So you study . . . dirt?

Soil: just dirt?

Soil is where the circle of life begins and ends and begins again, as plants take up soil nutrients, herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat herbivores and wastes return to replenish the soil again. Within the soil, microbes are the missing link between death and life, breaking down organic material and releasing raw mineral nutrients. Soil isn’t just dirt: it is home to up to 10 billion microorganisms—per gram!

Around the world, the people most dependent on healthy soil microbial dynamics may not even be aware of these unseen biological processes. Today, high soil degradation and low access to fertilizers critically intersect with unmet nutritional needs in sub-Saharan Africa. Soils become degraded when crop residues are removed, perhaps to feed livestock, without adequate fertilizer use. The soil’s naturally rich nutrient reserve, organic matter, becomes exhausted. Tillage speeds up organic matter depletion by mixing the soil and stimulating microbial degradation. This disturbance also destroys soil structure stabilized by microbial filaments and exudates binding mineral and organic materials. Farmers in Africa are under pressure to harvest as much from the land as possible with limited input availability. For them, a deeper awareness of soil microbiome activity would inform strategies to improve crop yields today without jeopardizing soil heath in the future.

I study how conservation agricultural practices affect the soil microbiome and overall soil microbial activity. Considering soil microbiome indicators in evaluating agricultural sustainability can help farmers minimize the risks they take when adapting new practices to maintain and restore soil health and organic matter.

Soil: more than just dirt. 😉

Note: this is a slightly extended transcript of a two-minute “lightning talk” given by Nina Camillone at the fourth annual Penn State Microbiome Center Networking Event on October 1, 2019 in University Park, PA.

Las investigaciones como aventura

(The English version of this post is on the MCC Nepal website–click here to check it out!)

Las investigaciones. Para algunos, estas palabras significan tiempo dando la vuelta a hojas en libros pesados, escribiendo ensayos en columnas ordenadas en una computadora y intentando mostrar capacidades académicas superiores. Sin embargo, para mi como SALTera en Nepal, un proyecto de investigación significa una experiencia viviente, andando en moto entre colinas verdes, garabateando notas incómodamente bilingües en mi tabla con pinza y disfrutando con agradecimiento profundo la paciencia de mis encuestados mientras pregunto cosas que a veces están tontas o básicas en una idioma que todavía estoy aprendiendo.

Una mañana soleada en la oficina del proyecto de la nutrición de RICOD en Gotikhel

Colectando datos del encuesto y platicando con una familia campesina en Manikhel (Foto cortesía de Ganesh Bhatt)

Mi asignación de SALT (Sirviendo y Aprendiendo Juntos, nombrado por sus siglos en inglés) es con la Institución Rural para el Desarrollo Comunitario (o RICOD, también por sus siglos en inglés), una ONG socia del CCM (Comité Central Menonita). Con RICOD, más que todo he estado involucrado con aprendiendo sobre y apoyando en el proyecto Mejorando la Nutrición de Madres y Hijos en Comunidades Rurales. Este proyecto se dedica al desarrollo comunitario en el parte sur de la Valle Kathmandú y provee capacitaciones a mujeres recién maridas, madres de niños pequeños y sus familiares varones en temas incluyendo la nutrición, la agricultura, la higiene y las finanzas. La fase actual de proyecto se enfoca en ochos comunidades. En cada una de ellas, un(a) Facilitador(a) de Campo trabaja para conectarse con grupos de madres, organizar capacitaciones y vincular a las familias más vulnerables en el grupo meta con la información y aporte ofertados por RICOD. Est@s Facilitadores de Campo usualmente son miembros de la comunidad donde supervisan actividades. Después de conociendo a ell@s en reuniones de la oficina y capacitaciones en los primeros meses de mi año de SALT, disfruté la oportunidad dado por mi encuesto de visitar las áreas donde mis compañer@s de trabajo viven y realizan la mayoría de su trabajo. Agradezco grandemente, no solo el tiempo y esfuerzos que el equipo de RICOD han dedicado para hacer mi investigación y encuesto posibles, pero también la alegría y riza que han compartido conmigo durante mi tiempo acá en Nepal.

Sentándonos en un porche en Ashrang, incluyendo Gyanu Ghimire, Facilitadora de Campo de RICOD (izquierda). En la cesta colgada un bebé se está descansando! (Foto cortesía de Ganesh Bhatt)

La vista desde la ventana de un hotel y restaurante de estilo de casa en Thuladurlung

Por la razón que estoy interesada en la agricultura sostenible y tengo alguna experiencia en este área, comuniqué con CCM y RICOD para desarrollar un tema de investigación que pudiera informar las iniciativas de RICOD para dar capacitaciones de huerto y practicas agrícolas orgánicas. La mayoría de las familias en el área proyecto de RICOD (en el sur del distrito Lalitpur) cultivan granos y vegetales para consumo doméstico y fuera de eso se compre productos disponibles localmente. Entonces, la promoción de la agricultura orgánica tiene la potencial beneficiar a una comunidad en varias niveles, incluyendo la nutrición, la salud y el estado económico. El tema de mi investigación enfoca en lo que contribuye a las decisiones de agricultores de usar o no usar pesticidas y abonos químicos, con el propósito de aumentar la comprensión de las prioridades, preocupaciones y fuentes de información que guían a estas comunidades rurales. Mi esperanza es que los datos que he levantado y el análisis en que ya estoy trabajando puedan apoyar a RICOD evaluar, comunicar y involucrarse en la situación de la zona con aún más eficacia, sostenibilidad y pertinencia integral.

