Adapting after two month: Being the European ~ Being both Insider & Outsider

I think I have written a pretty similar post to this few years ago when I was in Ghana. Well, the fact is that so many times it feels so similar to be here in Nepal than what I experienced in Ghana...

Well, anyway having spent here more than two month now, I feel half being extremely involved and half still being an outsider – which I think is never possible to be changed. On one side I feel like that I know how things work here: I know how to cross the road which seemed impossible at the beginning, just like I know how to get around in Kathmandu and the places nearby. I have no problem with stopping the buses shouting loudly: Hey Dai, Swoyambhu janchha? (=Hey brother, are you going to Swoyambhu?). Usually I have no problem with bargaining either, I can repet it continuously “Derei mahango, sasto dinus, paisa chaina” (Too expensive, give me cheaper, I have no money).  And it’s so sooo nice to be able to get around like this, know the place, have a real experience.

On the other side I can more and more experience what kind of a life a star could have, which is not easy to get used to. Any time you walk on the street you can take it for sure that somebody will either stare at you or say hello or offer to take you somewhere or invent any other kind of way to get in contact with you. The kids are waving on the street saying “Hello, Namaste, bye” and there are more and more people who recognize us on the way that we usually take.

We are meeting more and more people who are so nice that we are not used to in Europe, seemingly without any expectation in return. Bringing us presents, doing favours, inviting for dinner and even asking the mum to come and cook for us dal bhat, the typical and everyday part of the Nepalese cuisine. These are the experiences when you stand there and don’t understand, thinking that they have no reason to do all these for you. Until you finally get the reason: you are European. European who is thought to be a good person, probably a rich person too and also one who could be nice to contact once in Europe. I know, this is generalization, there are exceptions – finally we know some, too. But still, it’s  common experience that I feel that I would like to change my skin sometimes, I would just like to be normal and not a “star”. I would like to be seen as who I am and not what is shown on the outside....

It’s an interesting mixture of being an insider and an outsider that you balance between every day, minute by minute and which will also make you try to define and stabilize your own position, your own picture of yourself in this interesting, different and sometimes crazy context. :)