Lumbini

I made my last trip outside the Kathmandu Valley this past week. I accompanied health workers from the Chapagaon health post to an outreach project in Lumbini, which is located in the Western Terai region of Nepal.

Lumbini is the birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Guatama, the first Buddha. Archeologists have been excavating sites around Lumbini for a number of years and have concluded that it is the location where Queen Maya Devi gave birth the Buddha over 2,000 years ago. Because of this, Lumbini is home to dozens of Buddhist monasteries around the actual site of the birth. Buddhist organizations from all over the world construct monasteries here so their monks can study at this holy place. Its sort of a UN of monasteries - one from each country.

The area surrounding the temple and monastery complex, however, is a poor, rural region. The western Terai is the least developed part of Nepal. Roads are scarce, as is infrastructure like electricity, running water, education, etc. There are outbreaks of cholera, malaria, and Japanese Encephalitis right now. The people here are largely Tharu, as in Sauraha, but here they are only 8 miles from the Indian border and much of Indian culture can be found in the villages. The women in Lumbini villages where saris instead of kurtas. Also, most of the people we met were Muslim, the first Muslims I've met in Nepal.

I accompanied Rabindra, the health educator/physician's assistant from Chapagaon, and Krishna Shobha, a nurse from Chapagaon, to Lumbini to conduct nutrition education. Malnourishment is a serious problem in Nepal, affecting large portions of the population. A limited diet coupled with shortage of resources means that in rural villages it is not uncommon for 80% or more of the children to be malnourished. In the 1970's an American dietician visiting Nepal came up with a nutrient-dense flour that could be cheaply and easily made from local grains. Sarbottam Pitho, or Super Flour, consists of two parts soybeans, 1 part corn and 1 part wheat, all of which is roasted and then ground together to make a fine flour. The flour is mixed with milk to water and heated to make a porridge. The porridge can then be fed to malnourished children to quickly put weight on them. The health post in Chapagaon (where the flour was invented) has been marketing and selling it for years as a way to supplement their discounted health services. They also use it to treat malnourished children who are brought to the health center.

Two other NGOs, Impact Nepal and CrossFlow Trust of Nepal, coordinated with Shanti Nepal/Chapagaon health post to hold a training session in Lumbini. The idea was to teach the local women how to make Super Flour for their own children and to possibly have the women open a small, local factory to generate income and supply the Super Flour to other villages in the area. Currently in Lumbini over 70% of children have worms (we also brought lots of deworming medication for the local clinic) which leads to their malnourishment.

I left my host family's home in Juwaurasi at 4:15 am on Saturday and hiked to Chapagaon. It was a little creepy since it was basically pitch black outside. I have been so grateful for my iPod this trip. Whenever I'm nervous I just put on some of my Christian rock music or hymns and its very comforting. I was also quite sick that day - I had a fever when I woke up and a sinus infection/cough. I met Rabindra and Krishna Shobha in Chapagaon and we made it to Kathmandu by 6 am. There we met Surresh and his driver. Fortunately there were only the 5 of us in a 15 person van so it made for a pretty comfortable ride. We had an uneventful trip. My fever came and broke twice during the ride and I was carsick, but 9 hours later we arrived in Bhairawa with me in one piece.

Bhairawa is a more substantial town than Lumbini and was the site of our hostel. The hostel was spare but clean. It reminded me a lot of dorm rooms. I stayed with Krishna Shobha and collapsed on the bed as soon as we arrived. I was roused a few hours later for dinner, where I had a dhosa (a thin crepe-like pancake with dipping sauces) and payeda (a milk-nut fudge). We returned to the hostel and I passed out again, only to be woken up an hour later for daal bhat! Rabindra and Surresh explained that they simply couldn't sleep without it so we walked across town, satisfied their craving and I finally was allowed to turn in for the night.

We woke up at about 5:00 the next morning to leave for the training in Lumbini. It was a nice drive, through green marshlands. I was thoroughly impressed with the training center. I had expected us to be under a tin roof on a cement pad but their was acutally and entire center with a conference area and a bathroom and windows. We spent a while setting up the conference room - arranging chairs, hanging posters, etc. Then we took a break for a large breakfast. In true Nepali fashion we started over 1 hour late.

