These days my bike is a ghost and I sleep like a mummy

Listing my life:

What work looks like

On good days work looks like this

 and

.

      List for Padeen (naturopath doctor)

-       Where to get another Netti pot

-       IUD (no hormones?)

-       HPV Vaccine?

-       Acne medicine

-       Ask about irregular bleeding

-    Do leaky gut test

List of what I couldn’t eat on my FOUR week cleanse

Sugars (yes, this meant no chocolate even high fructose corn sugar and agave!)

High Glycemic Fruits (don't ask)

Grains (this proved to be the hardest thing about the cleanse because my body is so used to being full from starch that it took me a while to actually be satisfied after eating the food that i did)

Gluten Containing Compounds (no soy sauce to go with the rice that i can't eat)

Dairy (mooo wasn't hard, except no EGGS! what the heck?!)

Soy

Alcohol (super bummer)

Lectins (what no nuts, beans, potatoes, tomatoes)

* oh and no coffee, processed food, canned foods.

NEW DIET 

is called the Gaps diet http://gapsdiet.com/Home_Page.html

....you don't want to know

List of classes I'm take at PCC

Second year German

Creative Writing (Poetry)

Printmaking

Humanities & Technology: Exploring Origins

German things

Schnurrbart - mustache

Die Hexe - Witch

Die Spinne - Spider

Heute trank ich ein Tasse Kaffe mit Frühstück. (practicing imperativ tense!)

Dann ich ging ins Bett und schlafen gut, Gute Nacht!

Poetry things (more whining)

Waking Up Is Putting On Your Shoes (1st draft, revision due next class..)

I wake up to a cold September morning and start on my ten-minute walk to the bus stop

56 minutes before this moment

I lay vertical, face down, in a queen size bed, mouthing my dreams out to the empty room

I dream about places I wish I were, the people I left behind

My heart torn from every time I’ve said goodbye, a patchwork of those moments

Even in this condition it’s forced to be worn around all day

It is still dark outside

An arm outstretches to turn off the alarm at 6:25

Usually not right away

I don’t want to wake up, so I don’t

Two feet land on the stale carpet

The rest of the body has no choice but to follow, sitting upright

Hands rub still closed eyes

In the bathroom face and teeth get clean

The mirror is ignored

Feet follow each other up 16 steps away from the bed 

To the kitchen, tools like blenders and saucepans make the breakfast

Once the body is fed clothes are draped over the torso and hips

Pack is packed

Lastly I put on my shoes

They are red

Made of canvas

Dipping into them the backs cup my heels tightly

The edges of the soles are torn

These shoes look worn

I call them my heartache shoes

As if it were a choice whether or not to put them on everyday

These shoes sometimes hurt my feet

I am reminded with every step the pain of trying to fit something too big

Like a heart into a chest

Or a shoe  

And wear it around all day

           To Do List

-       Send Letter to India

-       Do laundry

-    Mach mein Hausaufgabe

-       Buy new Netti Pot and Long shower brush

-    make soup

-    put away clothes

-       Finish reading book/s (yeah right)

-    Find new job

-    Find out who I am now (as an artist, as an American, as a girlfriend, as a sister/daughter, as a consumer, as a voter, as a commuter.

-       Call PCC about Financial Aid (a month later i got it! geez i thought my other school was unorganized throw 10,000 more students on top of that...)

      Movie List

-    Sherlock holmes

-    Slamnation

-    Monte carlo

-    Milk

Things that I have been disgusted with

-       Ben Brandis licking a slug at recess in the 3^rd grade

-       How much US dollars goes to Military and Nuclear funding

-       Bush being elected for President of the USA

-       Bush being re-elected to President of the USA

-    Baby poop

-    cigarette butts in nature

-       The fact that I have managed to lose every water bottles I have ever owned. I went through 4 water bottles in India in the past 7 months; the last two were in Portland while bussing and babysitting.

           Things I miss

-       Indian Chai, fresh coconut, Pipa (Central American and South Asian), Set Dosa, Idly, Gallo Pinto, Papusa’s, fresh mango, gelato, clos, mojitos, sangria, nepali tangerines, papaya, yuka

-       Sarah Kaplan Gould

-       Having my own apartment

-       Shabat

-       Pretending to be an adult

For my boo:

Things I have learned about living in Portland

     Even though I am “home”, I am still never home

      Education is expensive

     Bach flower remedies are awesome

   I lose my belongings no matter where I am 

The universe eats up silence with silver utensils

I fell asleep the other night with my headphones jammed in my warm ears listening to KBOO. I had stayed up until midnight just to listen to someone who before I met I knew I was in love with and always would be. It’s hard to be certain of things sometimes love is so frightening…I think lately I have feared the future, I feel somewhat like I am part of an orchestra but put on mute. Or just someone’s tapping foot keeping time, I’m nothing really, just a tool. India is different then where I am now, and I feel like it’s slipping away from me, only tangible through my memories. I saw a National Geographic that showed a train trip through Udaipur, India in 1984 and it looked so familiar. The monkeys, the different colored street food being passed through windows, the two-leveled bunks filled with people, the people.

