Rotary District 5890 Scholar 08-09: Tribhuvan University

The long journey to Gam Ghadi

2010-09-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

The trip to Mugu was an adventure on its own. The time in Mugu will have to be saved for another entry. When your destination airport is closed indefinitely and you need to get a flight to the next nearest airport and then walk 3 days to get to where you are going; that’s the beginning of something unique. How unique is what I found out along the way.

Waiting at the Nepalgunj bus stop, I found a boy with his own homemade Wayne Rooney soccer jersey. Now playing in a red jersey for Manchester United, I wonder if this boy knew that Rooney was famous for the phrase “Once a blue, Always a Blue” from his youth soccer days.

Welcome to the Terai in Nepal. No mountains for miles. At this time of year whether it’s cloudy or not it’s always hot. There was a minor cholera outbreak here just a few days before I arrived. Fortunately for me I was just passing through.

Several grown men refused to carry our pack on the 3 day walk from the Bajura airport to our destination in Gam Ghadi. After discussing it among themselves, they found a teenage boy who could carry the load.

At a fork in the road for a shortcut someone asked me, “Are you willing to walk on a trail one foot wide?” I said that I would.

Landslides are commonplace here. Before one is finished being fixed, there are five more that need fixing too. You just walk over them as lightly as possible, trying not to make a sound. (See if you can find the footprints in this one I just walked across.)

Far off the tourist path, on a trail that is only a commuter path for locals, the younger children have never seen a foreigner. (The braid down the center of her head is traditional here. The age ratio between carrier and cary-ie is also traditional.)

Not everyone is impoverished here. The owners of these fields are doing quite well. But with a distinct and permanent class system, the only kind of poverty here is inescapable generational poverty.

The treacherous trail is relentless. Over and over, there’s that little pass you wish you could skip. I still can’t believe the porter did the whole thing carrying that pack.

Some little girls gathering water for their family, a little stupefied to see a foreigner at their local watering hole. (The giant aloe-looking leaf used as a spring spout is very common here.)

We met a group of men on the trail. They were escorting their friend home, without telling him what had happened. It was at his home that his wife would tell him his son had been swept away in the river. A day later we met the same group of men (minus one) coming the other way, it was their job to go looking for the body. Danger from nature is a way of life here, and all too common, a way of death.

Nightfall in the village we would stay in on the first night. Here we paid $13 extra too add a chicken to the meal. At our destination in Gam Ghadi, chickens sell for around $35 each.

On the next day, brief moments of wider trails brought some relief. It also brought the ability to look around at the scenery, instead of just looking at where your next step is going to be.

That relief doesn’t last long and soon it’s back to only worrying about your next step, and trying not to make a sound that will cause another landslide.

A family peering out of their shop, with a little boy curious to see the foreigner and a protective mother checking to see what’s drawing all the attention.

Have I thoroughly mentioned the general condition of the trail yet? This is a regular walk for many locals in the area.

Children in a village where we stopped to eat lunch. No matter how hard I try to blend in, it just doesn’t seem to work.

Going higher into the mountains, we start passing through denser and darker forests.

In the darkest place in the forest, I got a bad feeling of anger and fear. I looked over to see a pagan idol. Nothing in Hindu or Buddhist tradition has room for this. It was described as a “Ghost who eats chickens”. Rather, it was a place where locals go to sacrifice chickens to appease an angry spirit who dwells there.

The second night was spent in a village with a medicinal herb growing project funded in part by KOICA, the South Korean international development agency.

Another day of hiking through pristine mountain forest, with glacier-melt rivers and split-log bridges over the more harmless of the rivers.

At the end of day three it’s a stay at Rara Lake, the largest lake in Nepal, sitting at approximately 3,000 meters in elevation.

In the morning it’s only a four hour walk down to my destination, the district headquarters of Gam Ghadi.

It’s across the river from there, where you find the village of Ruga, known as the “Desert of Mugu”, over 60% out-caste and now without a functioning spring. This is why I came here, for a feasibility study: a project for 800 people, 150 meters above their water source. Is it possible to dig the first well in Mugu here? Is it possible to have the first water pumping scheme in Mugu here? More importantly, is it possible to find people to work with here who will facilitate the completion and sustainability of such a borderline-impossible project.

P.S. It was only a few days after arriving that someone was swept away in the river while gathering water. To be clear, no one comes back from being “swept away” in this place. That is the final destination for them. With water gathering being a common task for women and children, what are the odds that one of the children pictured above will eventually be swept away to their final destination?

A Photo Blog

2010-04-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

I thought I would change things up and do a photo blog entry. Mostly about daily life in the M.Sc. Hostel (dormitory) at my school.

Waking up in the morning, this is my bed. The top one is a mattress and the bottom one is a comforter I use as an extra padding layer. Below it is plywood.

Making a morning cup of tea (when the electricity is working).

Checking email, blogging, working on thesis research, etc.

Hanging up my laundry to dry on the roof of the hostel.

My collection of "bansuris" (bamboo flutes) with a CD shown for size. The little one and the giant one are almost impossible to play.

One of our two chefs, Susan, preparing a special meal in the hostel mess.

Heading out with my friend Kajendra to run an errand for the day.

A lot of the times, this is the fastest and cheapest shipping method for distributing goods in the city.

Crossing over one of the smaller local rivers. Hold you breath or cover your nose and mouth.

Passing by a small carpentry shop in the backstreets of a local neighborhood.

Unlike Houston, there is only one oil company in Nepal.

This is the errand for the day, picking up a water conductivity meter for the class trip to test the flow rate of a rural river.

Passing by a local tobacco shop where a man is cutting leaves by hand.

Stopping for a photo opportunity in one of the main intersections in Kathmandu.

Kajendra feeding a stray dog with some of our cookies. I think this went along with a discussion about Albert Schweitzer.

Passing over the Baghmati river. I wish the islands were sand and rocks like they look like in the picture. They are islands of trash.

Getting back to the hostel and finding a volleyball game in progress.

Students gathering for the celebration farewell meal to the graduating class.
(I will be graduating next year)

The Safest Riot on Earth

2010-03-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

It isn’t often that Nepal is the host of an international sports event. Watching professional sports here is essentially a television activity. The favorite two leagues here, British Premiere League Soccer and Indian Premiere League Cricket, don’t host local promotional matches. For this reason, it’s more exciting when there is an international event. Recently, I was a little disappointed to learn that I had missed out on “Prowess-Expo Nepal 2010” featuring pro-wrestlers from five different countries, including Big Vito from the USA. The biggest recent sports event in Nepal was the ICC World Cricket League Division 5 Tournament. It was no surprise that most of the students were excited about watching the matches. Not only was the tournament in Nepal, but admission was free and they were being held on several college campuses, including ours.

One of the first matches on our campus was Jersey vs. USA. Once there, I ran into some classmates from the dorm and joined them. While we watched the match, most of the discussion veered away from the slow paced game. One of the students asked me if I knew where Jersey was. I responded that I had no idea where, or even what, Jersey was. After that comment, some British tourists a few rows in front of us turned around and smiled. I continued by stating that Jersey was probably a territory, principality, colony, wholly owned subsidiary of the British Crown, or something like that. I only knew that they didn’t have UN representation. As I found out later online, Jersey is something and somewhere, but I’m still not quite sure of its current status of dependence or independence of the United Kingdom. Its status is about as simple as anything in the British legal system, or American legal system for that matter.

As we watched more, another issue came up. The Nepali students pointed out that no one on the USA cricket team looked particularly American to them. I had to explain that their view of what an American looks like is very limited. In actuality, the USA has immigrants from all over the world. Looks can be deceiving. Even people who appear to be recent immigrants may be a part of families who have been in the USA for several generations. I added that one of my favorite ex-coworkers was a sixty year old man from the Bahamas. The students mentioned that most of the players looked like they came from the West Indies. It had been a long time since I’d heard anyone refer to the Caribbean as the West Indies. I told them that some of those countries were probably the only ones in the western hemisphere that regularly play cricket. Jamaica is a pro-cricket country, but the Dominican Republic is almost all baseball oriented. Without getting into the actual rules, I explained baseball’s dominance in the USA and its status as the national pastime. I also explained that I had grown up playing baseball from a young age. If my father had taught me how to play cricket instead, we would have been considered un-American, and rightfully so.

It was later in the week that my sister arrived to visit Nepal. After explaining all of the historical monuments that we could visit, I also told her about the upcoming cricket matches. Most importantly, she would be there for the anticipated Nepal vs. USA match at the main campus in Kirtipur. Nepal, USA, and Singapore were in the running for the top two spots of the tournament. Those two teams would play in the final match, but being the winner of that match wasn’t as important as being in the match. The top two teams would advance to the next round of international competition. That was the real prize at stake. In addition, this match would be rather crowded. Not only was it being held at the main campus in anticipation of a large crowd, but the current tournament results ensured that this match would likely determine Nepal’s chances of advancing. A win over the USA would guarantee them a top two spot.

On the day of the match, the two of us made the long and adventurous walk over to the main campus. Included in the walk was the crossing of the three-foot wide Baghmati foot bridge, which is shared by both pedestrians and motorcycles. When a motorcycle is coming, you stand on the edge of the bridge and hold onto the suspension cables to prevent from falling into the excessively polluted river below. Once we arrived at the field I realized how crowded the match would be just by looking at the number of motorcycles in the parking lot. We made our way into the grassy area that functioned as a grandstand. Walking through the crowds and trying to call my schoolmates, I couldn’t help but notice we were the only non-Nepalis in the crowd. The British contingency from the Jersey match had decided not to show up. After a break in the game, we found my friends and sat down with them.

The match continued on at a usual pace, with Nepal scoring very little. On every good Nepali play, the crowd would cheer and clap. On every good American play, I was the only one cheering and clapping. The strangers around us started smiling and chuckling when I would cheer and clap by myself. A few of them offered us some of their snacks they had brought to the game with them. At the half, Nepal had a very disappointing score and it seemed clear that the USA would win the match. A few spectators started throwing water bottles onto the field. One of the local event organizers walked around the perimeter of the field and tried to clam down the crowd. Due to the age gap, it looked like one father was trying to calm down a few thousand unruly teenage children. Surprisingly, after a few minutes the crowd was calm and the match resumed.

In the second half, the USA played an average match. It seemed like their performance would easily be enough to win. As the game progressed, it became more and more obvious that Nepal’s efforts were futile. At one point, a USA batsman hit three sixes in a row (three homeruns in a row, for my American friends). It was at this point that the match was clearly turning into a blowout. Not long after this realization, I saw a brick hurled onto the field from the crowd, then another, and another. The rain of bricks and water bottles picked up pace. The Nepali fielder closest to us turned around and looked at the crowd in disappointment before calmly walking away from his position. Anywhere in the developed world, raining bricks would be cause to run. Being Nepali, the fielder just calmly and slowly walked away, raining bricks being something that isn’t always that rare here. We stayed in our seats, the bricks flying comfortably over our heads.

As the brick throwing mob backed up on its way to leave, we found ourselves more isolated in the front rows. No one was going to throw a brick at us, but if someone’s throw accidentally fell short, it would be trouble. As we got up and started walking away, a friend from school said that we needed to leave. The police would be coming soon if we didn’t. With that, we joined the mob scrambling over the brick wall in the rear and calmly walking out. As we walked, I told my sister that even though we were walking away from a potential riot, we were perfectly safe. Even though we were the only fans of the victorious opposing team, we were still safe. Nepal doesn’t have a culture of violence against foreigners. The thought of hurting the only Americans there wasn’t in anyone’s mind. They were only thinking about getting away from the field before the APF (Armed Police Force) found it necessary to force them to leave.

Back at the dorm, I talked with some of the students about the match. While we were walking back, the unofficial score had been tallied up and Nepal was in second place, in front of Singapore. Even though both teams had the same record, Nepal had a better “net run rate”, putting them in second place. It was then that I realized what the riot was about. It was to stop the match after the last American batsman started scoring too quickly. If the match had continued to completion, Nepal would have a worse net run rate than Singapore, putting them in third place. The fans had stopped the match to help ensure the Nepali cricket team would advance to the next round. It had worked. I told my friends at the dorm that the fans had essentially secured the victory for the Nepali team. They agreed.

Even though Nepal later won the tournament final, the cost may have been too much to justify. When we walked away from the cricket riot with my schoolmates, one of them looked a little sad. He hadn’t been throwing any bricks. He said, “It will probably be a long time before they allow Nepal to host another ICC tournament.”

http://www.cricinfo.com/wcl/content/story/450113.html

Motorcycle Parking at the cricket match.

APF at a different, non-riot cricket match.

Opportunity Costs

2010-01-15T20:33:00.000-08:00

One of the classes taught in the second semester is Engineering Economics. It essentially teaches the basic concepts of project finance, cash flows, and different types of financial analysis. As most engineers are focused on design, fabrication, and implementation, this subject can be easily overlooked. It also teaches some basic concepts that are sometimes contradictory to common knowledge and easy to forget about in daily life. One of those concepts is “opportunity cost”. As I listened to the lecture on opportunity cost, I could see that several other students didn’t quite understand the meaning. It was fortunate that I had been taught this about one year prior, and the concept was still fresh in my mind. I decided to share an example with the class in the hopes it would help some of the students understand.

If you own a 5 story building in Kathmandu, occupying any part of the building is free. You could rationalize to yourself that living with your family in the building is free too. Furthermore, if there was space for a shop on the ground floor, you could put your own shop in that space. It would be tempting to say that your shop would have free rent there, but in fact it doesn’t. If your shop wasn’t taking up the ground floor, then you could rent that space to another shop owner for 1 lakh rupees. Therefore, when you put your shop there, it isn’t really free. You are foregoing an income of 1 lakh. This 1 lakh is the opportunity cost and it means that the shop you own is effectively costing the rent that you are forgoing. In other words, it is costing you the opportunity to rent it to someone else.

With most of the students understanding, I decided to give another example, one even more prevalent in the current situation. For me, tuition and living expenses in Nepal are not exceedingly costly. Furthermore, I have a scholarship that pays for both of them. It’s easy to say that I live in Nepal for free. Still, this doesn’t consider the opportunity cost. Without quoting the actual number, I told them my opportunity cost for living in Nepal was very high. I left a job in the oil industry to come to Nepal and study renewable energy. That salary would be considered opportunity cost. Still, things are seldom what they seem at first glance. I reverted back to the cost-benefit analysis we had previously learned. The simple cost-benefit analysis only considers economic costs and economic benefits. For those who know better, we shouldn’t gauge our lives in strictly economic terms. We had also learned to supplant economic benefit with social benefit when appropriate. I explained to the class that while the economic opportunity cost was high for me, the social benefit greatly outweighed the comparatively minor opportunity cost. Without a doubt, the social benefit of studying with them in Nepal was well worth the opportunity costs.

