First Week at Work

I have finally settled in beautiful Dhulikhel where I will work for a year. The place is about an hour to four hours drive east of Kathmandu depending on the traffic. On the first day of work, I met with all of my new colleague and I had a tour of the Campus. There were a lot of Nepali names to comprehend so I usually mixed it up or pretended to remember by coughing when uttering names.

I have several bosses; my FK boss in Dhulikhel is Subodh Sir, who is a dedicated and energetic scientist and professor. Roshan Sir is Subodh Sir’s colleague and shares responsibility for me. He is the person to go to for all pratical things like paying bills etc.

The there is the department of Language and Mass Communication that I work in, my boss there is Janga B. Sir, and is a pleasant older gentleman, who managed to make me read Norwegian poem at the Russian Cultural Center the first week of work. I had chosen Arnulf Øverland’s Du Må Ikke Sove, and I read it in front of twenty well know Kathmandu poets, as well as some Russian and Chinese guests. The event was also covered by Kathmandu newspapers that put my name in the paper the next day…

Then there is Nirmala Sir, how is my boss within media studies, a workaholic who by the age of 31 has managed to publish 26 books! He is a dedicated Hindu who has worked on a Hindu based model of communication, very fascinatingJ Nirmala have together with my colleague Kangendra, given me a schedule of classes that they would like me to teach, including Crisis Management in PR and journalism, its been a while, but I will do my best.

This week, was also a week of practical things. Subodh and Roshan Sir took me around Dhulihel to visit a couple of potential places that I could move into. The farmhouse, that I had hear about even before arriving in Dhulikhel was a very sharming little hide out on the outskirts of campus, it had a common room with a stove, sofa and TV, and a bedroom. The bed, however, had to be made my size before moving in, and the shower was located outside in the garden. It had a brilliant heating system that used gas to heat the water as it passed through, but there was almost no pressure, so I requested some modifications to the facilities.

The second location was in outskirts of Dhulikhel and quite far from KU. It was the place where Siv and Vegard, my predecessors had lived. It was a beautiful flat with balcony, kitchen, an extra bedroom etc. but the thought of having to spend 45 min to get to work every day discouraged me. Subodh Sir told me that they also had I third option in mind, but until now they have not managed to set a date for viewing it. Until then I have decided to stay in my hotel room at the KU International Center.

Arriving in Kathmandu

Hi everyone, this is my first "blog" ever, but I think it will be good for those of you who don't use facebook and want to know about my life and work here in Nepal. Let’s start with all the problems I have encounter so far on my journey here. It already started when I got fined for having 11kg overweight at the airport in Oslo. Because they have different rules for traveling to Asia it added up to 2860kr, but the credit-card solved the problem for now, thank you credit God.

The trip lasted for about 24hours, and when I arrived in KTM airport I didn’t have enough dollars to pay for visa, and they did not take credit card, and I was asked to go outside to use the ATM, but that had closed. Thankfully, I Nepalese friend from UMB named Kirshor helped me out and I was allowed entry to Nepal.

I had booked a hotel room in advanced, by calling a hotel where my FK friends were staying, but I had a feeling that the guy on the other end did not understand me when I called from Oslo, although he insisted by saying yes several times when we spoke. When I got to the hotel, they had not gotten the message, but fortunately they had plenty of room.

There is a major power crisis in Nepal at this time, so most of the day the electricity is shut down, this was also the case for the hotel we were staying in. When I got to my room, I was greeted by the biggest cockroach I had ever encountered, but he got the hint when I started kicking and screaming and got lost.

Kathmandu was not the same as last visit, and the power-shortage made the streets less attractive at night, but we managed it nicely, and I guided my friends in the wrong directions on several occasions.

On day two I visited the CIWIC center to get a vaccination for Japanese brain disease, that had bother me ever since the FK preparation course had a whole day on exotic diseases. Fortunately, it only took one shot and I was saved from the potentially deadly disease. After, vaccination I went with my friends to Thamel, to get some lunch. We hitched a ride with a local taxi and were on our way. Once we stopped in Thamel and were about to pay, a motorcyclist crashed into the rear of the taxi causing the backside window to explode and shattered glass came flying everywhere.

I remember seeing the motorcyclist flying in slow-motion past my passenger window before slamming into the pavement. At that time Klaus, my FK buddy, was already out of the car using his cat reflexes. Laurie, my other FK buddy, was still sitting in the front seat wondering what just hit us.

A few seconds later we were outside the car and surrounded by hundreds of locals, tourists and police. The motorcyclist survived, but was bleeding heavy from his arm. A French tourist was trying to dust off some of the shattered class from my sweater, but I was afraid of class entering my butt crack so I gently took of my sweater and gave it a good shake.

After the commotion had settled, we went over to a nearby coffee shop and had lassi. We were all a little bit traumatized and were checking for whiplash and other injuries and it of course it had to happen on Friday the 13th…

Later that day we went to Buddha Bar and had a few drinks, and everything was all good again. That was my first two days in Kathmandu.