. They have been peaceful, not like the political protest marches that I occasionally saw last year. They have also been loud, as each parade has been led by a van blasting traditional Nepali music. I have to say that I'm not a fan of the music. I am happy that the marches have been peaceful. These are the first congressional elections in Nepal under the new constitution so there is some nervousness that things could get ugly, but so far so good.

I remember the last time I was in Nepal during an election things did get ugly, but not in Nepal...

Confined Masonry Chronicles v2.0

This post might have been more appropriate for my old Confined Masonry Chronicles blog...

The structural engineering association here in Nepal [NSET] began an initiative in January to introduce confined masonry construction into the country as an alternative to the concrete frame and unreinforced masonry building construction that is vulnerable to damage in earthquakes but is nevertheless very popular here in Nepal. Since I have been involved in a global confined masonry initiative and had just finished my 2 month assignment in Nepal, I was asked by NSET to participate as an "international consultant" along with 4 others who are much more experts in the field than I am.

When I came to Nepal this time I had some idea that I would be providing consulting for the initiative work group that is working on the design guidelines. At the time though I thought that was all I was going to do. That all changed within 24 hours of my arrival, when the chair of the initiative committee came to the office and asked me if I would give a presentation on confined masonry at a symposium that they were quickly setting up. After he told me that they were having the symposium to take advantage of the fact that I was in Nepal, I couldn't say no. I also couldn't say no because the chair is a very nice person and is very well respected within the Nepali engineering community. Plus he has a very soft voice and always refers to me as Doctor. I haven't had the courage to tell him that I don't have a PhD...

So this coming Tuesday I will be the guest lecturer/keynote speaker on a symposium on confined masonry, presenting to between 60 and 100 Nepali engineers, engineering professors, government officials, and engineering students. I've given presentations on this topic before but have to admit that I'm feeling some pressure to deliver this time, since they seem to think that I'm an expert on confined masonry construction [with a PhD and everything] and have planned this event around me...

Confined masonry construction in Indonesia

Confined masonry construction in Haiti. I took both photos so now I'm an international expert...

I would describe in detail what confined masonry is but most of you reading this probably would be bored and/or confused within 2 sentences. You'll just have to attend the symposium...

Morning in Kathmandu

One of the "advantages" of having jet lag is that I get to wake up with the sunrise. I've noticed that Kathmandu is very quiet during this time. The sounds of honking horns, un-muffled motor scooters, people shouting, dogs barking, and everything else that blasts through the air during the day are strangely silent at the sunrise. Instead all I hear are the morning birds and the occasional rooster, kind of like what I hear in the morning in Kauai.

The same phenomenon occurs at night. After around 8 pm or so, the streets here are virtually empty. Streets that are scary to cross during the day become a cakewalk at night. I was afraid that the reason people were off the streets at night was because of crime, but I asked one of my Nepali colleagues about that and he said that wasn't the case. People were just at home.

I have to say that I have walked the streets at night here many times and while I've always been vigilant I've never felt scared or threatened. Perhaps it is because I'm staying in a relatively affluent neighborhood (relative being the important qualifier here). I'm not sure. There doesn't seem to be much of a police presence. The only time I've seen them is when there is a political protest in the area.

Who would have thought that Kauai and Kathmandu have something in common...

Here I go again...

Somehow I had a feeling I would be back here again...

I’m enjoying a latte at Top of the World and it feels like I never left. The latte is still good, the bacon is still very good, the employees are the same, and the mostly foreigner clientele is still mostly foreigners. And yes, CNN is still on the TV talking about Trump. The neighborhood looks the same but I can already see some changes. There are a couple of new buildings, a couple of houses that have been repainted, and the road has been repaved. Well, part of it anyway. In Nepal that is progress...

The multi-story building in the back is new. It was a vacant lot last year.

No progress on the vacant lot that was cleared out last year though.

The lattes are still good

I find it hard to believe now that for 2 months last year this was my home. To some degree that time seems so far away now. I wonder if I can fit back into the community in the same way that I did before. Even though it feels like I never left, it still feels different somehow.

One thing that is different is that there are 3 other people now staying in the guest house, which I had pretty much to myself last year. Because of this I was assigned the smallest bedroom rather than the master bedroom that I stayed in before. This might require more of an adjustment than anything else over the next two weeks. Well, that and the fact that they changed the Wi-Fi password...

It is the dawn of a new day...

The Last Day

And so begins my last day in Nepal...

It begins just like the first one did, with a sunrise. Since the first photo that I took in Nepal was of a sunrise I was tempted to use a sunset photo for the last one since that would complete the obvious metaphor. However, I reconsidered and decided that another sunrise would be better because a different metaphor comes to my mind. Not one of endings but one of transitions.

I noticed when I took this photo that the sun was rising on the right side of the large tree, and that when I arrived in October the sun rose on the left side of that tree:

This trip was transformative to my life even before I boarded the plane in San Francisco because of all the things that I had to do to prepare to be away from my house and primary job for 3 months. I dropped the gym membership that I have barely used for years. I cancelled the newspaper subscription that had doubled in price in the last 5 years. I transferred over tasks at work that I've needed to transfer off my desk ever since I arrived so that I could focus my efforts on more important tasks. Some of those tasks might come back to me in January but I hope not.

I've been in Nepal for 62 days counting today. I've never been in a foreign land for that long a period in my entire lifetime. I came here not known how I would eat, wash clothes, or extract money from an ATM. I didn't know if I could deal with the traffic, the dust, the foreign food, the heat (and then the cold), and taxi drivers who couldn't speak English. I didn't know how much electricity, Internet access, or flushing toilets I would have access to. I didn't know if I would have enough medication, toilet paper, and bags of ramen to last the entire trip. Somehow, someway, I managed to figure this all out and not only did I make it to the end I did so with 1 bag of ramen and a roll of toilet paper to spare.

This would not have happened were it not for the people of Build Change Nepal. I knew a couple of them before I came but only by phone calls and emails, so I didn't really know what to expect. They welcomed me and included me in their activities, and with some of them their everyday lives. They were the ones who directed me to the restaurants, the markets, and the ATMs that can be trusted. They were the ones who invited me to dinner. They were the ones who made the effort to explain to me in English the joke that was just told in Nepali. Now they are the ones that are thanking me for coming and asking me to come back or even not leave. I am the one who feels thankful, grateful; indeed full in many ways. I have learned a lot from them and have benefited from their experience, as much if not more than they have with mine.

I am coming home a different person. Not radically different like what is portrayed in the movies, but certainly with a different frame of mind than what I had when I left. Things like how many weeds are in the backyard lawn, how hard it is to find a parking space at work or at church, why Oakland roads have so many potholes, what this word in this provision of this building code means, and so on don't seem as important as they did before. I like to look at the bigger picture of things and trips like this help to remind me not only of what that picture is but also that I should remember to look for them rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of my everyday life that I so often find myself focusing on.

I hope I'll remember to do that as I slowly transition back, though if I forget I can, as my new friends here keep telling me, always come back to Nepal for a reminder...