In my reminiscing I wrote this:

There are so many other places I’d rather be right now

 Sitting at the edge of the farm in the forest, nakedly 16 years old, looking out from my sit spot. Not knowing the world and finally declaring I belonged on it. It was a fresh and heartfelt age.

 Standing on that bridge, a river never reached beneath, and the tropical haze - a foggy paradise. Hearing my brain say that jumping would be suicide and deciding to follow my feet anyway. Most of my better decisions have been made this way.

 Under the blankets in Vipassana, my body prickling with sensations, where I was conscious of even a drop of water sliding down my leg. I was miserable, I felt hopeless, lonely, lost, lusting for home. But little did I know I was being trained to be and have the kind of love that fills you and bloats you till it seeps out of you there’s too much of it to be able to hold it all in.

 Under the blankets of the fort Sadie and I built on Flanders Street.

 Wrapped up in love. That moment staring into his eyes so intently that reality shatters around us.

 In the arms of every man I’ve let hold me because no matter how much of a feminist I am, I still feel the safest in this place.

 In my dream last night where I jumped off of a roof and landed up, I was flying, out of necessity.

 In the first tree I ever climbed, I got high enough that I got too scared to go down.

 At that waterfall in Rishikesh where we made up fairy names, grown teens, wet with nature’s natural pleasure and quenched with its freedom.

 On the stage, with a microphone in hand, the black dress on that showed my shoulders, after I sang the song Black Coffee.

 On the stage sitting next to the other cello players, with the lights off and only our bows that had glow in the dark stickers visible.

 On those stages in front of all those strangers.

Not here, right where I am, walking underneath this umbrella that keeps out those dribblings and droplets of positive encouragements in life. Its pouring outside this umbrella, it rains college loan debt, buckets of wet soaked fear of unsuccess, lethargic lightning bolts that induce depression, and a wind whistling that’s risking the normal healthy balance of things.

Mad about Mad Men

Now that two miles has become an easy feat for my small lungs and heavy thighs to carry out, that and being in a familiar place where I am no longer a guest and am allowed to do the dishes, I find myself settling. Settling in with old friends (my bike), finding odd jobs, and trying out all of my sister’s new clothes (like her black acid wash skinny jeans and I know, I know, acid wash really but I dig on them). I have been busying my time by watching episode after episode of MAD MEN. You know when you get obsessed with something and you know your obsessed because you keep relating to it in real life conversations...its a little embarrassing.

Yesterday after sleeping almost 12 hours I went to pick up my film that I was having developed. Looking through the photos I rested my eyes on one particular shot, it’s the one with all my girls from India center at the Idly place one morning. That place is so romanticized in my memories, the standing tables, messy haired-dirty toothed owner who would guess our order every time we came in and ask, “tea madam?” at the end of our meal. We would all nod our heads yes in the middle of discussing the nights before adventure, or a homework assignment. I never minded the flies and liked washing my hands after eating, being able to self-serve water, and the view of livestock as I ate. I miss India, more then I missed Costa Rica, and I am impatient with the readjustment period.

But in spite of missing it today is Tuesday June 7^th, I just finished watching the Bansky film Exit Through the Gift Shop. I tried to see it in theaters last summer before leaving for India but had too much to do and so I never did. I thought this movie would be more about capturing Bansky and how he did his street art while remaining so anonymous. But it ended on a sour note with a bunch of famous street artists who felt like the initial documentary maker Thierry Guetta sold out as he became pretty famous only after his first art show. I could see how much he liked the attention and money he was getting for doing fairly easily produced art. Maybe his success in LA was because he was a sort of knock-off Bansky, more collectible and accessible then Bansky is but lacking in sincerity. I saw all the other street artist’s disappointment in him including Bansky for turning the way he did, but I also got a new perspective on street art.

