tangledjourneys
A personal perspective on human interest stories from an American journalist living abroad
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No news from Everest? What could be happening in Nepal?
Nepal transport — I love Nepal because I learn every day. © Donatella Lorch
There is an allure to the mere word "Nepal." I first came here in 1983, a single 20-something in search of adventure, which I thought I'd find on the trekking trail. I'd met three tall, muscled Australian guys on the flight to Nepal and one of our most memorable moments together was getting mugged our first evening in Kathmandu. The Aussies managed to catch one of our muggers and at 9p.m., on Kathmandu's desolate main avenue, a traffic policeman commandeered a passing car and stuffed all four of us in it. He then managed to scrunch the mugger onto my lap for the trip to the central police station. Three decades later Nepal lured me back.
If the news is not about Everest, Nepal does not garner frequent attention from the International media. I get the question all the time: "What is it like to live in Kathmandu?" For me, living in KTM, as many call it, is not about Everest. I am not a climber and though I have Sherpa friends, they are what they call "Kathmandu Sherpas" and many do not even speak their ethnic language. I was raised in a French school that had me reciting the altitude of the Mont Blanc, 4,807 meters, and I am not planning to go above it. This is a potential challenge as Nepal offers 1,500 peaks above 5,000meters. My nine-year-old son is obsessed with Kanchenjunga (#3 highest in the world and by far the most unexplored of the high peaks). So Nepal? Well Nepal is quirky, fascinating, ever changing. I often feel that my everyday is an immersion in history, sociology, live-time economics lessons and human struggle. Never in my 15 years living overseas have I been so overwhelmed, mesmerized, inspired, exhausted and at times confused. I love it because I learn every day.
The Rato Machchendranath chariot, almost ready to be pulled through the streets of Patan ©Donatella Lorch
So let's just leave Everest aside for a while. What happens on an average week in Nepal? You are always guaranteed a religious festival. The Rato Machchendranath (or Red God) will be on for most of May, a mix of Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism with a hand-made wooden chariot topped by a teetering rope turret and pulled daily by scores of volunteers around the streets of Patan.
The Maosits can't make up their minds to get along while the Marxist Leninists are having trouble setting a date for a party meeting. Then it's the economy. Nepal is a land of strikes – called Bandhs or closures – successfully executed by the Maoists for years as they hermetically closed down the country.
Fuel lines snake around the block – a standard sight in Kathmandu where fuel shortages are commonplace © Donatella Lorch
This week street vendors want to block all road traffic in three Nepali cities to protest the new government registration requirement. Fast-onto-death hunger strikes are very common as well protesting police and government corruption and most recently two cement workers went on hunger strike demanding contracts directly from the industry. Miraculously we have diesel and petrol this week as the always-broke Nepal Oil Corporation borrowed from the government to pay the Indians the February oil import bill. But even then, some of the tanker drivers run thriving siphoning off businesses and even the owners of the gas stations tamper with their gauges.
Not paying taxes is becoming a dangerous game for some big businesses. In Kathmandu, the battle is between the administration of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and the city's plush five star hotels. Apparently foreign favorites such as the Hyatt, the Shangri-la, the Yak & Yeti and the Radisson have not been paying their property taxes.
From which hotel? ©Donatella Lorch
Even worse, they have been ignoring bills from the KMC. Little was known about this on-going battle until the KMC stopped collecting the hotels' garbage this week. In the stand off, it is unclear where the large amounts of hotel waste is ending up. Everyone's guess is that it is joining the 60 percent of Kathmandu Valley's garbage: in open dumping sites such as river banks, road sides and in any empty lot in the city. A great technique for attracting more tourists and more hotel reservations.
Last month, the tax authority closed down a wide range of casinos that had not paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in back-taxes. Not to be outdone, the Nepal Electricity Authority is chasing down defaulting government ministries and threatening to cut their electricity unless they pay back bills. Nepalese are quick to point out that electricity cuts might not be noticed as the valley already has 12 hours of load shedding a day.
