The Real Nepal

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)