Five Days in Dimik

Peace Corps volunteers Nick, Chad and Tia

I’m writing from Pokhara, back for the third time. Each stay gets shorter – this one is only 2 nights until Uncle Tracy gets here and we start trekking. The town has lost its novelty but the coffee is still good. The last five days I spent in Alex’s village, Dimik, four hours by bus southwest of Pokhara and the days melted away as fast as the days in Darjeeling and Delhi.

Briefly, Alex and I met this summer in Winthrop when I made her iced lattes at the bakery but didn’t talk until her sister told me she had left for the Peace Corps in Nepal. I found her on Facebook and we’ve kept each other company since, both being volunteers alone on the Indian subcontinent. The day before I was meant to go to her village, her Nepali sister said the house was too crowded and I couldn’t come for a few days. I could not mask the terror I felt at having to wait another WEEK in Pokhara so thankfully Alex convinced her sister to let me come.

Feeding time!

We had a relatively comfy bus ride to the nearest town, Galyang, ate some chow mien and walked with her sister back to their village. Most of the men work in the Middle East as drivers or in hotels on two year shifts with two month breaks so the village of Dimik is mostly women, children and toothless men. It’s interesting to me because nobody in Pamohi left the country to work and almost every student had a mother and father at home. Alex guessed that her family’s income was $6,000 per year, 2-5 times more than families in Pamohi made, but of course the children grow up without fathers…just an interesting contrast that gave Alex and me something else to talk about.

Baby Bisey

Another topic was the institution of marriage. In Dimik, all marriages are arranged. Alex’s sister’s husband saw her on the street in Galyang and “liked what he saw...” and that’s how it works. The married women move into their husbands’ houses but the husbands are gone for years at a time so often several wives live together with their children and mother-in-law. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around, just as the mythical love-marriage is for Nepalis. I’m always surprised at how similar people in India and Nepal are to people at home – friendships between men and between women are essentially the same but marriage is simply a fundamentally different concept.

My second and fourth nights there we had massive thunder storms that lasted for hours, poured rain and hail the size of marbles and cracked lightening like flashbulbs in a stadium. It was an impressive show and a preview of what monsoon season is like. Luckily I was inside watching movies. It did, however, send all the silver dollar-sized jungle spiders scurrying inside. The outhouse had a resident makura that we named Richard “Ricardo” Nixon. I needed to know where he was every time I used the toilet so when nature called Alex and I would say we were checking on Ricardo. Ricardo was fine – he stayed on the wall – but his friends and kin made life exciting when they appeared unexpectedly. When one crawled next to me while we were eating, Alex thought my quick reaction and the aaahhhhHHHHHH noise I made meant I had either shit my pants or was about to vomit. I smacked the spider mostly dead and Alex’s sister’s husband scooped up the still wriggling body in his hand and threw it into the storm.

Kin of Richard Nixon, aka Ricardo

Every morning we got up at 7 for tea, then spent a relaxing few hours talking and waiting for breakfast. No one really spoke English so I was totally reliant on Alex to translate for me. People knew she spoke Nepali and thus assumed I did as well so many times I looked over helplessly at Alex and said “They’re talking to me!” The day began after breakfast. One day we went to a training for new mothers at the health center. The next day Alex and I hiked up to a peaceful hilltop mandir and she explained the boundaries of her district and where she went for meetings. The next day we walked to another village with Alex’s sister. A few hours later while we were waiting for her, I entertained the village kids with Inception noises. That night Alex’s sister’s husband came home for the first time in two years though you wouldn’t know it from the subdued reception he got. The day after that we spent building castles in the river sand. We didn’t do a ton because everything is spread out up or down a hill but the days always felt productive.

I learned about the Peace Corps experience in Nepal. I got some perspective on my experience with village life and made friends with a wonderful family, and I got a friendly face to talk with hours a day.

The beautiful home where I lived for 5 days

 p.s. For those concerned about the health and whereabouts of Dave, he Skyped me from work in London. He's fine. We must have just missed each other walking about town. We're DEFINITELY coming back here.