Driving home in the recent storm © Lucas Zutt
Then there is the rain. Bad weather this week had been predicted to last at least six days. Occasional thunderstorms culminated in a storm that stretched into hours of unrelenting torrential rain, whipped left and right by winds while thunder rolled uninterrupted across the mountains circling Kathmandu. Sheet lightning alternated with grand Hollywood style blue bolts zig zagging across the skies. Newspapers reported that 82 people across the country were killed by lightning including one sherpa survivor of the Everest ice avalanche.
In Kathmandu, where many roads have been paved in the past few months in a city-wide road-widening project, it seems the contractors skimped on side ditches and connections to sewage systems. The city flooded. Driving home in close to zero visibility, I could hear the water lapping against the car while mini-rivers made of garbage and plastic bags overflowing from the drainage ditches that double as open sewers, rushed down into the intersections. Always looking on the bright side, the government declared that the rains were good news as now officials could identify before the monsoon hits the locations of the worst flooding.
© Nepali Times
The sad news is that KTM's Tribhuvan International Airport removed a collection of Ruslan Vodka advertisements that greeted all arrivals and touted interesting facts about Nepal. "There are 48 airports in Nepal," read one. The Nepali Times that ran a hilarious photo essay in turn commented: "Only 8 of them have bathrooms."
This entry was posted in beauty, Everest, garbage, high altitude mountain climbers, hinduism, hotels, India, Kathmandu, living overseas, Maoists, mountain climbing, mountain tourism, Nepal, Nepali Times, plastic bags, pollution, religion, religious festival, river pollution, road construction, roads, Sherpas, south asia, transportation, waste management and tagged diesel shortages, Donatella Lorch, electricity, everest, garbage, garbage collection, gods, Kathmandu, Kathmandu Valley, living overseas, Nepal, Nepal news, Nepali Times, religion, sherpas, shrine, south asia, taxes, tourism on May 9, 2014 by Donatella Lorch.
Raising a family and living a marriage on FaceTime.
Lucas just turned 9 and he and I regularly butt heads over when he should practice violin and piano. Our discussions have at times devolved into my declaring that I was shipping his violin back to the original owner, his older cousin in New York. I am keenly aware that I am not a shining example of motherhood and that this is definitely not the way to make him love practice. In fact we both know that my threat is not deliverable. We live in Nepal and the convoluted, obtuse Nepalese bureaucracy would require so many permits that the violin is basically unshippable.
Lucas, in Nepal, practices violin on FaceTime, with his father in Dhaka, Bangladesh. © Donatella Lorch
Living in Nepal required acquiring new skills. I had to learn to make my own yogurt and pasteurize my milk (after I tracked down a local cow). I learned the art of hoarding cooking gas and diesel and I learned to drive on death defying, precipice rimmed roads. Creating a successful violin practice seemed just another skill to develop. First step was to eliminate myself from the mix and bring in his father. John has boundless patience with our four kids that he mixes with a wicked sense of humor. He has a musical ear even though he has never played a musical instrument, but after helping in two years of practices, he understands bowings and tempo. He manages to have Lucas not only practice for 45 minutes but enjoy it.
There remained a huge hurdle. John spends most of every month living and working in Bangladesh (not part of our original plan when we moved here). He is gone all week long and often on all or part of the weekends. There are only four direct flights a week between the two countries which limits commuting. Nepal may have 12 hours a day of electricity loadshedding but the spirit of entrepreneurship still thrives. In Kathmandu, WiFi is ubiquitous and free in the myriad cafes and restaurants. It was critical to our adopting FaceTime as a new family member.
John and Lucas chat on FaceTime every evening at dinnertime. © Donatella Lorch
Now on practice days, I am the acrobat. Lucas plays as I hold my iPhone outstretched with one hand so John can see bowings and follow the music from Dhaka. With the other hand, I am DJ-ing with my Ipad on YouTube starting and stopping "Alison's Violin Studio," a brilliant teacher for the Suzuki book series, so John can advise Lucas on his performance.
