by Raffaela Schiavello

24 October 2007

Patan, Nepal: I opened my eyes and the plane had already landed. I walked down the stairs and felt the breeze on my face. It was 11pm.

I walked towards the arrival gate and lined up at the migration counter with other passengers. Then suddenly I saw one gentle smile of snow white teeth over dark brown skin. That man greeted me and helped me out with visa-related procedures. He was the driver sent by UNFPA, my host agency, to pick me up from the airport and take me to the hotel where I would have spent the night. That was the first smile that welcomed me to Kathmandu, Nepal. At that time I did not know that many more smiles would have followed, every single day of my stay, for the following year.

Starting from the next day, things went very fast. I first attended a half day long security briefing provided by UN Department of Safety and Security, including training on the use of VHF radio sets and related coded language (it sounded very complex at the beginning, but I got quickly used to use it when travelling in the field). I had lunch in a restaurant just around the corner of UN House with five fellow UNV volunteers.

Finally, I attended a one week orientation for new staff with 40 other colleagues that turned out being not only a full immersion in UNFPA mandate and projects, but also in Nepali culture, language, songs, dances and delicious food.

After almost one month, during which I settled in my new residence with a fellow fully funded Swiss UNV in the lovely old city of Patan, I went to the field for the first time. We, another International UNV, a national volunteer and me, went to Dadeldhura in the Far Western region to conduct a workshop on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 for twenty community women, focusing on women protection in conflict context and participation of women in the peace process. This first trip was followed by many more field missions in the five geographical regions of Nepal. More particularly, I have been conducting field visits to test and implement the new monitoring system that we UNFPA Monitoring and Evaluation Officers designed to track programme progress in the field.

Field trips are definitely the best part of my job: different Nepali landscapes, people taking naps on the road under their broken down trucks, kids riding buffalos, colourful sari worn by incredibly beautiful women, experiencing non-stop heavy monsoon rain, meeting with community people in order to ensure that our programme meets their Reproductive Health needs, taking dinner with Nepali field staff after long days of work,…When I come back from my field visits and enter the UN compound, I sometimes cross that driver who first welcomed me in Nepal. I could not retain his name the first time I met him and maybe one day I may even be unable to remember it. But his smile, the Nepali smile, I will never forget.