It wasn’t long after this time that two of my friends from Engineers Without Borders came to visit. They were my first American visitors in Nepal. Thanks to a lot of good email communication with Shannon, we had planned out a very eventful week for their short time in Kathmandu. They decided to stay in the tourist neighborhood of Thamel. It was a good idea, since my dorm room would be a tight fit for multiple people, not to mention the lack of hot water. On the first morning I met them, I gave them a small Kathmandu survival package, with wool hats, pollution masks, etc. We sat down to talk in the small café of their hotel. I was quickly reminded of one of the reasons why I enjoyed EWB so much, the company of like minded people. The great conversations continued from the café, all through our walk to a nearby historical monument. The day passed quickly and enjoyably. I had to explain to them that this was essentially a vacation for me too. Most days are enjoyable at the university, but it’s not every day that I visit local landmarks with friends. In the past, I had one local friend who traveled with me to different monuments. Since she had obtained her German work visa six months ago, she had been gone.

On one of the later days, we found ourselves sitting outside my favorite temple in Kathmandu. It is a small temple located outside of the main city, in a rural village. It is completely integrated into the local community, with a health clinic and school in close proximity. The three of us sat and watched the schoolchildren play a game with a tennis ball. We could also see where one of the religious statues had been tied down to its pedestal. Most likely, it had been knocked over by the tennis ball a few too many times. A boy came over to the water tap nearby and took a drink, leaving it slightly running when he was done. Claire turned to me and asked about the running water tap. It was clearly bothering her. She asked if the water source was a spring or a well. What she effectively asked was whether a resource was being wasted or not. It it’s a spring, then it doesn’t matter that the tap is running, the spring would have runoff at the source anyways. If it’s a well, then a finite amount of pumped water is being wasted, at the cost of pumping it to the surface. Just to be safe, I walked over and shut the tap completely. Walking back, I thought to myself, only a sustainable development engineer would consider the water source before worrying about a running tap. Only another sustainable development engineer would understand all the implications behind the simple question, “Does that water come from a spring or a well?” Again, it was nice to be in the company of like minded people.

Throughout the week, I had a wonderful time hosting Claire and Shannon. We visited historic monuments in Kathmandu, had academic discussions about the visible effects of climate change in Nepal, and ate lots of local Nepali and Newari food. I reiterated several times that this week was a vacation for me too. During their time in the tourist area of Thamel, they even found a restaurant that served nachos (I previously decided against writing an entire blog entry concerning my year-long pining for nachos). When it was time for them to go, I took them to the airport. We said goodbye, parted ways, and I returned back to my dorm room. The social vacation was over. It was then that I understood the term “opportunity cost” to its fullest. Before, I had only considered economic opportunity cost, not social opportunity cost. I needed to see it again, to remind me what I had really given up in coming here. I gave up time with my friends and family in the USA. I don’t regret coming to Nepal. Furthermore, after they left I still chose to stay an additional year in Nepal. Regardless, seeing the social opportunity cost is like looking at the ghost of what’s missing.

P.S. Claire and Shannon, thanks for visiting, I had a wonderful time. Thanks for the care package too!

Not an Ordinary Four Day Weekend

2009-11-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Again, I have a story that seems too typical for modern legitimate fiction. If I put it in novel form it would certainly be rejected. Too ordinary, too plain, it’s been done to death. No reader will find believability in the characters or the outcome. Too picture perfect, people don’t really act like that. I would be accused of being a second rate hack only out to solicit a prescribed emotional response from the reader. I would be pandering to a low intellect crowd clamoring for their fantasy image of love to come true. Again, I have the same problem: The story is true. Again, I have the same problem: The pure reality of the situation forces me to write it down and share it with whoever will believe that reality is far more idealistic than anyone’s fantasy.

I went to class last Thursday like any other day, Engineering Economics. I daydreamed through half of the class, already knowing some of the material. One student later asked me why I was smiling all through class. I told him not to pay attention to my smile because I was daydreaming. My smile had nothing to do with anything happening in that classroom. Only what was happening in my mind. I was too far gone to recognize that another classmate of mine, Anil, was not paying attention either. He was daydreaming too, only his daydreams were closer to fruition and they were also causing him a weighted amount of stress. After class when we all drank tea together, I was too wrapped up in a discussion about a book I had loaned to a classmate. I didn’t notice Anil deep in thought about what he was about to undertake. Still, no one in the class knew what he was about to do. No one could expect it.

The rest of the evening and the next day were as ordinary as any other. A little before class I went to the tea shop on campus, to meet with classmates and talk while we waited for the professor to arrive. One of the students who also stays at the M.Sc. Hostel asked if I had heard the news about Anil. I told him I hadn’t heard anything. He told me that Anil would not be in class today. I was a little worried about what might have happened. In Kathmandu, unexpected events are usually unpleasant and almost always unwelcome. He went on to tell me that Anil had gone to Pokhara with his girlfriend, to get married. I paused in disbelief. I asked if this meant exactly what I thought it meant, that Anil had left with his girlfriend to get married, without his parent’s knowledge. My classmate gave a somber nod to let me know that this was exactly what was happening.

After telling the classmates there the meaning of the word “elope”, I stopped to think about what it meant here. In the USA it often has a positive connotation along with the possible negative connotations. Here, deep in the land of arranged marriages, there is rarely a positive outlook on this activity. I stopped and thought about the young girl I met on the airplane who returned home to find that her family had arranged a marriage for her. She felt fortunate that they had chosen a young man who she was once close friends with. At least she would have that to start off with. I also thought about the young girl I met in the government hospital. Her eyes lit up when she talked about her dreams to have a love marriage. This dream was all the more fantastic in light of the harsh reality of low probability that surrounded it. A love marriage was becoming more common, but it was still rare enough, and eloping was far out of the question.

Everyone in the class knew what had spurred this decision on. Anil had a girlfriend from a different caste, a lower caste. His parents never knew about their five year relationship. He would have been banned from seeing her. There was no way he could have married her with his parent’s knowledge. Likewise, another couple I know has kept their relationship secret from the parent’s of his higher caste family. The son is a “good son” and he won’t run away with his girlfriend to be married. Anil on the other hand was doing the seemingly impossible, especially for a respectable young intellectual in a painfully traditional society. I’m constantly reminded of a paraphrased quote from a famous author: “I am not a politician, nor am I running for political office, and I don’t have to respect anyone’s stupid opinion.” I stand by it in my daily life. I can respect someone else’s culture in many cases, but if a culture states that two lovers cannot be married because of something as trivial as the differences in their last names, well, I don’t have to respect that, and I am free to call it stupid if I want. It certainly is dated, and its death is long overdue.

So for Friday and Saturday the words around the Hostel were, “Have you heard about Anil?” The rumors were flying and there was only one way to find out the truth. Wait for Anil to return and ask him in person. Before Sunday’s class I told the rumor to a classmate who lived outside the hostel. He was due to have an arranged marriage in the next month. He responded by telling me that this was certainly a joke the other students were playing on me. Anil would not have a marriage without informing his parents. This was not possible. Joining the others for tea, he soon found out that the rumor was very sincere. After a while, he too was claiming that we would need to wait until Anil’s return. Before the teacher arrived in the classroom, one of the students called Anil on his cell phone. As the whole class stood silently listening to the phone ring on speakerphone, I made the obvious comment. If Anil had gotten married, he certainly wouldn’t be answering his phone right now, unless we managed to catch him at a meal or something like that. As expected, no one picked up.

Class on Monday was also missing Anil and the rumors still remained. After class I returned to the Hostel and walked into the mess for dinner. There, sitting and eating dinner, was Anil. I started to ask him about the rumor, but he cut me off, saying that yes, everything I had heard was true. He said with a gigantic smile, “Yes! I eloped her!” After I corrected his grammar I began washing my hands as I smiled and shouted congratulations to him from five feet away. I told him how courageous he was and how he had done something that my culture would regard as a pure act of true love. I continued by telling him that people in my culture dream of being challenged this way, only so that they may overcome it. I refused to stop and I continued telling him how great he was for denying his parents and his culture in order to marry the woman he loved.

Calming down as I sat down for my meal. I asked him about what had happened. He told me that he decided to do this last Wednesday. On Thursday he took and overnight bus ride with his girlfriend to Pokhara. He added that he respected as much of his culture as he could. He called his unwed older brother to ask for his permission, since the oldest brother should always marry first. Securing his permission, which he knew was sure to come, he called his girlfriends parents. Her father gave his permission, but her mother begged him not to do this. She promised that if they would return the families would arrange a proper marriage and they wouldn’t have to go against tradition. Anil hung up the phone on her. He knew that her parents would work to arrange a marriage, but once his parents knew, they would be certain to destroy it. Immediately after they got married he called his new wife’s mother again. This time she gave her blessing to the new couple. As he told the story his smile was uncontrollably beaming across the room. He was louder and more animated than usual. For those who know Anil, this may seem impossible, but it was true.

Anil finished his meal and came over to me to tell me more about how great he felt. I asked if he knew why my culture hailed the love marriage as the greatest form of marriage in the world. He responded by shouting that yes, the love marriage is the greatest feeling in the world. As he went on, I interrupted him to tell him that in his culture he would be expected to give me a gift, but in my culture I would be expected to give him a gift. As we walked back to our rooms I told him what a great and courageous thing he had done. I told him that I would bring him a gift, but it would take some time to find the right one. I had to be certain to find a gift worthy of the greatness he had just achieved.

Leaving him at his door and walking the rest of the way back to my room alone, I started to worry. What on earth could I find that would do justice to the unspeakably amazing thing that he had done? What gift could reflect every great quality that I was taught to revere since I was a little boy. It wasn’t until a few hours later that my mind tripped over the only thing that could come close to touching what he had done. I needed to find a Superman t-shirt, for him to wear. He had earned it. And of course a Superwoman t-shirt for his new wife, after all, she had earned it too.

Congratulations to Anil. You are my hero.

The Real Nepal

2009-10-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

On one of my earliest days in the Kathmandu Valley I heard the phrase uttered, “This is Kathmandu. This is not Real Nepal.” Many times since then I have heard references to the Real Nepal. I have heard it from hostel innkeepers, restaurant waiters, fellow students, engineering professors, and random acquaintances. Everyone knows that once you step outside of the city, you enter a whole different world, the world of the village. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Nepal’s population lives in small villages across the country. Their lives don’t resemble the lives of city residents in any way. A dormitory staff worker and former village resident reminisced to me about his parent’s home in the village. He talked of a farm with fresh grown crops and animals walking around. He said with a smile, “They have everything you could ever want there, except money.” During a welcoming celebration he let a city-born student behead the goat as a special experience. To the staff member it was just a routine and necessary action for making the meal. More recently while our class was preparing to test the efficiency of some cooking stoves, one student showed himself as the best wood cutter. Not surprisingly he was from a village that takes three bus rides, one plane trip, and a multi-hour walk to reach. Chopping wood was just a routine action for him. At the very beginning of the semester break, I got my first chance to visit the village.

About two months earlier I overheard a conversation regarding lead in the water of some rural schools. Previously, I had been keeping my eyes and ears open for a water project but I had found nothing. I immediately began contacting engineering friends in Houston to ask if they would volunteer a little time and lend their expertise to this project. I got a good response and felt hopeful about eventually solving this problem. Still, there is no obviously apparent solution. Lead is a rare contaminant in natural groundwater. With necessity being the mother of invention, a low cost lead removal method is still undeveloped. Any lead removal system on the market is a relatively expensive developed-world creation and a poor match for rural farmers. Regardless, after some additional investigation and a few meetings, a local educational NGO agreed to take me into the village and assist me in talking to the staff of the local schools. Over the next month my excitement built. I made sure to schedule a trip out to the village as soon as my semester break began.

On the day of departure, I got on the microbus by myself. Laxmi, the representative of the educational NGO, would get on the bus near his home a few miles down the road. After he did, the two of us began talking to pass the time on the long ride. First we talked about the village, the schools, and the NGO he worked for. I could see his genuine frustration when talking about some of the obstacles that were making his work as a community education program director so difficult. After taking lunch at a roadside restaurant we started talking about his family. He came from a family of professionals. An engineer, a dentist, a businessman, the list of his successful family members went on. He had decided to go into the non-profit field. With so much international money pouring into Nepali non-profits, it’s sometimes difficult to determine if a non-profit is made up of salaried employees who are just there for the money. Thinking about his family, one thing was clear. Laxmi, named after the Hindu goddess of wealth, was definitely not in this for the money. I relaxed and took a short nap, satisfied that I wouldn’t be working with someone trying to line their own pockets with charitable donations.

Eventually the microbus stopped in a small roadside village and we got out. It would be an additional hour long walk to the village. Stepping onto the trail, it was thankfully very dry. I was told that in the wet season the leeches are more prevalent. Still, as we walked we saw the occasional leech scurry across the pathway to get away from our stomping shoes. Along the way I saw two biogas reactors side by side. They were fenced in and looked well maintained, but the half open lid showed that they weren’t in use at the moment. We continued on, soon reaching a roadway constructed for a nearby hydropower project. Before we reached our accommodations at the local office of the NGO, we stopped at a primary school. Although there was no lead in the water at this school, we stopped in to visit and greet the teachers. On a short tour, I noticed the blackboard in each room. They weren’t actual blackboards. In each case, it was a section of the wall that had been painted black so the students could see the writing in chalk. Before we left, the teachers invited us to join their upcoming celebration meal for the holiday. We accepted the invite, which conveniently fell on our planned final day in the community.

Arriving at the local office, I saw it was actually a converted home. The guest room I would be staying in resembled a tree house that had been added onto the side of the house. I had tea with the local staff and we discussed some of the difficulties in implementing technology which can be caused by rushed work. I wanted to make it clear that I didn’t have a solution to propose right away. Whatever was going to happen was going to take time, and a well thought out plan. I enjoyed a wonderful dinner cooked by a local young man who was part of the staff. Over another round of tea, Laxmi told me about a pair of linguistics professors who were the last westerners to be guests in the tree house. The two of them met in Nepal and had worked together on and off for several years. They had gotten married and returned to the developed world, after concluding their work on local dialects. Retiring to the room, I lied down in my twin size bed. This was the first time I would be doing an initial project assessment alone. Before going to sleep, I looked over at the other twin bed and thought about who I wished was there, doing the assessment with me.

