Honoring the elderly

I was walking home yesterday and I came across this big group of people pulling a decorative cart by a rope. In the cart was an elderly lady. A friend of mine told me that they pull elderly people through the streets through out the town when they are 77 and then again when they are 81 to honor them. Pretty cool.

Note to my father...don't start building a cart, it is not going to happen.

Gone

I have decided to not volunteer with TOIT any longer. I think that they are doing an excellent job educating the kids and Sandy is really enjoying herself teaching. On the other hand, there have been a few things that they told me that have not been correct. After talking to them about it, they decided to continue telling people these things. Since I did not want to take part in the misinformation, I decided to leave. Quite disappointing.

Stuff you don't want to see

I was walking down the street in Kathmandu yesterday and saw something you never want to see, a street kid sleeping with a blood soaked bandage on his head. Bad stuff.

Slight error

We were looking at the menu in a restaurant the other day and saw the first drink...cock. When we asked our waiter, he said "yes, mistake". We asked him if he knew what it meant, he said, "yes, chicken". We explained that while correct, there is a more common usage now...we all had a good laugh.

Trafficking

The best I can tell, there are not a lot of people who have been “sold” here. That does not mean it does not exist, it is not in the paper and our friends are not aware of it. On the other hand, people being trafficked primarily into India, is a huge problem.

There are stories in the papers about how you are trafficked:

You are a child in a small village. Like most village children, you are quite poor. You, or a member of your family, meets a stranger. Over a period of time, weeks or months, you and your family becomes friendly with the person. Slowly they gain your trust.

The stranger is very helpful and says he has a friend who can give you a job in India. He will even give your parents some money. So many people go overseas to work here; money sent from family members abroad is a leading source of national income. Being a good kid and seeing the desperate family situation, you think it is a good idea. Your parents, being poor, a little ignorant and desperate, think it is a good idea, also. Sometimes the parents or relatives do not care and just sell you to make money.

So you go…you have just been sold without realizing. The nice man (it is usually men) brings you to India. If you are a boy, you will begin working long hours in a factory. Generally, the first few months you are working for free because you are in training. After a few months, you are earning a meager wage which mostly goes to pay off the fees that the owner of the factory has incurred to purchase you.

If you are a girl, your fate is much worse. Beauty is a curse when you are being trafficked and young women here are especially beautiful. You will be sold to a brothel. The head of the brothel, generally a woman, will explain that you have been sold. You are a virgin and you will now start having sex with strangers. New, young and beautiful, you will be busy…dozens of men in a day. You have no hope of escape. If you try to fight back, you will likely be resold...your debt and thus your time working as a prostitute will go up, too.

You do what you have to survive, except you may not because you will likely get a disease... a recent study showed that 40% of the girls who were forced into prostitution return HIV positive. This number rises to 60% for the girls who are 14 or under. The preteens are most popular with the clientel so they tend to be forced to stay in the business longer. Once you have paid your debts for being trafficked, you may be able to leave especially if your beauty has faded. You will return to your village. Your family will know what has happened and will ostracize you because of it. Sick and ostracized...seems harsh for a kid who was trying to help her family.

The Gap recently had a problem with a subcontractor using these slaves in their factory in India. From what I read in yesterday’s paper, they are trying to be a good corporate citizen and they are taking action and have had ongoing programs to try to prevent this. I am not certain that it is fair to single them out since an activist writing in yesterday’s paper wrote that the problem is widespread. He blamed people in the West for not questioning how they can get handmade items so cheaply. I am not sure I agree with his opinion, but I do agree that it is really terrible.

Who is wearing a white hat

I have been meeting with a few different people at NGO's here and there is one thing that they all agree on: most NGO's here are scams to enrich the people who founded them. I feel like I can not trust anyone. Bad people do not care, good people are offended because you do not trust them. Such a shame.

YCL go to hell

The Maoist signed an agreement and joined the government a little more than a year ago. Part of the process they signed on to was a Constitutioinal Assembly which would set up all the details for the form of government. All parties have agreed that the monarchy is dead and there will be a republic. The Maoist have made 22 new demands including a fully proportional voting system established before the Constitiutional Assembly and a republic declared before the assembly...not part of the agreement, but not unreasonable. Some of their other demands, like allowing their thugs be allowed to "advise" people at polling stations seems pretty outrageous.

The Young Communist League is the militia for the Maoist. They are reprehensible. Every day they commit more atrocities. Just this week they have:

• beaten families (including 4 elderly men) for worshipping during the holiest Hindu holidays. They think that nobody should worship any longer.
• They have kidnapped men and held them for ransom
• They are suspected of kidnapping and killing a well known journalist (part of an intimidatioin program against the press)
• They have begun forcing tourist to pay "fees" while trekking
• They have taken the land of people who have been recently displaced and are harvesting the rice the people planted...presumably they will profit by it.