The first day was devoted to explaining the concept and production of Super Flour to the local women in two separate groups (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). The second day was a practical, where the women were divided into smaller groups who then made and were judged on their Super Flour. The first group of women arrived the morning of the first day looking apprehensive. They regarded me shyly, but smiled and said hello. My job was to take pictures of the training (easy enough).

The first snag in the education came when we realized that none of the women spoke Nepali! They spoke only their local village language, which none of the educators could understand. Young women, who work with the local NGO as health educators in the community, served as translators. They translated everything the educators said for the women as well as the women's questions for the educators. It slowed the process somewhat but seemed to be largely successful. The women were shown pictures of malnourished children and then pictures of children who were healthy from being fed Super Flour. They were asked to examine the grains used and were shown how to make the flour and allowed to touch the end product. It was interesting to watch the women and their reactions to the jokes Rabindra made that were translated for them.

After the morning session three of the local health educators offered to take me to the temple/monastery complex at Lumbini to show me around. They were nice women who spoke only some English so we spent most of the trip in silence. This was fine, though, as the temples were more for looking at than talking. It poured rain the whole trip to Lumbini, the temple visits being no exception. When we arrived at the entrance I was charged to enter the complex (though my companions were not) - 50 rupees for admission and 75 rupees to take my camera in. We visited the Maya Devi temple - the exact spot where Buddha was born, which is both a place for pilgrimmage and archeological research. I was givena tikka (a sign of devotion) from red powder spread in the temple. Outside the temple we walked around the sacred pond where Maya Devi bathed before giving birth to Buddha - turtles, which are considered temple guardians by Buddhists, skittered out of our way in to water. I stopped and checked out the Ashokan pillar - a marker left by the Indian Emperor Ashoka over 2,000 years ago in devotion to Buddha - but was less than impressed.

We were drived to half a dozen monasteries around the complex. Outside of each one we had to remove our shoes. It was raining so hard my dress was soaked up to my waist (the umbrella kept most of my upper half dry). The rain water was as warm as bath water so it was pleasant. All of the monasteries and temples had floors, paths and courtyards made of marble or smooth, polished stones all of which were ankle deep in water. Being barefoot, we slipped and slid all over the place. It was fun, if a little treacherous.

The monasteries were all beautiful and grand; each in their own way. Because each one was from Buddhists from a different country the depictions of Buddha and the architectural styles varied as well. The Chinese monastery had giant temple gaurdian statues that towered in the front entry way. The statues resembles Chinese theatre characters. You weren't allowed to take pictures in that monastery, but the women I was with stood guard for monks while I snapped a few without flash. The focus of the Malaysian monastery was a giant gold stupa; the German monastery was known for its stunning murals. I've posted pictures on my Picasa album. I can't do them justice in words.

I saw the World Peace Pagoda and climbed to the top to see the views of the local land. The pagoda is just a giant stupa made of white marble - basically an enormous dome with a point at the top. I always think there must be some way to get inside the dome, but their never is so I'm always disappointed.

When we were too wet to do any more walking, and I was still sick and thus tired, we headed back to the training center. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading journal articles to prep for my thesis. I have come to sinking realization that I will be back in the real world very soon and need to start preparting.

The evening in Bhairawa was uneventful. I accompanied Krishna Shobha to look for a shawl for her outfit the next day - she is always so beautifully put together even in the rain and mud that it astounds me. We got side tracked at a store looking for bracelets. The electricity went out every evening in Bhairawa so we were shopping in the dark by little reading lamps the storekeeper had. We stepped out on the street after buying the bracelets and Krishna Shobha said, "Oh no!"

"Do you want to go find a shawl now?" I asked.

"Yes, but how can we? It is dark. We cannot be out after dark. We'll have to go to the hostel and wait for Rabindra for dinner," she said.

It was dark outside. It was also only 7:45 pm. But in Nepal, Nepali women know it is not safe to be outside after dark unless they are with a man, so it was an automatic response to return to the hostel and wait. I can respect safety, but it is frustrating to have so much of your day and so many of your decisions curttailed by whether or not you're with a man.

