Nepal: AND It's Incredibly Beautiful
Some of my faithful readers have wondered when, after two earlier blogs, I would write about the beauty of Nepal. Well, I've been saving the best for last.
The Jungle
As soon as you leave Kathmandu, you begin to appreciate the beauty of this Himalayan paradise. Oddly enough, my first taste of beauty was not in the mountains but in the jungle! We flew from Kathmandu to Nepal's southern province, the Terai, where, at the Royal Chitwan National Park, you find roaming one-horned rhinoceri, deer, other small mammals, and, on a rare occasion, tigers. The wildlife that visitors can't possibly miss are trained elephants because they bring the visitors into the park. From an elephant's back, we were lucky to see a mother rhino and her baby as well as lots of exotic deer and that mammal whose name I can't remember.
I loved the town outside the park. It runs alongside a gentle river where crocodiles play and occasionally pose for tourist cameras. There are many lovely small shops and cafes and the surrounding tropical foliage with an array of exotic birds is dreamy. I saw many of the plants I love in Hawaii -- hibiscus, bougainvillea, ginger, bird of paradise -- and found it hard to believe I was in Nepal! I also loved the climate -- warm, a bit humid, sunny -- perfect for lovers of tropical places.
Pokhara
We drove from Chitwan to Pokhara along a terrifying two-lane "highway" that, at least, had glimpses of snowcapped mountains once we got to the foothills. Pokhara, once a small country town, is now Nepal's second largest city and is growing rapidly as the center of mountain tourism. The best way to escape the hub-bub of shops, street merchants, and restaurants is to retreat to the Fish Tail Lodge, a deluxe hotel on Pokhara's lake that is easily reached by modest rope-drawn pontoons. The hotel is laid out in such a way that the Annapurna range lies before you, capped by Fish Tail, a sacred mountain not open to trekking.
Fish Tail Lodge has a wonderful tradition of waking newcomer guests, if they wish, just before sunrise so they can go to the hotel's lakeside grounds and photograph the mountains as they begin to turn pink and amber. On a clear day, the breathtaking reflection of the mountains onto the lake makes amateur photographers feel like Ansel Adams.
I was so happy at the hotel, which also has a lovely pool, that it was hard to pull myself away, although I did shop a bit in Pokhara for Tibetan beads and Nepali hand-made paper. Add to the views a lovely hotel restaurant and bar and you have the makings of an unforgettable stay.
Bandipur
While most of our group went on a gentle trek, three of us, who felt a bit physically "challenged", drove from Pokahara down the mountains to the hillside town of Bandipur (1000 meters high up a curving mountain road) where we stayed overnight. The view down from Bandipur traverses rolling hills and lush valleys of emerald green rice paddies, which, in the early morning, were covered by wispy clouds and fog. Once a center for traders moving between India and Tibet, today the village of Bandipur, with its centuries-old buildings preserved for visitors, has charm as well as visitor amenities such as hostels and cafes.
Best of all is the view. Again you see the Annapurna range at 8000 plus meters but, because you are also high, it seems as though you are gazing across at mountains of a similar altitude. Again we woke for sunrise and tried to capture, in our cameras, the sun warming snowy peaks and glaciers with its pastel rays. It was a peaceful stay -- mountain beauty without the challenges of hours of climbing.
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The beauty of Nepal made the trip visually memorable. Meeting heroic NGO leaders, described in my previous blog, and seeing their projects made the trip personally memorable. If I had gone to Nepal in my youth, I would have missed all that. So I have no regrets about waiting until now.
NGOs Keep Nepal from Failing
The U.S. think tank Fund for Peace has defined failed states as countries experiencing "state collapse." By the Fund's criteria, Nepal has, fortunately, only made the list once in recent years. Nevertheless, Nepal seems like a failed state because it lacks a viable development strategy and is reaching for modernity (cars and motorbikes, for example) without providing the necessary underpinnings (roads). On the UN's Human Development Index, Nepal ranks at 142 out of 177 countries on the list.
Nepal keeps going through the work of its nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. There are over 1000 NGOs in Kathmandu and many of them have branches throughout the country. The NGOs work for justice, welfare (health, education, economic survival), and legal rights. I was privileged to meet with several NGOs working on women's issues and to hear from with their leaders. All the groups I encountered were engaged in trying to improve women's lives and to counter traditions of female subordination, suppression, and exploitation. I'll try to provide a few high points of my meetings.
