So, that being said, I apologize for the delay and will do my best to update more regularly. Hopefully February will prove to be healthier month altogether!
Collaboration: Deafness and Buddhism
My friend Mikaela, another Fulbrighter in Nepal, is researching end of life care in Nepal, particularly in reference to Tibetian Buddhism. While looking into the related doctrines in Buddhism, she explored the idea of the "perfect human rebirth". Essentially, there are 18 points that one's birth must fulfill if they are to have the greatest spiritual opportunity. While exploring this topic, she noted that one of the attributes of a perfect birth is the existence of perfect senses. Deafness is specifically mentioned as preventing enlightenment because it "prevents the person from listening to the teachings and fully communicating or understanding".
Finding this troubling, we discussed the fact that this is actually incorrect, as deaf people (or people with any disability) who are in a supportive environment, can be fully functioning, have depth of understanding and be able to communicate fully. This discussion, as well as our desire to dig further into the matter helped remind us why we're both here, and renew excitement about our original research as well as this new side project. For more information, see Mikaela's fabulous blog post: http://michou87.blogspot.com/2011/01/perfect-human-rebirth-and-sense.html
I'll revisit the topic as we learn more. Hopefully through working together, we can help change what is potentially a very damaging perception!
A Few Tidbits about Life in Nepal:
On our trip to Barhabise (pictures and details about the school in the next post), Anu and I went up close to the Chinese border where there's a few hot springs. We didn't go over the border, but I was excited nonetheless because we were able to see China from restaurant where we stopped for tea :) Also at the restaurant, we met a very friendly man from Mongolia who has been traveling around Nepal and India learning Tibetan healing practices. We met him after he laughed heartily at our attempts to eat noodles with chopsticks and finally he decided he must teach us how to eat properly! Following the chopstick lesson was a very basic Tibetan health checkup in which the healer takes your wrist pulse and is able to determine which biorhythms are out of order. Anu was pronounced healthy, I was told to stop eating chicken and eggs and start taking meat oil...not sure what that means, but it
certainly may be worth a shot!
China!
Nepalese school children making the Nepali flag on the playground in Tatopani near the Chinese border. Side note: Tatopani literately means "hot water" and there are 30+ villages sprinkled around Nepal with this name. Oddly enough, while some have hot springs, many have no hot water - hot springs or otherwise!
I spent 30 dollars on a hot shower the other day. Yes, I know how absurd that sounds. But after not having a hot shower for weeks on end, 30 dollars seems like nothing when you can get the luxury of hot water! Fortunately, the hotel spa where I went made it worth it. Four showers later... I decided I'd made up for the $30 :) Good news though! We're getting a new water heater tomorrow! What luxury...
We currently have more than 14 hours of loadshedding each day. That means we have less than 10 hours of electricity/day. I'm barely going to react if there's a power outage at home in the future!
Plans for the Near Future:
Headed back to the lovely Pokhara area for a week or so to see the Srijana Higher Secondary Deaf School and do some catch-up writing.
Meeting with Robert Rose and a few others from The Rose International Fund for Children (TRIFC) on February 16th to visit a few more schools and work on some microfinance projects for deaf women that the program is hoping to start. It should be a wonderful time for collaboration!
Writing and preparing the my paper and presentation for the Fulbright conference in Goa, India on March 6th. Looking forward to seeing Goa and hearing what others are doing as well!
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