9.25.19
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Our last week of class in Kathmandu before our Darjeeling excursion was quite a doozy. We were really busy with the combination of the work from our daily 3-hour Nepali language class, studying for our first Nepali language exam, readings for our other classes, and our field study assignments. However, we all successfully finished and are still thriving. A highlight of last week were making momo (Nepali dumplings) with my homestay family. Mine turned out kind of ugly, but they were all so delicious. However, a downside was that my aamaa gave me a samosa that my didi had bought from somewhere else, and it either had peanuts or soybeans in it, so I had an allergic reaction. I didn’t want to use my EpiPen so I just took Benadryl and slept it off, waking up to throw up and then sleeping throughout the whole night.
On Sunday, September 22, we began our trip to Darjeeling. However, the events of the settlement process were very unexpected. We arrived at the SIT program center and took a van over to the airport, and then flew over to Darjeeling. (Unfortunately, the plane served peanuts as a snack, and I had to move to the back of the plane to prevent the smell from affecting me too much.) We had to go to the Immigration Office at the Darjeeling airport, which was extremely hot and humid, and then we took a Jeep to head across the border. The roads aren’t paved smoothly like in America, so the the Jeep was swaying and jostling consistently, making us slide every direction out of our seats. But, we were able to see some of the beautiful rice plantations and other agricultural fields. However, at the Nepal-India border, we were pulled over because we looked “suspicious.” Our luggage had to be scanned again, and we had to give the officials our contact information.
The worst part of that day was that I experienced, for the first time, a bird poop on me. Honestly, I was quite horrified and distraught—I had felt a warm thud on my neck and upper back, and I thought it was my hair because I had it in a braid. But I touched the area and pulled my hand back to see a warm mixture of brown and white goop. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” one of my classmates assured me. I had one of my gurus wipe as much as she could off of my hair, my neck, my shirt, and my backpack, but there was only so much that tissues could remove. Additionally, it was pouring. So I was just a drenched, shitty mess.
Some more wait time ensued at a different office to further process our immigration visas. And then we started our 4-hour ascent up a hill. To be honest, I didn’t expect us to be located on a hill, so it was a surprise for me. It was cool at first but our Jeep driver was exceedingly irritated, so he jerked and sped up the tightly winding roads. It was kind of like the original Jeep ride across the border, but more intense. We actually flew off of our seats a couple of times, and my head would sometimes bang against the window. We finally arrived at our hotel, which was actually pretty fancy, and I was able to get first dibs on the shower. (Unfortunately, it took me several washes to get rid of the bird poop crud from my shirt and my backpack.)
The food at this hotel is delicious, though. This food has more Indian cuisine, with some Chinese influence. I was able to enjoy lots of paneer, Szechuan fish, and various forms of chao mian. But the service is extremely slow; they start preparing meals at the time they say that the dining hall would be open by. So this caused a lot of wait time and delaying of our activities, making our days longer. And something else a bit disappointing about Darjeeling is that the monsoon season is going over for longer than normal (probably due to global warming). There is a constant fog and mist that eventually turns into rain, so we haven’t been able to see the sun or the mountains. And the roads are very narrow; two cars are just able to squeeze by each other, and there is little space on the sides for people to walk by.
Darjeeling has this fantasized image of being pristine, with clean air and a beautiful view of mountains. But this experience, in addition to readings about the truth of the nature of Darjeeling, have proved otherwise. There is actually still a good amount of pollution, like in Kathmandu, and I haven’t yet seen anything that has struck me as shockingly beautiful.
As a brief summary of the Darjeeling readings that I’ve been assigned, Darjeeling is essentially constructed from linguistic manipulation and a concealing of the fact that the ever-so famous Darjeeling tea is plucked by the worn-out Nepali women who work for several hours a day and only receive a few rupees per day. There are so many advertisements about Darjeeling that praise its delicate, natural Darjeeling tea taste and the happiness of the smiling women who beautifully pluck the tea leaves, but that’s all constructed—tea actually undergoes a lot of processing and not all teas taste the same, due to several different factors such as age of the plant, season of picking, hand pressure in processing, rolling processes, and more. (Darjeeling tea isn't all that special, in my opinion. It does taste light but it's not particularly extraordinary.) Furthermore, the Nepali women who are in the advertisements are actually just random models who meet the criteria of an “ideal-looking” tea picker.
I apologize for all my negativity—I’ve been in kind of a funk in Darjeeling and I haven’t been super excited here. And the rest of my classmates all feel the same. I think it’s a combination of us being tired and burned out, the consistent cold and rainy weather, and all of us being sick. But, thankfully, our teachers and AD recognized our moods and gave us the day off after 4:00 PM. We all made the most of it by playing a funny game last night and laughing our heads off. It definitely put me in a better mood, but it took me a while to fall asleep because I kept laughing.
Today, we’re having a 3-hour language class, a history lecture right after, lunch, and free time for the rest of the day. I’m really looking forward to it because we haven’t been able to look around Darjeeling all that much. Two days ago, I went with some of my classmates to the Mall Market, which was bustling with the music, dancing, and street stalls of the Darjeeling Festival. But we were only able to stay for a short time. I’m hoping that we find something exciting today that will boost our mood. Furthermore, this will be our first time having the liberty to all eat out together. We’ve been cautioned against certain foods, like raw vegetables, because our American immune systems aren’t used to the water quality here. (Surprisingly, none of us have gotten traveler’s diarrhea yet, despite our teachers saying that we will all definitely get it.) I’m really craving some noodle soup (which doesn’t seem like a typical meal in India or Nepal) so we’ll see what we discover today.
