Volunteer Work/Homestay

So today we're in Narayangarh, the city closest to where we're doing our volunteer work. I didn't think we would have internet at all the whole time we're here but so far we have. Saturday is our day off so we decided to go into the city and there's not much else to do besides use the internet and wander around. And everyone else in my group wanted to use the internet so here we are.
We started our work yesterday, half of us in conservation, half in the orphanage and then we will switch every day. I started in conservation. We basically weed all day. They're growing asparagus plants and there are weeds everywhere. It's been a month since they last weeded and there is already practically a forest! We made pretty good progress though. I think our backs will be sore from bending over all the time.
Our house is pretty nice. The beds consist of a very thin layer of straw tied together covered by a blanket which we lie on top of. We unfolded our sleeping bags so that we could have another layer but it's still pretty hard. We're tired enough at night though that we hardly even notice.
This morning I tried out the shower! There's a little room outside with a sort of hose coming out of the wall about halfway down. There's no door. The Nepalese people are really talented and somehow manage to shower while wrapped in a cloth but we're not that talented so for us they nailed a cloth across the door. It doesn't go all the way up though and the hose is low so we pretty much have to squat or at least bend over the whole time. But it felt amazingly nice to have a cold shower so I'm not complaining at all! It was wonderful! :)
One interesting thing that I learned... some men in Nepal, especially in the rural areas, have multiple wives. If one isn't all there mentally or if she doesn't have children, the man can marry again. In our family we have 2 moms because one didn't have any kids.
Last night we went to our aunt's house to meet her family. They gave us the tikka welcome/blessing (the red dot on the forehead) and gave us a spoonful of milk in our hand to drink. It was milk mixed with sugar and some other ingredients. We've also been given buffalo milk a couple times. It isn't terrible, but I definitely prefer cow milk!
For every meal we are given sooo much food! I thought we weren't going to be eating much, but I was wrong. It's the same food, but there's a lot of it! Tea and hard boiled egg at 6:30, dhaal bhaat at 10:30 (rice, lentil soup, and some veggies), tea and bread or cookies or both or even sometimes some cooked veggies at 2:30, and then dhaal bhaat again at 7:30. It's actually really good food!
Our family is really welcoming! It's hard to communicate with them because they don't speak english so we don't interact much except with the sister. But all the siblings call us sister and the moms and grandma call us daughter which is really sweet and makes us feel more welcome. We haven't been allowed to help cook yet but we're hoping at some point we'll get to. So far all we really get to do to help out is wash our dishes.
Sooo I think these couple weeks with our families are going to be the most basic/rural accomodations but even they aren't bad. It definitely makes us appreciate what we take for granted and makes us realize how lucky we really are in the United States and Europe...electricity, air conditioning, hot water to wash dishes, showers, mirrors, food variation, being able to open emails on hotmail... I think it would be interesting to take all those things away from people in the US for a while to see how long they would survive...

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