On the upside I got to spend time talking with Krishna Shobha who's very sweet and interesting to talk to. We had dinner (daal bhat as usual) at the same restaurant every night. It was a little hole in the wall down a dark alley that Surresh frequented. It was reasonably clean by Nepali standards and the daal bhat tasted like daal bhat. The interesting thing was that the along one wall were a series of doorways with curtains for doors separating the restaurant from these little rooms. Each room was made up as a mini apartment with a bed, dresser, wardrobe and tv. I wondered what it would be like to rent a room in a little Nepali restaurant in Bhairawa. Where did those people come from? What did they do? Rabindra kept asking me if I was bored all weekend (probably because I felt ill and looked unengaged). I informed him that its impossible to be bored in Nepal - there's too much to look at and think about.

We returned to our room and showered by candlelight. I travel with candles and a lighter because electricity here is so unreliable. We turned in early (there's nothing else to do at night) and I awoke at 4:30 am to sounds of music and bells from the temple next door. Some people pray really loudly and really early.

The second day of training the women were more outgoing and cheerful. They talked and laughed amongst themselves. They were divided into groups and given the task of making Super Flour. Each group was named after a different city in Nepal - this decision was made after one woman commented that she had never really left her village, but she wanted to thank us for bringing outside knowledge to them. They were excited about the city names and each vied to get into the Kathmandu group or the Pokhara group, etc. The flour making was lively, with the women singing local songs to pass the time. It was also intensely physical as they worked together to turn big mill stones to grind the grain. Some women were hindered by their small children that had to be brought to the training. Little, malnourished babies were a staple of the training hall for the weekend.

When the flour had been made we finally had lunch. Giant pots of rice and daal had been cooked over the weekend to feed all the participants and educators. The first day we were fed breakfast, a daal bhat lunch and snacks. The second day we ate nothing until 2:30 pm. I was having stomach cramps from the illness anyways, so it wasn't the most fun day though it was interesting. After lunch I was given samples of the Super Flour porridge to taste test - the groups were critiqued and the best group won 100 rupees per person! The women were then given the proposal of an interest-free loan to be used to establish a Super Flour factory. The remaining Super Flour was divvied up amongst the women who had brought their children to the training.

As we were preparing to leave the center a woman came in to visit the center's clinic. She was thin and looked exhausten and held one baby from each arm. She was 45 with 8 children, her youngest were these 2.5 year old twins, a boy and a girl. Both children were frighteningly small. The little girl could not even hold herself upright. They nursed non-stop, one on each breast, the entire time we saw them. The boy weighed 15 lbs. The girl about 11 lbs. At 2.5 years old. We gave the woman some Super Flour and a ride to her home as we left.

We went to Sunauli after training as Rabindra thought I should visit the Indian border since we were so close. The town was a mishmash of roadside hostels, gritty restaurants and stores selling pirated goods. We crossed into India and spent some time on that side of the border. I watched while Krishna Shobha shopped for clothes and while Surresh and the driver bought their wives outfits. Its an odd feeling being the ONLY white person for miles. I'm used to being stared at by villagers in Nepal but it was nothing like being scrutinized in Sunauli. The Indian authorities had no problem with me entering India, but trying to leave they demanded my passport. After much glaring and heated debate in Nepali/Hindi with Rabindra and Surresh I was given back my passport and told in perfect English to "Enjoy my stay." I was relieved to be allowed to leave the glaring guards but irritated that they refused to even address me in the process - talking instead to Rabindra and Surresh. I'm really tired of being ignored here and having random men addressed as though they are in charge of me.

We celebrated the training with a huge dinner. The evening was full of high spirits until some random Nepali on a balcony whacked me in the head with a mud covered rock on the way home. I have no idea why. We went to bed earlier than usual because we were leaving at 4 am the next morning. I was pretty sick during the car ride, which wasn't helped by the pounding Hindi/Bollywood dance remix that the driver was playing. I listened to that music the whole weekend and the upside is I now have some new songs I like. I opted to crash in Kathmandu that night so I could spend the evening internetting and eating non-daal bhat. I spent most of the afternoon, evening and next morning alseep in my hotel.

Now I'm back in the Valley and leaving the country in a few days. It seems so unreal. I'm ready to come home and see everyone, but I will miss Nepal. I'm already planning everything I want to do on the return trip!

Its Ending Soon...

I am leaving Nepal in 5 days! Its so hard to believe! I fly to India Thursday morning/afternoon (the 2nd). On the 6th of August I leave Delhi at 8:30 pm and should arrive in NJ in the wee hours of the 7th. Then, arrive in Cincinnati a few hours later.