FaceTime is everywhere with us. Here John looks on as Lucas samples pasta he helped make. © Donatella Lorch
FaceTime is everywhere for us. At dinner table, John joins us on FT from his Dhaka office. At bedtime, he says goodnight to Lucas and we then reconnect at our own bedtime. We'll watch the BBC news broadcast simultaneously but in two different countries and comment on the Ukraine crisis as if we were lying in bed side by side. I'll pop into a café for a caffe latte if I am in town so I can have a morning conversation in between his meetings. It is our survival mechanism as a family.
Lucas reading "Roman Mysteries" to John on FaceTime just before dinner in Kathmandu. © Donatella Lorch
I do hate the separation and my emotions range from frustration, bitterness, depression and anger. What keeps me happy is that I love living in Nepal. I know I am incredibly lucky to be here. Despite the pollution, the traffic chaos and the looming earthquake dangers, I live next door to wide-open spaces where Lucas and I bike, run and hike. Not an option in Dhaka, a heavily polluted city of over 12 million people, and where my iPhone Dhaka weather forecast alternates between "haze" and "smoke." Lucas adores being here and reminds me everyday how he enjoys his school.
Dhaka weather on my iPhone alternates between "haze" and "smoke". © Donatella Lorch
I am far from alone in living a long distance marriage. Kathmandu is a big hub for the United Nations and other international organizations whose employees travel constantly. One friend, a fellow school mother, has experienced living apart from her husband for several years already when he was stationed in Khartoum, Sudan and the family in Kenya. This was before moving to Kathmandu. She told me today that he leaves Kathmandu next week for three months in Khartoum. Another mother is coping with two small kids as her husband is on a temporary duty posting in Myanmar (where the government lowers bandwidth to limit internet communications). And it is not only "trailing" spouses. A colleague of my husband commutes to visit his wife in the Phillipines. And an ambassador is trying out Facetime to ease the distance with his partner in the other hemisphere.
The international community commute is just the tip of the iceberg. Nepal is a land of families that live apart. Unable to find jobs at home, tens of thousands of Nepalese go to India and to the Middle East working mostly menial jobs for years at a time. Their earnings contribute 25 percent of Nepal's GDP.
To cheer us up, we even put Biko, our eccentric Rhodesian Ridgeback on FaceTime. © Donatella Lorch
I remind myself every day that I am very lucky. FaceTime is just the icing on the cake.
This entry was posted in earthquakes, Kathmandu, living overseas, Nepal, parenting, south asia, tourism, women and tagged children, diesel shortages, Donatella Lorch, earthquake, electricity, emotions, FaceTime, fathers, fuel, growing up overseas, international commuting, Kathmandu, Kathmandu Valley, living overseas, migrant workers, mothers, Nepal, Nepal news, parenting, south asia, spouses, tourism, WiFi, women, World on March 7, 2014 by Donatella Lorch.
Already CNN Hero, a Nepali Blazes a Unique Path
Pushpa Basnet with Sanu (left), the first child she met and rescued from prison life eight years ago . Fourteen month old Pushpanjali (right) is her youngest ward. (copyright Donatella Lorch)
Pushpa Basnet's home, like many places in Kathmandu, is hard to find. I had to call her several times for directions as I drove into the dust-caked northern part of Nepal's capital city, navigating the ubiquitous ruts created by road construction, the jams from overloaded buses dropping passengers in mid-lane and the sea of motorcycles oblivious of any traffic rule. Finally I found the right turn into the narrow alleyway that led to a black gate. Pushpa was waiting there, a young woman all smiles, her black hair in a tight bun, a baby in her arms and children tagging behind.
I have reported from and volunteered in many orphanages in Africa and South Asia and often felt they were defined by a tangible sadness if not despair. For a stranger entering this home for the first time, the warmth was unmistakable. Pushpa, 29, founded and runs a home for children who have one or both parents serving long prison terms. She lives with her 45 wards that range from 14 months to 18 years in a simple three-story brick house without running water.
