New organization & jatras
My new work is with an organization called Aasaman Nepal (Aasaman is a Mithili word meaning blue sky) with offices in both Kathmandu and Janakpur and working areas in the southern part of Nepal-Mahottari (my old district), Dhanusha and Sarlahi with hopeful plans to extend into other areas of the Terai. Aasaman works in the area of child labor, eradicating it that is, through the promotion of universal education for all children up through the age of 15. Of course, there is more to the child labor issue than merely promoting universal education-a large part of Aasaman’s work includes the monitoring of child labor issues in these districts and throughout the country; working with communities and local officials on changing social norms regarding child labor (widely accepted and taken for granted in Nepal); training child’s rights protectors at the village level and even assisting communities and villages with income generation schemes for the administration of schools and the infrastructure of school facilities themselves. Aasaman also works with educators on retention techniques for children who do attend school (and to ascertain that children who move from work to school will remain), and has started programs aimed at discouraging and eradicating child marriage (a kind of child labor, especially for girls, not to mention the other human rights issues), which also prevents children from attending schools and has plans in the works to develop a more comprehensive early childhood development (ECD) program.
Aasaman’s primary source of funding at the moment comes via Save the Children Japan, and two of my current colleagues worked for SCJ in the past. This can be viewed as both a weakness and a strength: weakness in terms of dependency on one major donor, but a strength in that SCJ work experience means that the organization is much more strategic than the majority of indigenous NGOs in Nepal, which is much to my delight in these first few weeks of work. Aasaman takes great inspiration from the MV Foundation in India-an organization that takes a zero tolerance policy regarding child labor (all children out of school are to be considered child laborers) and has pioneered this principle. This is a tough line to follow in Nepal, especially in the districts, where child labor is generally accepted as a natural part of Nepal’s impoverished state. The general argument that one may hear is that the eradication of child labor will inevitably lead to a more impoverished state for families due to the loss of income. The MV Foundation, and in turn Aasaman, believe that the abolition of child labor actually lifts families out of poverty: with children out of the work force adults are able to take their place and demand more money because the source of cheap labor has been eradicated. Families often sell off livestock (it was their child’s task to take care of them) for normally a bit more income, or other family members fill the void. There is some evidence to prove, however, if the burden of extra work should fall on anyone it is typically women (mothers) who, despite the even longer hours, are normally more than happy to oblige given that their children have an opportunity to attend school.
Policy makers (include the ILO or International Labor Organization here) have tended to focus on children in the so-called hazardous industries, which is fair enough considering they tend to be the most exploited and the most visible. In Nepal, however, the largest number of child laborers work in the agriculture sector, and with such daunting figures, the tendency, I believe, is to have completely ignored this aspect of child labor. It’s a tough “poverty argument,” but which doesn’t always hold up. A question that begs to be answered is: Are all families not sending their children to school too poor to do so? Aasaman works under the assumption that this is not always the case as there are even examples of families well off enough to send their children to school that do not. Factors that contribute to this may be: tradition, illiteracy, and lack of access and weak local administration of policy in the village districts that does not demand that all children attend school.
Besides myself, there are four others in the Kathmandu office, all with distinctive titles, which normally corresponds to the work at hand. Most everyone seems to be involved with a variety of things-that’s one of my jobs, to delineate tasks for more efficiency. At the same time, their skill level is quite advanced, and I’ve been quite impressed, at least initially, with their thoughtful approach. Of course, there’s always room for improvement in terms of planning and management, but those are fun issues to get into when everyone has a willingness to do so. And so far, that seems to be one of the biggest differences between my new and old organization. I’ve yet to meet any field staff, but will hopefully do so soon during some planning meetings and site visits in the districts.
There was the beginnings of a jatra (festival) yesterday just outside our office doors. Nepalis love to construct these elaborate chariots and poles made out of wood and bamboo, ornately decorated with flowers and burst of color and carry and/or wheel them around the city. About 20-30 men struggled to hoist this particular pole up on their shoulders (while two others stood on top and turned the top part of the pole around like a giant prayer wheel) and then march off to different temples and areas of the city. I believe this festival was in celebration of Narayan, or the sleeping figure of Vishnu as he awakes from his monsoon slumber. The pantheon of gods and goddesses all have their special day even if it is just to announce that they are once again on the job.
