I've been counting down the days to coming home since I left in September. We started with months, which turned into weeks, then days, and then hours. Now we're home. The Nepal group arrived in Toronto safe and sound last night, to a cluster of anxiously waiting parents, siblings, and flowers. Nothing in the world could have felt better than my family's hugs, my dad's cooking, and my comfy bed. The 15 minutes it took for our baggage to get to the carousel after we landed in Toronto's airport felt like an eternity!
The actual journey home was mostly uneventful, we left Kathmandu around 9pm local time, for a 5 hour flight to Doha, Qatar. There, I had a 9 hour layover, which entitled me to a visa out of the airport and a hotel room, but since it was already midnight and things were closed, we didn't bother leaving the hotel to explore the city. By 6:30am we were back at the airport, and after an hour and a half delay, we had a 13 hour flight to Montreal. After clearing customs and a quick transfer we were on another flight: destination HOME! Total travel time was just over 30 hours. During my last few days in Nepal, I had a number of goodbye celebrations. My work held a special lunch for me on Tuesday where they served special Nepali food and gave me a gift of a fair trade bag and said some very kind words. It came up during lunch that my supervisor had wanted to learn how to make the snowflakes I had taught to children at the Christmas fair earlier this year, but she had always thought she'd have more time to ask me. So, after lunch, the whole office came down to my table and spent an hour learning how to make snowflakes. We came out with one giant snowflake that everyone made a small piece of, and it now hangs in the entrance of the FTG office. I was still never really upset to be leaving Nepal, but if there was ever a moment that I was a little sad, that was it. It was the perfect goodbye. We had another lunch on Wednesday with CECI, the organization that hosts Canadian volunteers where more kind words were shared and we thanked everyone for the support they had given us. Now that I'm home I'm not sure I'll have much else to write about. I have two weeks of debrief in Waterloo and then I'm finished my undergraduate degree. I'll hopefully work a summer job in the city, and in September I'll start my Master of Global Affairs at the Munk School of Global Affairs, part of the University of Toronto. The degree is 2 years long, and the summer in between is spent on a 4-month co-op. Most people go abroad to work, so hopefully I'll have another adventure to write about. Until then, I'll say goodbye (although I might still write when I have something to say) and thank you to everyone who's been following me on my journey.
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Every night at 11:40 I can hear from my room the low rumble of an airplane overhead. This has been happening since we arrived in September, but it quickly became the sort of thing that was easy to ignore, and I stopped noticing the sound all together within the first week. Now, I hear the airplane again, every night at 11:40, like clockwork. It has started to serve as a reminder that another day has passed, and that we are another day closer to home. In exactly 9 days I will be on that very flight, and my neighbours will hear me pass above them as I depart this country one last time. I was warned that when it came time to leave Nepal, my emotions would be mixed. Maybe it hasn't quite set in yet, but the sadness of leaving Nepal in just over two weeks still hasn't surfaced on my emotional radar. So far it's all just been varying degrees of happiness.
This weekend was the Nepali New Year. Happy 2071 by the way! Like many festivals in Nepal, this celebration is mostly done within the family home. There is no countdown to midnight ("Tin, Dui, Ek...Happy New Year" just doesn't sound right to me), so we decided to take the three day weekend to celebrate in our own way. Rasha, Darrelle and I went to Chitwan National Park, another major tourist area of Nepal where people often go on safari. While there, we took a canoe trip down the river that surrounds the park, visited the elephant breeding and training centre, and rode an elephant on a jungle safari. We were able to see a rhino taking a bath from only a few yards away, two different types of crocodiles only a few feet from our canoe, countless elephants of all ages, and various exotic birds and deer. Unfortunately, the elephant we rode was highly flatulent, but she was considerate enough to swat at the air with her tail each time to waft the smell away. I have to say, I never expected to ride a gassy elephant or learn what to do in case I'm being chased by a rhino (thankfully I didn't have to use this wisdom, and hopefully I won't ever have to), but I suppose I can add these to my collection of experiences I would never have had if it weren't for Nepal. I think my collection of experiences is big enough for now though. Canada, I'm ready for you. Photos of Pokhara and Chitwan are coming soon.
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