In Nepal, a country whose major claim to fame is as home to Mt Everest and great trekking, Pushpa is different. She is a CNN Hero 2012. I had wanted to meet her in part to see what made her a 'hero' and what a CNN Hero does after they have won their award. I left a few hours later feeling that I had met an extraordinary woman with unusual inner strength, humility, smarts and a seemingly endless amount of love and positive karma to share. If heroes are made on a battlefield, Pushpa's is far from the world's attention. She is not a media star in Nepal. But she is a star in this home. She is Mamu, a very unusual mother.
The children at ECDC, a home to children of Nepali prisoners, greet visitors.
Pushpa's organization, the Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC), houses the children of prisoners and pays for their education. But this is just the bare bones of what happens here. By her own admission never a great student, Pushpa says she found her calling in 2005 after she was temporarily suspended from school and began to visit prisons as a social worker. One of the world's poorest countries, Nepal lacks a social safety net that can help the children of prisoners. As a result, if the child has no guardian, it must go live in prison or on the streets. In 2007, Pushpa started a residential home with just two children. Through a complex legal guardianship process, Pushpa has now brought 32 girls and 13 boys here from 22 prisons. Most of them are between ages 4 and 8. She also runs a daycare center in Kathmandu prison.
Pushpa focuses on children whose parents are serving long sentences for crimes such as drug and human trafficking and murder. Herself a product of boarding school, Pushpa created her home on a similar model. The children live in impeccable though Spartan dorm rooms. The small ones sleep two to a bed for physical and emotional warmth. "Hugs are very important," grins Pushpa who grabs her little ones to ruffle their head or exchange a kiss. Prizes of ice cream outings are given monthly to the cleanest rooms. Everyone studies together on floor cushions in the evenings. They have four meals a day of dal and rice with homemade pickles made by the gallon by Pushpa. They can afford meat (chicken) only once a week.
The dormitory rooms are immaculate and Spartan.
Like all Nepalese, Pushpa and her staff adapt to the ubiquitous shortages. Road construction means no running water for months now. There is no central heating but she has no money for propane heaters so in the winter it is early to bed. With 12 hours a day of no electricity, she has used her CNN funds to buy solar panels and her inverters feed the critical rooms: the night bathroom light, study hall and the kitchen. The funds have also helped her buy two solar broilers where I saw beans busy simmering as well as a long metal dining table with benches so everyone eats together. Every four days she goes through one 15Kg propane cylinder for cooking. She usually hoards (like everyone else) 25 cylinders at a time but today she has only five left due to an unforeseen shortage in the Kathmandu Valley. "I've hoarded wood," she assured me. "If we can't find propane, we'll cook with that."
Pushpa used some of her CNN award money to buy solar inverters as well as this solar broiler where she is cooking beans. (copyright Donatella Lorch)
As much as possible, she wants her children to have a normal life. Aside from paying their school fees, Pushpa has hired a Tae Kwon Do (one of Nepal's major school sports) teacher to come to the house and train. Painting is also a key activity. One girl, whose father died of an overdose and whose mother is serving a 25-year sentence for selling and using "Brown Sugar," (heroine) has nerve damage that makes it difficult to speak but Pushpa encourages her drawing talent. And on weekends, everyone heads out for a hike to a nearby hill to play games and fly kites. This is Pushpa's favorite time. "This is the one place I can be myself and just run around," she explained. On holidays, the children return to the prisons to stay with their parents.
Pushpa must compete with Nepal's orphanages for funding. With foreign adoptions suspended, orphanages are overcrowded and underfunded. Pushpa's biggest challenge is finding a permanent home. So far, ECDC has moved five times. Her CNN prize money has gone towards buying land to build her dream "Butterfly Home." She is now fund raising for the $400,000 she needs to build the home and make it a reality. At times, serendipitous encounters, are magical. Coming back from his honeymoon, her brother chatted with a fellow plane passenger who was coming to visit orphanages she was supporting. Today, this woman supports 23 of Pushpa's children with $3,000 a month. Of the children Pushpa has raised since 2005, 120 have left and 25 of the parents remain in contact with the school. Pushpa continues to pay for many of their school tuitions. Fourteen of Pushpa's wards were abandoned by their parents after leaving prison but the kids continue to live at ECDC.