I'm trying to wind up my stay here: pictures of locations I pass everyday, presents for people back home, visits to local temples that I've missed. I will try to post a few more entries before I get home. I updated my online photo album the other day - check it out, there's about 100 more pictures.

I love you all and will see you soon.

Dietary Restrictions

I miss many things about the States - being able to cross the street without making a-life-or-death choice, not having to avoid open sewage on a regular basis, staying out past 6:30 pm - but what I miss most (excluding family and friends) is food. I never stopped to think about what a large variety of food is readily available to me in the US. Logically, I know that with the modern storage technology, importing goods from other countries, and of course, the magic of preservatives, there is a wide variety of food on my grocery store shelves that shouldn't be there. We don't grow apples in Ohio in February! And we never grow pineapples. But like so many things that I "know" it becomes so much more realistic when I'm actually living it. I'm realizing that a lot here. Maybe its evidence I'm an "experiential" learner....


Food in a traditional Nepali household is as follows:

6:00 am - Nepali tea, also called chiyaa. Its actually about 50% tea and 50% milk with enough cardomum and sugar in it to taste like candy.

11:00 am - Daal bhat (lentil soup with rice). This is the staple of the Nepali diet. You get a heaping mound of rice and a cup of lentil soup. You also get tarkari (curried veggies) and sometimes achar (they call it pickles but it tastes like salsa to me). Because I leave for work at 8:30 am I eat daal bhat then.

2-4:00 pm - Sometimes an afternoon cup of chiyaa is served, and even more rarely, with crackers.

8:30-9:30 pm - Daal bhat - same as breakfast.


Because I'm usually exercising or studying in the morning and I don't get home until about 6:30 pm, I rarely have chiyaa. So its daal bhat twice a day, 12 hours apart, whether I need it or not. My diet here consists almost wholly on carbs and stewed veggies. The daal at my host family's home is more broth than lentils, but sometimes I get boiled milk with my rice. So I have virtually no fresh fruit or vegetables, no meat, and little protein and dairy in my diet. And I miss it! Daal bhat is also pretty bland (and this coming from a midwesterner). Sometimes its spicy, but not really in a flavorful way, just in a painful way. My host mother finds it hilarious when I fan my mouth and mumble "phryo! phyro!"


I'm trying to supplement my diet somewhat. The only meal available for lunch in my village (near the health post) is chow mein. But if the little store has ice cream I try to have that for calcium. Peanut butter with dark chocolate serves as an afternoon pick me up and I try to get mangos but they're going out of season. I'm mostly subsisting between daal bhat on refined sugar.


My host brother, Amir, asked my what I usually have to eat in the US. How to answer that? A short answer is cereal or yogurt or a muffin for breakfast; soup, salad, fruit or a sandwich for lunch. But how do I explain that almost every night at dinner in the US I have something different? Especially at college where there's basically a buffet!

I'm often hungry here. I'm certainly not starving, but on the weekends when I come to Thamel for a non-daal bhat meal its amazing how different it feels to be full. My host mother is an amazing cook though. I haven't had a bad meal yet (and don't expect to). Sometimes dinner mixes it up a little - mustard greens instead of daal bhat, mushrooms in the tarkari. And there's always plenty at breakfast and dinner. Also, since the family grows all their own rice and veggies I know its healthy.

Still, I have made a list of all the food I can't wait to have when I get home (its a sick game we volunteers play when we're bored). I feel guilty, complaining about a lack of variety when many people here have a lack of food. But I'm still dreaming of my mom's homemade vegetable soup and my grandma's peanut butter pie. And fruit and steak and cheese and ice cream......

Pictures!!!

I have finally figured out a way (thanks to a nice American grad student at an internet cafe) to post some pictures! They aren't all labelled or in order yet - give me a couple of days. But I know some of you have really wanted to see some visual evidence that I am half a world away. Here you go.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hollinsgirl04/MyNepalTrip

Being Female in Nepal

Above anything else, this trip has made me entirely grateful that I am a female living in a western, developed nation. I love being female. I wouldn't change it for the world. But being in Nepal has made me realize that that sentiment might not hold true if I had been born elsewhere.