The venture is a somewhat egocentric one, you spread your signature name or message repeatedly all over the city, a semi uncontrolled space where everyone has to see it. It’s a way of being recognized on your own. The reason why I value what Bansky does so much is that what he does is art, something that really takes skill and is beautiful. His message is political, it makes you think, and it is not mainstream. As an artist he chooses to remain completely anonymous, even after he became famous, giving more value to his message. At the end of the film Bansky is interviewed about Thierry’s success and leaves us with a sad sentiment saying, “maybe Thierry was a genius all along, maybe he got a bit lucky, maybe it means art is a bit of a joke”, or maybe it shows the true meaning of what some of the street artists message to the people are, to wake up and think for yourself.

Before watching this movie I saw something that I think is really cool and interesting. I get excited whenever I see or read or talk about anything quantum. The concept is so fascinating to me. Here it is, get excited instead of down about art, and humanities inability to form valuable opinions about things.  

Sometimes i say things i don't mean and other contraditctions [title of my chapbook for this year]

I am running out of people to hang out with, running out of things to do (besides pack and clean) and all I can do is make hot cocoa to calm my nerves. When I get hungry I make cocoa oatmeal (why didn’t I think of trying that before, its amazing!!). It’s better than portfolio week where all I ate was idly in the morning and kept a jar of peanut to spoon-feed myself encouragement. My portfolio is done and unlike last semester I feel more accomplished. All that I did for my independent study was built on my own initiative. I tried to collect water samples from the slum at 5am in the rain, climbed into a sewage filled storm drain to pick out trash and talk to the neighbors, I wrote a letter to the government about what I learned on my study. Not only that but finishing all my other assignments that had piled up throughout the semester (including a paper about procrastination, the irony!) and being peer mentor I learned a lot about myself. heres the link to my online portfolio: http://indiacenter2011.weebly.com/

 I have been spending the last moments with all the other students who are leaving Bangalore to other places in India or those going home. Everyone is sad about leaving in their own way and don’t know how to properly say good bye. How easily they leave and are gone. All of them dealt with it in their own way, some stressed, twitchy, lucky for me, my roommate cleans. My roommate, Aileen, left first, after we all went to the idly place for breakfast she left with a stuffed backpack and waved three times before finally disappearing. I can feel India disappearing from me. Like in inception it feels like the dream is slowing falling away around me, I am watching it disappear, the spirituality, the noises India makes, and then lastly me.

It’s hard for me to remember what its like back home, the cleanliness and how straight and square all the houses are with square lawns in front. India is messy but there’s magic hidden in the piles of rubble, the stories from yogi’s that live in Himalaya who can teleport, the mystery of a Baba who couldn’t be assassinated, and how the Ganga runs pure in Rishikesh but is totally polluted in Varanasi. I will miss all the Tibetans, Maoists, Marxist’s, Rajas, Muslims, Babas, Uniks, Strays, Beggars, Brahmins, Monkeys, Villagers, Tribals, Indigenous, Shopkeepers, Auto drivers, fruit stands, chai garam, fresh coconut, temples, mosques, cows…

I turned 20 in this country...

      I look at this website that posts pictures everyday that Nasa has taken of space. This was April 15^th ‘s post, the big, beautiful spiral galaxy “Messier 101”. I thought this was relevant because “Messier” is a good title for how I gracefully entered into my 20’s. Although spent with friends, took care of by friends, but I managed to mess things up with some friends. I received an e-mail from my mom the day of my birthday with the lyrics from the Joni Mitchell song she used to sing my sister and I to sleep when we were younger. I had totally forgot about this song, always singing the chorus part couldn’t remember the others lyrics never finding out who the song was by. Us on the top bunk, voice breathing these words that I did not know later would so easily describe the point I felt when I was turning 20.

So the years spin by and now the child is twenty

Dreams have lost a lot of grandeur, coming true

But, there'll be new dreams There'll better dreams a plenty 

Before the last revolving year is through 

Messier 101
Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA; Processing and additional imaging - Robert Gendler Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. This mosaic of M101 was assembled from Hubble Legacy Archive data. Additional ground-based data was included to further define the telltale reddish emission from atomic hydrogen gas in this gorgeous galaxy's star forming regions. The sharp image shows stunning features in the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.

Maybe life is like my birthday galaxy, a mess, spiraling, sparkling, until I end up in the nothingness black void, the center where I will die and decinegrate, disappear into unrecognizable matter. How easily we’re here in this world and then gone.

 

The oldest walking culture alive will remain in my memories until I return, good-bye India.

Fotos from Farch feelings about Marpril

I missed last month’s blog post. I apologize...