World Neighbors (www.wn.org)
My first visit was to two women's organizations located in foothills 2-3 hours outside Kathmandu and established by World Neighbors. The women's health clinic, set in a village among lush green rice paddies, served a large area of remote villages by providing basic gynecological and obstetric services to women who must walk to the center to receive care. I saw a woman being treated for uterine prolapse, a common problem resulting from either early childbirth or lack of rest after delivery. She was so grateful to get help and the vaginal ring she received cost so little! I also visited a women's micro-loan project. Picture 40 very proud women sitting on the ground, all wearing red saris/salwar kameez, greeting visiting Americans and proudly sharing their stories of buying and raising goats. These women contribute 5 rupees (a few US cents) every month to their loan fund. Naturally my group contributed money to purchase one more goat.
ABC/Nepal
My group of women visitors next met with Durga Ghimire who founded ABC/Nepal, an organization fighting sex trafficking. ABC/Nepal works to retrieve trafficked Nepali girls from brothels in India and to provde them repatriation, care and rehabilitation. In Nepal 7000 - 8000 girls are trafficked every year (many to Arab countries as well as India). Trafficking occurs because families are very poor and will sell their daughters for 10,000 rupees (about $140). Girls are also trafficked because they are considered to be of low value -- Nepalis say, "You won't go to heaven if you don't have a boy." Trafficked girls are located by networking with Indian agencies, watching border traffic, and occasional trips to brothels known to purchase Nepali girls.
Association for Craft Producers (www.acp.org.np)
ACP is a fair trade handicraft orgnaization that provides work and employment primarily for women producers. ACP's products, sold on the Nepali market and exported, include clothing, bedding and housewares, toys, jewelry and delightful Christmas decorations. Meera Bhattarai, Executive Director, started ACP in 1984 and has grown it into a large factory making all kinds of products and carefully recycling all its waste materials. The organization provides generous benefits to its employees and tries to maintain environmentally healthy workrooms although, unfortunately, some workers refuse to put on protective gear in the course of their jobs..
Empowering Women of Nepal (www.3sistersadventure.com/ewn/)
Perhaps the most original NGO I encountered was EWN which is run by a women's trekking agency in Pokhara. Lucky Cchetri's goal in starting a trekking company, run and operated by women, was to provide opportunitries in the trekking/tourism field for women who are as strong and capable as men to lead treks. When asked how Nepali women could manage as porters on a trek, Lucky points to the huge loads carried by women in the course of their daily labor. EWN trains women guides and provides child care for women on treks, as well as an orphanage for abandoned children. Lucky's goal is to balance culture with progress -- to overcome cultural restraints against women but also to respect traditional ways such as wearing a salwar kameez -- although not on a trek! EWN is an NGO supported by Lucky's commercial outfit, 3 Sisters Adventure, which has led 200 treks thus far and also runs a lovely hostel and restaurant in Pokhara.
TEWA (www.tewa.org.np)
TEWA, which means support in Nepalese, is a philanthropic organization that raises money through individual and corporate donors and foundation grants to support "equitable justice and peace." TEWA is based in a lovely building on the outskirts of Kathmandu where it has offices, a cafeteria, meeting space and an outdoor theater. TEWA donates 93 percent of its income to women's groups around the country and considers rural women a promising investment because, with only a little, "women can make changes in their lives." When TEWA started, philanthropy was little known in Nepal and the Maoist insurgency made the social environment unstable. As of today, TEWA has raised 1.6 million dollars and plans to create a sustainable operation through renting out building space.
Nagarik Aawaz
This organization was created and is led by TEWA's founder, Rita Thapa, to help youth who were displaced by the Maoist insurgency. The organization provides counseling, room and board, and peace education for its participants. I was impressed that it teaches the angry displaced youth the value of service by having them work in a Peace Kitchen for the poor.
NYOF (www.nyof.org)
I hope you're still reading because the Nepalese Youth Opportunities Foundation is one of the best! NYOF was started by Olga Murray of Sausalito, California when she retired. Retired?? She is one of the most active seniors I've ever encountered. First she built orphan homes in Kathmandu -- one for boys, then one for girls. Next she began Nutritional Rehabilitation Homes for malnourished children and their mothers who are referred by hospitals -- there are now 9 homes around the country. In five weeks, most children gain enough weight to reach average for their age and size and the mothers gain 12 pounds. The mothers also learn how to cook and grow healthier foods than those found in the typical rural diet of rice and lentils.
