I bought two packs of cigarettes the other day, Marlboros with the red and white box. I don’t smoke, mostly because I don’t like having the smell of the smoke on my hands and clothes. But on this day at the convenience store I decided that packs of cigarettes might be useful to have during the summer.

While standing at the counter paying for my milk, I had found my eyes’ focus idly wandering among the various colorful packs and my mind thinking back to various encounters during my time in China in which cigarettes had played a significant role. It was in China that I really came to understand that cigarettes can take on any number of meanings and play different roles depending on where you are. Offering a cigarette as thanks, or at a first meeting or during a tense encounter can in some situations relieve tensions and help open certain lines of communication. A friend of mine who worked in Serbia introduced me to the idea of always carrying cigarettes despite not being a smoker. Every time we had lunch she would invariably tell the same story about how a pack of American cigarettes helped her get through a number of tense moments at roadblocks while driving through the country. While at this point I still cannot envision specific situations in Nepal where I can imagine myself whipping out my pack of Marlboros and immediately making my life safer or easier, at the moment I was standing there at the convenience store counter just having them seemed like a good idea.

After paying and starting the walk home it next occurred to me that if I am going to carry packs of cigarettes to offer to people, I might also find situations in which I would need to smoke them. Opening my new pack of Marlboros I had myself convinced that I needed to practice smoking to ensure I would look natural when lighting up in Nepal. As it turns out I still don’t really enjoy smoking, but if you look in my bag this summer, do not be surprised to find a pack of Marlboros.

My packs of cigarettes and the reasons behind my buying them are indicative of a more general feeling I have about the summer ahead (they might also be evidence of a rather overactive imagination). I have a significant amount of experience traveling and living abroad, which helped spawn my sudden impulse to buy cigarettes, but how specifically my experiences are going to apply to my fast approaching life in Nepal I do not know, just as I can’t yet imagine how I am going to use my Marlboros. What I know about Nepal are political, historical and cultural facts. I am familiar with the history of the region and some of the political challenges the country is facing, but I have never been there before and simply cannot even imagine at this point what my day to day experience will be. This, in turn, has made it hard for me to really think out exactly how my past experiences will help me in the months to come. This uncertainty is playing both into my excitement and my concerns, with the excitement currently outweighing the concerns.

My location for the summer is also contributing to both these conflicting feelings. I will be living in Nepalganj, a city in the Terai region of Nepal. The Terai, which is in terms of geography an extension of the Indian plains, is Nepal’s most populated and least stable region, both politically and economically. It has been well documented that the Maoists have always been strongest and most active in the Terai during Nepal’s civil war. While I could regurgitate more information about the problems of the Terai garnered from reading various books and papers, I think it is sufficient at this point to say that I believe working and living in the Terai might add significantly to the challenges I will face. At the same time though there is no doubt in my mind it will also add to the significance of the opportunity I have before me, and ultimately to what I will take away from the summer. What exactly it is that I will take away I still do not know, other than a much improved smoking technique of course.