My hopes were that I would be able to post 15 short video’s I took with my new, (and now newly cracked) ipod. But technology is not on my side in what everyone calls this third world country.

So here are some things I have been doing:

I went on a trip to Kerala, we visited Silent Valley National Park, saw the Kathakali Dance and chained up elephants and took a trek to the top of a mountain where new houses were being built for the Indigenous People there...

I was the featured poet at Urban Solace on international Women’s day and read this poem:

I’m Saree, Addressed to a dress

This is my apology letter to the Saree

I’m sorry that I can’t wear you

Like you deserve

I’m sorry that my body is not equipped

I don’t have the hips

I have no resilience for your shape

I am used to the Barbies body

All butt and boobs

While your covering up your chest and legs but exposing that intimate curve of the hip

I’ve got mid drift

I am that clumsy American girl who sometimes can’t button her flannels right and has ripped shorts that show scarred knees

I have got burgers for eyes and fries for thighs

Where dressing ourselves up in the West is as complex as a zipper and button

Or shortcutting becomes something with elastic

It’s not as fantastic

As the woman I saw today

Tailored to fit

Each piece dancing with its partner, perfect knit

Strong duty and pride hang in the badge that drapes the shoulder

Visual carriers of culture

Your royalty, your queen

But this is not how women are seen

When I do wear the dress of the Indian woman

I put it on my face too

I feel like I am in the costume of a prisoner to a tradition, culture, and for me lack of freedom

Why should I conform to a concept of what a woman should dress like

Its not that I dislike

I just don’t want to be enslaved by an image that’s been pillaged

I will wear sorry on my face because I disgrace India

There’s grace that can be found in each fold of the saree

But my ankles get tangled

You couldn’t even run away because the saree doesn’t stretch in that way

My cleavage might look sleazy but that dress just makes me feel so uneasy

I feel more comfortable in tight blue jeans

Then a lose saree

You’ve got biological genes

And I ‘ve got starry

Eyes

I can make leaps to transcend and cross borders

Trying everyday to make that cultural gap disappear

But I’m sorry

Lo siento in Spanish

En Deutsch es tut mir lied

māf kījiye̐ in Hindi,

Shamisi,

Kodi,

Because I can’t even compromise that much of myself

For your beautiful silks

The textile not influenced by corporate logos

Where’s the artistry in mass production

Handmade block prints is your seduction

I deduct there’s no solution only resolution of the self

You stand behind your husband while the community whispers behind their doors

And I choose

To stand-alone

Nakedly not negotiating any part of me

I don’t want to be that oppressed in my dress

Maybe its because I’m afraid it will make me more like you

We all have complexes about our complexion

I’m not trying to bleach my face

Or burn it in the sun

But embracing its place

Sitting on my shoulders looking out as I humbly apologize to the saree

 

I visited the oldest newspaper in India and appeared in other newspapers for my poetry reading. http://www.hindu.com/mp/2011/03/11/stories/2011031152041500.htm

I made a gluten free banana cake and took a picture on photobooth of it while in the process burning through the chord of our stove followed by a small electrical explosion and a nice reminder of it on my finger...

 

I took some other photos on photobooth

 I am sitting in the mountains, head cleared, waiting while life passes me by. My sister is here, she is the feeling of arms of love and family around me. How come I still feel a little lonely and lost in this country, on this planet? It may be the impending end of this India journey and the switch to another realty, back to that bubble that is America. Or, is it the thoughts on my impending 20^th birthday?

From 2010 to 2067 to 2011 in a month

Itinerary

Bus from Bangalore to Chennai

Train from Chennai to Delhi

Meet with Aileen take local train then local bus outside of Delhi to Vipassana Center

Vipassana Meditation Retreat http://www.sota.dhamma.org/ December 16^th - 26^th

Bus, Rickshaw, local train back to Delhi

Kathmandu, Nepal

-Stayed with a host family for a week

-Volunteered at a local school 

-Then went to the touristy area called Thamel

-Traveled to a farm that practiced permaculture, called Hasera farm

I went to Vipassana not knowing I was in the year 2067…in Nepal. I only lived 2 weeks in that year (most of which was spent sick) but it’s ok because I will get another chance as a 75-year-old woman after years of living and decaying in the same body, 2067 will come around with my second chance…

This is an excerpt from a diary entry that I wrote in the beginning of my trip:

