Are you scared?
That was always the first question I got when I told people of my plans to spend the summer in Nepal working with survivors of sex trafficking. Are you scared?
And I always told them the truth, because the truth was that no, I was not scared. It didn’t scare me that I rarely do anything alone, much less travel across the world. It didn’t scare me that I had never been to Asia before or that the only Nepali I knew was Namaste. It didn’t even scare me that I was working with a subject that is so categorically scary.
At least, I didn’t think it did.
As I walk across the tarmac in Doha it feels like I’ve stepped into an easy bake oven. It’s so hot the air doesn’t seem to want to enter my lungs, so hot that the horizon line wobbles like I’m in an Indiana Jones film. I hoist my carry-on bag higher up onto my shoulder as I board the Qatar Airways plane and pray that Kathmandu won’t be like this. My final destination is still five hours away, and after travelling for roughly 19 hours already, I’m hoping this time around I’ll actually be able to get some sleep. Maybe the Benadryl will help.
I wake up feeling disoriented, then frantic when I make it through customs only to realize my luggage has gone missing. I file a request with a group of officials in light blue uniforms, and they hand me a slip of paper, telling me to come back in two hours. But my unease is magnified as soon as I step outside and am swarmed with persistent taxi drivers.
All men, they speak quickly, in a language I do not understand. And when I try to ignore them, when I try to walk past, they follow closely behind until I’ve grown a tail of them.
Who is waiting for you? Who? Which group?
SASANE I say. Because I don’t know what else to do, because I don’t see a t-shirt or a sign or a car for the organization that is supposed to pick me up.
I move inside, mostly to lose my tail and to get some space to think. SASANE told me they would send a phone number to call. They never did. And now I have no contact, no address, nor any Nepali rupees.
Just then a man, I recognize him as one of the taxi drivers from outside, comes in holding a sign with my name and the name SASANE. I found them. Come. I found them.
I don’t want to follow him and I don’t know how he got the sign, but before I can say anything two girls approach from outside. They look to be about my age, and I sense immediately that they are who I am supposed to meet. I later learn their names are Laxmi and Shanti, and after quick introductions they haggle for a cab and we’re on our way through the busy, smoggy streets of Kathmandu.
A few hours later I lie in the bed that will be mine for the next two months. Thankfully I was able to retrieve my luggage with little fanfare, and I had just finished dinner; the Nepali classic called dal bhat, a plate of rice, lentils, and potato curry.
My room is hot and stuffy, even with the fan on. It’s large – larger than I expected – with a long wall of wooden cabinets, a balcony, and my own attached bathroom. Outside my window I hear shouts from nearby construction. The streets here are so narrow and winding that every time a car or motorcycle reaches a bend in the road, they honk to warn possible oncoming traffic.
Despite the heat, I wrap the blanket tighter around myself. The bed is without a mattress and rock hard, my shower involved a blue bucket and freezing tap water which turned off after five minutes, and the taste of unfamiliar spices lingers on my tongue. Everything is new, and strange, and suddenly I realize I am very, very far from home. Toto, you’re not in Kansas anymore.
I press my eyes shut and try not to cry. For the first time in a long time I feel scared.