Encuestada en Gimdi en su campo (Foto cortesía de Ganesh Bhatt)

Mis supervisores y compañer@s de trabajo en RICOD me ayudaron mucho en el desarrollo, traducción y realización de mi encuesto. En esta foto, uno de ell@s, Ganesh Batt, Técnico Agrónomo (derecho), y yo estamos escuchando a un encuestado en Gotikhel. (Foto cortesía de Susmita Dulal)

Fuera de visitando hogares y hablando con agricultores, uno de mis aspectos favoritos de pasando tiempo en el campo es el tiempo libre con mis compañer@s de trabajo. Cuando nos mantenemos en la oficina campesina para las reuniones mensuales, cocinamos, comemos y llevamos los platos juntos como grupo; pasando diez diez días basado en el campo para realizar mi encuesto, me encontré con aún más tiempo para platicar con sol@s un@s poc@s de ell@s a la vez sobre el trabajo, la vida y la cultura. Aún tuve chance explorar algunos lugares cercanas con ell@s después de terminar las tareas del día (incluso el monasterio budista en las fotos siguientes). Mientras yo solo estoy en Nepal por un año, mis compañer@s de trabajo continuarán desarrollando su país y sirviendo a sus comunidades hasta largo después de mi regreso a los EEUU. Es un honor para me tener la oportunidad durante mi asignación de SALT de contribuir un poquito al trabajo que ell@s están realizando en nuestro mundo como RICOD. En los meses que me quedan acá espero continuar aprovechando este experiencia de explorar y aprender no solo a través de maneras oficiales, como visites al campo e “investigaciones,” pero también por maneras informales encontrado en mi vida cotidiana.

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Visitando a un “gumba” (monasterio budista) en Kaleshwar con Yadov Sanjel y Bachhu Dahal después de un día de caminando entre hogares de agricultores y realizando encuestas. Que magnifica la vista para terminar el día!

Clean socks and sunny skies

My clothes are clean and hung up to dry. I feel so content.

Time outside in the sun, physical activity, and useful work do me good.

It’s a little warmer than it has been these past few days, so this morning felt like summer—or like those early days in spring before we learn to take the warmth for granted—with my sweatshirt tied around my waist, the birds chirping, and airplanes passing over head with a gentle roar. “Yes, little humans, you can fly,” they hum, reminding us that anything we dream up as we watch the shifting clouds can become possible. Like traveling to the other side of the mountains, or to the other side of the world. Like learning to speak a new language. Or like machines that wash our clothes for us. (Wouldn’t that be nice?) But for today, the water is refreshingly cold instead of harsh between my fingers as they fish around in the wash basin for another sock.

A ladybug wanted to help with my laundry too!

The sock gets rubbed and pushed and tugged and squished between the heel of my left hand and the orange lump of soap in my right. Poor little sock. It dutifully collects all the dust of the city streets that overwhelms the shoes’ defenses—those abused, overtaxed, submissive shoes—without compromising its primary charge of absorbing the sweat massaged onto it from the other direction. After spending its days in the soft yet stuffy confines of my office slippers, or worse in the cramped, dark quarters of sneakers dragged across muddy, littered, and unevenly bricked pathways, what is its reward? A drowning in soap-murky water, the harsh taste of detergent, and the stretching and crushing of its threads as I scrub out the dirt that was just starting to feel comfortable there. I administer the sock’s recompense and wring it dry, one in a series of its similarly condemned compatriots.

An evening view of the terrace outside our kitchen where I wash my clothes. You can see the water spigot in the short wall on the left and a metal wash basin on the ground. Depending on the season of the year there are sometimes many more plants and flowers on the roof too!

I stand up amidst the water basins and clothes piles to stretch my squatting-stiff knees, and I happen to glance down to a lower terrace neighboring my fourth-floor laundry space. A young girl wrapped in a purple towel kneels by a plastic bucket like the ones I’m rinsing my clothes in. She dunks her head up and down, up and down, as she washes the hair that streams from its crown into the water below. You may have never washed your hair (or even your clothes) in a bucket on a concrete roof under the sun, but you must feel the deep and raw humanity of our actions—for this is how we humans live and who we are, always finding something to clean, something to fix, something to build, something to grow. Of course, more often than not we are also the ones who made dirty, who broke, who destroyed, who wounded. We expend so much energy in planning and calculating and theorizing how to best conquer the chaos around us, that sometimes we trample down our neighbor’s home in pursuit of our own lustful ideals of order. But not here, not today. She washes her hair outside; I wash mine inside; we both end up as clean as the richest politicians in the world, no matter how expensive their shampoos may be.

And so, in our own ways and according to our own needs, we both wash. We humans fix, we build, we grow together as individuals and communities to become the world.

Another airplane flies overhead.