Sunshine coming in through the window woke me up the next morning. We discussed plans for the day over breakfast tea and a little while later we were walking down the road. After about a mile, a large bus came up slowly from behind. It was rocking back and forth on the unfinished roadway as it approached. We waved our hands and it stopped for us. Getting on, I saw that we were only two of five passengers. The entire bus was filled with boxes of supplies. We sat down on some boxes in the front and I was told to be careful of the box of eggs near my feet. The bus started moving down the road. Sometimes it seemed like it did more moving side to side than forward. Looking up at Laxmi, I asked him if this was the real Nepal. He smiled and replied, “This is Real Nepal.”

Over the next two days, we visited three schools in the area. At the first school, we happened to walk in on a board meeting. This was fortunate since everyone was present to answer questions and share information about the school. I asked them about the single water filter in their office. They responded that an NGO had given it to them. Unfortunately, it was a filter designed for one family and it obviously could not filter water for the 500 children attending school there. Regardless, it was a good introduction to the community. Hopefully in time they would begin to understand the need for water filters in general. At the second school I was able to talk to three staff members. This school also had a single filter that they had been given. In both cases, everyone was very friendly and helpful. They answered all of my questions and showed me their water supply so I could take samples for water testing. I visited the third school on our final day in the community. At the top of a steep hike uphill, I got to the school physically exhausted. The children I had followed up to the school made this hike on a daily basis and they were much more adapted to the terrain than me.

Arriving early, there were only two staff members at first. I began chatting with them and I explained that I attended the engineering campus “Pulchowk”. This name is known far and wide throughout Nepal as the best engineering college. If a student anywhere in the country scores high enough on the entrance examination, they can attend this government school for approximately $8 per semester. Many of my classmates had done just that, some of them coming from remote villages throughout the country. After a few minutes, the rest of the school staff arrived. The last to come in was the former headmaster. He had a copy of “Three Cups of Tea” which he said was given to him by one of the western volunteers who had given the school its small filter. I commented that I had read the book, that I thought it was a good book, and I could see why a filter-donating volunteer would give it to him. As I asked questions, the former headmaster occasionally cut in with anti-modernization comments. If I had to describe his attitude, it would be “openly combative”. Still, I worked to respond to his statements kindly and I tried not to get frustrated or distracted. In his comments was some useful information about existing culture and local conservative mentality. He added that he did not use the filter that the foreigners brought. After asking permission, I filled my water bottle at the filter. I made a joke about the “foreign filter for the foreign man” and everyone laughed a little, easing the tension in the room. After the standard questions were answered, I went outside to get a water sample.

Standing by the tap, I took out my GPS unit and an empty plastic bottle. While I was not paying attention, the former headmaster came up and stood over me from a nearby ledge. He said, “You are student of Pulchowk?” and I responded that I was. He added, “I have just learned of this now”, a phrase which he repeated several times. From what I understood he was trying to apologize for his behavior. He had taken me as an outsider looking for a quick NGO project. I imagine that after I left some of the other staff members asked him why he had been so rude to a student of the country’s premier engineering college. After a moment of silence he waved his hand in the air and with a flick of his wrist he said, “You are student of Pulchowk. You are Nepali now.” He continued, “There is a garden that we have created here. I would like to show it to you. You will enjoy it.” After taking the water sample, all of us began walking towards the garden. Laxmi informed him that we could only stay for a short time since we were having lunch with the teachers of the primary school a few miles away.

After reaching a bend in the road, we walked down into the 2 acre garden. It was beautifully landscaped with small pathways connecting the different sections. There was a small pond with a statue in the middle, a temple with an alter inside, and another small temple where a few men were gathered. Since I had just listened to my host give some anti-modernization speeches, I didn’t dare take out my camera or even ask permission to take a picture. I admitted to myself that I would have to remember this place by my unaided memory. Taking our shoes off at the door, we walked into the inhabited temple. I joined the other men sitting down on mats surrounding a smoldering log in a pit at the center. Closing my eyes, everything slowed down and I started to relax. The rush of completing my project assessment on time seemed to melt away. Before I realized it, it was time to go. I reluctantly got up and walked out, vowing to return again some day when I had more time. I exchanged polite goodbyes with the formed headmaster and we began our hike to the primary school.

When we arrived, the teachers had just finished preparing the meal. Everyone sat down together at a long table in the main office. While I was being served food, I looked at each dish and recognized it as familiar. Almost everything I had eaten before in the Kathmandu Valley. With my expectations firmly set, I put the first bite in my mouth. I froze instantly, in awe of how good the food tasted. This was unbelievably better than anything I had eaten in the city. As the teachers piled more and more food on my plate, I continued eating. At one point I was no longer hungry and I was just eating for taste alone. After becoming completely stuffed, I excused myself from the table and sat outside in the schoolyard. Peacefully resting on a concrete block, I got the feeling that I had just eaten one of the best meals of my life. As they came outside one by one, I thanked the teachers and complimented them on the wonderful meal. I made sure to tell them that I had already eaten each one of those dishes in Kathmandu, but it never tasted as good as their meal. After more socializing, it was time to return to the house we were staying in.

The next morning we took the bus back to Kathmandu. Again, on the first part of the ride it seemed like the bus rocked from side to side more than it travelled forward. Laxmi looked across to me and with a smile he said one final time, “Real Nepal”. When I got off the bus a few miles from home I found myself in the late afternoon rush hour. The exhaust from the cars was prominent. The ground was covered in trash. When I walked over the river overpass I could smell the distinct odor of hydrogen sulphide. Getting back to my room I stopped and thought about the two Nepals that I now knew. I thought back about the comment I heard about the village having everything but money. I understood why people from the village come to the Kathmandu Valley and I understood why all of them long to be in the village.

(Pictures will be added soon)

No One Wears a Jordan Jersey Anymore

2009-07-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago an M.Sc. classmate told me the campus basketball team was practicing at the outdoor court and I should go talk to them. He told me they were getting ready for next week’s tournament. If I went down to the court, they would be sure to let me play on the team based on height advantage alone. I decided to walk down and see what things looked like. At the court, I saw a group of young B.Sc. students practicing. Not one of them was over 22 years old. I was approached by last year’s team captain. He told me I would have to try out for the team and I would need to come to every practice. He added that their team had won the past two tournaments and they were going for a third championship. I stepped onto the court and began playing around a little. It would be a few days before the basketball skills learned during my college years came back to me. Before leaving I talked to them about the limited practices I could make. Since I was M.Sc., my class schedule was opposite of theirs. I promised that if they started a little earlier, I would play for half of practice before going to my night lectures.

The next day I headed into Kathmandu to buy some basketball gear. Due to my size, I knew that I couldn’t frequent many of the cheap Nepali shops that sold “duplicate” jerseys, as they are called here. Instead, I had to go to the “genuine” Adidas store and buy the biggest clothes they offered. After trying on various clothes there, I found a plain jersey, pair of shorts, and basketball that suited me. On my way back to the campus I decided to stop at a notable “hip-hop and urban fashion” clothing store I had been in before. This place sold jerseys that were meant to be large and baggy on Nepali customers. They were also a perfect normal size fit for me. I perused through the rack of jerseys I had seen before. I didn’t like most of the players whose jerseys I had seen last time. At the back of the rack I came across a new jersey. It was a Michael Jordan jersey. During his playing years, I was never a Jordan fan, but the jersey still intrigued me. I tried it on and it fit.
When I went to pay for it, the shop owner said to me, “That’s a very rare jersey. Not many around.”
I responded, “Yeah, no one wears a Jordan jersey anymore. When you wear it, it’s like…”
“You’re basically saying that you’re the best that ever was. Most people don’t want to look that boastful,” he cut in.
“And when you wear it on the basketball court, you’re expected to play up to his level. You’re expected to be the best player on the court, or at least to run down every ball, hustle on every play, and never give up,” I concluded. I paid for the jersey and left the shop.

I practiced with the team every day as my basketball skills slowly returned. Each time I wore the plain Adidas jersey. I wanted to save the Jordan jersey for later. I didn’t have too much trouble making the team, but my status as part of the starting five was not secure. I knew that several students were hoping for me to play as a starter. Unfortunately, the Tuesday before the tournament, I rolled my ankle in practice. I knew it wasn’t as bad as times I had sprained it before, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take to recover. With the tournament due to begin Friday, three days of healing time was definitely not enough. In addition, I had a bruised rib cage from taking so many shots from Nepali shoulders. Each night I had to sleep in the same position so that I wasn’t lying on my ribs and my foot was comfortably resting without pressure. On Thursday it was my birthday. Lying sorely in bed, I stopped and thought about how I had just turned 30. I also thought about how I was about to play through injury in a tournament full of 22 year old students. Fortunately, Thursday also came with a call from the team manager. He told me the start of the tournament had been delayed until Monday. I accepted it as a good birthday present.

I rested and practiced lightly on my ankle during the weekend. On Monday I was good enough to play. The concept of the tournament was the “All-Technical Cup”. A regular tournament, it featured teams from all of the Nepali engineering schools that chose to register. In the past, medical schools had joined in, although this year none of them signed up. The tournament was held on an outdoor court at Kathmandu Model College, which also had a grade school on site. Every time I showed up to play, I was surrounded by a swarm of children looking to meet the only foreigner there. I shook countless children’s hands before each match. I have no idea how many times I said, “I am Brian. I am from the United States,” in response to their questions. After a few days, children would come up to me, call me by name, and wish me “best of luck” in the game for the day. Just the same, after every match the children would come out again and congratulate me on a game well played. As I was making goodwill with all of the children, I felt a little like Muhammad Ali before “The Rumble in The Jungle”.

Our first two league play matches weren’t too difficult. I played the first quarter of each game, giving me time to rest my ankle whenever possible. The team captain, Naveen, told me I needed to be ready for Thursday’s match against Kathmandu Engineering College, or KEC as they call it. They were a private college with two “club” players on their team. I found out immediately afterwards that “club” players are professional players in Nepal. They are not paid much to play, but they are the best basketball players in the country. He added that their team was likely to be our only real competition in the tournament.

With one day of rest, I stayed in my dorm room most of the day. I didn’t want to walk on my ankle too much. I looked at the Jordan jersey on my desk and thought about the greatest player of the modern era. I repeated many things to myself as I looked at the jersey, “Jordan became a great player when he included all of his teammates in the game. Jordan never gave half-effort; he always gave 110%. Jordan made every player around him better. Jordan never played half of the court; he was defensive player of the year multiple times. Jordan knew everyone’s role on the team and helped them in playing their role better. Jordan played through sickness and injury, still coming out on top. Jordan wasn’t ejected for loosing his cool during a championship game. Jordan played great team basketball. Jordan played great team basketball. Jordan played great team basketball.”

On Thursday we took to the court against KEC. Of their two club players, one was my height, the other was a little shorter but he was strong. Our team played a defense where the center plays up at the free throw line. This put me in the power forward position, with our other tall player in the small forward position. Due to weight and strength, I was matched against the shorter stronger club player throughout the match. In an incredibly physical game of basketball, we came out decisively on top, winning by over 20 points. The club player I was defending, their main offensive weapon, was held to a disappointingly low score. After the game was over, everyone on our team celebrated the victory they previously weren’t sure was possible. Having secured our number one seed from league play, a few of the players celebrated back in their hometown on the edge of the Kathmandu Valley. All I could think about was the next time we would play KEC, in the tournament finals. After one last easy win in league play, we were ready for the semi-final match, the first of two games in knockout play.

Back at the campus, several of my fellow students heard about our win over KEC. They all congratulated me and asked about the team dynamic. They all wanted to know if it was a one man team, with me being that one man. In every case I gave them the same answer. I told them we had a great team with lots of good players. We had good three point shooters too. I continued by saying that I knew my role on the team and I played my role well. All of the other players played their roles well too. I said that if it was a one man team focused on me, we would not be as successful. I felt good talking about how we played well together as a team. With each student who approached me, I also told them I was confident our team would win the tournament.

Monday was our semi-final match against ACME Engineering College. They had a star player who I wound up guarding for most of the match. The game was closer than expected, with us leading by three or five points most of the time. Unfortunately, during the match I was given a hard foul near the basket and I pulled something in the back of my leg. The foul was a shorter player’s dream like aspiration of blocking my shot. Instead, he crashed into me and I landed awkwardly on my left foot. As I hobbled to the free throw line I realized that I didn’t have an uninjured leg to favor anymore. My right leg still had a sprained ankle and now my left leg had something pulled above the top of my calf. I finished out the game, a fresh injury never hurting as much as a day old injury. In the closing minutes we pulled away to win by twelve. Again, the other team’s scorer was held to a below average performance.

At home in my dorm room I wondered how serious my recent injury was. I decided that the morning would bring the answer and I went to bed. This time I found a sleeping position to accommodate my ribs, my ankle, and my calf. I thought about all the times I heard of professional athletes playing through injuries. I now knew how they felt. Normally, in recreational games, if you get injured you rest until you are healed. In competitive sports there is no delaying a championship match to accommodate your injury schedule. I had a new found respect for the professional athlete who plays through injury. While I was lying in bed, the team manager called to tell me tomorrow was a rest day. Wednesday would be the championship match against KEC. During the day off, I walked a little, jogged a little, and limped through all of it. I would be good enough to play, but I didn’t know how well. It would also be obvious to the opposing team that I was injured. I didn’t want to be the weak link in the chain of our team game. Again, I thought about Michael Jordan. I thought about the old Gatorade ads that had the song “I wanna be like Mike”. Limping around the dorm building, being like Mike seemed a lot less glamorous than everyone made it out to be.

Wednesday afternoon brought our appearance in the tournament finals against KEC. While the other teams were playing for third place, I greeted children and shook their hands. Afterwards, I sat in the shade, thinking that today was the right day to play the best basketball game of my life, injuries or not. I warmed up with my teammates, skipping the stretches that I couldn’t perform in my current state. I practiced jogging a little on the court, only to find that my limp was more pronounced. At tip-off, the other team’s tallest player beat me out for the ball. In the first quarter I had two fouls. Two fouls of my five foul limit were already gone. I played solid defense against the same club player as last match, holding him below his normal scoring level. On one run down the court I slowed down and watched my team pass me on offense. Limping slowly forward I watched a missed shot rebounded by the defender. I only thought about how it should have been my rebound. I resolved to play harder. I couldn’t afford to give up easy plays simply because I wasn’t willing to limp my way faster down the court. The game continued through the second and third quarter, each team trading the lead a few times. At the start of the fourth quarter, we were down by three points. In the break I thought about Michael Jordan and how this was the time for him to come alive.

