On Monday the 15th of March, I arrived at the Kathmandu airport in Nepal at 12:50 am. To say that I have been waiting for this moment would be an understatement – but it had finally arrived and it wasn’t like anything I could have imagined, in the best ways possible. Studying abroad during a pandemic definitely had a plethora of obstacles, from visa troubles to the constant anxiety of the program being canceled – so arriving in Kathmandu felt like a semester’s worth of joy, and I hadn’t even seen the beautiful hills, colorful city, or the amount of love between the people here.
The first piece of ‘culture shock’ ( I have come to notice that culture shock isn’t a complete surprise, but rather experiencing things that are so different from home that it can’t quite be compared to anything at home), was at the airport. It was almost 1 am, and it felt like it was 60 degrees, and I went directly from the airplane to the line outside the airport to go through customs. Unlike what I was used to, Nepali people live in very organized chaos. There are not quite rules – which can be seen when walking through the city, driving, and even at the airport. Everyone is just aware of their surroundings, but they don’t need an organized structure to do so, so there are no designated signs, lines to stand in, or lanes to be in, and it is a lot of weaving through obstacles. Walking through the city, there are motorcycles everywhere, people walking around carts, bikes and cars, and cars and bikes on both sides of the road, but not necessarily just on the right or left, but wherever they fit.
While I had to stay quarantined for the first five days here, Nepal still had so much to offer inside the little walls of the guest house I was staying in. The birds serenade the city from sunrise to sunset, and prayer flags add a touch of color in every corner. The sky was constantly blue and cloudless – which made it perfect to sit and enjoy the sun, a past time that many Nepali’s enjoy ( usually eating oranges). Time here is viewed very differently in the US, where everyone constantly has something to do and somewhere else to be – here, it is normal to spend hours talking, sitting in the sun, and enjoying the moments that life brings us. It is the norm here for rooftop terraces, usually to dry clothes or hang out, and I have learned to love the ways that the city has incorporated a love for all of the Earth into everyday life. From plant life throughout the city, dogs, and cats roaming the city, to rooftop terraces that make it easier for everyone to get time outside, Kathmandu is a city that values love for others and the world around us, and I am so excited for everything I can learn in the next three months.