Mountain view from my neighborhood on a clear day

Now, my socks are as relaxed and free as they get: clipped to the line, hung out to dry in the sun. If the haze along the horizon clears, they’ll even have a nice view of the Himalayas from their rooftop retreat. If they were humans, they could dream of building a plane and flying away beyond the mountains in search of a better life for themselves, and then decide against it in favor of continuing to support the livelihood of the footwear community here. I bet they would be content to rest and work and rest again, as I am, sitting cross-legged on my bed by the open window. But I guess we’ll just have to imagine—after all, they’re just socks.

Monthly Meeting

The last two days of every month, all staff members of the Rural Institution for Community Development (RICOD) working on the Improving Mother and Child Nutrition Project come together for a meeting at our field project office in Gotikhel (around three hours by bus from the town where I live and where the main office is). Below is a glimpse into one of those meetings, to give you a bit of an idea of some of the work this organization is doing and what it’s like for me as a volunteer there.

“Namaskar sabaai jaana laai,” hello everyone, and the meeting begins with a greeting and a smile.

Sunlight drifts through the bars of the open window, softening the winter chill that emanates from the thinly carpeted floor of the meeting room. The executive director sits at one of the two desks at the back of the room, farthest from the windows, typing something on his laptop. The rest of the staff and I have settled cross-legged on square cushions along the other three sides of the room, intermingled with notebooks, pens, folders, and other papers testifying to work activities planned and accomplished.

One staff member has written out the meeting agenda with marker on a large piece of newsprint paper and masking-taped it to the wall; the first item reads (in English), “Progress sharing of January 2018.” Even though the spoken language of RICOD’s meetings is Nepali, and the months of the commonly used Hindu calendar are chopped in half and restitched into hybrid chunks to align with the Gregorian system, an organization with international connections doesn’t shy away from using English in documents and an imported date system for scheduling. English words like “documentation,” “finance,” “training,” “reporting,” “meeting,” and many others deep in the backbone of the organization’s functioning are often left untranslated and liberally sprinkled in spoken language. Despite my limited Nepali communication skills, after only four months of being with RICOD I can often understand a good percentage of office-speak.

After the project coordinator, my wonderful supervisor Basu Karki, opens the meeting and introduces the goals of our two days together, each member of the field staff around the circle shares in turn about the progress of their work in the past month. What activities were originally planned? What was actually achieved? Were there any challenges? What is left to do? Representing the eight rural villages targeted by this phase of the project, the field facilitators give updates on the progress of their own communities: advocating for nutritious food in schools, conducting home visits to encourage proper hand washing, giving mothers of young children seed support for home vegetable gardens, teaching parents to make and feed their children protein-rich foods, and promoting other small changes that can impact the health of a whole generation and more. I listen to the stories—struggling to understand all I can manage—and I piece together a picture of growth, determination, and hope defying the inertia of setbacks and stagnation. Though many of the field facilitators are young, every one of them is a leader in their communities, working to equip people to care for themselves and their neighbors, and sitting among them with little to contribute to the discussion I feel both inspired and useless.

The next topic of discussion is the survey questionnaire that RICOD will administer to monitor the progress achieved in the first year of the three-year project cycle. Copies of the survey, with explanations in the margins linking each question to the project’s expected outcomes, are passed out to everyone in the room, and we go over it question by question for feedback and clarification. I periodically whisper questions to the coworker sitting next to me, identify new vocab words with a finger, and jot down translations and explanations in my notebook.

The crisp white sheets in my hands, stacked and stapled, ground me to the meeting in more ways than one. A visual learner, it’s much easier for me to track with the flow of the meeting when I can scribble notes on a numbered sheet that physically communicates words my ears struggle to keep up with. Besides its format, the purpose of the survey also reminds me of how I got to Nepal. The nutrition project’s goals, intended outcomes, and activities are conformed to MCC’s guidelines, and the upcoming due dates for the monitoring survey, the annual report, and the case studies are part of RICOD’s accountability to MCC. MCC is the organization through which comes international funding. And the international SALT volunteer (that’s me). My English skills are only important and helpful to a local organization like RICOD because this project receives funding through English-speaking foreigners. I’m honored to be part of MCC’s work to meaningfully support the growth of people and communities, and I see their required project proposals, monitoring updates, reports, and such as being helpful not only in justifying donation dollars but also in enhancing organizations’ efficiency in working toward their own goals. Still, the existence of my own culture’s power, influence, and privilege makes me uncomfortable, because I know it could easily be abused.

At last, the meeting breaks for khaajaa—the afternoon food (“lunch” or “snack”) eaten between the two daal bhaat (lentils and rice) meals of a typical Nepali day. I for one am eager to stand up and stretch my legs. We spill out of the project office and trickle down the dirt driveway toward the khaajaa ghar, snack house, that we often frequent. We amble between yellow mustard fields and brown, tilled plots guarded by scattered one- and two-story brick houses, scooting to the side of the path as a motorcycle passes by. The road cuts straight along the side of a slope, the neighboring hills close enough to almost surround the village in a pocket of green. I savor the clean air, grateful for a break from the dusty and congested urban areas.