Taking the court for the final quarter, I put forth all of the effort I thought I had left. We were still down by one when I fouled an opposing player, sending him to the free throw line. Standing alongside the key, the team captain talked with the referee and then subbed me out of the game. I went to the sideline, thinking that I only had four fouls, but somehow I must have fouled out with five. I was disappointed that I had to watch the rest of the game from the bench. I screamed and yelled with the rest of my sidelined teammates as the man I was previously guarding took his free throws. He made the first and missed the second. His teammate got the rebound and they retained possession. Fire shot through my veins as I saw the rebound that should have been mine. Again and again, my blood boiled each time I saw the opposing team get “my rebound”. I cursed my bad fouls and started unconsciously flexing every muscle in my body each time a missed shot posed a potential rebound for whoever would take it. During a timeout, Naveen came to the sideline. I asked him if I had four fouls or five. He motioned for me to come out on the court. I gritted my teeth and said, “You know it,” as I stepped into play.

Walking to the other side of the court, I walked passed our point guard, Silas. He held his hand out for a low-five as I walked by. Lightly tapping his hand, I looked in his eyes and said decisively, “Every board is mine.” I walked passed our two-guard, Lojang, and said to him, “You can do it. Take the shot. Make the shot.” I wouldn’t suggest to him that he would miss, but walking away I knew that if he did miss, I would be there for the rebound. I walked over to my waiting position, a few feet outside of the key. I nodded at our small forward, Sasank, on the other side of the key. My limp had disappeared without me realizing it. Our first possession was a long one. Naveen missed a shot and I crashed the boards with everything I had. I got the rebound and passed it back to Lojang. He made a move off of the dribble and shot a jumper from inside the key. Seeing the off shot, I crashed the boards again, pulling down the rebound and passing out to Naveen. This time he made the shot, a three pointer. Running back for defense, I said to Naveen, “That’s how we win the game.”

We played solid defense throughout the fourth quarter. On offense, Naveen created almost every opportunity, with me there making a play for the rebound any time he missed. Twice I put a shot back up. Every other time I passed the ball back out to reset the offense. With the game tied 41-41 the other team had the ball on a fast break with 15 seconds left. With the other team’s missed shot on the break, Naveen took the final shot from half court, missing by inches. This set up a five minute overtime to decide the tournament champion. During the break, bench players slapped my hand and congratulated me on good play. All I could think about was the next missed shot, the next rebound.

Taking the court again we played the same game we did in the fourth quarter, solid defense and lots of rebounds. On each play fire ran through my veins and I was unaware of any injuries I had. Numerous fouls by players on both sides set up a free throw shooting contest to end the game. With our team up by three I was sent to line for two shots. Naveen came up to me and said that one shot made it a two possession game. The makeshift basket was a backboard of plate steel and a bent steel rod for a rim. It was notoriously unforgiving. I missed both free throws, each one rattling in and then impossibly out. My teammates were unable to get the rebound. After a defensive stand, I was fouled after getting the rebound. Again Naveen told me to make it a two possession game. Again I missed both free throws and my teammates were unable to get the rebound. Another defensive stand led to Naveen being fouled and going to the line. I walked up to him and said, “Make this one Jordan and we go home winners.” He missed the first free throw. It rattled in and out just the same as mine. I walked up to the line and said again, “Make this one Jordan and we go home winners.” Naveen made the shot putting us up 48-44 with twelve seconds left. The other team’s fastest player ran down the court for a quick two points. He missed the shot and we held the ball for the remaining seconds.

As soon as time ran out, the celebration began. Our fans flooded the court as we yelled congratulations at each other. When things calmed down, I told Lojang about the American college tradition of cutting down the net. He told me he had seen it before and he had a pair of scissors with him. We cut down the net together. After he wore the net for a moment, I put it on, wearing it for the rest of the day. Naveen was awarded the MVP of the tournament. He scored 30 of our team’s 48 points. After the celebration had calmed down, the team manager came up and congratulated me. He told me that I had done the best at the end. He knew a Nepali phrase for it but had forgotten the English one to describe it. I told him it was called “coming through in the clutch”. I added that I hadn’t come through in the clutch at the free throw line, but I had done it with defense and rebounds. The only three points KEC scored in overtime were free throw shots made at different trips to the line. Later the small forward, Sasank, told me that I played well at the end of the game. He added that if I had played like that all day, the match would not have been close. I told him what turned things around was being forced to sit on the sidelines for a few minutes and watch the team play without me.

At the end of the day, I did not play like Michael Jordan. But, I did play like another champion. A champion whose off-the-court antics have made many people forget what a great team player he truly was. He won 5 championships with 2 different teams. He was a great role player who knew his role on the team and executed it to perfection. He was an excellent defender and an amazing rebounder. No one played his role better than him. As the NBA website says on his bio, “one of the few players in basketball who can change the course of a game without taking a shot”. At the end of our championship game, I had played the power forward position for all but a few minutes. I had 4 fouls, 5 or 6 points, 2 or 3 blocks, 1 or 2 steals, well over 20 rebounds, probably over 30 rebounds, with at least 10 of those rebounds coming at the end of the game. For our final game on that court, I didn’t play like Michael Jordan, I played like Dennis Rodman, and our team won the championship.

Epilogue

I left the Dennis Rodman persona behind when I walked off the court. I didn’t emulate him in his personal life. I enjoyed the post party by drinking in moderation, my hair is still its natural color, and I have no plans to purchase ladies clothing.

Halftime photo. No, my jersey is not painted on.
It's actually the one-size-fits-all Nepali team jersey.

Post-victory photo. Lojang, the starting two-guard, is
the person furthest to the right.

Post-victory goof-off photo with the team and some fans.

Lights, Camera… …Reality.

2009-07-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

This blog entry is done at the risk of sounding cheesy. Truthfully, sometimes real life is stranger than fiction and sappier than drama.

Before coming to Nepal, I had spent many hours in Houston mentoring engineering students. One thing I talk about is experiencing all life has to offer while you are young, then moving into a stable job when you have a family to take care of. A stable job at age 22 is not necessary. Especially if you are going to sit at a desk performing a mundane task, then get your fill of drama, action, and excitement by going to the movies each weekend. A real life of adventure and service is so much more rewarding. You don’t have to sit and watch the movie, you can live the movie. Later on you can enjoy the stable life, where raising children is the right reason to remove some of the risk from your life.

Here in Nepal, as one might guess, I stand out from the crowd. When I am visiting a grade school, children will often come up to me and ask my name, where I am from, and what my caste is. For the final question, I tell them that I am American, so I do not have a caste. In a discussion with a fellow M.Sc. student, the two of us traded ideologies of religion and culture. He asked if I believed in reincarnation. I explained that I am Christian and that I do not believe in reincarnation. I believe that each person has only one life and afterwards they either go up, or they go down. Gesturing with my hand, he understood what up and down meant. He explained to me that while he believes in reincarnation, it’s not as simple as coming into your next life based on your previous life. Everyone gets 83,000,000 reincarnations and they will permanently go up after any life where they have lived properly. If they have not gone up after all of their chances of lives, then they will go down. We continued by talking about the caste system in relation to reincarnation.

I explained that in my culture as an American and religion as a Christian, every person has one chance at life and all people are created equal. I explained that children in bad places are not considered to be placed there as a punishment. Furthermore, children are considered to be innocent and not responsible for their own livelihood. Adults are always responsible for children’s standard of living. From what I understood, Buddhists consider it a great deed to build a resting place under a tree. For Americans, one of the greatest deeds you can perform is to help a child who is in a bad place. I continued by explaining that the Jewish and Muslim faiths, as well as many developed nations, also have similar values when it comes to orphaned children. I also emphasized the fact that those who are fortunate only have one chance at life too, so it is imperative that they get things right to ensure going up, instead of down. My friend explained that more developed Nepali culture was starting to move in this direction. The caste system was outlawed by the government, but there were still many people who believed in it and supported it.

To illustrate my point, I gave him an example that most people know. I talked about the crime boss in Slumdog Millionaire who takes the children’s eyes out. I explained that he would never survive in the USA. He would either be jailed or killed there. I explained that there would be no impunity for anyone in the USA who did that, no matter how rich or powerful they were. Because children are considered innocent and often helpless, it is each adult’s duty to prevent such a grave crime against children from taking place. I added that if the legal system in the USA failed to punish him, there would be criminals that would end his life. I explained that some of those who are either common criminals or organized-crime gangsters would be angered by a man who harmed children. They would take the law into their own hands and ironically enough, they would see it as a good deed to remove him from this earth. This mentality regarding children is so engrained into our culture that some of those who are viewed as bad people still will not harm children, they will even protect them. I continued by telling him that the homeless panhandling children in Kathmandu would not exist either in the USA. They would be picked up and placed in orphanages and foster homes. Where there are children like this, it means that they have repeatedly run away from the homes they have been given through charity. I even explained that there are NGOs in the USA that will look for these children and give them things like soap and clothes, since they will not accept the gift of living in a home.

That’s enough of an introduction, why don’t I get to the real story?

Since it was Saturday today, the equivalent of Sunday in the USA, I decided to finally go see a movie that I had wanted to see for some time. It was a Nepali movie, but I could recognize from the poster that it would be mostly physical humor and I didn’t need to understand the words in order to laugh. I called up a friend on the other side of town and we agreed to meet at a theater that was not too far from where I lived. I set out walking towards the theater. I left my neighborhood where there are countless headquarters for international organizations, passed through the tourist section on my side of town (I showed my student ID to avoid paying the tourist fee), and walked to the edge of the Ring Road that surrounds the city of Kathmandu. Just on the other side of the dusty and trash laden road was the movie theater. This theater showed only Indian and Nepali movies. As I walked up to the theater I realized that I was the only foreigner in sight, probably also for a mile in each direction. The last foreigners I had seen were near the tourist area. There was a tall and wide staircase leading up to the theatre entrance. The top three steps were the only ones shaded and many people were standing and waiting in the shade. I walked up to the top of the staircase and stood on the second stair. I sent a text message to my friend to tell her that I had arrived. She replied that she was on her way and would be there soon.

After waiting for about 15 minutes, I realized that a small homeless boy had setup camp directly behind me and was counting his begging earnings. At first I thought it was strange that he was only a few inches behind me. I soon realized that between the front wall of the building, a column, and the legs of a foreigner, he was surrounded on three sides. This was the safest place for him to count his money. He was wearing a skirt from a prep school girl’s uniform, something that had probably been lost or thrown out by its original owner. His shirt had several holes and it appeared to be 3rd or 4th hand clothing. His dark brown skin was made lighter by the dust and dirt that he was covered in. His dirty clothes also made it obvious that he was accustomed to sleeping on the ground. The boy counted his paper money and then began making little stacks of coins to count them. When he was done he put everything into his skirt pocket. He wore the skirt sideways so that the pocket was directly in front of him. As he got up to move, several coins spilled out and down the staircase. Another man and I pointed out each coin to him so that he could pick all of them up. As he moved to pick them up, more coins spilled out of the pocket. The man and I pointed out those coins as well, still more coins fell to the ground. It was obvious that there was a hole in his pocket. Now holding all of the coins in his hand, the boy flipped up his skirt to inspect the pocket. I looked away since the boy didn’t have any underwear. He then sat down a few stairs in front of me, coins in his lap, wondering what to do.

A few stairs below the boy was an empty potato chip bag. The boy grabbed it and looked inside at the few small broken chips leftover. He dumped the chips into his lap and then began putting all of the money into the bag. When the bag contained all of his money, he ate the few broken chips in his lap and then stood up. He removed 10 Rupees from the bag and then placed the bag into his pocket. He now had an effective pocket liner and change purse to hold his earnings. I watched him as he walked over to the edge of the stairs. There was a smaller and younger boy sleeping on there. As the older boy shook him to wake him up I looked at the older boy’s body language and facial expressions. Whether they were blood brothers or they had become brothers in the streets, it was clear that the older boy was the guardian of the younger boy. Their age difference couldn’t have been more than 2 years. The older boy continued to shake the younger boy without much success in waking him. He began pawing around the younger boy’s shorts looking for a pocket. When he rolled the younger boy over, I could see a few open sores on the younger boy’s face. Finally finding a pocket, the older boy stuffed the 10 Rupee note inside, gifting it to his sleeping younger brother. The older boy then sat on the stair above, placing his legs over the younger boy, protecting him from rolling off of the stair in his sleep.

The two stayed in this position for a few minutes. A lady came up to the older boy and he immediately stood upright while the younger boy slept. She reached into her purse and gave the boy a 2 Rupee coin. It was an appropriate amount for a single person to give the boy. Afterwards, he returned to his protective pose over the younger sleeping boy. I continued to look out at the street, watching the two boys out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and thought about the things I had shared about American and Christian culture a little over a week back. I thought more about where I was. There were many panhandling children and families that targeted the tourist areas of the city. There are also notable scams in these areas involving children asking for milk and children reciting the capitols of expected tourist nations. (I once had a little girl tell me that she thought the capitol of America was London.) These two boys were nowhere near any of these areas. Everyone I had seen since arriving was Nepali. Looking at the tea shops and restaurants, I knew that tourists and foreign nationals didn’t stop here to eat or shop either. I thought about how much I should give to the older, awake boy. 33 Rupees would easily double his bankroll. Still, for an American, I would be ashamed to only give him the equivalent of 50 cents.

I decided that 330 Rupees was more appropriate for today, the 4th of July. In reality, I was still sacrificing virtually nothing and I knew I wouldn’t walk away with some pompously swollen sense of pride. With the boy still protecting his younger brother in the corner of my vision, I took out my money and began sorting out 330 Rupees. The boy saw what was happening and he walked over to me and stood next to me. I rolled the money together, placing the smallest bill, the 10 Rupee note, on the outside. I turned and handed it to the boy. He took the money from my hand while looking at the 10 Rupee note, something which he saw regularly enough. He walked back to his younger brother and shook him awake. This time the smaller boy awakened and he watched as the older boy unfolded the money, exposing the three 100 Rupee notes inside. The two boys got up and walked over to me.

The younger boy sat down at my feet, facing away from me, still waking up with his head propped up in his hand. The older boy stood three stairs down from me. He was looking up directly at me with a big smile. I was still looking out over him at the street. After 30 seconds of the boy smiling at me I looked down at him and smiled back. I returned to watching the street. After 30 more seconds the boy was still smiling at me. I looked down at him and waved and said, “Hello.” I went back to watching the street. After another 30 seconds of the older boy smiling at me, the younger boy had awakened fully and he stood up. The older boy walked the younger boy down the stairs. As they walked off together, the older boy put his arm around the younger boy, waved the finger of his other hand high in the air, and exclaimed something enthusiastically. The two of them walked into the nearest tea shop, either to get something to eat or to give the money to their pseudo-caretaker. I resumed waiting for my friend to arrive.