I walked fast out of the bus saying goodbye to Dia from Finland who I met at the bus stop and ended up sharing seats with. She was surprised by how small my backpack was. I was worried that I would miss my train so I sped walked through the crowd of people. A driver came up to me and asked where I was going, he quickened his pace making sure I was behind him as we talked price. I was basically running after this man as he took me to his rickshaw. When we got to the rick I began to have doubts about my hasty choice of drivers, he had trouble getting the car started. Then when I asked how much it was to the train station he said 250rps! I knew this was too much. So when the car started and we were still arguing the price I almost got out. But stayed in because I could tell he realized how serious I was. We ended up spending the first half of the ride-arguing price: me, threatening to get out and get another rickshaw and him, driving while not looking at the road. The thing I could agree with in the situation was that wherever he was taking me, he was going there fast. He used a different tactic and switched to speaking to me half in English and half the local language so that I couldn’t understand his argument. He even resorted to singing his price to me. We got settled after a while and he introduced himself, Ganesh was his name, and he asked what my good name was and where I am from. He acted so hyper I was almost positive he was high on something but, as we talked more, and I didn’t see any glaze in his eyes I concluded that it was just him, his character. I was able to relax a bit after this and I asked him jokingly if the big hotel that we passed on the way was where he lived or if he owned it because it was called, “Hotel Ganesh”. He liked the idea and then started calling the city, “Phoebe city” (or however he pronounced my name). We talked more about things like how he smokes cigarettes but doesn’t drink and I made up a story that I had a husband but no kids yet. He drove like we were in a video game and when he asked me if he should slow down I said that I just didn’t want to die. When we reached the station I realized how early I was and how far we had gone. So I gave Ganesh 200 rupees because I liked him mostly but also I didn’t have exact change for the 150 I had worked so hard to bargain before. I didn’t feel like arguing more over the $1. I got out of the rickshaw waving to Ganesh and his 3 front toothed smile as a boy walking by tried to cop a feel and only smiled back at my frowning at him.

December 14^th, 2010 Train to Delhi

There’s nothing like the train experience in India. You get visited by everyone; Uniks, (men dressed as women who everyone fears will put a curse on if they don’t give them money), missing limbed people who crawl along the aisles and ask for money and of course the creepers, men who think you will have sex with them in the train bathroom. Sitting in the open doorway, pee from the toilet next door (which is basically just a hole in the floor of the train) splashes my feet a little. Trashed tracks below and pure speed and wind make me feel freer then I have in a long time. No school, now one else I am traveling with and unknown land. I could get off this train whenever I wanted to. The only limits are the speed of the train and this body of mine.

After Vipassana…

It’s hard to talk and even write about. Probably because the whole time I wasn’t allowed to do those things during it. Now that I think about it, I cannot believe I went all that time without music (besides that one day I sang those two songs aloud while taking my bucket shower) reading, art, tv, processed sugar, CHOCOLATE, a cell phone, electrical machines (besides lights that only worked a couple hours a day). I spent those 10 days meditating, sleeping, and eating and that’s pretty much it. I had probably 4 hours out of the day that was not meditation. In the quiet times I went from fretting horribly about my future to digging, then trudging around in my past. Memories of things that had happened that I hadn’t thought about since the moment they happened. Like all those hours my dad would sit and do homework with me (especially the math). How impatient I was and how his seemed endless. I remembered a show my sister and I used to watch on ABC family about this group of boys who did dumb stuff with their skateboards in their backyard or how we used to share a bed when we were younger. I even thought about my old dog, Tilly, the way it felt when I pet her in my favorite spot on top of her head in the curve of her skull and on her snout right before her wet nose. I remember how she started farting more when she got really old.

CHRISTMAS

I woke up the morning after my friend and I had discovered the little presents Vipassana had given us in our heads but especially in our hair and wrote a note. The note said:

Merry Christmas!

This year I got lice and a little bit of enlightenment.

<3 Phoebe

I placed the note in my friends shoe outside her door before I left for 4am meditation. The whole day I assumed I would have trouble meditating because I would be thinking about missing Christmas at home, but I was happily surprised when I did not. I didn’t really think about it at all. The next day was the 10^th day, the day we could break our silence and talk! In our morning meditation all I could do was think about what my friends and family were doing because it would have been their Christmas night. I have for the past, I don’t know, maybe 6 or 7 years gone to my friends house for a party. I started to cry sitting there in that room full of silent, closed-eyed people. I figured it had just taken a while to hit me. When we all walked out and met in a group that’s when the silence broke. Women started crying and hugging, all with smiles on their faces because it had ended. A girl who had seemed like a grumpy person said to my friend and I, “Merry Christmas”. I stopped and had to rethink. I realized later when I got my cell phone back that I had mixed up the date of Christmas and that’s why I wasn’t upset the day I thought that it had been.