The program that moved me the most is Indentured Daughters in which NYOF buys back daughters in southwestern Terai who have been indentured at a young age as a servant in a wealthy family. NYOF buys the girl's family a piglet to make up for lost income from indenturing the girl and then sends the girls to school. So many girls have been returned home that NYOF has been building additional classrooms. And the best part is that the girls have formed organizations to publicize the illegality and cruelty of indenturing. In one district, NYOF has liberated 3000 girls!
I could go on and on, but I hope I have described the ways in which NGOs provide services needed by Nepalis and unavailable from the government. It is a credit to local women and committed foreigners that NGOs can play such a vital role. The inspiration I got from the NGO scene made up for all the depression I felt from witnessing Hepal's dysfunctional development (see previous blog).
I urge readers to visit the Web sites listed above and learn more about the Nepali NGO success stories.
Nepal: Why Didn't I Go Back Then?
In my youth, I yearned to go to Nepal, hang out with hippies in Kathmandu and test myself on a Himalayan trek. Why didn't I go back then? Because Nepal was literally halfway around the world and difficult and expensive to get to. Now I wish I had gone 30 or 40 years ago when Kathmandu was still a small town and trekking was still a possibility. Today my past dream of Nepal lies thousands of miles away from the present reality.
Kathmandu
Kathmandu is an urban disaster. Let's start with the traffic. I'd been told it was horrendous, but I'd been in Bangkok, Jakarta and Shanghai, so how bad could Kathmandu be? The answer is simple -- worse. Not only are there an extraordinary number of cars, motorcycles, buses, trucks and bicycle-driven rickshaws but the roads are in terrible shape, two lanes with broken shoulders, gridlock at all times of the day. A trip that would take a half hour as the crow flies can easily take two hours. The traffic discourages you from wanting to go anywhere! And if you try to go by foot, you end up on broken sidewalks which are perilous or streets with no sidewalk at all. And forget maps -- most streets, except the avenues, lack names or street signs.
The nightmarish traffic creates horrendous pollution. Snow-covered mountains are no longer visible from town. Kathmandu suffers from a constant inversion layer since it sits surrounded by foothills. The pollution, combined with the altitude (6000 feet), produces headaches, bleery eyes, coughs and irritability.
Another tragic fact of life in Kathmandu is that nothing much works. Electric power is periodic; at least daily power cuts are posted to warn the public. Most tourist services depend on unreliable generators, which make for delayed meals in restaurants. Likewise, the fresh waters of the Himalaya turn brown by the time they reach urban faucets. My luxury hotel seemed rundown and in disrepair, partly as a result of urban services it could not rely on.
Nepalis
What makes urban Nepal tolerable is the cheerful, patient and caring personality of the people. When stuck in a taxi in the same place for 20 minutes, I waited for my driver to honk, swear, grumble, but he took our dilemma in stride. When driving on the torn up highways outside of town, drivers usually seemed to give way rather than pass other cars at the risk of a crash. Perhaps drivers have become more cautious and skilled as a result of the roads, although admittedly I saw a number of cars that had rolled off the side of the road.
While Nepalis expect to bargain when they sell their goods, they do so in a gentle manner as compared to my experience of Turks or Indians.
When Nepalis become your friend, they quickly bestow small gifts upon you. I often wished I was carrying something to give in return.
Why Doesn't Anything Work?
I soon learned that the chaos of Kathmandu can be explained in large part by the failure of Nepal to maintain a functioning government. In this century Nepal endured weak royal governance and an even weaker democratic system. Then, in recent years, the Maoists organized an insurgent movement in the countryside that spread to the cities. Once the violent insurgency ended and the royalty were dismantled, Nepal was left with a power and governmental vacuum. Many different parties are trying to write a new constitution and determine future power arrangements. They can't agree on anything except to keep decisions from being taken. In the meantime, government agencies are barely functioning and are far too weak to build roads or provide reliable services.
The Answer?
How does the country work at all? As far as I could tell, the role of government seems to have been assumed by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). I encountered several fine NGO groups and will describe them in my next blog.
My advice, however, for future visitors to Nepal is to spend as little time in Kathmandu as possible.
