A dazzling place I never knew. But when I’m way up here, its crystal clear, that now I’m in a whole new world, with you.
Sound familiar? If you are anything like me and love Disney animated movies, Aladdin should be the first thing you think of. Â The lyrics match the feelings we all had arriving in Nepal our first night. For all of us, this was the first time to this complex little country. The experience most definitely was dazzling. Â And as we circled Mt Everest via Yetti Airlines it was most definitely clear that we were in a whole new world.
Everything about Nepal was new for me. The religions, the smells, the culture, the mountains, the villages, the list could go on. To be quite honest, without sounding incredibly cheesy or predictable, this experience was life changing. Â While this song was our group ‘inside joke’ it is also very representative of my overall feelings towards the trip. Â Bumpy, dusty, windy roads, long days and short nights, and any other at the time challenging experiences aside, this trip opened up a whole new world to me. Â From being in a completely different region of the world I ever thought I’d be, to meeting incredible people and seeing incredible things-both uplifting and depressing-Nepal genuinely is a dazzling place I never knew.
Now that we are back and people ask how the trip went or what we learned.  These are very complex questions I feel. I learned a lot on this trip about myself, what I wanted to continue studying and sorting out through academics, and what I might want to do ‘when I grow up’ (although, lets be honest here, that isn’t 100% sorted out!).  One of the things we all learned in our short trip is that Nepal is a very complex little country with miles to go in its peacebuilding process. We are still debriefing, writing, and analyzing what we’ve learned, observed, and experienced in Nepal.  I am still struggling to sort out exactly what I want to say about Nepal, so the main thing I keep coming back to is the thought: “well I’ll just have to go back.”  It is too complex of a country to speak too soon, judge too soon, or put behind me just yet. Maybe if I put it in writing, on the internet it will happen, but I hope that I can go back to Nepal to continue to learn about its culture, people, troubles, and triumphs.  A country this beautiful and this complex is worth another trip.
I feel very fortunate to have been able to go on this adventure with my colleagues and Dr. Iyer. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Â I hope to become much more familiar with this ‘new world’ in my future.