Staying Healthy While Volunteering in Nepal

It is very important to stay healthy while volunteering. It is no fun to lay low when you should be out and about helping the needy. Read some of the points below carefully:

1.       Eating with hands, instead of forks and spoons, is very common in Nepal. Your host family might expect you to eat with hand and some families might not even have forks or proper spoons. It would delight your host family if you eat with hand. But you must wash your hands properly. Use soap and make sure your finger nails are clean.

2.       Diarrhea is a common problem in Nepal and foreign visitors will easily encounter this menace if you're not careful. Do not eat salad and lettuces. Even well washed leaves have tiny bugs. Ask your host family to wash it with potassium permanganate.

3.       Food from vendors selling opening - a big NO NO. They are not only be hot and spicy, they will give you good stomach ache.

4.       Drinking water - always boil water, or buy mineral water and make sure the seal of the bottle isn't tampered with.

5.       Go to good restaurants and enjoy. In Kathmandu and Pokhara, you will find many different restaurants serving all kinds of food. Your host family will serve your dal, bhat twice a day (lunch, dinner) so you should go out and eat other food.

6.       Try Nepalese beer - they're good. Some of them are of foreign brands. Do not drink alcohol - not suggested - even if the bottles are of international brands like Jack Daniels. Lately, people have died from drinking from these brands as the alcohol is mixed with local spirits and sold on the market.

7.       No bananas - the traders use extremely harmful medicines to make bananas ripe.

8.       If you're trekking high up in the mountains after 3 thousand meters you will start experiencing Altitude Sickness. Drink plenty of fluids, ascend slowly, or better rest. If nothing helps, descend as fast as you can. Don't drink alcohol at these places as it will dehydrate you and make your sickness worst.

9.       And lastly, if you travel to Chitwan take your Malaria pills. Use a good mosquito repellent and buy a mosquito net in Kathmandu (cost you about USD7).

Volunteering in Nepal is fun. It is a very friendly country and people will really appreciate your presence. But you must stay health also to have more fun and better experience.