Advertisement
Published: November 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
traffic
a little restaurant on the side of the road--serving Coca-Cola I am totally exhausted. It doesn’t seem like I get even half as much accomplished here as I do at home, but some days I feel so worn out! Let’s see—walk the mile to yoga, an hour yoga class, an hour Nepali lesson, then we went to Renuka’s parents house, had lunch, and conducted 3 interviews. I guess that is a full day, but I feel like I could just call it a night and it is only 7pm. Another things is that the ride home took almost an hour because everyone’s rushing around for another festival, Tihar, so traffic is unbelievable (and the firecrackers are exploding non-stop). The pollution is really starting to bother me, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
I love doing research in Nepal! Forget formal interviews in an office—here people make it an event if you want to include them in your research. We were invited to aama and buwaa’s house today. Upon arrival, we were served tea, and then about 20 minutes later a large lunch that they cooked on the floor of the kitchen—chapatti (flat bread), curried veggies, chili potatoes, curd, and chicken. Unfortunately the vegetarian front didn’t work today, and
traffic
kids on their way home from school since I know they bought meat just for me to show how important my visit was, I ate a little bit of it. Still feeling okay, so I’m hopeful. But every time I eat meat I feel like I’m playing Russian roulette.
After lunch Susheila and I began our interviews. First we interviewed 2 people from the neighborhood—one woman was in her early 60s and was very liberal, talking about how she had sex with her husband before marriage, and how she really enjoyed sex (now she is celibate because of health problems). The second woman actually does work in family planning education, so she was also very open to talking. Both the first and second participants have had abortions. This is really starting to look like an area I should explore. Abortion is now legal in Nepal, but it seems as though it is far more common than it has to be, and I’m sure risky. I see more future research…
The third woman we interviewed was about 25 years old. Her husband is a security guard in Afghanistan and has been away for the past 10 months. He is actually arriving home tonight, so she was
traffic
a man making a delivery very excited, but also frustrated because she has her period (and women are not supposed to have sex when menstruating). Her interview was interesting because she ended up asking me a lot of questions at the end that helped me understand what she thinks about sex—she asked me whether I have sex even though I am not married, if I have sex during menses, if I try different “postures” other than man on top and woman on bottom, and what kind of birth control I use. I was totally honest with her in my answers. But God only knows what these women would think of me if they knew my sexual history. I think they are accepting of the fact that I am sexually active though not yet married because that’s what life is like Americama (in America), but they expect that I will get married to Ken soon and often ask me to narrow down a date. They’ve also started asking me questions about living with him. But we haven’t talked about the fact that many American women actually have several sexual partners before getting married. Bistari, bistari….slowly, slowly I’ll let them figure out the truth!
I can’t believe how quickly I’m able to conduct interviews! I’m already halfway to my goal, and tomorrow Susheila and I are interviewing a nurse at the women’s shelter. This weekend I’m going to go back to the beauty salon and see if I can’t line up interviews with the women there.
After saying goodbye and many thank you’s, 6 of us piled into a tiny taxi—me in the front, the other 5 women in the back (Renuka, Susheila, Renuka’s sister, sister-in-law, and niece). Thank god for that! Renuka’s niece just arrived in Kathmandu yesterday for the first time with Dinesh’s sister after a day’s walk from the village. The poor girl had never been in a vehicle before, and all the stop and go in traffic made her car sick. Luckily she vomited into her pashmina and they pulled the car over and she got out before I even realized what was happening, otherwise I might have felt sick myself.
Back to the pollution—people complain about traffic and pollution in LA, but I would happily breathe that air right now. My lungs are actually starting to hurt, and I cough a lot at night. All I can do is drink hot water and tea to feel better until Ken brings face masks for me when we meet in Rome in a week and a half. Kathmandu, while a fascinating place, is truly hazardous to your health on many fronts. What we crazy academics will do in the name of research, no?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.31s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.24s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb