In the fourth month of my study abroad program, each student can choose either an Independent Study Project (ISP) or an Internship. I'm doing an ISP, which means I choose my research topic and go into the field to study it.
I wanted to record farmers' narratives, or stories, of how they recover from natural disasters. I started my journey in Kathmandu, took a 7-hour bus to Besisahar in Manang and took a 3-4-hour jeep to Tal. After seeing that Tal focuses more on guesthouses for tourism, I walked 4-5 hours to Tachai. Dharapani, a town I passed through on the way to Tachai, also mostly depends on guesthouses for tourists.
Although they had few farms, I did one interview in Tal and two in Dharapani. Now, I'm collecting the rest of my interviews in Tachai, a village that almost completely depends on local agriculture for food and income.
This environment is so special because it sits in the mountains at 2,300 meters (7,546 feet) above sea level. A town in the US with similar elevation is Estes Park, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains, which is 2,293 meters (7,522 feet) above sea level. At this elevation, which sits between the cool temperate and subalpine vegetation zones of the mountain, there is a mix of coniferous trees and broadleaf trees.