I have VSO workshops to attend most of next week on good governance and a couple of extra days especially for management advisors and our MA group referred to as MAPS (“you won’t get lost” or something cheeky like that is the slogan…) for which I have been asked to facilitate a couple of sessions-I expect more of this being now based in Kathmandu, but it’s a good opportunity to diversify my own work and experience.
Tihar, or the festival of lights, is coming, which I look forward to since I have good memories of it during my travel days in India. Everyone puts candles or lights in their window during the night to welcome the entrance of the goddess Laxmi, the bringer of wealth and good fortune.
New Digs, part 3: Chaitya Marg
We are now ensconced in our third, and hopefully last, flat/house/apartment during our six months of work in Nepal. The 3rd time is the charm, they say, and certainly in terms of amenities our new place at 44 Chaitya Marg (even the alley name is auspicious-chaitya is a small Buddhist stupa) is the best of the lot. We were extremely fortunate to find a place that’s quite close to my new office (without having to cross through the madness of central Kathmandu on bicycle) and in a newly completed house to boot. It’s a small, but lovely, three room place with kitchen, bathroom and sunny balcony, while certainly no bigger than our previous Terai abodes, is quaint, cozy and comfortable. Based on the bare bones existence and facilities of our prior places, I almost feel guilty about living in such comparative luxury, although our flat is mostly a nice shell at the moment devoid of any furniture to speak of. One of the advantages in the Terai, is that a lot of basic furniture comes with the place, or in our case is borrowed from the organization, so one doesn’t have to worry so much about that. We have a thin futon on the floor for the time being, a few cushions in the sitting room, a small table fashioned out of a tin trunk, a small wooden table we had made in Terai and a couple of old chairs we picked up out of VSO storage. We covered some of the more kitschy light fixtures with paper lanterns
Our new neighborhood is a smattering of ex-pat development workers, Tibetan households with their prayer flags fluttering from nearby rooftops (and a diversity of ethnicity in general), narrow alleyways, both new houses and old and crumbling ones, muddy footpaths and newly paved ones, empty lots (where street dogs rule the night) and the odd rice paddy and intercity garden tucked away here and there. We are somewhere in between the new Royal Danish Embassy and the Nil (Blue) Saraswati temple with one of Kathmandu’s infamous stinking sewage streams nearby. The dichotomy of things is a microcosm of life in the capital: it is without a doubt the “wealthiest” part of the country, yet poverty exists all around-which can often be a jolt as it appears from nowhere-and the infrastructure, although decidedly better than areas we have known, can still be rather or wholly lacking.
There’s a sort of reverse discrimination at work house hunting in Kathmandu-our new place could quite easily go for a much higher price, but some Kathmandu landlords actually prefer foreigners for what they perceive as rent always being paid on time, and they are willing to trade the occasional noisy party for the fact that foreign tenants won’t be moving in their extended family in every conceivable place and floor space… We were offered dumpy places at the same price, so our choice was a rather easy one. Our landlord and his family (Krishna & Manju) live below us on the second floor. They’ve been wonderfully accommodating so far.
These are the great, post-monsoon, clear blue-sky (and increasingly chilly-yet another new feature) days of Kathmandu before the dust and haze begins to settle over everything once again. On the best of days, we are offered Himalayan views to the north and northeast from our rooftop, and at the clearest of times, peeks of the Sagarmatha (Everest) region from our window. It is also the time of Dashain, the biggest festival of the year in Nepal, where the never-ending queue of goats are lined up for the slaughter to appease the blood thirsty goddess Durga and celebrate her victory over the evil buffalo demon (water buffaloes are also sacrificed, though not in such wholesale numbers). Even outside of our window, the goat slaughter and cooking has been going on for days. The whole country gorges on meat. Each day of Dashain, and there are many, offers something different: the offering of the sacred flowers from Gorkha (we caught a glimpse of the King’s motorcade and were subsequently trapped in Durbar Square), small, paper kite flying (and a vicious array of strings for cutting those of your opponent) for kids and adults alike, and the receiving of tikas from family and friends-so many blobs of red on the forehead that today many people look like walking gunshot victims! On the heels of Dashain comes Tihar, or the Festival of Lights (more to a vegetarian’s liking), so the whole period from mid October to mid November seems to be one, long perpetual festival and celebration.