Today there were no fireworks, no American flags, no red, white, and blue clothes, and no one I knew said, “Happy Fourth of July!” Still, this is the best Independence Day I have ever celebrated. I love the USA, everything it has taught me, and everything it has facilitated me becoming. Today I give thanks for the vision of the founding fathers, everyone who believed in that vision that followed, and everyone who has fought and died to protect this ideology.

Happy 4th of July little slumdog. I hope that someday soon your country will generate the excess income needed to take care of you. More importantly, I hope that someday soon everyone in your culture will truly and genuinely believe that all people are created equal, so that they will have the strongest desire to take care of you.

P.S. My best wishes go out to Freema Davis, a Rotarian from Oakland who is currently fundraising to create a pilot model orphanage in Nepal.

So, Are We Squatting Here?

2009-05-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

I realize that it’s been over a month since my last blog entry. There is only one reason why I haven’t posted for so long: I am enjoying my new Nepali life here way too much. In the future I’ll try to get an entry out at least once every other week, but I can’t make any promises. The biggest recent news is that I have moved into the M.Sc. Hostel (what they call a dorm) and I have begun classes. Classes are surprisingly similar to a US university. It is the surroundings that are very different…

After meeting with various university administrators, I was told that my dorm room would be ready in a few days. I was given the phone number of the M.Sc. Hostel superintendent. I was told to call him about the room. On the first afternoon I called him, he told me that he would call me back with an update after 1pm that day. I was a little confused, but I agreed and hung up the phone. I immediately looked at the time on my cell phone. It was 1:35pm. I thought that maybe he meant 1pm the next day and had just gotten confused. Over the next week I tried to call him several times, but never got through. The Nepal cellular system isn’t always reliable. Finally, I went back to one of the administrators I had visited before. In less than five minutes he made a few phone calls and told me that I should go to the hostel. There would be someone waiting for me there.

From far away, the hostel looked exactly as it did in the picture on the university website. It was a large three story concrete building finished in brick. There were shared balconies for all of the rooms. There was a volleyball court in front and some clothes hanging on a line where a second volleyball net would normally be. Walking up to the main lobby, I noticed the three broken windows in front. All of the windows had bars across them whether they had glass or not. Inside was some old plywood furniture. The main desk had some of the layers of plywood coming off. Around the corner, several students were gathered around a small TV, watching the local news. Behind them was a ping pong table that was in disrepair. One of the hostel caretakers saw me walking around and greeted me. He immediately showed me to my room, which hadn’t been cleaned yet.

We both walked in together and looked around. There were two wooden bed frames and some random trash on the floor. He immediately went to get a broom to begin cleaning up. Together, we moved one of the bed frames out of the room then he quickly swept up and took away the few bits of trash leftover. Looking at the empty concrete room, with the bars across the windows, I immediately thought it felt like a prison cell. The caretaker told me that we needed to go to the market so he could help me buy bedding. After walking to the nearby market, we visited several shops. He helped me get a Nepali mattress, pillows, sheets, blankets, towels, and a mosquito net. We got a taxi back to the hostel and I immediately set everything up. With everything in the room, it seemed more like a dorm room. Since it was time for dinner, he pointed me in the direction of the mess hall attached to the hostel.

While eating dinner, a fellow student explained how the meals at the hostel worked. Each student paid a monthly membership fee to eat in the mess hall. There were two brothers who cooked and served all of the food. Each week there was a different student who was in charge of going to the market with the brothers, purchasing the food, and recording the expenses. I asked if the small garden I had seen outside was used for the mess hall and he replied that it was. The student reminded me that since it was all Nepali food in the mess hall, I would be eating dhal-bhat (lentils and rice) at each meal. He also added that it’s normal for them to serve meat three times each week. As I continued eating, I got the feeling that this place was like a commune.

The next day, I made friends with many students and one who went to a different campus. Her father was the hostel superintendent so she lived in this campus hostel instead of the other. Since I needed to do laundry, I asked her what people do for laundry here. I had done laundry by hand in El Salvador before, so I thought I knew what to expect. She led me back to the marketplace and helped me purchase a bucket, small pitcher, brush, and soap. When we got back to the hostel, she took me into the bathroom and explained how to do laundry. More specifically, she explained how to do laundry on the floor of the shower. That I did not expect. She continually told me that the floor of the shower only looked dirty, but it was actually clean. Next, she got into a baseball catcher’s position and started doing her laundry. I went into the other shower and started doing the same. After finishing 30 minutes later, I got up very slowly and the two of us hung up laundry outside on the clothesline.

Back inside, I took a look at the ping pong table. It seemed to be in reasonable condition. There was a brick replacing one of the wheels on the stand, but it did its job well. The net was down and I saw that the clamps to hold it up were broken. At closer review, I realized one of the pins had fallen out of the clamp. With some determination, elbow grease, and a little time, I managed to get the pin and spring back in place. Putting up the net, there was now a fully functional ping pong table. A student came by and commented on the table being fixed. He also asked if I wanted to play. The two of us played until the daylight started going out.

Due to load shedding (planned blackouts) we would be without power until midnight. As the sun continued going down, I relaxed in the main lobby. I read a newspaper and occasionally looked around at the walls that were covered in old spider webs, the furniture that had the plywood coming off, and the broken windows on the other side of the metal bars. I couldn’t escape feeling that we were all squatting in an abandoned building, 35 Nepali masters students and I. I actually welcomed the feeling. I had always wondered what it was like to be a squatter. In this case I wasn’t really one, but I sure felt like it.

P.S. The windows were broken by masters students playing cricket and the university didn’t want to replace them since they would only be broken again.

Panaramic of the Hostel Lobby

Just another day of doing laundry

I believe this bathroom is out-of-order

To The Bitter End and Back Again

2009-04-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

The day of Thursday began by ending like any other night. The power went out at midnight and as the day officially began I rolled over in bed and decided to go to sleep. I thought about getting up and drinking another liter of water but decided against it. It didn’t take too long into the day before things started going wrong. Once the lights went out, the two mosquitoes that hide under the bed in daylight came out and started harassing me. I pulled the blanket over my head and went to sleep. At 2am I woke up and felt awful. I was shivering cold under two blankets and I was beginning to sweat. I figured that there was nothing to be done until morning so I didn’t get up, instead I went back to sleep. This repeated a few times through the night until it reached around 8am. Thinking that I was a little dehydrated and that could be the source of the problem, I decided to re-hydrate and if that didn’t work, I would go to see a doctor. Feeling dizzy, weak, and out of breath, I got the one liter water bottle on the other side of the room and then returned to my bed where I drank it slowly with some vitamins. Feeling no better, I repeated the same process again lurching across the room and back. After the second liter sized bottle of water was gone and nothing had changed, I knew that something was very wrong. My first thoughts were that I had dengue fever, even though there are no mosquito born diseases in the Kathmandu Valley.

Grabbing my laptop bag I hoisted it over my shoulder with most of the effort I had available. I left my room and headed for the front desk. The same as leaving any other day, I gave the reception desk my laptop bag and key. This time I showed them an international number and told them that I needed to dial it. It was my insurance carrier. On the phone, they said that seeing a doctor did not need any pre-certification. That was only needed for being admitted to a hospital. I rested my head on the front desk of the hotel and the man asked if I was tired. I responded that I was sick and something was wrong. I asked him if Patan Hospital was close, already knowing that the answer was yes. Also, knowing that there were no taxis near the hotel entrance I asked if he could have one of the hotel staff walk with me to the hospital. He looked confused at first from the strange request but then got someone to walk with me. As we headed out of the hotel and down the streets, I was having trouble keeping up with my escort. He was walking at the ordinary Nepali pace, which was normally painfully slow for me. As we rounded the corner I expected the hospital to be right there, instead it was further down the road a distance that seemed like eternity. I thought about needing to stop at the ATM but decided not to because of my exhaustion. We walked to the check-in for the emergency ward and I filled out my admission sheet. As the woman processed it, I rested my heard on the counter, barely able to hold myself up. She gave the sheet to me and pointed into the emergency ward.

With my blank pink medical chart in hand, I walked into a busy emergency ward full of beds and patients. Uncertain where to go, I walked past the waiting area into the treatment area. There was no definite line separating the two. I saw one western looking doctor and I locked eyes with him as I struggled to stay standing. A shorter local doctor passed in front of me and I made eye contact with her, looking for anyone to help me. She told me that I needed to put my chart in the bin on the wall and a doctor would come help me. I did just that and since the bench for waiting was full, I leaned on the wall, a little too afraid to sit on the unclean ground. The western looking doctor came and took the chart, then led me to an inclined bed around the corner where I sat down. He started to take my blood pressure as part of a routine check. As the blood pressure cuff tightened around my arm, it started to fall asleep, tingling everywhere below the cuff. I told him that my arm was going numb and that this was not normal for me. A nurse came by and took my temperature and another doctor took my blood oxygen levels, all as he redid the blood pressure measurement to make sure he had the right number. After a few other quick tests, the western doctor told me that I had a fever of 104 and my blood pressure was 80 over 60. I repeated back to him “80 over 60” and said that it was not good. Something he knew already. I told him that my arm was still numb and that it wasn’t coming back to life even after he removed the cuff. Answering some questions, I gave the two answers usually ruling out stomach problems, no vomiting and no diarrhea. Helping me up, he said that depending on how the further diagnosis went I may want to transfer to a western hospital or I may need to fly to Bangkok. My eyes widened when he said Bangkok and I realized that I may be in more trouble than I was used to. He continued to help me as we walked over to one of the emergency ward beds. Each bed was only a few feet from the next with no separator in the crowded one-room emergency ward. Lying down on the bed, I looked up at the whitewashed concrete ceiling above me. It had a visible layer of dust from where one of the many fans in the room blew air over it.

I asked the western doctor where he was from and he said he was from Britain. He asked if I had a friend that I could call. My left arm completely immobile on the bed, I used my right arm to point to my left pocket and I asked him if he would take the phone out of my pocket. He did so and then placed the phone in my right hand. Lifting my head off of the bed, I looked at the phone and pushed the button for the address book. When I tried to make the call, the phone fell out of my hand and onto my chest. I put my head back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling again. Now my right hand was starting to malfunction and I felt a little more scared. I asked the doctor if he would dial the first number in the address book, labeled “Albert”. Albert was a semi-retired American architect I had met through Rotary and he was my best friend in Kathmandu. The doctor told Albert where I was and then gave me the phone. My fingers becoming useless, I cupped it in my hand and held it to my ear. I told Albert that I didn’t know what was going on, but something was very wrong with me. The doctor talked to Albert for a short while and then hung up the phone. He told me that Albert was coming and would be there in about 30 minutes, it might as well have been forever to me at that point. I asked the doctor why my arm wasn’t coming back to life since the blood pressure test. He responded that he wasn’t a doctor yet, just a medical student. I responded by saying that I didn’t care. I saw the look of surprise on his face at the response he didn’t expect to get.
My phone rang again and I managed to answer it and cup it to my ear, only dropping it once along the way. It was Seema, a friend and local Nepali woman my age that Albert had introduced me to a while ago. I told her the same thing I told Albert and she said that she would visit after she got off work. At this point it was still 10am in the morning so I told her that I would call and keep her updated of any changes. I had the western medical student put the phone back in my pocket as he asked if I had money to pay for the emergency ward services. I pointed to my other pocket and told him my Nepali money was in there. I told him that it was probably not enough but I had some American money and that Albert could pay for anything when he arrived. I told him that I would have no trouble affording the cost of the medical services. He told me that the hospital would only take the Nepali money and he left with the small amount of cash I had.

The British medical student returned and put my money back in my pocket. He said that the money wasn’t enough but he had paid my emergency room bill for now, the USD equivalent was $35. Another local doctor came by and joined the medical student. I noticed that his coat said “Resident” on it. He had helped do some earlier tests on me and he began to take my blood pressure on my right arm as I lied on the emergency ward bed. Again, my arm started to tingle and it didn’t stop when he removed the cuff and repeated the same numbers, 80 over 60. He then left to go get another machine. While he was gone my right arm continued to tingle. Suddenly, both of my hands froze solid and rigid in an awkward position that a person would never make intentionally. They started to hurt in this position as they were fixed solidly and awkwardly out of my control. My right arm still barely awake, I lifted up my right hand and asked the British medical student why my hands were doing this. He responded that he didn’t know. I put my hand back down and within a few seconds my right arm was gone. I couldn’t move either arm and the tingling feeling was starting to move across my chest. The resident doctor returned with what I assumed to be an EKG, and he also brought a nurse with him.

As the tingling across my chest was getting worse and worse, I started to roll my head back and forth on the bed. I was the only part of my upper body I could still move. I said, but in actuality probably yelled, “This is bad. I’ve never felt like this before… …This is really bad. I’ve never felt this bad before”

The resident doctor replied, “Please calm down. Things will be much better in 5 to 10 minutes. Please calm down Sir.”

“OK. I’ll calm down.” I replied while relaxing everything in my body I could. My hands stayed firmly locked in their awkward position despite my will. The British medical student asked the resident doctor why my hands were acting that way. The resident doctor responded that I was probably going into shock. He then lifted up my shirt and started placing multiple sensors on my chest. He slid down my socks and placed a clamp on each ankle. He put his hand slightly above my wrist, expecting me to lift my wrist into his hand so he could put the clamp on it. I looked him in the eyes and told him that I could move my arms. With that, he picked up my wrist and put the clamp on it, and then the next one. As he looked at the machine all I could think of was the end of my life. At the same time the tingling numbness in my chest was getting worse. For the first time ever I saw the possible end in the near future and I definitely wanted to live. I didn’t want to live for myself though. I could only think about my father and mother, grandmother, and sisters and brothers and how sad they would be if I never came back from Nepal. Mostly I thought about how devastated my mother would be if I died in a Kathmandu emergency ward. I looked up at the ceiling and prayed, ‘God please don’t let this ceiling be the last thing I ever see… …and if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to keep my hands too.’ I stared at the ceiling some more until I was brought back to reality by the doctor removing the sensors from my chest and the nurse inserting an IV into my arm. Even though I couldn’t move my arm, apparently I could still barely feel pain through it. I looked up at the IV bottle as a constant stream passed through the drip system. I’d never seen and IV move so fast. I imagined that if it moved any faster, a whirlpool would form in the bottle. In less than a few minutes the bottle was done and it was replaced by a second, and a few minutes later a third. As the drip went on, life slowly returned to my chest and then spread down to my arms and my hands. The resident doctor was right. In 5 to 10 minutes things were much better.