Stretched out along the road into town, the nutrition project team members are all very different from each other. They are men and women, younger and older, married and single, with different heights, skin tones, eye shapes, and sometimes also different home languages. Some women dress in traditional kurtaa suruwaal, with vermilion powder marking their foreheads and a red dot between their eyebrows in the tradition of Hindu married women in Nepal. Others wear skinny jeans and western-style sweaters. At the same time, they are all Nepali, and I am the only one with blue eyes and fair hair, the only one who’s not Hindu and doesn’t speak even one Asian language well. The other women chatter as we stroll along, and I struggle to snatch the flow of conversation and ask a question or two myself. For now, that’s all I can do. And for now, that’s all that’s expected of me.

We still have a day and a half left of this month’s meetings and discussions, and there seems to be a limitless amount of work left for the development of Nepal that my organization barely makes a dent in from month to month. But it is a start. And for now, that is what is important.

Morning दूध चिया (milk tea)

दूध चिया (dudh chiyaa): milk tea

A glimpse into an everyday morning at my homestay in Chapagaun through my eyes as a learner of language and culture

“दिदी, आउनुस् (didi, aaunus, Sister, come).” Sion peaks timidly past my door around eight o’clock in the morning. I smile, and she has dashed back up the stairs to the fourth floor before I can put down my book. My चपाल (chapaal, flip-flops) clumsily slap the smooth concrete steps with each step as I wriggle my toes into them and chase after her.

The kitchen is filled with cold, golden light, which the pale blue sky seems to breathe through the open window, across the table, and all the way to the shelf cluttered with plates, bowls, and mugs under the kitchen counter. I step through the doorway and take my usual seat with the window to my right and the wall with an unframed family photo on the wall across from me. Sion’s efficient mother seems to be tending multiple pots on the gas stove, pouring three mugs of tea, and cutting आलु (aalu, potatoes) almost all at once. Under her direction, Sion tears open a plastic package of puffs (a dry, flaky, rectangular semi-sweet pastry) and sets half of them out on the table on a flat metal plate. I wrap my hands around my cup of चिया (chiyaa, tea) as Sion’s twin brother, Simeon, slinks into his chair on the other side of the table and snags a puff from the open bag.

Little rivers of steam from our milk tea wind lazily out the window, mingling with the chirping of birds, crowing of roosters, and the chatter of unseen neighborhood children. The three- and four-story brick and cement buildings that keep ours company seem attentive to the sounds washing over them from the streets below. A colorful balcony of drying laundry joins the voices of animated salutations; garden plants spill green across the rooftops as their produce is bought, sold, cooked, and eaten below; and the soft rumble of buses and motorbikes is echoed by gray cement and textured brick. The sounds and colors of the town fade into the hazy hills just beyond. I return my gaze to my mug so I don’t spill as I raise it to my lips.

Oops. Not quite yet. To my left, Sion has bowed her head and squinted her eyes in a moment of प्राथना (praartThanaa, prayer), before drinking her tea. I follow suit, then grab a puff from the plate and dunk one end in my mug. Nepali Christians may make up a small percentage of the population, but those I have met have been bold in their faith and proud of their identity.

As the three of us litter the plastic tablecloth with flaky puff crumbs and sip our tea, Sion and Simeon’s mother is still hard at work. She squats to cut vegetables using a knife tool that arcs from a base on the floor. She rises to switch a pot to a different burner, comes to the table to collect a pile of bean pods into a bowl, and keeps up a conversation with her two children about their activities and responsibilities at school, all punctuated by the persistent releasing of steam from the pressure cooker. I think she’s going to give herself a break when she pours her own tea into a simple metal cup, but then she remains standing at the table and begins shelling the bean pods. I’ve heard that women’s quality of life has improved in Nepal since historical times, when especially daughters-in-law were often treated as the family’s servants, overworked and underfed, but no amount of respect can diminish how much work it really does take to run a household from scratch.

As I reach the soggy bits of puff that have sunk to the bottom of my tea mug, her husband enters the kitchen with the slow, steady, strong tread of a farmer. He sets down the metal thermos that had carried yesterday’s खाजा (khaajaa, snack, or in this case lunch) to the field and joins his wife at the table, while his son and daughter have already stood up to leave. Simeon checks his watch, leaves his mug in the sink, and skips away, while Sion grabs a soapy sponge and starts washing the dishes. I lend a hand to rinse the mugs before we too slip away again down the stairs to get ready for the day.

Breathe

Listen. Not metaphorically to what I’ve written here but actually to what’s going on around you right now. Redeem a moment from the idolatrous urge to rush ahead and just breathe.

What do you think you’re hurrying towards anyway? Everything that needs to happen will work out if and when it needs to. Time’s even pace always continues, never hesitant and never rushed, and its rhythm of grace will comfort you if you let it.

Breath in eternal trust and exhale the moment that is now. Plant your feet on the earth and set your course by the stars. The beauty of life is not something you can count with numbers or fit in a box no matter how many wires are attached to it, how many lights it has, or how often it beeps or buzzes–although the numbers and boxes can be beautiful too, if they join in with the rest of life’s dance. Not even they can tame life’s unpredictability or spur forward its strong, steady, ambling pace.

Breath in energy and exhale rest. The God whose rule guides the stars and whose faithful rain whispers life to seeds planted in dirt knows how many hairs are on the head of each mountain goat, sea otter, and human child. Including you.