Life in Nepal is not easy for anyone (excepting the few, super-rich). It is one of the least developed countries in the world and is wracked by poverty and corruption. Over 50% of the population lives in poverty with access to food, drinking water and basic medical care unavailable. Life expectancy is 60 years for men and a little less for women, though in many parts of the countryside its in the 50's. Nepal is one of the few countries in the world where women live less than men on average. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Maternal mortality is obscenely high in Nepal. The current stats are nearly 550 women dead per 100,000 births. That's second only to Afghanistan (which doubles that rate) but Afghanistan is coming off a 20 year civil war and then a totalitarian government that denied women all access to health care for a half dozen years. Few women have access to hospitals or assistants with any medical knowledge. Most traditional birth assistants use unsanitary practices that lead to infection. With women giving birth to an average of 5 children (more like 7 in the countryside) death by childbirth is very common.

2. Women here are used like pack mules. They begin doing extraordinarily heavy physcial labor at a young age. It is amazing to me the women I see constantly carrying well over their own body weight in rocks in a basket strapped to their heads up mountains. These women seem superhuman to me. I can't imagine lifting that kind of weight. But they are not superhuman and more and more reports from health researchers are pointing to this grueling labor as breaking the women's bodies and aging them before their time.

3. Women work longer hours than most men. In most families women do the "grunt" work while men go out and earn a salary. This means women rise before the rest of the house to gather water, do laundry and cook breakfast, and spend the day planting and tending the garden and cooking the evening meal. They also mend/weave the clothes, raise the children and maintain the house. Women do most of the community projects as well, hauling rocks and building walls and water systems and schools. They are always the last to go to bed.

Women are generally uneducated in Nepal. Less than 30% are literate as many are pulled from school at a young age. Often the choice comes down to families choosing to educate a son or a daughter so the daughter's education is stopped. Most women I've met at the health center that are about age 20-30 have about a 5th grade education - those that are older are usually uneducated. Lack of education is correlated with higher maternal mortality rates. It also gives women little independence. Women are largely dependent on their families. Marriages are arranged and women marry young, usually by 18-20. In the countryside, child marriages are common and in one state of Nepal over 40% of 10 year olds are married or engaged. Divorce is virtually impossible for women to acquire, though men can divorce their wife/take a second wife without divorcing if she has not produced a son by 10 years after the marriage date.

The government is slow to pass legislation effecting women's rights. In 2003 single women finally achieved the right to obtain a passport on their own, without their husband or father's permission. And it was only two years ago that the government outlawed the rural practice of banishing women to the cowshed for 4 days during their period. Still, women are considered unclean after giving birth and forbidden to touch anything in the house for 10 days afterwards. Also, if a woman's husband dies her property generally passes to her oldest son - even if he's only a child.

I think the most shocking stastic I have heard - more than the poverty and health problems - is the following fact:

Marital rape (which has never been successfully prosecuted in Nepal) carries a jail term of 3-6 months with no guarantee of divorce afterwards. Killing a cow with your car results in an automatic 14 year prison term.

I think all western women should have to travel to a developing nation at some point in their lives and see how their sisters around the world are living. Maybe then we'd be more active in politics in our own countries and in international development. It seems to me its going to be up to other women who have been granted rights to focus on giving those rights (healthcare, education, etc) to women who don't have them. As long as women around the world are uneducated and have few freedoms or rights poverty will not cease.

An Average Day

After a month of non-stop travel I have settled into a routine at the Chapagaon health post. I am staying with a lovely host family in the nearby village of Jurauwasi and my days have fallen into a nice rhythm.

I wake up between 4:30 and 6:00 am - not out of necessity, just because with the noise of the village its hard to sleep past that. Those of you who know my proclivity to sleep till noon are no doubt shocked. I brush my teeth and change into exercise clothes. I stretch for 30 minutes in my room while listening to the BBC World Service on my radio headphones. Then I jump rope for 30 minutes. By 7 am its time to shower and get dressed. The water is always freezing cold so although there is a shower head I rarely use it. Instead I turn on the tap that's at about waist level and jump in and out of the stream as quickly as possible after soaping up. A full shampoo and conditioning as well as shaving consumes time and water so it happens only every 5-7 days. I'm in long skirts/dresses anyways.



