Nepal

Leaving the no-place of the airport on 16th August, my colleague Kanika asked me whether I had noticed some differences between Kathmandu and Dhaka.  Once I opened my mouth in reply, surprisingly the observations poured out.  Firstly the diversity of the faces that we passed by – they ranged from south Asian, to east Asian to central Asian, in wide ranging palettes.  Secondary there were women everywhere!  I think I had acclimatized to the 70/30 to 80/20 ratio that you see on the streets here in Dhaka, and now this had been thoroughly overturned.  Moreover, there were women zooming by on motorbikes! Driving them rather than sitting side-saddle behind a man.  Crazyness!  Thirdly, as my eye scanned the roads and horizon, I became aware that my gazes was going up AND down through space – there was actually depth to the landscape!  (Dhaka shares with Melbourne the consistency of a flat plain).  Here valleys opened up between buildings and statues glinted on hilltops.  A fourth difference was actually seeing Western tourists – suddenly they appeared in the streets and out of the shops, walking turtles with their oversized backpacks and brand new hiking shoes.  In Dhaka the foreigners are generally NGO workers who flit between their office, their apartment, and the expat club in cars with tinted windows.  There’s not a backpack to be seen.

The first week was for work, with the five-strong Concern Universal team splitting into two, I was lucky enough to go on the scenic venture to Makwanpur, around 7 hours winding drive from Kathmandu.  Deep, lush vistas opened up around our packed little vessel as it wound it’s way around hilltops and through valleys.  The clouds which hung heavy at our level eventually opened up, and unpaved roads turned to slush. At one point I was introduced to an anti-bog technique of weighing down the car as much as possible when climbing the hills.  This involved various random people jumping in our car, hanging off the sides etc, which surprising worked to get us up the hill in bouts of terror and laughter. 

The Makwanpur District itself was beautiful, with a low-lying, unassuming river offering a peaceful expanse alongside paddy fields and the humble settlements of the town.  The next day there was a sharing meeting that brought together various local NGOs and government around the key issue of Disaster Risk Reduction and climate change.  It was good to see many young people attending (even if I couldn’t understand the Nepali).  I was a bit disappointed to see the lack of participation in the meeting but this is all part of the learning of how things are run over here.  Over the next few days we visited various schools and an NGO that had been implementing a DRR education project there - encompassing infrastructural changes (earthquake sensitive buildings etc) as well as community empowerment (local student and community clubs for sharing stories and co-learning). See report here.

Back in Kathmandu we visited an NGO that had an interesting arrangement between an community organic cooperative assisting to fund the local school which had an environmental curriculum. See report here.  There was a National level sharing meeting with many interesting speakers on climate change and disaster risk reduction, which drew many audience questions and responses.  It’s so hard to know the impact of these events, the extent of how far the ripples go out.  I hoped for the best.

The work trip ended after a week, and I was able to find myself again, which was a bit of a relief (I was the only one who didn’t speak Bangla or Nepali…).  Some of the Nepal AYADs had a spare room and were generous enough to let me stay in it over the next few days where I explored Kathmandu.  Sharmila, a generous model-turned-university-lecturer, showed me around her university, which included a visit to the fine art faculty where I was over-joyed to see actual art being created by a range of long haired characters which reminded me of studies at my art school.  They were very different to the paintings that you tended to see in the Thamel tourist area (such as 'Himalayan range', 'Woman in tribal dress carrying water jug', 'Himalayan range with water jug woman' etc).  

Despite a growing cold (a present I think some of my departing colleagues bequeathed to me), I managed to briefly escape Kathmandu and made it to Bhaktapur, an hour’s drive away with a beautiful old town centre crowded with dilapidated, beautiful temples and maze-like cobble-stoned alleys.  Groups of women would look down on me and other foreigners from their ancient wooden shuttered windows; a wave would return a smile.  I spent a delightful afternoon playing with children whilst sheltering in a shrine from the rain.  Another few elastic hours were spent talking with curious locals who invited me back to there home – two teenage daughter shared a room which was divided into their two choosen disciplines of science and management, with the textbooks piled high on either side.   Eventually though, it all had to come to an end, and on 29^th August I flew out and back home to… Dhaka.