So listen with your heart open and don’t rush by the people whose lives God has woven together with yours. Where do you think you’re going, anyway?

(Sorry this isn’t really about my life in Nepal, but this is definitely something I’ve been learning here as a foreigner and as a young person thinking about life-direction decisions. Packing up and going to a new place gives you a chance to decide what is really important enough to keep with you, and leaving behind old habits and ways of doing things makes you wonder why you really do anything at all. I think the answers have a lot to do with people, relationships, creation, and the Creator, but if you ever ask yourself similar sorts of questions, I’d love to hear how you look for answers or remember the ones you’ve found! Comments or other messages are always welcome!)

Learning and relearning

Living in a new place is to have my mind continually broadened, focused, expanded, and nudged in many different directions with each new day. I’m never exactly the same person I was the day before, because I’ve always just gained another new vocab word, untangled another new sentence structure, adjusted to a new cultural habit, deepened my confidence in a new skill, or gotten to know a new friend better. Below I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned (or relearned in a new way!) specific to where I am in Nepal, but I hope they’ll also remind you of how much YOU, dear intelligent reader, have learned over the course of your life about the place(s) and culture(s) you have lived in. Whether you currently find yourself somewhere old or somewhere new, you are also constantly learning and growing, never exactly the same person you were before. Stop and think about it for a second–how far you’ve come and how much you know. Your mind is actually pretty amazing (and so are you).

Stunning sunset clouds above my neighborhood on the way home from work

Exploring Boudhanath Stupa with Sara, Susma, and MIka

Alumni and curren participants in MCC’s international volunteer programs

Now, here are six things I didn’t know two months ago, which I bet you don’t know either (unless you’ve lived in Nepal):

When to take my shoes off

Based on previous experiences with different Asian cultures, I wasn’t too surprised to see shoe racks outside most of the homes I have been to here.

What I wasn’t expecting was that we also take off our shoes before entering the church (same for if you were entering a Hindu temple).

The one that throws me off a bit is for the office. One morning I didn’t realize for an hour and a half that I had accidentally worn my shoes into the building instead of leaving them outside like normal (shh don’t tell anyone. . . . I promise it won’t happen again!)

Stairwell outside my house

Bulletin board outside church

MCC Nepal office building

The streets are very dusty here, so I bet we track way less grime inside this way.

 

How to catch a bus

Last week many offices were closed for the government holiday Constitution Day, so my two travelling buddies and I (you should definitely check out their travel blogs here and here) took advantage of some extra free time to visit a tomato farmer who invited us to her place a little ways outside the city. Armed with an email with the name of the town in both Nepali (जितपुरफेदि) and the Romanized version (Jitpurfhedi), we set out in a taxi to the post office that served as a landmark for the bus stop. When we got there, however, no one seemed to have heard of Jitpurfhedi. Some of the buses and microbuses had a yellow paper displayed in the front window listing their destinations, but none of them said जितपुरफेदि. The young bus conductors who manage the door and collect fares all shook their heads “no” when we asked. We kept walking along the curb as a seemingly endless stream of buses pulled up, loaded passengers, and drove off behind us, going many exciting places I’m sure but not Jitpurfhedi. Finally a helpful stranger on the sidewalk suggested that we walk around the block to a different bus stop (or maybe it’s the other side of the same very large strip of road that serves as a bus stop . . . either way we did it). Around the corner, past some shops and parks, over a pedestrian bride, and we started the process again: walking along the endless curb, squinting at every sign in the bus windshields, and lots of mystified bus workers shaking their heads. Then, after around half an hour total of searching for a bus we still hoped actually existed, wonder of wonders, we found someone else waiting on the sidewalk who was going the same place! We were able to board the bus with her after just a couple more minutes. Moral of the story: people are often kind and helpful when they can be, and we certainly wouldn’t have made it to the tomato farm without them.

Proof that we did, in fact, make it to the tomato farm! Here we are with the multi-talented and wonderfully hospitable Nantu Tamang.

(If you want to experience navigating Kathmandu city streets but are currently in a different part of the world, the next best thing is probably to read my fellow SALTer and friend Sara’s immersive blog post.)

When my birthday is

or any day for that matter. The Nepali calendar has twelve months, just like the Gregorian calendar (the one we use in the US and many other places), but the first month  (Baisaakh) starts in the middle of April. This means that every Nepali month starts in the middle of a Gregorian month, and visa versa. For example, today, September 25, is actually Asoj 9 on the Nepali calendar. This year my birthday (November 17) falls on Mangshir 1, but since the lengths of the Nepali months vary it will probably be different next year–and by next year, I mean 2075, since the Nepali years start counting almost 57 years before the Gregorian system. So yes, Nepal is so far ahead of the rest of the world that it reached 2074 while everyone else was still in 2017. Either that or one of the planes I took to get here was actually a time machine.

