After meeting with various university administrators, I was told that my dorm room would be ready in a few days. I was given the phone number of the M.Sc. Hostel superintendent. I was told to call him about the room. On the first afternoon I called him, he told me that he would call me back with an update after 1pm that day. I was a little confused, but I agreed and hung up the phone. I immediately looked at the time on my cell phone. It was 1:35pm. I thought that maybe he meant 1pm the next day and had just gotten confused. Over the next week I tried to call him several times, but never got through. The Nepal cellular system isn’t always reliable. Finally, I went back to one of the administrators I had visited before. In less than five minutes he made a few phone calls and told me that I should go to the hostel. There would be someone waiting for me there.
From far away, the hostel looked exactly as it did in the picture on the university website. It was a large three story concrete building finished in brick. There were shared balconies for all of the rooms. There was a volleyball court in front and some clothes hanging on a line where a second volleyball net would normally be. Walking up to the main lobby, I noticed the three broken windows in front. All of the windows had bars across them whether they had glass or not. Inside was some old plywood furniture. The main desk had some of the layers of plywood coming off. Around the corner, several students were gathered around a small TV, watching the local news. Behind them was a ping pong table that was in disrepair. One of the hostel caretakers saw me walking around and greeted me. He immediately showed me to my room, which hadn’t been cleaned yet.
We both walked in together and looked around. There were two wooden bed frames and some random trash on the floor. He immediately went to get a broom to begin cleaning up. Together, we moved one of the bed frames out of the room then he quickly swept up and took away the few bits of trash leftover. Looking at the empty concrete room, with the bars across the windows, I immediately thought it felt like a prison cell. The caretaker told me that we needed to go to the market so he could help me buy bedding. After walking to the nearby market, we visited several shops. He helped me get a Nepali mattress, pillows, sheets, blankets, towels, and a mosquito net. We got a taxi back to the hostel and I immediately set everything up. With everything in the room, it seemed more like a dorm room. Since it was time for dinner, he pointed me in the direction of the mess hall attached to the hostel.
While eating dinner, a fellow student explained how the meals at the hostel worked. Each student paid a monthly membership fee to eat in the mess hall. There were two brothers who cooked and served all of the food. Each week there was a different student who was in charge of going to the market with the brothers, purchasing the food, and recording the expenses. I asked if the small garden I had seen outside was used for the mess hall and he replied that it was. The student reminded me that since it was all Nepali food in the mess hall, I would be eating dhal-bhat (lentils and rice) at each meal. He also added that it’s normal for them to serve meat three times each week. As I continued eating, I got the feeling that this place was like a commune.
The next day, I made friends with many students and one who went to a different campus. Her father was the hostel superintendent so she lived in this campus hostel instead of the other. Since I needed to do laundry, I asked her what people do for laundry here. I had done laundry by hand in El Salvador before, so I thought I knew what to expect. She led me back to the marketplace and helped me purchase a bucket, small pitcher, brush, and soap. When we got back to the hostel, she took me into the bathroom and explained how to do laundry. More specifically, she explained how to do laundry on the floor of the shower. That I did not expect. She continually told me that the floor of the shower only looked dirty, but it was actually clean. Next, she got into a baseball catcher’s position and started doing her laundry. I went into the other shower and started doing the same. After finishing 30 minutes later, I got up very slowly and the two of us hung up laundry outside on the clothesline.
Back inside, I took a look at the ping pong table. It seemed to be in reasonable condition. There was a brick replacing one of the wheels on the stand, but it did its job well. The net was down and I saw that the clamps to hold it up were broken. At closer review, I realized one of the pins had fallen out of the clamp. With some determination, elbow grease, and a little time, I managed to get the pin and spring back in place. Putting up the net, there was now a fully functional ping pong table. A student came by and commented on the table being fixed. He also asked if I wanted to play. The two of us played until the daylight started going out.
Due to load shedding (planned blackouts) we would be without power until midnight. As the sun continued going down, I relaxed in the main lobby. I read a newspaper and occasionally looked around at the walls that were covered in old spider webs, the furniture that had the plywood coming off, and the broken windows on the other side of the metal bars. I couldn’t escape feeling that we were all squatting in an abandoned building, 35 Nepali masters students and I. I actually welcomed the feeling. I had always wondered what it was like to be a squatter. In this case I wasn’t really one, but I sure felt like it.
P.S. The windows were broken by masters students playing cricket and the university didn’t want to replace them since they would only be broken again.
Panaramic of the Hostel Lobby
Just another day of doing laundry
I believe this bathroom is out-of-order
