The Volunteer

In the early 70s the Peace Corps’ Nepal Training program was based on an old migrant farm-worker housing complex just across the street from the (then new) UCD Primate Center. Periodically a new group of 30 to 50 trainees was gathered there for 8 or 12 weeks, so that Nepali language instructors, Nepal Peace Corps "veterans" and support staff could prepare them for two years in Nepal. The trainees lived on the site, semi-immersed in the language and culture. As medical consultant, my series of lectures emphasized water/food-borne diseases, and provided an introduction to a fairly comprehensive medical "how-to" manual prepared by in-country medical staff. College students or graduates, as well as mature adults with inclination and opportunity, were attracted by the Peace Corps’ aura of idealism and adventure, or sometimes just by the chance to visit California or Nepal for a few months, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

During training, volunteers lived in what we felt were primitive quarters, wore Nepali clothing, and learned Nepali customs, like never eating or touching someone with the left hand which is reserved for wiping. They practiced the Nepali language derived from Sanskrit, the mother tongue of all Indo-European languages (and thus developed the linguistic facility of a 4-year-old Nepali child). They were told a multitude of things which had little real meaning for them at the time: there are several quite distinct and profound religious faiths practiced in the area; Nepali men hold hands and touch one another often; erotic religious art does not imply a tolerance for erotic behavior; high quality cannabis was cheap and easily available, although society relegated its use to only its most despised members (the opposite of their own experience!); Kathmandu was the name of a mountain valley ruled by a king; the king also ruled Nepal; in1970 only one road connected the kingdom (and all Nepal) to the outside world - fifty miles as the crow flies, eight hours as the car rides, and often closed in the rainy season; the road dropped down to the Gangitic plain, the strangely beautiful end-stage product of millennia of ecologic pillage (a term which might be use to describe the arable parts of Nepal itself). They were taught about amebiasis, amebic hepatitis, viral hepatitis, parasitoses of all sorts, salmonella/shigella enteritides, and tuberculosis; what a rabid dog might look like; that nothing less than a 15-minute full boil (or ten drops of saturated iodine per glass of water for15 minutes) could make contaminated water safe to drink; that a helicopter would be sent out to give them a gamma globulin shot every four months (which might alter viral hepatitis but not actually reduce morbidity); that ice is water; that something in a Coke bottle might not always be Coca Cola; that they would be living as the lone westerner, in a village that was a three- to four-day walk from Kathmandu, and would therefore have to deal with minor injury and illness themselves; that a radio link was provided but it often would not work due to mountainous terrain and other factors; that mail service existed but was not reliable; and on and on similarly for two or three months.

A few trainees dropped out during training, perhaps because they actually understood what was said; some may have suspected that the combination of idealism, arrogance, ignorance, and "hair shirt" ethic of the Corps was too frightening. But most went to Nepal to work in their chosen field, like education or agriculture. It had been hoped that careful selection and close observation at training would allow staff to discover those trainees who would do poorly in Nepal. However, as judged by results, the training program was ineffective. Within a few months of arrival in country, a large fraction of the volunteers quit. Among those who stayed on, the rate of mortality, depression and frank psychosis was much higher than it was among U.S. troops serving in Viet Nam! As part of a reassessment of the program, I was able to travel on foot through rural Nepal, visiting volunteers. It appeared that the physical and cultural distance between the USA in the 1970's and Nepal in the first millennium was too great. The conclusions were obvious: the Nepal training was moved from Davis to Kathmandu, and the policy of individual placement was relaxed so that more than one volunteer was allowed at a location.

Consider the experience of one of the more successful volunteers I visited in Nepal: He arrives there hoping to teach science to grade school children. After a couple of weeks in Kathmandu, still under the watchful eye of the staff there, he is cut loose. With his belongings on his back, he begins a three-day walk toward a village located on a dry ridge at about 9000 ft elevation. There is magic all about. The wide trails are worn by thousands of years of foot travel. A solitary-surviving ancient tree is marked as the abode of a living God. Hot tea with buffalo milk is available at trail side. One night he is allowed to sleep in a barn and awakens to the shouts of children climbing a tree to pick leaves for the bison (not a cow of course). They pick leaves from the tree and throw them to the bison because there is no other forage. The trails rise up to a pass, down to a slate gray, rushing river, which must be waded, and up again. Around a bend in the trail the sky opens up to reveal a magnificent string of violet-white peaks on a blue-black sky. He encounters tiny men and women carrying huge loads; a chicken hangs from the pack of one Sherpa, as meat is not forbidden to them. A dignified looking man passes, carrying a black umbrella to shelter him from the sun or the rain, and at a respectable distance behind is his uncovered family. At villages en route, he finds he is a sato manchi, the object of raucous delight to crowds of children who laugh and chatter and walk with him. He notes with interest that the skin and physical appearance of the children differs from village to village, a reflection of the varying diet. Occasionally he meets someone who speaks English, usually with a proper British accent. Otherwise he is confined to his very limited Nepali. He is fascinated by a woman who takes a complete bath in public behind her bright translucent garment. In time, he arrives and is established in his village.

Water must be brought from a spring 1/4 mile down hill from his lodging; there people bathe and wash, void and defecate. It is hard to explain to his host, especially with his inability to communicate, why he must use so much water, why he uses iodine so often, why he insists that his food be prepared in such a complicated way. Nominally, the village has requested a science teacher; but actually a government functionary who has never been to the village assigned him there. He finds that his counterpart is a venerated elder who demands rote learning, word for word from an Aristotelian text, from students who are confined in a poorly lit classroom and who are expected to ask no questions ...the four elements are earth, air, fire, and water. The humors are bile, phlegm , blood, ... How can he effectively introduce his own material and methods to the schoolmaster or to students? Especially when the most delicate socio-political experience he has known was the burning of a flag at the people's park in Berkeley? That was his way of communicating with another generation. Furthermore, his innocent and pure GI tract, born and raised in the USA, has never had to deal with contaminated water before, and he has already lost 20 lb from a protracted, watery and flatulent bloody diarrhea. The lady who cooks for him hasn't understood, or discounts the importance of his instructions.

As the weeks then months pass, his initial overwhelming enthusiasm and excitement fade in the face of isolation and loneliness, in a culture so deep and so wide and so old that at first fascinated and overwhelmed him. He has intermittent contact with Peace Corps staff from Kathmandu who periodically visit; yet they cannot lift him from the depth of his discouragement. He realizes he must ultimately resolve his problems himself. At least the first hour of friendly banter and conversation with any other volunteer is always directed to the number, color, consistency, and subtle characteristics of his stools. He hears news of other volunteers, grateful at least that he is OK by comparison. Why is it the women volunteers fare so much better, on average, than the men? There is a disturbing recognition that his decision to take personal risk in the name of idealism places him in the existentialist company of people he has learned to despise, like missionaries and perhaps even military recruits.

His personal and psychological nadir is at about ten months, but gradually he begins to adapt and his language skills grow. Toward the end of his stay, he has not actually established a more modern science curriculum, but there is awareness that it exists, and he hopes that in time the Nepali teacher may accept some of it as his own. He becomes more and more excited and elated, despite a distinct sense that he will leave some of himself in Nepal. More than a year after he returns home, he is still exceedingly thin and carries himself like a Nepali, even in his western clothes, retaining distinct and telling traces of mannerisms and speech. He feels sure that sooner or later he will return to his village, at least for a visit. While the millenias-old mountain kingdom has not changed perceptibly, his whole world has been moved, shaken, and perhaps, enlightened.