I spend the remaining time in the morning reading whatever book I'm on. At the moment it's "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry. I'm usually given a cup of chiya (Nepali tea) around this time. I check to make sure my bag is packed for the day before heading to breakfast. I always carry 1 liter of water, my umbrella, a notepad and pen, my camera, sunscreen, some rupees, and my little "emergency bag" - a small ziploc with a swiss army knife, water purification tablets, some toilet paper, safety pins, hand sanitizer, band aids and imodium.



Breakfast is daal bhat - rice with lentil soup and some tarkari (curried vegetables). Sometimes I eat with my host brother Amir and Peter the other volunteer staying with the family, sometimes alone. Then I put on my hiking boots, grab my bag and head to work. I listen to my ipod on the walk with one headphone in my left ear and the other wrapped around my neck - so I can listen for approaching motorcycles or herds of goats. Its a hot walk, even though its only 30 minutes long, so I carry a handkerchief to wipe my face and neck. Its a half hour walk from my village to the health post along a dirt road. I walk through villages and past a pine forest where the villagers are tapping the trees for sap. School children call out shyly "Hello!" or "What is your name?" or "Where are you from?" For many those are the only English phrases they know. I walk to work at about 8:30-8:45 am so I pass herds of kids headed to their various schools dressed in their uniforms. One girl, Subina, is 11 and walks most of the distance of my walk with me before reaching her school. She has only brothers and upon learning I am in the same quandry has decided I will be her "American sister." She speaks excellent English and often gives me Nepali lessons as we walk.

Towards the end of my walk I enter a forest park with a path paved with slick, moss covered stones. There's an ancient Hindu temple in the forest and in the mornings the forest is filled with people going to worship. The path is lined with women selling colored powder, boiled eggs, and marigolds for the pujas (worship services). Exiting the forest I wind up at the soccer field near the health post.

At the health post I head to the main office and meet up with Aditi and Aarthi, two of the other volunteers I am working with. We're currently working on a survey of patients at the health post to improve efficiency. When the translators arrive we begin work. If there aren't many patients, we finish early, maybe even by noon. If there is no other work to be done we head to the small restaurant/grocery store near the health post for lunch. A 1/2 plate of veg chow mein and an ice cream bar (if they're in stock) makes lunch for less than 50 cents. This restaurant (and I use that term loosely) would easily be shut down by health officials in the states as a public health hazard, but in Nepal its that or nothing until evening daal bhat.

Work never lasts past 3:00 pm unless someone is giving birth and we're invited to observe the event. We leave, and buy a mango in the market for a snack on the way out. Aarthi, Aditi and I head to their host family's home to talk or watch a movie. Sometimes we catch a bus to Patan (part of Kathmandu) to check our email or go shopping. It starts raining by 11:00 am most days and pours on and off until the evening so there is little to do outside. I head home no later than 6:30 so I can make it back to the village before dark. My host family discourages me being out alone after that.

When I get home I exercise for another 1/2 hour or so and see what Peter and Amir are up to or read some more of my book. Dinner is around 8:30 pm and is the same food as breakfast. After dinner I sit on 2nd floor balcony and talk to Amir while we digest. Then I head to my room to study for my MCAT for about an hour. I'm usually in bed by 10 pm.

My one day off is Saturday and I usually sleep in a little later then - maybe until 7 am. Most Saturdays I meet up with the girls and we catch the bus to Patan or New Road in Kathmandu for some non-daal bhat food and to check our emails or see a movie. We never stay out too late. The last bus leaves for Chapagaon at 6 pm and past that you have to rely on taxis. And taxis in Nepal are not reliable.

Its relaxing here. The pace of life is so much slower than at home. I haven't worn a watch for over a month; that's the longest period in my life since age 12. I'm going to come back to the states and have a rude awakening in terms of how long I have to work and be awake and think. But its lovely here while it lasts.

Misspellings

You may notice that if you try to look up some of the places I mention on this blog that the spelling is incorrect. I apologize. Unfortunately, I don't read Davenageri script and it seems that no two transliterations to English are the same. Also, I'm often only told a place's name verbally so I guess at the spelling. Chapagaon, Ghalegaon, Banderjhola, probably Trishuli - I'm misspelling things all the time and it bothers me probably more than anyone reading this. Still, I want to offer my apologies for any of you dedicated enought to try and find these places on a map or for those of you actually from Nepal.