About 15 minutes later Albert arrived. He asked how I was doing and I told him that I was doing much better compared to about a half hour ago. My Nepali-only speaking escort from the hotel stepped forward and waved in a way to ask his leave of us. I nodded, not even realizing that he had stayed there the whole time. I told Albert the story and then lifted my hand into the air, touching each finger to my thumb. I reiterated that I was much better. Using his phone, we called Seema to let her know that things were much better and that I would be alright. I talked to Albert and made sure that he paid both the Hospital and the British medical student, especially the British medical student. I didn’t want his kindness to be punished by negligence. Thinking that this may be just a case of dehydration, Albert and I started to plan where we would have dinner together. I lied on the bed for several hours waiting for all of the tests and the x-ray to come back. When they did, the doctors said that they wanted to admit me because I showed signs of an infection that they couldn’t determine the origin of. Postponing dinner, Albert and I agreed that I should be admitted. The only room available was half of a double room in the private ward of the hospital. A situation that turned out for the best in the end, but that’s another set of stories to be told.

The stories not told also include A LOT of help from Albert and Seema. I am especially thankful for all of their help throughout everything. That is one nice thing about hanging around the Rotary circle. You meet a lot of genuinely great people who are willing to help you when you need it the most.

Just for anyone who is concerned about my health. After 5 days of in-patient service I was released from the hospital today with my last 4 cipro pills in-hand. I am feeling much better. The final diagnosis had to be made after I had recovered. Many tests were done with each one coming back negative. Two days before I was discharged I had a malaria test because the doctors still weren’t sure what I was suffering from. According to them, it was apparently one heck of a case of dysentery. Although I must admit that its strange that I had no vomiting, little diarrhea, and all negative stool samples. I don’t think I’ll ever be certain, but things are much better now and I am thankful for that. I’m also glad that I decided to go see a doctor so quickly. From the first signs of symptoms, it was less than 8 hours until I was going into shock.

Multiple Points of View

2009-04-15T10:05:00.006-07:00

It’s about one month into my scholarship year I am in an unexpected position. I have received my student visa, the start date of school has been postponed 2 weeks, and my on-campus housing is undergoing maintenance. I am staying in an inexpensive local hotel, but I don’t quite have the feeling of living here. I still have the feeling of visiting. It’s hard to feel a sense of residence when staying in a hotel. I have decided not to leave the area on more vacation-like activities, so that I can keep up to date on the status of my dorm room. I have visited many of the popular sites in Kathmandu and have exhausted the tourist feeling as well. With lots of time on my hands before school starts I have been able to relax, and also get back in touch with the world events I couldn’t keep up with while living in Houston, working 60 hour weeks, and volunteering on weekends. I could always get headlines, but I never had the time to see news reports from multiple outlets in an attempt to understand what was really happening.

One such event that drew attention around the world was the recent “satellite” launch from North Korea. At the end of venturing out and about each day, I could expect to come back to the hotel and watch the television news awaiting the launch. The suspense grew each day since the only news was that there was no launch today, maybe it would be tomorrow. After a few days of waiting, the launch took place and all the news agencies scrambled to report anything they could on the story. With plenty of time on my hands, and a beautiful array of worldwide news agencies broadcasting on regional satellite TV here, I decided to see what I could learn about this news story. As it turned out, I learned more about the news organizations, their countries of origin, and their respective people and cultures more than anything else.

The first television news I turned to was the trusted USA mogul, CNN. Although, here I get the international CNN broadcast instead of the domestic one shown in the USA. It’s actually quite humorous since they employ many people with British accents, possibly in an attempt to combat the domination of BBC World News on the international market. As expected, they were reporting on the developments of the North Korea launch. As I watched the dialog between anchor and reporter, the dynamic became repetitive and very tiresome. Every other sentence switched off from the current news to mention old news on North Korea and how CNN was the first to break that previous story. Then another sentence of the current event followed by more old events and a mention that the reporter speaking now was the one who gave the exclusive of that older report in 2003. Again they made another short statement of the present situation followed by CNN tooting its own horn. Then another small fact followed by the reporter giving some of her resume. After five minutes, all I knew was that North Korea had launched a rocket, and for some reason I wanted to hire the reporter to a full time position.

Only one channel over was BBC World News, the overpowering force in international television and radio news services. Once I changed the channel, the resume harping stopped. BBC was giving the news in a concise factual manner. One statement after another, they clearly stated the few facts that they knew. Next they continued on to the developments in the story that they expected to see in the near future. The report was surprisingly brief, condensed by only talking about the facts on the current event. While this was effective, it left something lacking. Throughout the report there was the air of both indifference and self importance from each person speaking. It seemed clear that I was listening to people who would never be affected by North Korea developing military technology. More importantly I was listening to people who knew that it didn’t endanger their lives or livelihoods in any way. Quite the contrary, North Korea brazenly defying multinational sentiments on weapons proliferation is what ensured that their livelihoods as news reporters would be sustained for quite some time. I decided to find a newscast that came from people with a greater stake in the news story.

Fortunately, I had already been very adventurous with the remote control and I knew the channel for NHK World, the English language world broadcast from Japan. Immediately I saw the anchor for their news program with the most serious look on his face. In his heavily accented English he delivered the top story with a stone cold grave demeanor. After going over the facts that all news organizations were reporting, he made it a point to clearly state that as the rocket passed over Japan, no debris fell on Japan and no Japanese citizens were harmed. Next, the news organization went to a one-on-one interview with a visiting expert on satellite launching rockets. The interview was very concise and there were no jokes or smiles exchanged as the interviewing journalist and local expert went over the details they were there to share. There was no question that this was a serious matter to everyone in the newsroom and each person took this world news development with the utmost importance. The newscasters weren’t excited that this gave them something to fill airtime with or that reporting this story would add to their personal resume. For them it was not a world news development, it was an unfolding plot that had the potential to harm them, their friends, and their families. Watching this broadcast, I was aware of how important this story was to the people of Japan. There was only one group of people I could think of who had more at stake in this development than the Japanese.

Again, my tastes in multicultural TV paid off as I already knew the channel for ARIRANG, the English language Korean world broadcast. Of course, I am referring to a South Korean world broadcast. Normally ARIRANG broadcasts the news in English. In fact, I could hear faintly in the background the sound of the anchors and journalists reporting on the launch in English. I couldn’t make out what they were saying because over their low volume English was a very loud dubbing of Korean. I continued to watch as the report continued entirely in loudly dubbed Korean. It seemed clear that it had been dubbed over in the language that was guaranteed to be understood by every South Korean citizen around the world. With the loud volume of the dubbing, it seemed evident that even a hearing impaired senior citizen of South Korea could understand the broadcast. In addition, they had more North Korean national TV footage than any other news service. It seemed safe to assume that the airwaves containing the footage reached South Korea on a daily basis. I left the TV on as I read the newspaper in my hotel room, waiting to see if the broadcast would return to the normal English. After an hour there was still no change. They were reporting the news as seriously as anyone could and in the language that every South Korean, young and old, could understand. Once again it was clear that these people had a significant stake in this news story. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t understand what they were saying, to try and further grasp just how serious they were.

I came to Nepal in the hopes that cultural exchange would be a large part of my scholarship year. On this day I didn’t interact with Nepali people any more than any other day. By tourist standards I led a dull day that would be shunned as being worthless. I went to the grocery store, ate in a restaurant, read the newspaper, and watched TV. I didn’t see any historical monuments, visit any artisan shops, or climb any mountains. In fact, it was watching television today that was the cultural exchange. I started at my own culture, continued to a familiar culture, and then ventured further east to get to the heart of the top story of the day. The real story was the people whose lives were in the balance of this military proliferation. The actions and demeanor of the reporters and news agencies in Japan and South Korea were more telling than any facts, charts, sound bytes, or video clips.

A Familiar Image – Namaste and Jay Mashea

2009-04-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

The traditional greeting of Nepal is to place your hands together in a prayer-like posture and say, “Namaste”. This greeting is not just ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’ but a blessing given to the other person. This is not an archaic Hindu blessing reserved only for formal usage, it is used in everyday life. When entering a home or a shop, passing the security guard at the hotel gates, or walking into a restaurant, this greeting is used as a part of modern day life across the Kathmandu Valley. The exception is the local Christians who have replaced the phrase with “Jay Mashea” or ‘Praise the Lord’ as it translates. At one point I was in a sauna and the local young men there asked my religion in their broken English. They easily understood when I put my hands together and said, “Jay Mashea”. One of the five added that he was “Jay Mashea” too. As expected, there are many other cultural nuances far removed from Latin derived languages and Judeo-Christian culture. Touring the city with a local friend, she openly admits that she does not know the meaning of all the symbolism, the names of all the gods, or the purpose of every festival. She says that there is so much to know it is difficult to keep up with it all.

Friday was an official Nepali holiday. I had planned to visit the school and get a closer look at the dorm building, but an American Ex-Pat friend called me in the morning and told me it was a holiday and that I couldn’t get anything done that day. I agreed to meet him in the afternoon to visit a home expo featuring lots of the current technology in Nepal. Technology that could easily be used in an Engineers Without Borders style community development project. Instead of going to the school, I relaxed until I met a local friend to look at an artisan shop she was planning to export goods from. Unfortunately, when I met her we found out that the shop would be closed until I had to be at the home expo. We decided to put off going to the shop and instead we visited her Aunt’s house, where some of her relatives were celebrating the holiday.

Arriving at the house, there were many Namaste greetings to go around. This holiday, like many others, has people gathering in a home and cooking and eating together. For a few days after the holiday everyone continues the rounds, eating at multiple houses and making sure that everyone invited to eat at their house is everyone whose home they were invited to. I had explained to my friend before entering that I had just eaten a large meal and was very full. This way she could explain to the family in Nepali right away so no one would offer me food and no one would be offended if I declined. In the home I drank several cups of milk tea, the family not offering food, knowing that I had just eaten. After a short while, the mother came up to me and offered me a single hard boiled egg. My friend told me in English that the egg was a symbol of respect. I gladly accepted and ate the egg, not so full that I would consider turning down the gesture. After more tea, we left the house. I headed to the trade expo and my friend headed to the artisan shop.

At the trade expo I found lots of good information for the community development minded engineer. For the inquisitive browser, displays of potable water piping systems included information on pressure ratings and costs. Also available were technical and cost information at the displays of jet and centrifugal water pumps. I cruised from one booth to the next scraping together all the project related information I could. A full understanding of what was for sale would have to wait until later that night. My off hand engineering frame of reference does not include kilograms per cubic centimeter pressure ratings and cubic meter per hour flow rates. Not just in units but also in product lines, I felt a little out of place when comparing to the things I was used to seeing at a home expo. From air conditioning to water heating, every product line is vastly different in Nepal. After getting everything I could, I returned home to rest.

On Sunday, I visited Patan Durbar Square with a local friend. We went into the museum there for a free Buddhist art showing, but in order to get into the area I had to pay for the tourist ticket. We looked over the Buddhist art for a short while and then I walked my friend to her bus for her return home. Standing outside the square, I decided to walk back in and enjoy the privileges of the tourist ticket. I cruised around a little, but finally decided to join some other Nepali’s sitting on the edge of the Krishna Mandir temple. I chose not to go in, because there was a sign at the doorway saying ‘Only Hindus may enter. Photography and leather goods prohibited inside.’ I sat on the ledge with about 10 other locals, admiring the view of the buildings in the square. Looking up, I saw something that I hadn’t noticed while walking around. In front of two of the temples were statues on top of 30 foot stand alone columns. Their height removed them from the view of the casual stroller below.

In front of the temple where I was sitting was a column with a semi-familiar figure. Overhearing an English speaker’s guide below, I heard that it was an image of Garud paying respects to Krishna’s temple. It didn’t quite match the stereotypical image I would recognize. Even so, with its eyes still open and only kneeling on one knee, it looked like an angel preparing to pray. In reality the statue conveyed something along the lines of ‘Namaste’ but I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of an angel saying “Jay Mashea”. In a place where everything is different, I had accidentally stumbled across an image of something that was intriguingly similar.

A $50 day in Kathmandu

2009-03-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

After about 3 weeks in Kathmandu, I have become accustomed to living a non-tourist life. A walk is free and a cross town microbus is 10 Nepali Rupees ($0.12). Most busses going into the city stop at Ratna park, which is a short walk from almost everything. If you see a microbus pass you on the street, you wave and yell “Ra-ta-na, Ra-ta-na, Ra-ta-na”. That’s if the boy hanging out the side of the microbus doesn’t yell it first. Many of the ‘local’ restaurants have two menus, one for locals and one for tourists. If you sit down and they bring you a menu, you just got the tourist menu. One exception is the tourist restaurants, where they only have the tourist menu. The other exception is my local favorite “Underground – Cheap & Best” where the menu sits on the table. I eat a massive meal there for 95 Nepali Rupees ($1.18) at least 5 times a week. The owner who takes my order usually smirks when I order the same thing, again. Many times the day starts and ends with some sampling of variations of Nepali trail mixes. A giant bag is sold for 79 Nepali Rupees ($0.99) at the local supermarket. There are also plenty of Nepali teas. Even drinking multiple cups a day, I still have yet to go through my first 100g bag bought for 120 Nepali Rupees ($1.50). Including my room in the local guest house (hostel) the average day costs about $10.

The Nepali holy day is Saturday, making Friday here share the same stigma that it does in the United States. I had caught the cold going around Kathmandu a few days earlier, but was feeling a little better. Throughout the day, I shared the American adage, “Feed a cold, starve a flu.” Or at least that what I remembered it to be, so that was the plan for the day. I woke up late to ensure enough rest to fight off the cold and started the day with some tea. Getting out to the street, I realized that I definitely needed to eat a big breakfast before meeting my friend at the Royal Palace, which had been converted into a museum only 1 month ago. I knew just the place to go, the nearby Australian restaurant visited almost exclusively by tourists. With time running out, a non-Nepali restaurant was my only chance of eating breakfast in less than 1 hour. With my cell phone out on the table keeping time, I had my ‘Red Dingo Big Breakfast’ of 1 hash brown, 2 eggs, 3 sausages, 2 slices of toast, 1 grilled tomato, 1 cup of beetroot juice, and 1 pot of ginger tea.

