dr turin on nepal
http://markturin.commons.yale.edu/
^ this man came to talk to our reach out group today. i have right now written in my notebook the word “BRILLIANT” in all caps under his name.
i was blown away by his perceptiveness, vast knowledge, and eloquence as a researcher of the himalayan region, his fluent nepali, and especially his deadpan british wit. he was so inspiring, i couldn’t help but imagine myself too in nepal, smitten with the nepali culture as he had been, trying my hand at nepali with locals… his hilarious stories about nepali mothers and the 12 babies they wanted to entrust you with and nepalis who wanted to breach the unspoken urinal laws of men and the horrendously un-photogenic tendencies of villagers… his advice about men talking only to men and you triangulating the conversation… his provocative insistence of nepal as a poor, landlocked country turned technological and political leapfrog, turned emerging land of nuance and sophistication. i loved also his strong faith in the power of languages and cross-cultural communication. i do believe now that this is why i love the french language so much, because i’ve been able to open up an entire population to me with what i have learned. i am really inspired to try and pick up some key phrases in nepali, too. he put a life in nepal that i hadn’t seen before.
