An alumnus of the Cornell Nepal Study Program (CNSP), Paul Josephson was the first student to spend a full academic year with the program, which is traditionally one semester long. His studies focused on research and Nepali language study.
His earlier plans of attending medical school after Cornell were eclipsed by his Nepali experience, having examined social relationships between Tibean herbal doctors and their patients in a remote district of northern Nepal.
In 2010, Josephson graduated from Cornell with a BS in Biology and a minor in South Asia Studies. He is currently a Masters student in Anthropology/ Sociology at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Upon graduation, Josephson was hired by Cornell’s Nepal Study Program, where he worked for two years as the Residential and Academic Coordinator.
In that role, he was responsible for taking American and Nepali students on tours of Kathmandu and around the country, organizing and supervising treks, jungle safari tours and village homestays.
He helped to organize the academic program each semester, finding lecturers, teaching some classes, and helping students plan their independent research projects.
Josephson recounted the many wonderful experiences he has been afforded since his move to Nepal.
He has trekked over 1,000 miles in remote Himalayan regions, including to Everest Base Camp and walked through waist deep snow over a 16,000 foot mountain pass near the Tibetan border to interview people for his research.
He has seen and photographed a Snow Leopard and bumped into a leopard outside the house where he currently lives in Archale.
He has taken part in Shamanic rituals, lived with families in villages for several months and done home visits on horseback with a Tibetan doctor.
He has participated in goat sacrifices and ridden on the roofs of buses too packed to hold anyone else inside.
Josephson has slept in a 1,500-year-old Tibetan Buddhist meditation cave featuring 800- year-old paintings and talked with monks who live alone in caves for years at a time, and monks who can levitate.
He has trekked to holy lakes with Hindu pilgrims during monsoons and involuntarily donated blood to hundreds of terrestrial leeches.
He has hallucinated for 24 hours due to malnourishment and dehydration before coming upon someone who offered him yak milk and cheese.
He has been to the Tibetan border, taken part in countless Tibetan Buddhist rituals, and hiked along glaciers, avalanche chutes and landslides. In the jungle of southern Nepal, he’s spotted rhinos, elephants and crocodiles.
In the village of Archale, Josephson dwells in his earthen home, bathes at a nearby public water tap, and farms vegetables on the land around his house.
“Life is so simple and it leaves me time to actually live. There aren’t any of the modern luxuries— hot water, toilet paper, TV, internet—in the village, but it’s so full of life and humanity.
“Simple amenities, slow, local food and raw, untainted human interactions and relationships are what I like best about living in villages.
Conscious living, positive outlooks and appreciation of everything that is wonderful here easily counter any and all challenges of living in Nepal,” he said.
Living in Nepal has been a life changing experience for Josephson, who said he intends to spend his life there, with periodic visits to the U.S.
