Leaving

Sandy and I had to go back to the US to help with a family emergency. I have a couple of stories I had planned on writing about our experience in Nepal that I will post in the next couple of days. Then we will see what happens.

We Need a Dictator

The unthinkable happened, the Maoist won the election. Given their history of violence against rivals and the press you have to think what the F?? k! Even after they won the election, they badly beat a major representative of another party.

A educated friend of mine said I am really afraid. I have studied the Nazi's and this is very similar to what they did.

Another friend said he supported the Maoist because they represented change. I agreed with that statement, but wondered if political violence and elimination of press freedom is the sort of change they wanted.

I thought back to one of my students essays which was on the violence in my town, Bhaktapur. Her thoughts were, "We need a strong dictator to control the people". Well they got it now and we will have to see what happens.

Hello Democracy! Goodbye Democracy?

There was a historic vote the day before yesterday. The country was voting for the representatives to organize a new form of government, a constitutional assemply.

It is comical that the Maoist think that by intimidating opponents and the public that they could win a free and fair election like this was, except it looks like they are winning. The fact that the Maoist are on the US State Department Terroist list is problematic.

We shall see.

Help!

We have been working with a womens organization the last couple of months, Shree Prarthana Majila Samaj. The organization has a literacy project, which is a big deal here since 65% of women are illiterate. In the last six years they have grown from 4 students to around 100 now. They charge the women 100 rupees (about $1.50) a month. This is out of the reach of 1/3 of the women who are on scholarship.

They also have had vocational training programs as well as legal and health training.

The organization has been run by a group of young people (early 20's) for the last 6 years. We met Urmila, the President of the organization, at the Rotary club meeting. Sandy and I have been so impressed with her for a number of reasons. She is honest, a rarity with NGO's here. She is only 24 and started this NGO at 18. In some ways she is like any other woman here, friendly and respectful of elders. But underneath this exterior is a woman who has a strong will and an immensly kind heart. On good months, she and the other teachers will accept some pocket money, about $5 a month for the 20 hours a week they work. Really remarkable

You can read about her and the organization at: EducateNepaleseWomen.org .

We have been trying to help them in a few ways.

1. assisted with paying teachers salaries
2. made connections with other NGO's
3. assisted with organizing new school

The school mostly operates at night and we felt they could not continue to use the classrooms that they rented from another school that operates there during the day because the school that rented the classrooms during the day would regularly shut them out of the classrooms. Students got discouraged and would stop studying.

They are moving in a new building. The building is cheap (important), good location, and in crappy condition. We have already painted the interior and exterior with what had to have been some sort of toxic crap because my hands are remarkably infected from this.

They still have some major needs:

1. desks- $250 is needed to buy the remaining desks they need (they have already raised some money)
2. plumbing-there is no running water here except two hours two days a week. If you do not have a pump and tanks to store it, you have no water for your toilets. They need $200 for this.
3. electricity/lighting- the previous tenant was kind enough to take all of the lights and wiring. They need to replace this. In addition, they would like to have a battery/inverter so they can actually turn the lights on since there is no electricty 4 nights a week. This will cost $200.

If anyone can support any part of this (or even a portion of a portion) I would appreciate it.

Please send me an e-mail to ssnidero@hotmail.com if you would like to help.

Bisket Jatra

Bisket Jatra is a 9 day celebration of the New Year. Bhaktapur has possibly the biggest celebration. They make this enormous chariot and pull it through the streets. Usually a lot of alcohol and later violence occurs, but due to the elections there was no alcohol for sale and many more police. Hence, little violence this year.

I thought you might enjoy a short video I made.

It's Here

After months of planning today is the big day...the election in Nepal. I, like everyone else, does not know what to expect. The early returns for me are impressive. They have very little to do with the polls though.When I was out walking around 7 am (got to get my mornin' yogurt) people were lined up already; men in seperate lines from women. This makes no sense until you understand that men control the women and if a husband was voting next to his wife, his wife would have no vote.
The most inspiring sight was the old lady who could not vote being carried to the polls. The country will be transformed by the elections and I guess she wanted to be part of it.
Less impressive has been the monument observers. There signs say poll observers but the ones I have seen have acted exactly like tourist. This group from the Asia Foundation had a tour guide who was explaining everything about the monuments in front of my house. Ian Martin, the UN representative here, said that this will be the most observed election in history. I hope the other observers take it more seriously then the dozens that I have seen in front of my house in Durbar Square.

I am worried there will be violence. The US State Department sent out their usual warnings "do not mix with crowds matter of fact do not leave your bathroom" or something like that. I know there is danger in the world, but it seems they are a little extreme sometimes, but I guess they figure better safe than sorry.

I feel real hope for the country right now, but it is tempered with the reality that the election is only one stop in a long journey.

Shit Shit Shit

Many people say "shit" when they drop something or some other type of calamity. Like everyone we have asked, when we asked our very sweet friend Urmila what it meant, she said it was something you said when you made a mistake. She had no idea it was a bad word. She laughed like crazy when she realized she had a potty mouth.

Promise...last dog update

Sandy was out feeding her sick dog this morning. She was surrounded by the children who do not understand why she is doing this and this very dirty, somewhat mentally disturbed homeless guy comes up. He opens up his package of crackers, smiles and gives it to the sick dog. Sandy said she nearly cried.

Bad One!

Turns out the government read the April Fools joke in the paper and liked the idea. They banned alcohol sales and consumption 3 days before next week's election. I want to see this enforced.

Dog updates

There is absolutely no good reason to keep writing about these damn dogs but here it goes again.

