To run or to strike?

Rounding the corner of the ring road a huge billowing truck narrowly darts inches from my face puffing a huge black cloud into my lungs. A few seconds later a motor bike nearly cuts me off but I can just see the person in yellow in the distance with his white flag waving me in the right direction. SO I discovered that running a half marathon after not running in the last 2 weeks let alone training is very difficult. I probably picked the worst place to run my first half marathon as Katmandu is one of the most polluted places I have ever experienced.  I did it in 2 hours 24 minutes and thought I was going to die at about oh kilometer 15. But I did it!....and I am still recovering. I also joined in a basketball tournament that has been pretty fun. I never make plans here but I always seem to be busy busy (as Enu Ama, the woman I am living with always says). I feel like the connections I am making here are just unending. There are so many opportunities and I am meeting so many people doing such amazing things with their lives.

 

You may ask how I have so much time at the moment? Yes…well among the many things I am still adjusting to are the strikes. I have a specific course load I need to get through and it is often complicated by the multitude of school holidays and closures. Although there is school on Sundays there are over 55 national holidays which the school take off for and they don’t seem to be listed anywhere. The director will generally tell me a few days before that “oh hey school is closed for 3 days this week”….ok cool. But then there are the strikes that randomly occur at any moment for example. On Friday I was told hey so the Maosts called a strike so it will be difficult for the students to get home this afternoon so your classes are cancelled (however it was only my class that was cancelled everyone else seemed to be studying). Then for the afternoon class one of the teachers in the school (without notifying me) told half of my afternoon class that I said there was no class this afternoon so half of my students went home. Then a little later my director told me that the strike was going to be for 4 days so he was canceling school for the next week. So I am on vacation a little early. I now have the next 6 weeks off…and I need a break so I am taking off for the mountains.

 

I think the monsoon clouds might break for me I hope I hope. The air is getting dryer and hotter and the kites are soaring from every roof top and the moths are out which are all good signs that the monsoon is over.

 

In other good news my research is finally coming along. I had my first site vist yesterday, which was surprisingly exhausting. The road to get to where I am working is pretty rough but I learned so much from just a 1 day. The organization I will be working with Medicine du Monde is a pretty cool organization though it seems they are donating most of the time/ effort/ and supplies and while it seems like it is making a huge difference I wonder what will happen when they complete the project. I am learning about how a project is run for a major organization and the tiers of management in place to cover an area servicing 5,000 women. It seems to be very well managed and their isn’t much room for corruption to leak through which is good. They are trying to set the project up to be sustainable when they leave by creating these groups and using microfinance to generate funds from productive loans locally to pay back social/health or non productive loans. In doing so they also create these groups of women that come together from different areas of the region to be apart of something greater. The most amazing part of this so far is seeing the look on these women (volunteers) faces when they feel they really have a huge role in the communication and delivery of their healthcare.

 

I remember having a conversation with the head of the health program at the world bank and he told me that they had these health volunteers but had a very difficult time retaining them but couldn’t figure out why. In talking to these women who used to volunteer for the public program they said they weren’t committed to it because they felt the program was ah hem….bull shit. The meetings weren’t regular but absoutley random so they didn’t know when to show up and they didn’t feel like they were learning anything. I mean would you want to volunteer your limited time for an organization that didn’t have their act together? Of course not. This program with MDM is highly organized and the women feel like they have an extremely important role (which they do) and in 1.5 years have not missed a meeting. I would say that’s a pretty big difference. So anyway I am super excited to do this assessment I think I am going to learn soooo much and it will be fun. Ok for now I am headed off to the mountains for an adventure of a life time. Stay tuned for some crazy pictures and stories.