There is a circle to Pushpa's life.
Sanu, the little eight-month-old who first grabbed her clothes and smiled at her in 2005 is now nine years old and still lives with Pushpa. Sanu's mother served a sentence for killing her abusive husband but was turned away by her own family after being released. She is now also living at ECDC. In halting English, Sanu tries to explain her situation: "I have an original mother and I have Mamu, a mother who gives me everything."
Over a year ago, Pushpa was handed a 45-day-old girl by policemen. The baby's mother had just been burned to death by her husband for failing to make him an omelette. The father is serving a 10 year sentence. The little girl, Pushpanjali, is now 14 months old and Pushpa has been given complete guardianship. At lunchtime, the older children feed and look after younger ones. But every spare moment when she can grab her away, Pushpa is picking up Pushpanjali to nuzzle and hug her.
This entry was posted in disadvantaged children, Kathmandu, living overseas, Nepal, south asia, Uncategorized and tagged children, CNN, CNN hero, crime, diesel shortages, heating, Kathmandu, Kathmandu Valley, living overseas, Nepal, Nepal news, prison, pushpa basnet, south asia, World on January 21, 2014 by Donatella Lorch.
Waiting for The Power. Hoarding as Art. Winter Life in Kathmandu
Nepal has massive hydroelectric potential but in winter the rivers shrink and demand outstrips supply
When Lonely Planet made Nepal one of the ten most memorable places to visit in 2013, the Nepali Times' hilarious and sardonic "Backside" column came up with a slogan to attract tourists. "Visit Nepal, See Stars" it wrote, noting that there is no light pollution in Nepal because there is no electricity, and so Kathmandu is the only capital in the world where one can admire the Milky Way from the heart of downtown.
When I moved here in August, I thought this slogan was exaggerated, as electricity was cut for only two hours a day. But I was wrong. Most of Nepal's electricity is generated using hydroelectric power plants, whose turbines are driven by the run of the river. That is great in the summer, during the monsoons when the Himalayan glaciers are melting and the rivers are overflowing with water. But it is terrible in the winter, when the glaciers freeze, the rivers stop flowing, and the turbines are turned off. There is far less power generated than there is demand and to make matters even more dire, 25% of electricity is either stolen or "lost" because of poor maintenance. And this is in a country where demand is increasing rapidly, as population grows and more people move to the urban areas, seeking urban conveniences.
This week, the new load-shedding schedule, officially issued by the Nepal Electricity Authority, is scheduling Kathmandu residents for 12+ hours a day, or 80 hours a week, without power. By next month, if past experience is any guide, the cuts will jump to 18 hours a day or more. Government-run industries are protected, getting only 9-hour-a-day cuts, while the private sector has to cope with 14 hours a day. The rains are still months away.
One survival lesson I have learned here in Kathmandu since our arrival is that, no matter what happens, you need to go with the flow. No decent milk in the stores? Find yourself a milk cow; there are certainly plenty of them wandering around every neighborhood. You can even learn to make your own yogurt. Traffic is hellish? When driving, imagine yourself as part of a school of fish, said a friend, sharing the fine art of vehicular movement when your car is swarmed by a moving cloud of bee-like honking motorcycles; try not to stop and never—never—give way, not if you are a duck, a chicken, a cow, a pedestrian, a motorcycle or a car. I can do that now. I feel Nepali. I belong. Watching me drive over the holidays, my visiting daughter, Mado, coined a Kathmandu bumper sticker: "No Room, No Problem."
At first, the lack of electricity was aggravating, as it tended to happen early in the morning or at dinner time. Even though we are among the lucky few who can afford solar-powered batteries to run lights and electronics when the grid fails, a lot of what makes a house tick involves power hogs like irons and water pumps and washing machines, and with two six-hour stretches of powerlessness during the waking hours, the batteries just aren't enough. This means no microwave, no iron, no toaster. No showers, as the water pump to the roof tank and the hot-water compressor, which gives us pressure, don't work on batteries. No washing machine. The freezer stays closed. No stereo. No electric heat. But now, after a few days of frustration, I've begun to go with the flow. Toast is made on the stovetop, where food and milk are heated as well. Showers are cold and quick, under a trickle of water, or grabbed quickly when the power kicks in. Yelling in our house usually consists of one of us belting out: "Power is on!" And we rush to recharge, print a document, shower, or put in the wash.