The Maoist became popular by going against the king and a ruling elite. Now the people understand what terrible men they are and they are very unpopular. Hence, they can not allow any elections to take place because the Maoist will lose the small amount of legitamacy they once had. The elections that were to take place in November (which the US gave $10 million to help pay for) have been postponed. Such wonderful people, such bad politicians. It is hard to see a way forward that does not involve a lot more blood shed. I hope I am wrong.

Making arrangements

It is estimated that 70% of marriages here are arranged marriages; seems crazy in a modern era. Of course it makes much more sense when you realize that the wife moves in with the husbands family. Divorce is quite unusual here and a cause for much shame for all. If the family does not get along with her, the next 30 years will be terrible for the entire family.

Sandy spoke to some of her friends who are young women. They are waiting on their parents to select a husband for them. Their parents will select someone from the same caste. The women are educated and, generally, the parents will select a husband who is equally educated. If the women just hate the man the man the parents selected, they can say no, but their will be an immense problem in their family and they may be forced to leave it.

The young women complain that women have very little say over what happens in their household. In addition, they feel it is unfair that men can do anything with impunity and the wife must just obey him.

One more unusual thing is men can be very loving with their children and friends (men holding hands is a very common site), but they can not be loving with their wives; you almost never see men and women holding hands or being affectionate in any way. It is a very different culture.

Cockiness disolved

I have lost more weight here (I am guessing around 10 pounds). I have lost around 60 pounds since we started our journey in 2001. I do not weigh myself, but I think I am about the same weight as in high school (thank god I was fat in high school so I can make this claim in middle age!).

I was walking on this dirt road way back in this little village with Sandy today. Everyone was staring at us more than usual. Sandy said "I think they are starring at us because I am so small." Feeling confident in my new svelteness, I joked "I think they are looking at me, your waif husband". Sandy and I laughed a little.

Not 5 minutes later, two girls who looked to be 12ish are walking towards us. They start whispering to each other as we approach. This is not so uncommon here...usually they say "hello" and laugh. One girl walked up to us and said, "She is thin, you are fat". The girl started laughing as did I.

On Holiday

Sorry about not posting for a little while. I was on vacation and did not have any reliable internet service.

Giant Swings

Dotting the landscape all over the rural areas you can see two story tall objects. Four pieces of bamboo with their base secured in the ground and the tops lashed to a piece of wood. From the wood are these long ropes tied to seats. Little kids going up and down a few feet and giggling…teenage boys showing off by standing on the swings and going remarkably high in the air. Pretty impressive stuff!

Transportation Fascination Continued

We decided to leave Gorhka on the day following the main day for Daishain (see next entry), but being the celebration was still going in high gear there were no buses and only a few vans. After much trouble, we got our seats in a van. It was packed from the start and it continued to pick up people. By the time we got out of town, we had 36 people on the inside of the van including the ones holding on to the open door. There were 4 more people standing on the rear bumper and gobs more on top.

In addition, halfway down the hill, I realized the bag on my feet was actually someone’s dead goat. I surmised this by the foul smell, the bone that had pierced the top of the bag and the cool feeling of liquid (I am thinking blood) pooling at the bottom of the bag. There was no way to avoid it so we drove the 45 minutes down the hill with the goat carcass rubbing on my feet.

A bad day for goats

Dashain is a festival where Hindus in Nepal sacrifice animals to worship the goddess Durga. In addition to 100's of thousands of their own goats, water buffaloes and chickens, Nepal imports 200,000 goats from Tibet for this festival. While in Pokhara, we went to an enormous outdoor market that was selling goats for the festival. A goat even got on the bus with us.

We decided to go to Gorkha for the actual celebration. Gorkha is famous because Prithvi Narayan Shah, the first king of Nepal came from here and there is an incredible mountain top temple/fort there. It is also famous for having the most active Diason festival.

We slowly made our way up the 1500 steps to the temple. As we got closer to the top, there were goat dressing stations. They would boil and burn the dead goats. The smell of burning goat hair was disgusting and everywhere.

As we got close to the top of the temple, the carcasses were being moved down the stairs.. Some carcasses in big plastic bags, others being carried by two people one carrying the front legs the other carrying the back, and some goats were just being dragged down the stairs (thump, thump, splatter, splatter) were being dragged down the stairs. Blood was everywhere…it is surprising how quickly you get used to the site.

