Same Same...but Different

Wongchu dropped off me and Dr. Will from CIWEC, who was flying to Thailand on vacation, at the airport. He pulled out two khatas (ceremonial white Buddhist scarves) and tied one around each of our necks, which caught me off guard and made me tear up a little. "Safe journey," he said to me in his gruff, fragmented, matter-of-fact English. "You must come back to Nepal."

Once again, I feel that I have taken so much more than I have given in this latest adventure. There has only been one other country that left me with a lump in my throat on departure, and that was Thailand. Add Nepal to the list.

I had a feeling Nepal would win a place in my heart. How could it not? It has a number of my favorite things in life: mountains & mountain culture, Buddhist influence, and people who become friends that feel like family (important when you are an only child).

When I left for Peace Corps, I had this bizarre fear that I would change in ways I didn't like. My boss at the time, Karen, simply replied, "You'll still be you. You'll just be you with a different perspective on life." She was completely right about this "same but different" concept. Funnily enough, "Same same...but different" is a silly, nonspecific English phrase used in much of Asia. But as usual, I find myself feeling just that.

My last weekend in Nepal, I took a solo trip to Bodhnath, the largest stupa in Asia. Bodhnath is an area within Kathmandu where there is a large concentration of Tibetan refugees. Historically, it was a staging post along the trade route between Lhasa & Kathmandu where Tibetan traders would come pray for a safe journey across the Himalayas. It's a spiritual place, and I needed some alone time to reflect on what I'd learned this month.

What remains the same is that I will always have wanderlust, and that's no surprise. What I think is different now is a reinforced respect for how much mental stamina I possess vs. how much I require to process the challenges of working in the developing world. These quantities are not always the same. It's an exhausting balance for me between feeling compassion and at times necessary compartmentalization & desensitization to the harshness of your surrounding realities. While this happens at work in the US as well, it's more in your face in the developing world (again, same same, but different), and I don't know why it feels more draining now (albeit still rewarding, of course) than it used to. Whether this means I might only travel overseas for fun in the future instead of traveling to work, I don't know. And if short stints of international work are the answer instead of longer commitments like MSF, what happens to the ever sought-after concept of sustainability that we were trained so hard to implement in Peace Corps?

What I do know is that, like many travelers, I want to return to Nepal. My last Nepali interaction was with the airport security guard who inspected my passport on the way out:

"Nepali hoinna?" [You're not Nepali?"] he asked.

"Hoinna. American."

"Eh..." He tilted his head and looked at me again. "You look Nepali." 

I took it as a compliment, and as an auspicious sign that I'll be back.

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Instead of another Random Observations List for my last post, I give you the top 5 "Engrish" signs of Nepal:

5) "Please don't walk on the grace"

4) "WTF: What the Fun Cafe"

3) "Pussy Cat Bar with Pole Dance"

2) "One beer, get finger...chips free"

1) "Tit Bits Cafe & Restaurant"

It's been a great ride. Time to graduate residency, be with my favorite peeps, and start the next adventure. Thanks for reading! Namaste.