Winter brings massive power cuts to Nepal. As houses have no central heating, my son spends many evenings under blankets
Unfortunately, though, we still don't have heat—or at least not from our two roll around electric heaters. I know that I shouldn't complain, because no one has central heating in Nepal—no house or school or shop or office—even though it is now winter and temperatures dip to 0c (32F) at night in the Kathmandu valley. Those who can afford it warm rooms with 15kg propane heaters. This has its downsides: the smell, the potential danger of explosion and the fact that it only really heats a small area. I am writing in the warmest room in my house, with the sun on my back, wearing gloves and a down jacket—and a propane heater burning a few feet from my side. And I feel lucky. Nepal is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, where almost a quarter of its population lives below the poverty line, so propane-fueled heaters are only for the well-off.
Winter brings other problems aside from electricity shortages. Fuel shortages and by association massive hoarding are among Nepal's biggest challenges. Fuel can disappear for weeks.
In traffic jammed Kathmandu, regular fuel shortages make hoarding fuel part of everyday life
The country spends about 40 percent of its foreign currency reserve on the import of petroleum products. Diesel, petrol and propane are trucked in from India, a three-day drive from the border on narrow and treacherous mountain roads. The papers are full of pictures of truck and bus accidents. On a recent trip on the same road, we saw two trucks that had plummeted down terrifyingly steep precipices.
Horrific road accidents slow traffic (and fuel trucks) on its way to Kathmandu
Hoarding is an art that I have learned to practice. I store over 100 litres of diesel in the garage for my car and generator, as well as eight 15kg containers of propane for cooking and heating. If you can afford it, it is the only way to live reasonably comfortably. Recently, diesel, which is used by larger cars and trucks and generators, was no longer for sale in Kathmandu. The government had announced an upcoming price hike (it now costs $4.15 a gallon) and so the gas stations sat on their stocks waiting for the price hike to take effect. After a massive outcry from Kathmandu residents threatening strikes, the government ultimately backed off the price hike and stations began selling again, but now press reports say petrol transporters are threatening a strike halting all petroleum product transportation starting this weekend. Recently angry consumers mobbed and detained a top official visiting their district to protest propane shortages.
At moments like these, you need to know someone who knows someone who has hoarded the precious liquid. You have to go with the flow. I now have that critical contact to get me my bootleg diesel. I can even experience and enjoy the particular Nepali hospitality that sometimes comes with it: "I'm sorry; I am out of diesel today, but can I get you some propane?"
This entry was posted in Kathmandu, Nepal, Uncategorized and tagged cold, diesel shortages, electricity, fuel, heating, Kathmandu, Kathmandu Valley, living overseas, Nepal, Nepal news, road accidents, shortages, south asia, winter on January 10, 2014 by Donatella Lorch.
Untangling the journey: one box at a time
Turkish class teaches a young Syrian girl how to cope with life as a refugee
"Some days I Just have to listen": A family therapist works with Syrian refugees
During the cold winter months, debit cards bring warmth to the most vulnerable Syrian children
Syrian teenager flees guns and wins chance to study in Turkey
alison des forges
animal sacrifices
asceticism
bandh
buddhist monks
burning forests
cyclone hudhud
disadvantaged children
donatella lorch
earthquake relief
earthquakerelief
Empty Quarter
failed coup
fuel shortage
high altitude mountain climbers
hospital pollution
india blockade
India undeclared blockade
Khumbu Icefall
King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
living overseas
maristella Lorch
mass kilings
mountain tourism
nepal government
nepal violence
Nepali Times
Newars
palm oil plantations
relief aid
religious festival
river pollution
romeo dallaire
royal massacre
Rub'al Khali
south asian politics
syrian refugee
twin otter
war reporting
World happiness Day