Letter to a friend January 21^st, 2011

I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. 10 days of no talking, writing, reading, music, TV, Internet, computer…just meditating… I think I described it to myself in the first couple of days as a prison camp inside my mind. Spending day after inside my mind I worked through a lot. I felt like I went from childhood to present in memories. I learned how much in life I am taught to look outside for things, when really I should be looking in. I already knew but couldn’t really put why I knew religion was not for me. Now I know, it is because I don’t feel comfortable looking to anything else for guidance. Coming out of meditation I felt like, “I am god”, that I had infinite compassion for everyone and such peace I have never known. Jealously and forgiveness were two big things I worked on and I’m still not done. But what did come up was you and I realized that I was still holding onto whatever irrelevant things happened in the past with us. So in hopes of moving on I am writing in “The Book” (lol) which I found while switching rooms with my roommate for the rest of my time here in India. So much has happened since I left last summer, I am sure we both have plenty to catch up on! When I get back to Portland I plan on chilling there for a little but longer then last time so I am looking forward to Powell’s, parks, and party excursions with you!

Wishing you infinite LOVE

Phoebe

Kathmandu

When I made the decision to take the “deluxe” bus from Delhi to Kathmandu I will admit it, I had expectations. And right there, that was my mistake. Getting to the bus that morning I was happy because everything went pretty smoothly- unlike anything about the actually ride I had on that bus. The morning of, I talked to my family on skype, ate a chocolate banana dosa (!), bought socks and pomegranates and got a ride from the travel agents uncles’ bike to the bus. All the seats from the front of the bus were packed so I happily went to the vacated back so I could spread out. I was hoping I could spend the next 32 hours to Kathmandu reading and writing. In the beginning I thought to myself, this will be great, I can see the countryside, read, and have some quiet time. I was so proud at how adaptable I had become while also pondering a question I came out of my Vipassana with: Why do I out myself in uncomfortable situations (like 10 days of silence or 32 hours bus rides) and somehow find such pleasure and comfort in it? Goenkaji, the guy who we would listen to over the tv screen give nightly discourses called talked about misery a lot. So for those 32 hours on that bus I was probably not uncomfortable for about 2 of them. After only getting a couple hours sleep the first night on the bus, I started to get car sick, altitude sick, some kind of sick. With every bump my migraine pulsated and the nausea threatened the seat that I had been hitting my head on while trying to sleep the night before in front of me. It didn’t help that the group of men who talked to each other in some language I didn’t know but could tell when they discussed where they thought I was from were also smokers. The real complications started when my phone battery was left to one bar. Then I realized that my Indian cell phone, which I was told would work in Nepal, was actually not working. So I wouldn’t be able to locate Aileen and worse I had only one contact number of someone who I had never met or talked to, in a country I had never been in or taken time to read about. When I reached Nepal after driving over mountains, passing turned over buses, it was later then they said it would arrive in Kathmandu.

Nepali Mountains [photo taken on a hike to a Buddhist temple from Hasera Farm]

I asked to barrow someone’s phone to call the contact I had and talked to him briefly saying he would pick me up at the bus stop and that I should call him when I get there. My fever was at its peak and I was sure I would throw up. I ended up falling asleep for a little bit and got woken up by the security guy’s flashlight at the checkpoint. We reached the first bus stop and I realized I didn’t know which stop to even get off at. So I tried to call the contact number again but the phone said something in Nepali and when I asked the stinky smokers they said that the phone was turned off. So bus stops went by and I decided to go ask the driver. My trusted driver and crew smelt horribly of liquor but he let me use his phone and didn’t seem like he was going to put me in any more trouble then the intoxicated driving he was already doing. We called the number probably 50 times and before the last stop one Indian guy who I had friendly talked to about Germany tried to convince me to go to a hotel with him that night. So I stayed on the bus ending up in their parking lot discussing what I should do with the bus driver. He said no hotels were opened in the area but that I could take an overpriced taxi to an overpriced hotel or sleep on his bus. The driver gave me blankets and left for his house, I had decided feverishly to sleep on the bus for the night.

NEW YEARS

Sick.

In bed.

Asleep before midnight.

Next day called my dad telling him that I wanted to quit Global College and come home.

Went to the emergency room, doctor told me I had one of the three things: a urine infection, food poisoning or an STD!!

Host Family