Wanderlust: March 2012

Here is a detailed list:

Plane tickets--$6,698

Visas/Passport Renewal

Nepal--$80
Cambodia--$50
Passport Renewal--$151

Vaccinations

Hepatitis A and B--$240
Typhoid--$140
Japanese Encephalitis--$1,000
Malaria--$700
Polio --$150

Program Fee--$1,886.14

Cambodia lodging

Phnom Penh--$315
Sihanoukville--$140
Siem Reap--$150

Food

Nepal--$460
Cambodia--$760

Travel

Buses--$300
TukTuk (Cambodian daily travel)--$60
Nepal daily travel--$100

These numbers were calculated on advice from Global Crossroads and Chanel's experience in Cambodia. We have planned where we are resting our heads on each night of our travels and made (as of right now) most of the necessary reservations.

I will update this as the information makes itself aware to me..

* Underlined denotes paid

It's an odd thing. I've never met anything like Nepal or Cambodia. And because of that, my mind has a way of denying it. As much waking time as I spend writing, thinking, and speaking of this trip, I had yet to dream about it. Until a few hours ago. And still, the dream was filled with things I know aren't possible and aren't probable. Perhaps, my own mind is poking fun at how I can't create a realistic environment of Southeast Asia. I don't have anything to go off of. I know none of the elements and therefore struggle in the unity of them.

Though I know it's coming, it's a inevitable part of reality now...that feeling of anticipation can be missing. The pleasant sinking in your chest that makes you squeal like a little girl. Two weeks ago, the feeling found me.

It found me sitting at an Asian restaurant with my mother and company. The placement email from Global Crossroads had been sent to her email by some mistake. Chanel and I were unaware that it had been sent. I opened the email on her phone and...I was a big mess of tears.

In the placement email, we found that we were placed at the Ashna Orphanage in Lamatar, Nepal. The orphanage currently has 18 children, aged 6 to 13, from different parts of the country. The orphanage is located in Lamatar, Lalitpur (the district/zone), which is about a 45 minute drive outside of the capital, Kathmandu. It's a rural setting, in which, we're told one can see Mount Everest in the distance. Our stay is a "residential project", meaning, we live in the orphanage--not at a home-base or with a host family, like we previously thought.

As a volunteer, we will spend the morning and evening with the orphans, generally 7-9 AM, 3-6 PM, and all day on Saturdays. Waking them, feeding them, making sure they brush their teeth, helping them complete homework, help them make their beds, sing songs, play games, and do yoga in the morning with them. For the afternoons, we will organize creative activities with the children. The children have off of school on Saturdays, so Chanel and I will be with them all day. On those days, we can plan to take them into the city or take them to the zoo or take them for picnics!!

The details caught me off-guard. It is more than I hoped for. I was expecting it to be some large facility with more children than I could come to know the names of. But that's not it. It's two managers of the orphanage, 18 children, and Chanel and I. It's so much more intimacy than I was expecting, not to mention we're waking them up, sewing their clothes if they need, putting them to bed, singing the entire "Sleep tight. Don't let the bed-bugs bite." routine that I can remember my father saying to us in childhood. Those children will be everything for four weeks. And I'd be fooling myself if I thought it would end there. Those children will linger in my mind and life for years.

Wanderlust

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Thanks!

Means

Meaning, Means, Method--Part 2