We decided that we would help a sick dog who looks just like Durbar. We call him Durbar's brother. He has distemper and there is nothing that can be done except treating his symptoms which is what Sandy is doing. Sandy says,"he is going to die, but at least we can make his last days more comfortable". He is twitching and has problems getting around. When she feeds him, kids always gather around...they can not seem to understand why anyone would care about a sick dog.

Max, Sandy's new favorite dog, is very sweet and a licker..always going for the face. This seemed much cuter until I saw him licking the crazy homeless guys feet the other day.

Startin'

Not sure if it will continue, but today there was the first violence in Bhaktapur related to the election. Apparently there was a major knife fight with many people injured. A march went by a few minutes ago with a few hundred aggitated people surrounded by about 100 armed police. Not sure what will happen next, but we are getting ready to spend a couple of days in our house.

Tibet and Nepal

I read the NY Times and other papers everyday on line and I have not seen any mention of the ongoing protest over Tibet in Nepal. Being that we are really close to Tibet (less than 100 miles) there is a huge Tibetan refugee community here. Every day for weeks there have been protests here that the governement has been putting down. Frequent pics of bloody monks and other other bad scenes have been in the paper.

Good One

I can not believe this mornings paper. It said that they were banning alcohol sales for 10 days before the elections. Today is 9 days before the election. How can this be, I must not remain sober during this highly stressful time. I do not need to be drunk, just relaxed. The story said details on page two, but there was no story on page two.

We made a bee line to the store to get some booze this morning. Thank god, no problem.

Sandy was reading the back page of the paper tonight...it was an April Fools joke.

Dead Durbar

Durbar's condition worsened so we got a vet to look at him again. The doc gave him a shot and an hour later I could see Durbar's lifeless body in the bricks in front of our house. We both were incredibly sad about the stupid dog, who we were planning on bringing back to the states for my sister, dying.

Sandy swore we would not name anymore dogs and definitely not fall in love with another. As we were walking home through the square, one of Durbars friends came up and wanted to be petted. Soon a little puppy joined him. I went off and got the hungry puppy some milk. When I got back, Sandy said this dog is Max...that promise lasted about an hour.

I guess life goes on...at least for us.

Solid Poo

One of the joys of living in a developing country is all of the pets you can have...mostly those in your body. I have been chock full of parasites for months and finally got serious about getting rid of them.

I think Sandy had a nice laugh when I was so excited that I yelled "I had a solid poo" this morning. Strange how your definition of success changes.

Will he die?

Durbar, the world's greatest dog who I wrote about before, is very sick. The other day a group of Chinese tourist went by and he did not jump on anyone...he barely looked. We knew things were bad.

We decided to track down a vet and have him look at him. Distemper. Crap. The doctor said the mortaility rate is about 90%. We tried to give him food with medicine but he is not eating. We wanted to take him to a clinic and they said there is nobody who will take a sick street dog to Kathmandu to a clinic. We're going to give him a shot tomorrow morning but he is so weak I can not imagine him making it.

I know he is just a stupid street dog, but we both love the big dope. Sucks.

So Sari

People consult their astrologer before they have important celebrations here. The last couple of months the astrologers have been working their cards or whatever they use to have parties almost continuously.

We have been going to a couple a week. They have been really enjoyable feasts with one slight exception: a certain woman I know quite well carping about how all the other women look so beautiful in their Saris and this woman I know well feeling...well lets say not as beautiful.

Aparently I was not alone in noticing this issue and one of the woman's colleagues offered to dress her in a sari. Married women traditionally wear red, which looked great in my opinion.

Happy Easter

I am not a religious person and I may be alone in this officially Hindu country. Buddha was born in Nepal, so Buddhism is accepted here. The traditions in both religions are remarkably similar and distinctly different than the other Buddhist countries that we have lived in.

Christians are making in roads here primarily with people of low castes. If you are born into a low caste, you have few opportunities for jobs, education and love. These people are ripe to be converted and there are plenty of people trying to do it.

Today is Easter and there was a celebration in Durbar Square, which is right in front of our house. There was about 200 people in a parade and then some sort of service in the square. An hour after the service ended, there was a whole group of Hindu priests in the square...something unusual. ...wondering if they are checking out the competition.

Nepalese Scaffolding

One of the most amazing things here is how they do construction and the total lack of safety measures. This is one of my favorite examples, Nepalese scaffolding. Stick four pieces of bamboo in the ground and tie a few more inside the building and get to work. It is hard to believe people are not falling off of these things all the time.

elections

The election season here is heating up. There is violence, but much less than I had anticipated. A couple of highlights are:

The campaigning is going on with flags on the front of every house. Of course people had no choice in the matter, they were nailed to their homes without consent.

The vote is really to decide what kind of government they will have i.e. how each branch of the government will be organized. Strangely, the Maoist leader, Pranahanda, has been saying he wants to be the next President when they have not decided if thee will be a president or not.

Not surprisingly, the violence that is occuring on a daily basis is being attributed to the Maoist. Strangely, most of it seems to be directed at the UML (United Marxist Lenist). My guess is the Maoist are still upset that the UML would not forge an alliance with the Maoist and they are trying to kill off (literally) the party.

The Maoist developed material on how to intimidate the other parties. This was leaked to a newspaper. There has not been a denial of the facts. The document details how to intimidate other parties and their candidates so they will not run, how to intimidate the voters so they will not vote for the opposition or at all, and create discord so people will be so sick of the government they will vote for the Maoist.

The Maoist say they will start back with their revolution again if the people do not vote for them since they are sure that the people support their ideas.

One candidate is following a tradition of vote buying with home made booze served in a gourd...he got my vote!