Language class with our ever-patient teacher Rekha Rajbhandari

Gratuitous picture of the three of us in matching kurtas

How to make roti

So far, I’ve tried many new and delicious Nepali foods, but the one that is probably the most fun to make (or watch being made) is roti, Nepali flat bread. My host mom had already made the wheat flour dough and turned on the roti maker (like a small, round, flat panini press) when she demonstrated the steps for me:

1. Roll a small ball of dough between your palms, flatten it, and sprinkle it with flour.
2. Place in the center of the roti maker.
3. Close the roti maker swiftly, smoothly, and firmly to squash the dough into a flat circle (easier said than done).
4. Open the roti maker and watch until it is slightly brown and one side is done.
5. Flip the roti! (Use a towel or quickly touch only the roti since the press is hot.)
6. After half a minute comes the fun part. Close the roti maker (not pushing this time) and watch as the steam inside the roti expands and causes it to puff up like a balloon (it might slide right out of the roti maker if you let it).
7. After another half minute the roti will be fully cooked, deflated, and ready to eat! Keep them warm in a covered container until you serve them (with spicy vegetable or meat sauce) because once cool they are no longer as pliable and soft.

(For an example of what eating aforementioned spicy vegetables should most of the time hopefully not be like, read through to point #2 in this wonderful blog post by my friend and fellow SALTer Mika, which also describes very well some of the frustrations and laughter that go along with language learning.)

My host mom made all this very effortless, making perfectly round, evenly cooked rotis, while at first mine were a bit lopsided because my dough balls tended to slip out of the roti maker instead of flattening. As I kept trying, however, and after several failed attempts that were rescued by my host mom, I started to get the hang of it, and even made several rotis unsupervised when she had to take a phone call. This small achievement actually inspired the title of this blog post when my host mom approvingly commented, “सिक्नुभयो!” (siknubhayo! you learned!), and I realized that’s bascially the theme of my life these weeks.

When to wear a saari

To celebrate . . . for example to a wedding! One of our coworkers invited us to her sister’s wedding, so my fellow SALTer Mika and I each borrowed a beautiful saari from my host family, who kindly helped us properly wrap, fold, and pin them. Here we are all dressed up with other members of the MCC Nepal team at the party!

How to pray in Nepali

Same as with my family in New York and with Christians anywhere else I’ve lived, at my home in Nepal we pray at meals before we eat together. Usually a member of my host family prays in Nepali, and a couple times I’ve prayed in English. When I had been here for a couple weeks, though, my host brother challenged me: “And now Nina will pray . . . in Nepali!” But I quickly shook my head and made excuses: “I don’t know how to yet, I don’t know the right grammar and words, maybe next week.” Next week, same challenge, same (more or less legitimate) excuses. “Tomorrow I will do it, I need to look up some more words and learn a few more structures, maybe if you write something down I could memorize it,” I would say. My perfectionism wanted “tomorrow” to remain conveniently in the future, because I knew a prayer in Nepali out of my mouth (or in any language, to be honest) would be simple and inelegant if not awkward. But at the same time, since thoughts and prayers are so intertwined for me, and I have to start thinking in a language if I am to speak it well, I was eager to be able to pray in Nepali. Finally, after five weeks of being here and making sure I could pronounce आशिष् (aashis), blessing, I was able to put together a few short sentences to pray with my family before dinner. It was definitely simple and probably inelegant, but awkward? No. God hears prayers in every language from His children all over the world (no matter what mistakes non-native speakers make). For me, deeper fellowship with people who are not only friends but also spiritual family is a sweet reward to anticipate as I learn to speak and pray in a new language.

Eating homemade panipuri with my host family

Daily staff lunch at the MCC Nepal office

Bonus if you want to learn even more . . . five of my Nepali vocab words!

• दाल (dhaal): lentils
• भात (bhaat): rice  (put those two together and you get dhaal bhaat, the delicious staple Nepali meal)
• शहर (sahar): city
• गाउँ (gaau): village
• प्रार्थना (praarthnaa): prayer

Nothing (and everything) to boast about

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

Every day in the MCC Nepal Office starts with a devotional time that includes singing a worship chorus, reading a Scripture passage, time for people to offer their reflections on the reading, and a prayer. Since most of this happens in the Nepali language, and I’m only just starting to learn to speak, there’s a lot in the devotionals that I can’t understand yet. The Bibles we read from are bilingual, though, in Nepali and English, so even if no one translates I can still follow along what we’re talking about.

This week, we began reading through 1 Corinthians, and the quote above is from the first chapter that we read on Monday, my first day in the office. In this time of newness, it is very easy for me to feel “weak” and “foolish” as a foreigner who can hardly perform basic tasks like speaking, reading, dressing, crossing the street, or interacting at all with people in some kind of a normal way. But these words of God comfort and free me, because the weak and foolish, who have nothing of their own to boast about, are the ones chosen to demonstrate God’s strength and wisdom from their position of total dependence.

Fabric shopping for kurta suruwal (traditional tunic and loose pants)

Looking down on part of Kathmandu, the city I’m learning to navigate, with hills and a winding pathway in the distance

Swayambhu Buddhist temple

My life is not about proving myself, and I haven’t come to Nepal to accomplish anything (at least as most people would count an “accomplishment”). My hope is to learn to truly live–to genuinely love others and boast about the great things God is doing in their hearts and their communities. Right now, that means receiving–language help, food, hospitality, to name a few–so that I learn by example how to begin giving back in return.