Life in Kathmandu will put our meager allowance to the test. With greater availability come higher prices, although the vegetable markets in the neighborhoods haven’t been too bad so far. This normally entails getting to know certain vendors where prices don’t magically double or triple. There are also the temptations of the tourist ghettos, with their surprising array of food menus, cold bottles of beer and drinks. We have gone from almost nothing to spend our money on to quite a variety of things if one is so inclined, but for the most part, we are still trying to live our rather paltry, Nepali lifestyle. For the time being, we are enjoying the bustle and atmosphere of Kathmandu with seemingly every section teeming with history and culture. To wander the back alleys of old town Kathmandu (and her sister kingdoms) is to step back in time and/or wander through an open air museum-it is entirely possible to stumble upon something new every time one ventures out. Most of old Kathmandu is truly a saunterers’ paradise.
So, life in our new Kathmandu home is mostly good. Although we first arrived in this city, it seems so much different to me the second time around. Stepping out of the airport and onto the teeming streets of Kathmandu can be an utterly overwhelming experience in the beginning, but seeing as we have just come from six months in the hinterlands, the familiarity seems rather placid. In actuality, it is the countryside that is mostly easygoing and docile, but sights, sounds and smells travel the whole breadth of the country, so that the sensory overload is not so all consuming. In the beginning, I relished the opportunity to both live and work in the same community, and even now I see that there is an intimacy of trust and understanding that one gains by placing oneself in the thick of it, so to speak. I will miss that intimacy of Bardibas-an understanding that one fails to develop by merely traveling through a place, but, as aforementioned, consider myself fortunate to have had a rather lengthy time getting a feel for the epiphanies and challenges of the area and at the same time forging some friendships.
Migyoung is very happy about our move, which especially makes sense when you are trying to do your work from home. Good or not, at least I had an office to go to… And from an artists’ perspective, which is not to say that I am one (but I will venture a guess), does have a few galleries and other venues that may be possibilities for her. Our location in the Terai may have been good if one likes landscapes, but on the whole, I think that being based in Kathmandu will be much more inspirational for her and it certainly offers a lot more diversity. It’s easier here to get out to Teraiesque landscapes, but much harder in our prior location to find a place like Kathmandu. I have noticed the upsurge in her enthusiasm, and that makes me happy.
Goodbye Bardibas
Migyoung and I made the long trip back to the Terai and Bardibas via VSO jeep with Panna our driver and his wife who wanted to visit the all-important-for-women Janaki Temple. On this trip, we took the shorter, more treacherous and just reopened route directly over the mountains rather than first skirting west then south and then east again. Although shorter in distance and as the crow flies, it consists mostly of switchbacks up and then down again—I have traversed hiking trails in just as good of shape… A few intrepid buses were attempting this route in addition to shiva lorries, which, with their brightly colored gods and goddesses painted or plastered in every available space, tend to press their luck and attempt the most precarious of passages. What the route lacked in comfort, however, it more than made up for in spectacular scenery despite the fog, cloud and mist, but the much cooler weather had us scrambling for long sleeved shirts for the first time since we first arrived in Kathmandu. We passed through the quaint and scenic town of Palung situated on a plateau before reaching the summit of the road with its fields of mustard in full bloom—golden patches amidst the drizzle and fog—and mounds of cabbages and radishes being readied for the market. Approximately 12 KM further along, we stopped in Daman—the summit—for a surprisingly delicious dhal bhat and hot glasses of ciyah.
We descended to the south through an even thicker haze of fog and rhododendron forest, but after a few hours of winding road (and numerous security checkpoints near the town of Hetauda) we reached the flatlands of the Terai. It didn’t take things long to warm up—by the time we reached Bardibas, my T-shirt shown the familiar splotches of perspiration and beads of sweat clung to my forehead. We made a quick stop in Sarlahi district—adjacently west of Mahottari and Bardibas—to deliver some school books in the small town of Hariwan. It’s the kind of scene that I’ve grown rather accustomed to—lush, green vegetation of rice paddies, sugar cane fields, bamboo groves, water buffalo immersed in pools of water. We had left Kathmandu at the break of day and arrived in Bardibas right at dusk. All of our neighbors came out to greet us (they seem to have a nose for this sort of thing—popping their heads out at just the right moment) with a bevy of questions: Where have you been? Where will you go? Are you returning to the States?
