Time in Nepal (1)

There was not much to look forward to when school started in September, 2011. One exception was the return of Yelin, who had finally come back from France. He brought back with him French leftist intellectual ideals and lured me into taking Benhabib's 20th Century European Political Thought with him. With a few suggestions here and there, I patched up a class schedule that looked alright.

I was also looking for things to do as extracurriculars. Early September I convinced Yelin to apply to be Reach Out trip leaders together. I just wanted to organize some things together with Yelin, extract some nice elevated feelings while doing semi-nice things in a third-world country, if only in pretending and in forgetting our hypocrisy, and filling the void that is called Spring Break. And yes, it is not hard for me to admit that this leadership position would also be something that would go into my CV, something I could tell my friends about when they asked what I was busy with.

It was a stroke of luck that both Yelin and I ended up fixing a trip to Nepal with Simon in the end. We started applying as a group of three and got in without much suspense. 

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Simon had been to Nepal once, which was how he obtained contact with a local school in Dhake, Nepal, where we would offer our services. The school's principal had some moving stories, indirectly told by Simon. Yelin and I, on the other hand, retold the stories well during our presentations, with or without our own proper understanding of the situation. We also put things into perspectives, telling everyone that Nepal was a country in as much need as any, and yet it was always neglected.

We got so many applicants wanting to be on our trip it was fun picking among them whoever we liked well enough. The preparation for the trip lasted the entire semester and the next, up to the end of February. Then in March, the actual trip finally began. 

Before we set off, under my facebook post announcing our departure, a high school friend I hardly talked to these days commented, and here I paraphrase —This is what elite schools' kids do when they say they're off to do good. If you really mean it, you should try to understand how to be environmentally sustainable and stay with the homeless in New Haven.

Well, I pretended and admitted to pretending to be a saint, if that helps anyone with a catharsis.