(Edit: if you want another point of view of devotionals and the rest of the day of the office, check out this post on my friend and fellow SALTer Sara’s blog!)

Do you want to learn some Nepali language with me? Here are five words from this week!

• नमस्ते (namaste): hello
• साथी (saathi): friend
• दिदी (didi): older sister
• चिया (chiyaa): tea
• घर (ghar): house

Waiting to Launch

This summer, my brother and I went to an amusement park to ride the world’s tallest roller coaster. With a height of 456 ft (139 m) and a top speed of 128 mph (206 km/h), it was quite a thrill!

Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingda_Ka

 

If you don’t care for roller coasters, you might be surprised that for me the scariest part wasn’t forcefully hurtling strait up toward the clouds, or watching the parking lot race toward us as we plummeted face-first downwards, or even the eerie second of stillness in between while the train straddled the top of the peak. (At only 28 seconds long, the ride honestly didn’t give me much time to even think about feeling scared.) None of these–for me, the most fear-inducing, nerve-raking moments were before the ride technically started, when we were strapped in and waiting for launch. You’re basically stuck, helpless to move forwards or backwards, knowing that it’s too late to chicken out and get off, and at any instant you’re about to be thrust forward to reach the coaster’s top speed in under 3.5 seconds. The launch mechanism clicks and slides somewhere beneath you. Everything seems ready to go. Meanwhile, you just sit there and wait for an agonizingly long moment of building, faltering, and resurging anticipation.

This moment of anticipation before moving into a new experience describes well my emotions for these past few weeks, as I’ve been getting ready to spend a gap year serving in Nepal with the Mennonite Central Committee’s SALT program. I’ve spent countless hours preparing by beginning to learn a new language, packing, and getting various paperwork in order. I’m excited to be immersed in a new (to me) culture, to support rural community development as part of an organizational team, and to design a research project that will (Lord willing) help promote sustainable agriculture. Everything seems ready to get started. But I still don’t arrive in Nepal for over a week. And unlike the world’s tallest roller coaster, in many ways the acceleration after launch will be slow–I’ll learn to speak one word and phrase at a time, I’ll ask countless questions and listen to countless explanations before I’ll be fully useful to my coworkers and supervisors, and my research project will take place over the course of nearly a year. Life is full of waiting, but more than anything it’s the period right before a major transition that can be a particularly excruciating intersection of second thoughts, nerves, and uncertainties.

So what did I do with the tension and the temptation to fear as I sat in the roller coaster car with a hill the size of a skyscraper looming ahead of me? Well, I reminded myself of the knowledge and evidence I had that the roller coaster was safe and enjoyable (well, at least to a certain subset of the population). I also thought about why I had wanted to ride the coaster in the first place. Thanks to my brother’s research, I was convinced that the engineers who designed and built the roller coaster knew what they were doing and that the technicians running the coaster knew it was working smoothly. I remembered all the people ahead of me in line who had safely ridden the coaster as I looked on just that day, let alone all those in years past who had also thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I wanted to know the euphoria of going so fast and so high–would it be like flying? The logical part of my brain knew I would be fine, and now that it’s all said and done the emotional part of me enthusiastically agrees.

And the fear of leaving my home state and country for longer than I ever have? The fear of moving to the other side of the world and living among people whose language I don’t speak? Same strategy: I remind myself of what I know about who’s in control of the “ride” that is the circumstances of my life, and I think about why I’m going.

The eternal God is the One who equally holds my past, present, and future, and I know that nothing can happen to me outside of God’s plan. Even the best-designed roller coaster could break down, but the rules of physics that ultimately govern its movements are always fully operational because the Creator of the universe continues to hold all things together (Colossians 1:16-17). I’ve heard countless testimonies of God’s faithfulness in the lives of those who have gone before me, and I’ve seen it myself first-hand. As for motivation, in contrast to an amusement park attendee I’m not going to Nepal just for a thrill. I want to actively learn to put others ahead of myself, especially the poor and marginalized. I go in obedience to, in imitation of, and in service toward the divine King who left heaven to honor His Father by serving humanity to the point of giving His life.

This means that a life pursuing God doesn’t claim to be “safe” the way a roller coaster ride does, because we follow the example of someone who died. But we also believe He came to life again! I can only say there are risks worth taking, to participate in God’s glory and the building of Christ’s kingdom, to be fully and truly alive.

I’m ready to launch. But for a little while longer, I’m still here waiting.

People of Solidarity

What is solidarity?

I post this from my house in New York after finishing my internship field work, but only having barely started processing, sharing, and applying the learnings from my six months in Nicaragua. One such principle that I encountered in various forms and expressions, touching the roots of human identity and society as well as my Christian faith, I learned to name solidaridad, or solidarity. To put it briefly, by solidarity I mean that los problemas de uno son los problemas de todos, or, in English, the problems of one person are the problems of every person, to quote Uruguayan pastor Raul Sosa whom I heard speak at a Micah Network Conference in Honduras.