Our house appeared to be one huge mound of gecko droppings; spiders had spun their webs in every conceivable location, and a tiny mouse that had somehow found its way in, darted back and forth between the table leg and the round, red bottle of cooking gas. Thankfully, no snakes or other small animals had made their way into our bathroom…We spent about an hour sweeping and scrapping up the gecko shit, and then were greeted with something that we had forgotten about being in Kathmandu—power outages. Having cleared out our house of perishables, we borrowed a choko squash from the neighbors; cooked up what leftover pasta we had and dined by candlelight—something that we grew quite accustomed to in the Terai. Later, we visited with my colleague Navaraj (house across the path), his wife Usha and their just over one month old son. We had a few digital prints of the baby developed in Kathmandu, put them in a nice handmade paper frame and presented it to them as a gift. They all wore long and glum faces, asked if they thought I would ever be able to work for WCDC again, if we would ever be able to return and if we would forget them once we left. I made promises—ones that I tend to keep—about at least returning for a visit someday, perhaps working out a situation where I could support them on some small projects, or helping to link them with my new organization in Kathmandu, which implements programs in their area.
The next day was a whirlwind of goodbyes: the guesthouse where we spent our first night in the Bard; our favorite vegetable vendor—Rita and her mom; the bicycle walla with his familiar blue checkered doti, dirty singlet vest and eyeglasses sliding down to his nose who converted our rusted and creaky hulks into rideable two-wheelers; the young brothers of the “western goods” shop (in reality that means pasta noodles and packaged rice sans bugs); a last milk tea at the mittho ciyah pasal (the delicious tea shop—that’s what the locals call it; it has no name) and of course a lot of time with all of our immediate neighbors. We even saw our first worthless landlord who twisted his right forefinger and thumb up into the air like gun shooting off directly into the sky as if to imply, where and why? We missed the birth of the neighbor’s water buffalo by a week or so, but visited with them—and the young calf—as the proud mother looked longingly our way still with the battered old flip-flop around its neck to keep the rope from chaffing too much. I’ll miss her distinctive call—the Tuvan throat singing of the Terai.
And of course, there were many long goodbyes with my colleagues, who even said that they’d taken my advice to heart and had begun preparations to make the distinction between the board and staff—you have to choose one. I’ve learned to take everything with the proverbial grain of salt, however, and I’m not totally convinced that they were just saying something that I wanted to hear (and, hence, maybe get me to stay) or if they actually meant to implement this idea. If so, maybe I really did accomplish something in my six months time with them. There were short speeches by everyone with plenty of kind words to go around. I did my best to express my sincere thanks in Nepali and encouraged them to keep going forward organizationally; that they have the makings of something good which could be even better and which could conceivably produce a greater impact with just a bit more planning and effort on their part. Eyes on the prize sort of stuff…I was given the obligatory Nepali topi (hat) and Migyoung received bangles and a simple, beaded necklace customary of married women in Nepal, or, as they said, “now you are officially married.”
It always seems to be in retrospect that one misses the things they had. There wasn’t much love lost between myself and the Bard from the time when I first arrived; in fact, I kept muttering something like, “what have I gotten myself into.” Even now, though, I cannot in all honesty say that much of anything ever happened in Bardibas—it is still the dusty roadside bazaar that it was when I first arrived—but one tends to hunker down and grow accustomed to circumstances and surroundings as a survival technique. My life had become a rather simple routine: early mornings at home; short bicycle ride to the office, back for lunch and then back again. Yet another bicycle ride to the market for the day’s vegetable and/or spice purchases, chatting with acquaintances; warding off the friendly screams of children; some chores around the house; cold showers; the voracious reading of novels; recounting the days with Migyoung and half-naked rooftop stargazing at night.
I suppose there is a Thoreauesque existence in there somewhere minus the tremendous heat. It is just our luck that the six months we would spend in the Terai are the hottest of the year… In general, the people of the Bard were very good to us and friendly in an intrusive and curious sort of way. There really wasn’t much more for us to expect in a place where we were the first foreigners to live in and most likely the last… In that sense, then, we consider ourselves trailblazers of sorts, and overall all the better for it. Mostly, life in the Terai revolves around the extended family. It is becoming the place of second and third generations, as most folks migrated to the area at some point in the recent past. Hill dalits, too, have migrated to the area in search of a better life; while they may now have a small plot of land on which to live, and if they are lucky, to cultivate, conditions are not much better despite civil society efforts to encourage social and economic upliftment. I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to do more for these communities, yet I am hopeful that my limited work with colleagues who work in the field with these communities will pay dividends in the future.