After breakfast I needed a quick taxi across town to be on time at the Royal Palace. Knowing that there are slow taxi meters for locals and fast taxi meters for tourists and that I can’t yet tell the difference, I negotiated my ride before getting in the taxi. At the Royal Palace, I got in the already long line to take the tour. Having been open for only 1 month, all of the locals want to see the palace more than anyone else. My local friend had told me rumors that lines were 2-3 hour waits. After 5 minutes of waiting, my friend joined me, we were about 100 people back and the museum opened in 1 hour. After a few minutes, a traffic police officer walked by and informed us that we were in the Nepali line and that we needed to go to the tourist line. There, we were second in line, although my tourist museum tour rate was 5 times my Nepali friend’s rate. We sat in line, lamenting that we had shown up so early. We did get a laugh about how my friend didn’t have to wait for 2-3 hours because she was my ‘guide’ and could wait in the tourist line with me.

Inside the Royal palace was the guided tour with no photography allowed. We were the first tourist group in that day and we were led through some of the various rooms that ran the spectrum from ordinary to extraordinary. Some rooms looked like a nice 1940s American home, other rooms had forty foot ceilings with paintings, carvings, silver and gold statues, and extravagant taxidermy that has long since been outlawed. During the tour I learned why it’s best to keep Nepali and tourist groups separate, and it’s not the language barrier. I could see the look of discomfort on most westerners faces as they were subject to the Nepali definition of personal space when a local group caught up with us and crowded through. I spoke with an older Canadian man, joking about keeping the two groups separate at the same time as local elderly grandmothers and schoolchildren alike bumped against us passing through the room. Later, when it was just tourists again, we were shown the area where the royal massacre had taken place 8 years earlier. The building had been torn down, but they had marked in the foundation and in the nearby garden where each family member had been murdered. Even the bullet marks in concrete walls and statues were pointed out. Shortly after, the tour concluded and we left, satisfied with the Royal Palace tour but longing for some photos to take with us.

It was around lunch, and I explained to my friend that I needed to eat a lot so we should go to a restaurant instead of her house. I didn’t want her mother to have to cook to fill my appetite for cold-curing calories. Walking into the nearby tourist section of town, she led me to a place to eat that seemed a little familiar. After a few minutes, I realized that there was a picture of it on one of the few color pages in my guide book. I ate a large plate of Indian curry and rice to satisfy my appetite. We parted ways and I headed for Ratna Park to catch a bus home. Looking over the streets as I walked, I realized that it was the time of day when walking was faster than a taxi or bus, so I walked about an hour back to the guest house, to rest for a while.

At the guest house I enjoyed more cups of tea and hot water, relaxing from the long morning. This time when leaving the house, I had plenty of time to get to my destination, right next to Ratna Park. I was meeting a retired ex-Pat and a young Nepali NGO worker and going with them to the big concert of the night. A French jazz band was in town and their posters had been up all over the city for the past month. Walking to the nearby roundabout I saw a microbus pulling away so I ran and yelled, “Ra-ta-na”, and the microbus stopped. I got on and was pleased with the decent amount of room, as this one surprisingly wasn’t over-packed to the point that necessitates standing inside. Arriving at our meeting point an hour early, I took a short walk over to the main square. There, street merchants sell the same statuettes and figures to passing tourists. Having 11 months to go in Kathmandu, I wasn’t interested in buying anything, only seeing how low a price I could get. I had fun walking from vendor to vendor seeing how much lower the prices got the further I walked away from each one. Every one had the same final pitch, “How much do you want to pay?”

Easily on time, I met up with our small group and we walked over to the “Army Club Auditorium” where the concert was held. Buying tickets at the gate, we opted for the more expensive of the two types, this one labeled ‘Front Rows’. Knowing the Nepali NGO worker’s monthly salary from dinner two nights ago, there was no way I was going to let her pay for her own ticket. Paying for her ticket and mine we all went in at the advertised concert start time, which in Nepal means showing up extremely early. Walking into a nearly empty concert hall we decided to sit in the first row. As we conversed about NGO work in Nepal, the room slowly filled with people, mostly French nationals and their local friends. The people who took the two reserved seats next to us turned out to be the French ambassador to Nepal and his wife. After many thanks from the jazz conservatory promoters and a short speech from the ambassador, the concert began. Without a doubt, they deserved their reputation as one of France’s best jazz groups and their award for the 2006 best jazz band in France. The saxophonist and trombonist were remarkably skilled, the drummer was soft and articulate, and the guitar player fit seamlessly into everything. The best song of the night was the encore where the already amazing bass player strung together a scat that was by far the highlight of the evening. After an hour and a half of jazz that was on par with the best New Orleans clubs, everyone left pleased with the show. Refusing to call an end to the night at 8:30, the retired ex-Pat asked us if we were up for dinner. We wound up back in the tourist section of town at an infamous Pizza and Ice Cream restaurant. Looking around inside, I told our group that I felt like I was in San Francisco more than Kathmandu. The young Nepali woman added that this restaurant was known to be the crown prince’s favorite place to eat pizza. The three of us ate well and talked more about NGO work, cultural nuances, and local savoir faire. The night coming to an end, we parted ways and I got a taxi home, accepting the higher nighttime rate.

Getting back to my room at the guest house I added up the expenses for the day. Breakfast at the nicest first world restaurant in my neighborhood, a ticket to the most popular new attraction in the country, lunch at the only photographed restaurant in my guide book, two tickets next to the ambassador from France at the biggest advertised concert in the city, dinner at one of the crown prince’s favorite restaurants, and taxis to quickly take me between them all. Final price on the day was about $50.

The outlook for today, probably $10 or less, but it is a different feeling to know that some of the experiences that are out of reach in the United States are well within reach here in Kathmandu. Sometime before I leave, I need to remember what hotel boasts the clay tennis court. I need to check that one off of my bucket list and I think that one’s much closer to my reach here in Nepal.

(For my adventure traveling granola eating friends, I’m sure that you’re annoyed that I talked about bucket list items in my reach and haven’t mentioned Annapurna or Everest. I didn’t forget. I’ll save those blog entries for later in the year. For now it’s French ambassadors and clay tennis courts.)

Back to Reality

2009-03-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

During my first two days in Kathmandu, I left the guest house several times to walk around and explore Patan. Each time I took my guidebook with the map, a small snack, some water, and my hand sanitizer at a minimum. In those days I practiced getting lost and then found, crossing busy streets, and eating in various restaurants of varying reputability. I felt confident in my ability to navigate my way around Patan, take care of myself, and venture out alone in this tourist friendly country. On the third day, I headed out of the guest house without much thought to anything.

Being that it was Monday, I decided to see if I could find exactly where I could enter the university campus. With my to-do list notebook in hand I walked down the street at my usual quick pace. After the expected ten minutes of walking, I saw the main gates of the campus, but they were closed. As I quickly approached them, I felt a rush of blood to my head, an uneasy lack of balance, and the feeling that I was about to pass out. Instinctively, I turned around to look at where I had come from. All I saw was this familiar part of the main road, where I knew it was ten minutes back home. Ten minutes walk seemed like eternity at the moment. A man that had been walking behind me took a long look at my face as he passed, surely seeing the panic I was displaying. Fortunately, my whole life didn’t pass before my eyes, just the recent events. The breakfast I had skipped in lieu of two cups of black tea. The newspaper article I had read that morning about the high levels of pollution in the valley that day. The one mile elevation change I had made 3 days ago. The bottled water in my room that I hadn’t touched this morning. I saw a staircase nearby and decided to sit down.

Sitting down hadn’t helped too much. I wasn’t going to fall over, but not much else was better. In my haze I decided to correct the situation as best I could. I needed food, but was out of range of my usual restaurant choice. I got up slowly and walked a block down, where there were two restaurants across the street. Hoping that I wouldn’t pass out crossing the street, I waited for the best two second break in microbuses and motorcycles and crossed to the center divide. I waited there for another break in traffic and then made my way into a very clean and large restaurant. I was relieved to step inside, only to have my hopes crushed when they told me that they didn’t open for another two hours. I stepped out on the street again, back at square one. I walked into the small and dingy tandoori restaurant next door. I ordered hot lemonade and a chicken dish from the menu. Sitting not far from the tandoori oven, I watched as the cook/cashier/owner put a few bite sized pieces of chicken in. As I waited, the smoke from the oven filled the small restaurant with the only fan there insufficient to clear the air. As I felt sicker I called over the waiter and pointed to a coke in the refrigerator. I drank it down instantly, trying to get some quick sugar energy into my system. I also realized the size of the dish I had ordered was too small, so I called the waiter back again and ordered a curry with rice dish. He asked, “With rice?” I confirmed, thinking that the rice was the only thing I cared about.

As my first dish arrived, I ate the undercooked chicken and turned away from the table to put my head between my knees. I rested there for a minute and the cook came over to ask if I had a headache and offer me some pain killers. I politely declined, thinking that any drugs on this empty stomach would make things much worse. Next the curry with rice came and I ate it quickly in the chokingly smoky restaurant. I thought about taking a break to go outside, only to realize that the pollution from the roadside was what sent me in here in the first place. Upon finishing the meal, I let it sit for a minute, feeling worse. I got up to give the phone number of the guest house to the cook but took it back when I realized that it would do no good. You can’t call a taxi in Kathmandu, you just have to go out to the street and find one. I sat back down thinking about basic human needs and what was missing. I called the waiter over and ordered a large bottle of water. In a few minutes I had drank it down, paid my bill, and was ready to head out to the street to hazily find my way back to the guest house.

Stepping outside, I sat down in front of the restaurant to gather my energy under the roadside pollution. Realizing I needed to go to the bathroom, I went back in and asked for the restroom. I was directed to the room with the expected eastern toilet and water tap dripping into a bucket. My heart sunk a little as I realized that my hand sanitizer was at the guest house. At least I had eaten already. After using the facilities, I stepped back out on the street, this time with the fullest understanding of the cultural rule in which the right hand is the only acceptable hand for eating with. Feeling slightly better, I decided to start a slow walk back home. The whole way I fought the urge to walk faster and get home quicker, knowing that this was a slow march that couldn’t be sped up no matter how bad I wanted it to end.

Arriving at the guest house, I lied down in my bed. Glad to be safely back home, but back in the reality of my physical limitations. Across the next few days, I ventured out carefully, remembering the newspaper article stating that things would not get better until the next rain, which was a ways in the future. Headaches became the norm. I got used to feeling lightheaded when I stepped outside a building onto the sidewalk. I often mimicked some of the locals and held my shirt over my nose and mouth when walking on a busy street. In a cab ride across town I rolled down the window completely, in case I was going to be sick. Yesterday, I decided to venture out and get a pollution mask that the occasional motorcyclist and pedestrian wore. I made sure to walk slowly the entire way. I found one at the local supermarket, next to a sign that read, “We have Mask.” Of the various choices of regionally made masks, I chose the one from Bangkok, thinking that they would know best how to make a pollution mask. Stepping outside I donned the mask made for a much smaller person, accepting that nothing in this region of the world came in my size.

After a few days worth of use and non-use, I can definitely say that it helps. I took it on and off several times, finding that it did make a difference. After a few sizing modifications, it fill well enough to work on a repeat walk up to the university and back. I will definitely be wearing the mask until the pollution is knocked out of the sky by the monsoon season. Although, when I wear it I do feel like a G.I. Joe action figure I once owned as a kid.

The top is a view of a sunset with no rain for the past 90 days.
The bottom is a view of the afternoon, shortly after a very light and brief rainfall.

Wedding Day

2009-03-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

When I asked my friend from the Delhi airport if she would like to go out on Holi, she instead invited me to her sister’s wedding. I agreed and she told me when and where to show up to the party. The day of the party, I pulled out my nice clothes that I thought would be reserved for making presentations to Rotary groups and others. I negotiated my cab ride to the party palace and was on my way. Upon arrival I saw my friend, but hardly recognized her in her wedding attire. She told me that another American traveler we had met, Nick, said that he might come but was unsure.

My friend took me to the front of the room and sat me down in one of 6 chairs on the stage where the bride and her closest family were. I watched as different family members approached the bride, gave her gifts, and in return the bride gave them a carefully counted number of nuts. Sitting next to the grandmother of the family, I felt a little out of place on the family stage. After greeting guests, my friend returned to ask me how I was doing and to make sure I wasn’t bored. I told her that I couldn’t be bored because everything was all so new and interesting to me. As we talked, the grandmother got the attention of my friend and softly mumbled something to her in Newari. My fears were that the grandmother wanted to know what this stranger was doing here. Instead, my friend told me her grandmother said she was glad that some of the people from the other culture had made it. I turned to the grandmother and tilted my head to the side, the general motion for approval or “OK” in Nepal. My friend took me down from the stage, and brought me to a cousin who spoke great English.

While sampling the many appetizers and drinks that were being ushered around the room, I spoke with the cousin about culture in Nepal. As it turned out, I was at the bride’s party that night. A Nepali wedding is done over the course of several days. The bride and the groom have their separate parties. Next there is a ceremony where the groom will take the bride from her home to his home. Finally, the family will visit the bride in her new home and the wedding festivities are concluded. The more we talked, the more I realized how similar our two cultures were when it came to marriage and traditional relationships. Our conversation was interrupted by my friend handing me a cell phone and telling me that Nick wanted to talk to me. As expected, Nick had the same fears about being and outsider, but when I told him about the grandmother’s comments, he decided to come.

The cousin invited me to eat dinner with him and his wife, so we went into the dining hall and continued talking about Nepali culture. Afterwards, he excused himself and his wife and I found Nick. The two of us engaged various English speakers in the group, with Nick having a great knack for bringing out people in small talk. I hesitantly accepted the offer of our second conversational group to join them for dinner, telling them that I just ate dinner but would join them anyways. I was finding it very hard to eat in moderation with my Newari hosts and hostesses doing their best to make sure I wasn’t hungry. At the second dinner, I learned about some of the many challenges people face in trying to do business in Nepal. One woman in the group came from a family of poultry farmers. Their business had been greatly disrupted by a recent avian flu scare in eastern Nepal that led to an eradication of all poultry in the region. This was just one of many stories of people facing the business challenges of Nepal.

After dinner, we continued talking and eating more appetizers being brought around. My friend returned to the group, to invite me to the wedding ceremony tomorrow where the groom would come for the bride. I agreed, but Nick had to decline as he was starting a trek the next day. I asked Nick about the length of his vacation time from work. He responded that it was one of those things where he had to quit his job to do it. I told him I had done similar things before, what he was doing was definitely worth quitting his job over, he would be happier in the end, and I jokingly added that he should call it a sabbatical since it always sounds classier that just quitting. We called it a night shortly thereafter, with me and Nick splitting a cab ride that I had negotiated the rate on. He was more than happy to join me since I had negotiated a 50 rupee savings for him. Even though it is only 70 cents, it always feels better to be paying a little less than the common tourist rate.