Finally we get up to the gate that is surrounded by a bunch of families with their goats and a couple of water buffalo to be sacrificed. Unfortunately, it was being manned by the YCL (Young Communist League) …bad news since they are really just a bunch of violent thugs posing as Maoist sympathisers who are spoiling the country. Too bad they could not be sacrificed instead of the animals...but I digress. We were not going to try to go past them. Then, we saw some other foreigners who told us that we could go through the exit on the other side since we were not bringing animals to be sacrificed.

We made our way into the temple. There were families with their animals (mostly goats but one huge water buffalo) lined up ready to go into a small room to sacrifice the animals. There must be a bit of a ceremony in there because we did not see anyone walk out, although there were plenty of people walking around with blood all over their feet and the bottom of their clothes.

Leeches

While in Pokhara we went hiking and ended up with a few leeches on us. I do not mind these leeches as much as I do the ones in the shops and streets in Pokhara. The ones in the forest look like what they are…blood suckers. The ones in the town try to appear nice before they try to sell you drugs, manipulate you or plain old steal your money. The leeches in the forest got some blood…the ones in the streets got my anger. It is really too bad because there is much to recommend Pokhara, but I can not say I enjoyed my visit.

On vacation

The school is closed for two weeks due to the biggest holiday of the year, so we decided to go on vacation. We are in Pokhara, which is a valley surrounded by the Himalayan mountains. Quite beautiful as the pictures from tonights sunset prove.e.

Street Cows

Nepal being a Hindu country, cows are revered here. As mentioned in the previous post, we are in Pokhara...land of great views, a thousand touts and as many cows in the street. You can't walk more than a couple of meters without having to avoid one of their souveiners.

Kids with bags....damn

They walk the streets, usually in the early morning, with rice sacks dirtied from pillaging the garbage heaps in one of their little hands and a stick in the other. They work through the trash heaps, moving garbage one side to the other trying to find the right piece to collect for a few pennies to help their families. Some still look like children, just dirty. Others, like the girl in the first picture that I see many mornings, look more like little zombies on a mission to find the piece of garbage that will earn those pennies.Last night we had some food that we could not eat, so we were going to give it to some of the street dogs that rifle through the garbage near our house. There was a 8 year old girl with her sack going through the garbage just like the dogs do. A child living like a dog.

I have had a few meetings with NGO's to find out if there is something I can do; so far, no luck. Life isn't fair, but it is hard to believe how unfair (and saddening) this is.

When You Gotta Go!

“Chalabi, chalabi, chalabi” the young boy yells out the open bus door and I know my adventure shall begin again. Once on the decrepit vehicle which seems to be propelled by the horn given how much it is used, I squirm in to find a place to crouch since most people here are quite small, the buses have 5 and a half foot ceilings, plenty for them but there is no standing for me!). The bus, which was over any sensible capacity 15 people before I got on, begins to move. I wiggle an arm up to hold on to the railing which is not necessary since it would be impossible to fall over. Slowly we move through the combination of motorcycles and smoke spewing dilapidated old buses that have the same method of propulsion as our bus.





“Chalabi, chalabi, chalabi”….there is no way more people are getting on this bus, then the back door opens and somehow a couple of more get on. Chalabi, chalabi chalabi…the roof of the bus is now getting full too. Finally, I make it to the Chalabi bus stop and I have to look for the boy yelling “Ratala, ratala, ratala” to begin the next phase of my journey.

Schools

I am trying to become a little more familiar with the school system in Nepal so I can help a little more effectively. There are 4 types of schools.

1. Government schools with enormous class sizes (up to 105) where you must pay bribes to get things you need.


2. Community schools that are managed by the community and the government provides some funding. Generally, they are underfunded and do not have any trained teachers.


3. There are NGO schools which are quite similar to the community schools and suffer from the same problems.


4. Private schools which are not much better than the others but are much more expensive.

I was at the private school below last week...half the teachers were absent and none of the teachers were trained. Yesterday, I was at a community school that was in a half built house. There was no glass in the windows and the roof was not completed. It gets too cold in winter, so they bring the kids to the roof for one hour of sun to warm up.

I am really having difficulty with all of these projects because in most of the cases there are people profiting from the schools...sometimes when they profess to be working to help the children. I do not know what to do for them.

Stampede!

So we are standing in the plaza in front of house with a thousand other people. We had no idea why, but where there is crowds, there is excitement (or Maoist). All the sudden a bunch of boys come running through some with torches and then we see the elephant...kind of. It is actually a few guys with some bamboo covered with a sheet and an elephant face drawn on some poster board on the front of it. Under the sheet is a bell that they keep ringing as the "Elephant" runs through the crowd. Periodically it starts to run into the crowd and the boys with the flames tried to scare it to go in the right direction. This is the craziest country.