In English, solidarity is just a noun, but in Spanish it can be an adjective too, solidari@. More than just a linguistic adjustment, during my time in Nicaragua I’ve begun to think of solidarity from a different angle–it’s not meant to be an elusive, abstract ideal found only in impossible utopias, inspirational speeches, and protest signs, but rather it must be lived out as a description of a person’s character and work. What does it mean, not to talk about solidarity, but to be a person of solidarity? As Christmas approaches and we remember the Christ’s incarnation, God choosing to take on Himself every problem of humanity from birth to death, His example invites us to seek out the suffering and share in their lives as we plunge deeper into the practice of imitating our solidarity-ous God. We primarily learn this example by seeing it lived out in the lives of Christians, people of solidarity, who are following Him. In my case, I’ve been learning from spiritual and social communities in Nicaragua committed to growth in this sort of service and sacrificial love. It is the image of God I’ve glimpsed in their practices of solidarity that I would like to share with you.

Solidarity means community.

People of solidarity work for the inclusive good of the community rather than the comparative good of the individual self. As expressed by my host mother regarding the distribution of physical possessions, “why should we keep more than is necessary while others are in need?” Our living room used to have both an upholstered couch and a bamboo bench; now only the couch remains as the bench was sent to a home lacking furniture to sit on. In respect to business and livelihood, I imagine that many of the talented, creative, intelligent leaders I have met working with rural communities could be more financially successful if they moved into a city and sought more institutionalized jobs. Rather, they not only maintain their businesses in their less populated locations, but also apply themselves to the development of their entire communities. They coordinate training for better health and agriculture practices, plan for the installation of better water systems, and encourage responsibility and dedication by their own examples.

Adding to a pipe to bring clean water from a well to a storage tank

Demonstrating a technique of setting up a biointensive plant bed

I see such human solidarity as an imitation of the divine nature empowered by a Christian imagination. In his book Compassion, Henri Nouwen emphasizes the servanthood of God revealed in Philippians 2, which describes Jesus’ abandonment of His rightful privileges to live with, die among, and become one of the poor and enslaved. How much more should we be willing to give up time and belongings that are not ours by right but have been entrusted to us as gifts? Especially when others are in need? Our faith enables us to approach broken human communities with an attitude of solidarity that promotes deep unity and hope rather than shallow individualistic successes.

Solidarity means equality.

People of solidarity recognize an equality of dignity and agency among people of differing abilities and experiences. In a culture where wives are expected to easily accomplish all sorts of vital tasks to support their households because, unlike their productive husbands, they “don’t work,” I hear a contrasting narrative among development workers. In dealings with my host organization, such hard-working women are respected as the bosses of their own homes, rather than male contribution and influence in the community and family being disproportionately credited. Thus, my organization can prioritize educational offerings in areas of nutrition, health, finances, and agricultural topics that are targeted specifically at women and mothers (see the pictures below for an example!), knowing that this seemingly limited scope is properly seen as an investment in powerful ministry and integral support to entire communities.

De-stemming jocote leaves

De-stemming raddish leaves

Grinding leaves for a nutritional drink

Making torillas

Chopping carrots and potatoes

De-stemming moringa leaves

Without solidarity, the work of women and other marginalized groups would often go unacknowledged, hindering the unity and development of a people. How often would someone whose job involves cleaning floors and someone whose job involves managing thousands of dollars of funds from global organizations sit down around a table and share prayers, thoughts, and testimonies as fundamental equals in the hierarchy of employment in an institution in the United States? It happens every week at San Lucas. Sometimes solidarity means directors washing dishes.

Solidarity means connectedness.

People of solidarity refuse to ignore problems that only seem to affect others. People who live in urban areas and work in commerce, administration, or academia may only feel the droughts of a changing climate as a bit of inconvenient heat. In contrast, rural people who live off subsistence agriculture lose investments of time and money and may go without food as a result of the lack of water. Solidarity can start with praying for rain, but it also demands more. At an ECHO conference I attended in Managua, one speaker urged attendees to limit their consumption of meat and animal products, refined sugars and flours, and inorganically produced foods, to improve sustainability and reduce human abuse of the environment. Another speaker moved with his family from the United States to a small farm in rural Honduras to experiment with, demonstrate, and promote sustainable and improved agricultural practices. Every person’s and family’s response to global needs will necessarily be different; nevertheless, it is solidarity that requires this response and demands that rich or protected people struggle to confront the issues that could mean life or death for the poor.

 

Overall, my actions and thoughts as I have worked, lived, and learned alongside solidarity-ous people in the past five months have further formed my heart and habits in the shape of what liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez calls the divine “preferential option for the poor.” In In the Company of the Poor, he describes this human solidarity in imitation of the divine incarnation as “a communal . . . journey toward God.” As I look back, my move to Nicaragua and my work there have been a time of venturing farther along this journey by leaning deeper into relationships with others, particularly those more poor than I, in the solidarity that Gutiérrez calls a “source of spirituality.”

To borrow his words again, following Jesus gives “a global vision of our life” that “also affects life’s small and everyday aspects.” Following Jesus, learning to recognize His image, and imitating His example of solidarity during my internship dealt not just with my stated intentions or my individual reflections. More than these, the most mundane experiences have added richness to my life, almost always through the presence of one or more other humans. The solidarity I have learned is an intentional, everyday togetherness that is inseparable from the solidarity-ous faith I am growing into, because my “daily relationship with the Lord . . . implies relationships with other persons.”