The next day I woke up early, put on my nice clothes, and called to get the location of the next wedding party. I got a cab ride out to the intersection I was supposed to go to, on the complete opposite side of Kathmandu. After calling my friend and asking where to go, the phone staring making all kinds of noise. Puzzled and far from home I was a little worried, until her brother knocked on the window of the cab, as he had left the house with the phone to come get me at the intersection. We walked back to the house together as he practiced his English on me. The ceremony at the house lasted most of the day and of course included multiple meals, servings of tea and lassi, and plenty of snacks as well. Again, I was reminded of how similar the cultures were as I watched all of the sisters make a handicraft welcome sign to put in front of the house, and yet again as I watched all of the women in the family cry in different parts of the wedding.

The woman who cried the most was the bride. One of the sisters told me why this was so. In Nepal, a family lives together in their family home with little or no exceptions. A child living in their own home on the other side of the city would be unheard of. The home we were at today was where the bride had lived since she had been born. Today, the groom would take her to his family’s home and that is where she would live for the rest of her life. The sister said, “For her, there is so much uncertainty. Even though she knows the family she will live with, she does not know exactly her life in her new home. She does not know what it will be like. All this uncertainty builds up inside and it comes out of her eyes.” Later in the day, I got several questions from the brothers about how people in America do not always live in the same house as their family. I explained that many families live in different homes that are very close, so that they can see each other often. Otherwise, families that live far away meet together for important holidays.

After the bride left with the groom, I talked with the family more. Again the issues of business difficulties in Nepal came up. I spoke with a brother who ran a machine shop. Due to load shedding, his shop only had power for 4 hours a day and 4 hours in the non-working time of night. A good example would be from Noon-4pm and Midnight-4am. He explained that a seven day job often took three weeks when there was load shedding. After talking a little more I said my goodbyes, saying that I had to go home, home to Jawalakel. A family member escorted me to the corner where I could get a taxi. I had him help me negotiate a taxi rate, but still couldn’t get any lower than the amount I paid to get out there. Satisfied with my negotiation skills, I got in the cab for the long ride home, home to Jawalakel.

Throwing Color

2009-03-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

During my layover in Delhi, I asked my new friend about a holiday I had seen listed in March, Phagu Purnima (Holi). She told me that it would be 3 days after I arrived in Kathmandu, but it was not a very fun holiday. On this day, children lean over rooftop ledges and throw water balloons down on passers by. People paint their faces and walk through the streets throwing water balloons and red powder on people. Translated into English, they call it “throwing water” and “throwing color”. I asked her if she would like to come out with me on that day to an area that would have a street parade. She commented that she had grown up in Nepal and had already had enough of throwing color. Especially since little boys will often target the girls to throw color at.

After I got to the guest house in Patan (South Kathmandu) I asked the young operator of the house about the holiday. He said that for the most part it was not bad. Many people would ask you before throwing color, although sometimes children throw water without asking. He continued by saying, “I do not like this kind of game. I think that if both people want to play and throw water and color it is ok, but if one person does not like to play then they should not have water and color thrown on them.” I called my friend from the plane ride to ask her if she would go to the street parade. She said that her family was keeping all of the girls inside that day so she would not be leaving the house. With her sister’s wedding the next day, it made sense that people did not want to be covered in red powder that doesn’t necessarily wash off right away.

On the day of the holiday, I had to move from one guest house to another due to a large reservation moving in at my current guest house. The walk was only about a mile, but I had to make it twice to carry my bags. The first time, I was hit with a few water balloons from the rooftops, but on a hot day in the valley it didn’t feel bad. Several men came up to me asking to put red powder on my face, saying, “Holi, holi, holi!” Each time I politely declined and while they would ask many times none of them threw color without permission. On the second trip, I walked with a lively 80 year-old volunteer surgeon I had made friends with. He had offered to let me stay in the second bed in his room at the new guest house, saving me from taking a room at lower grade guest house. The two of us walked to the new guest house together, taunting some of the rooftop water throwers and laughing as some balloons hit us and many missed. We encouraged children in the street to try to hit us with water balloons, dodging their attempts. The neighbors of the guest house had both children and adults throwing water balloons and we took some extra time in front of the house encouraging them to throw water at us.

After going inside I got my camera and went back outside to ask the neighbors if I could take their photo. With their permission I took some photos of them on the rooftop and the children started running downstairs to meet me. The properties were separated by two chain link fences and just as I was inside the guest house, all the children were at their fence motioning and calling for me to come back so they could throw water. With them was also an older man who had a bag of red powder in his hand. I took some more photos from inside the doorway and then decided to put my camera in my pocket and go outside. They were all motioning for me to come around to their side of the fence. I motioned back for them to throw everything through the fences right before I held my arms out sideways and closed my eyes, giving the body language that I was ready to be the target. In a few seconds I felt a barrage of water balloons all over and a handful of red powder hit my face. I laughed and waved at the family across the fences, they were laughing too and saying, “Holi, holi!” Coming inside, the operator of the guest house was surprised at the neighbor’s behavior, but I told him that I asked for it and he was satisfied. I asked him to take some pictures and he kindly obliged. Some concerned tourists coming down the stairs looked worried for their color-free safety outside. I told them that I had asked for it and they seemed satisfied enough to continue going outside.

You only live once and I mostly regret the things that I don’t do. I sat on the balcony upstairs, satisfied that I hadn’t turned down the opportunity to participate in the holiday. In fact, in usual fashion, I had gone over the top and made sure that I wouldn’t be concerned later about not giving it my all.

They’re all Nepali people?

2009-03-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

I got off the plane in Delhi and began the cat herding path that the airline had laid out for us. All of the passengers transferring to Kathmandu had to divert through a number of hallways, corridors, and passageways before arriving in the room where we would wait out the 8 hour layover. I spotted a beautiful young woman about my age that had the distinctive appearance of looking Latin American. I though I would start a conversation, so I asked where she was from. Surprisingly, she said, “I am from Kathmandu.” A little puzzled, I continued talking to her about where she was coming from and why she was returning home. She had been working in an internationally flavored hotel in the USA where the staff came from all over the world and would greet guests in their home language while wearing their traditional native clothing. She was returning to Kathmandu for 16 days to attend her sister’s wedding and visit her family.

After talking for a little while, I left to use the restroom, when I cam back she was talking to an older man who looked Indian and when I sat down she said that he was Nepali. “Nepali people can always spot other Nepali people”, she remarked. The man spoke English and told me that he was returning from Dallas where he had been working for the past year. After a few minutes of conversation, he left to walk around a little. My new friend showed me some pictures of her in the US and we talked some more. An hour later the Nepali man returned, but with 4 more men with him. The first man was elderly, had thick glasses, wore a sport coat, and looked as if he was a Cantonese businessman. The second man was young with very fair skin and curly black hair, seemingly of Middle Eastern decent. The third man had a round face with tan skin that looked as though he was a farmer from western China. The fourth man was young with dark skin and hard features that had the appearance of being Native American. My new friend looked at me and said, “They’re all Nepali people.” Apparently, the man returning from Dallas had walked
through the waiting area and found all of the Nepali people there.

I talked with some of them about where they were coming from or going to. The young fair skinned man was headed to Israel to work there for a while. The man who looked like a farmer was returning from work in the US, also from Dallas. Both of the two Dallas workers were having a spirited conversation trying to find out how close they had lived to each other. I asked my friend if the more recent man from Dallas was a Tibetan living in Nepal. She replied that he was not and she named two of the tribes of Nepal that he was most likely from. She added that she was Newari and the area of Kathmandu that I would be living in had many Newari people living there. She added, “Over time you will learn more about the nine tribes of Nepal and their people.” The group left again to walk around and I showed my new friend some of my pictures from traveling to Haiti. A short while later the group returned with a beautiful young woman added to the group. She had very dark skin and big pitch black eyes. She did not speak English, but I found out that she had a family member working in Holland and she was going there to work as a nanny. I asked my new friend if the other young woman was from the Terai and she responded, “See, you are getting better at recognizing Nepali people already.” We all continued talking in the group until it slowly dissipated with each member having to leave to catch their respective flights.

I stopped and thought about the people I had met. Their appearance was deceiving, as it seemed as though they were a collection of people from all over the world. Instead, they were a collection of people from all over Nepal, representing only some of the country’s nine tribes. What they did have in common was that they were Nepali and they were traveling all over the world for work in far off places.

Arriving Safely in the Kathmandu Valley

2009-03-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

I am thankful to have arrived safely here in the Kathmandu Valley, and although a little jet-lagged, I am in awe of the voyage I have made in the past 9 days.

9 days ago, it was February 26th and I had one day left of work at American Block in Houston, TX

Friday, February 27th: I decided not to skip out on my last day of work and at 4pm I started driving to New Orleans, LA to spend the night at my favorite hostel, India House. By coincidence, while en route, a student of mine called to ask me how to get to the hostel, since he was going to New Orleans for the weekend. Upon arriving I saw some of the staff I had gotten to know in my stay there over a year ago. I told them that I wished I could stay longer, but I was on my way to Kathmandu and had to leave the next morning.

Saturday, February 28th: I woke up to find my student, sleeping in the bunk under me. I got some coffee and sat on the front porch, relaxing for a few minutes and looking at the familiar wall of the Catholic Church across the street. A young German woman asked me how to get to the store so she could get breakfast. I told her that it was too far for her to walk alone and I got some fruit from my car and gave it to her. She offered to give some fruit back to me later that day, but I told her that I would be gone and the favor did not need to be repaid. Before leaving, I found my student still sleeping so I woke him up, told him what Jazz club to visit that night and to be sure and invite the young German woman, along with anyone else that would come.

I left the hostel and drove into Mississippi on a lovely calm morning. By the time I drove out of Mississippi, I was in the midst of a Memphis snowstorm. Driving 30mph on the highway and trying not to rubberneck the cars that had fallen in the ditch, I made it to Nashville to have dinner with an old friend and roommate. She had returned to Nashville to be with her family after staying for a few months in Houston, TX. I was glad to hear how well her life was going, and very happy to hear what seems like storybook good fortunes for her and her fiance. After dinner, I decided to get a moderately priced hotel in East Nashville, instead of the most budget priced one.

Sunday, March 1st: Waking up well rested, I was glad I made that choice. If there is nothing to say about a hotel room, that is good, usually the only things said about road trip hotel rooms is how bad they are. I drove on to Washington, D.C. encountering 2 snowstorms and 2 rainstorms along the way. Arriving at my friends house in Baltimore at 11:30pm, I was greeted by him and his fiance. We all talked for a while, and after his fiance went to sleep, my friend and I stayed up until 4am talking about all the good fortunes we had in our respective cities in the past 2 years.

Monday, March 2nd: I stayed in Baltimore for the day, sleeping in, eating Thai food, unpacking the car, repacking everything into a few bags, and concluding the day by getting a notorized bill of sale, to sell my car to my friend.

Tuesday, March 3rd: We woke up at 6am and after a short time getting ready, made the cold walk down to the metro rail stop. A few train and bus changes later and I was purchasing a ticket to NYC on the Pennsylvania Rail Road (this time not playing Monopoly). I slept for part of the way to Penn Station in New York, and then called my sister to tell her what time I would arrive. After my sister picked me up, we returned to her burrough of Brooklyn, ate a Japanese lunch, and returned to her apartment before going into her job in Manhattan. From 6pm to 2am, I sat in the corner of her restaurant working on the Haiti assessment trip report on my tiny laptop. We took the subway back to her home and made it to bed around 3am.

Wednesday, March 4th: After sleeping in a little we decided to both do our laundry at the local laundramat. I was in need of laundry since I was on the travel diet of clothes, having only about 4 changes worth. While the clothes were in the washer, I took some time to go to a drug store down the street and pick up some vitamins and other odds and ends before leaving. After laundry, we returned home to get ready for dinner in Manhatten with my sister's boyfriend. We had a nice dinner together and I got to meet him for the first time. Returning home on the subway at 11pm was reasonable. I went to bed after packing everything in a little tighter, taking care of last minute items on the apartment's wi-fi connection, and putting out the next day's clothes.

Thursday, March 5th: I woke up and got dressed for the near48 hour journey to Kathmandu. After a very speedy lunch we left for JFK international airport. Arriving as planned about 5 hours early, I took the time to call my grandmother and mother to say goodbye before calling my cell phone provider and asking them to terminate my service. Getting on the plane at 5pm, I said goodbye to the USA.

Friday, March 6th: Somewhere between Thursday and Friday, we landed in Brussels, where I had a 2 hour layover. I realized in my half aware state that I needed Euros to buy something from the soda machine, I read passages from my Nepal tourism book, and I managed to get onto the next flight to Delhi, India, without issue.

Saturday, March 7th: At this point it is uncertain when one day begins and another ends. During an 8 hour layover in the Dehli airport, there was confusion for all the passengers with their boarding passes, where they had to wait, and what exactly was happening. I reminded myself that it wasn't this specific airline, as I had been told a few times aleady in Houston, "Good luck getting out of Dehli!", from experienced travelers listening to my itenerary. During this time, I did get to meet some Nepali people and I'll go into more detail in another post. After many hours of uncertainty, and a few hours of confusion, I found myself on the airplane to Kathmandu, relieved that I had "made it out of Dehli" on the first shot.

Arriving in Kathmadu I had a slow but sure path out of the airport. Getting off the plane, changing money, going through the one visa line servicing our incoming flight, finding my baggage, and being waved through customs. One of the Nepali people I met in Dehli helped me to get a pre-paid and safe cab ride to my Guest House. Once there, I headed out to look at other Guest Houses, since the room I had was reserved by someone else in three days and I would need to pick another lodging by then. Walking the streets of Patan (Lalitpur), a city adjacent to Kathmandu but now officially part of Kathmandu, I saw many things for later posts. After eating the local dish "momo" at a cafe and visiting several guest houses, I returned to my current lodging. I took a quick shower and after a change of clothes I took an unintentional nap in my room. Waking up at 9:30, I knew I was out of the load shedding time for this region and we would have electricity until 12 midnight.

I am thankful to be in Patan safely. I cannot help but think about the changes of the past 9 days and everything it took just in that time to get here. 9 days ago, I was on my computer at work in Houston, TX. Today I sit at a computer in my guest house in Kathmandu, furiously typing so that I will be complete when the rolling blackout arrives as planned at 12 midnight.

Thank you to all the Rotarians in Houston who have helped in making this possible.

Also, momo is fantastic and I plan to each much more while I am here!