Simplicity for simplicity’s sake is nice enough. I dug the bare bones existence of our house—the bare concrete floors (which we sometimes watered down to keep cool), wooden shutters in lieu of actual windows; the tap and bucket for “flushing” the toilet; the dim bulbs oddly placed around the periphery of the room. While all of these things, believe it or not, might seem rather luxurious to many Nepalis in our area, it helped me understand a bit better the types of conditions that a lot of people live in and perhaps become a more empathetic development worker. Six months is not a lifetime, but it certainly provided me a taste of the place. I have traveled through many Bardibases in my life, but this is my first extended stay of this magnitude.
Despite the shortcomings of WCDC to meet any of the short-term six-month benchmarks, I do not regret the experience at all, and I am hopeful that they will begin to see the rationale behind many of my recommendations. It is also fortunate for me that my new organization (I will talk more about this later) works in the same area as WCDC, which gives me a bit of a head start understanding the social, economic and cultural proclivities and indicators of the region.
What I learned in Bardibas, despite the frustrations from the slow pace of things, was how to cultivate my own sense of patience and fortitude, and the unique cultural adaptations of NGO work in the Terai. I, admittedly, did not get off to the best of starts in this regard, wanting to jump right into things and perhaps pushing a bit too hard. But I also learned that there is a balancing act between pushing too hard and not at all, and did OK, I think, in this respect. In terms of our personal life and comfortableness, my colleagues tried so hard to make us feel at home that I am grateful beyond words. Unfortunately, they more often than not did not see the separation between the two and often ignored me in the office when my own objectives for the organization did not mesh with theirs—this happened way too much. There was some serious disgruntlement amongst staff upon my departure, and the organization is so immersed in top-down, authoritarian models of management that there is bound to be a blow up (some of this is already happening) in the near future… Yet, many of the dilemmas facing WCDC are not unique to NGOs in Nepal—when an organization hits hard times, beneficiaries are all but forgotten in the mad rush towards survival, and the agendas of INGO funding agencies (donor-driven agendas) does not make it any easier for local organizations to carve out their own niche. These are tough financial times for WCDC, so part of this “survival technique” is understandable; at the same time, my own assessment is that more participatory models of development, accountability and a keener sense of monitoring and evaluation once funding is secured would assure that funding would always be available—if not in droves, at least a steady stream. Again, I hope that I have been able to impart these recommendations sufficiently to WCDC.
The trip back to Kathmandu was an interesting if not trying one. We loaded up the jeep with our clothes, kitchen utensils, cook stove, a thin, cotton mattress we had made and one small table—not that much, really, all things considered. 14 kilometers outside of Bardibas, we had our first flat tire—a hole all the way through the rubber of the tire the diameter of a quarter. We stopped in the next dusty bazaar town to have the spare repaired (you could still see through to the tube!). Due to the delays, we only made it halfway back to Kathmandu, and spent the night in Hetauda before tackling the road over the mountain back into the Valley. We departed at 6:00 AM and made it to the summit for an early lunch, but once we started to descend the other side, we had another flat tire and were forced to put on the spare, which was actually the first tire that blew out. It started to rain; we scrambled for some plastic to put over some of our things on the roof of the jeep and yet again had to stop to have our spare repaired. I was feeling quite sick at this point, having contracted a bad case of the flu or a very bad cold the night before—fever, headache, etc. Of course, after repairing the spare it only took 10 minutes or so for the tire to again go flat… At this point it was pissing down rain. Migyoung did her best to hold the umbrella for Panna while he yet again had to change the tire. I shivered inside the jeep… Another 10 minutes or so down the road, and we encountered the still burning remains of a truck torched by Maoists as four soldiers stood nearby under a thatch rood…While the entire trip from Bardibas to Kathmandu takes anywhere from 12-14 hours, it took us 12 just to do have of that distance on the way back. I’m still recovering from a bit of a cold…
More on lessons learned, the new digs and organization soon.
any suggestions for a new name for the site?