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Nepal Trip – April 2010
Getting to Nepal
Note: Click on each thumbnail to see a full size photo.
One of my favorite sayings is “If you want to make God laugh, make a plan!” So, when faced with 40 hours of flying, there are plenty of opportunities at God’s disposal to foul up a potentially restful flight. So, I was not surprised when three days prior to departure, we received a phone call from Som in Nepal: “Expect a delay. The radar is broken at Tribhuvan Intl Airport (in Katmandu), and there have been delays all week.”
Anything can change overnight in Nepal, so I took the news with a grain of salt and didn’t even mention it to Mary Jane (Second thought, I probably simply forgot). I felt we were fortunate to have the most direct flight to Nepal in all our years–thanks to a new Mid-Eastern airline Etihad Airways. We had just two connections: GR to Chicago to Abu Dhabi to KTM. But again, to presume it would be so simple was an invitation for divine intervention.
Sure enough! We departed on the very day of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. We weren’t even aware of it until we reached Chicago and witnessed the many flight cancellations there. All flights to and through Europe were canceled. We lucked out (God was merciful!) as our flight could still dodge the volcanic ash by detouring south of the Great Circle Route, passing over Gibraltar to Abu Dhabi, extending our flight 2hrs and 1000 miles. We had plenty of time with which to play since we had a whopping 14 hour layover in Abu Dhabi. In Abu Dhabi, one of the newly emerged, oil-rich emirates, all the rooms were taken because of the canceled flights to and from Europe. However, we could pay $128 and luxuriate in a comfortable lounge for 8 hours with a fine buffet, free bar, and even a shower room (the rooms are prohibitively expensive).
We chanced upon this airport lounge because we met a young Nepali man escorting an empty wheel chair, and so MJ took him up on his offer to wheel us around, and even tried his best to get Etihad to credit a room to us, but no luck: too many cancelations and all the rooms were taken. This young man is part of 200,000 plus migrant labor force from Nepal working in the Persian Gulf for slave wages….which is still more than they can make unemployed in Nepal. In the exclusivity of being in a first class lounge in an Oil Emirate, Mary Jane and I were out of our league in a sea of white robes, hajibs, burqas, and custom-tailored and designer wear; and although we enjoyed people-watching, I couldn’t help but feel that we, clad in fashionable Goodwill togs, were the objects of others’ people-watching.
With T minus 6 hours to go, MJ’s heart opened up to a woman in a burqa with 3 small kids trying to make it from the lounge to her gate. With bags, a stroller, a babe in arms, a toddler and a wild rapscallion who was running and bouncing off of the furniture like a bee in a meadow. MJ quickly recruited me, transcended the language barrier, and began parceling out the children and belongings to the obvious relief and appreciation of the mother. Unable to slow down little Abdullah, I took his in hand, and steered him towards the gate about 10 minutes away. MJ and mother embraced at the security check in front of the gate. Meanwhile, I released the boy who ran through and back, and then around the metal detecting pass-through, setting it off each time—great fun! The guards exasperated, mother embarrassed, and we were in hysterics. Mother quickly grabbed hold of Abdullah and sat down at the nearest set of chairs inside to wait the boarding call. As we turned away, we again noticed that there is not just free wi-fi in Abu Dhabi International, but rows upon rows of laptops for travelers to use free of charge to catch up or wile away their waits. We’d done that already, so it was back to the lounge.
The remaining hours ticked off slowly until finally, it was our turn to report to the gate, and we proceeded to board for the relatively short flight to Katmandu (4-5 hrs). We were flying against the sun so the day was well-spent when we landed on time at 430 PM and the sun low in the sky was reflecting back up at us off of tin roofs, and Katmandu sparkled like a diamond. The clear skies and go visibility did not necessitate the airport’s radar which had been repaired by that time.
We passed straight through Immigration, Customs, and Baggage Claim without a hitch, and even our friends from the Guest House were there to meet us, greet us, and deliver us. Now that we had made it, we had several days to adjust our biorhythms before our sponsors began arriving, so we had a light snack and crashed early. Great in theory, but God had protected the dear dog out behind the Guest House over the past year, whom I affectionately call Midnight…so named for his penchant to begin barking intermittently all night long at about that time. After a good nap, we were now awake, unable to go back to sleep, during the long, early morning hours. Before long came the pre-dawn crowing of cocks all around the city, reinforcing the intermittent barking, and a little later this was supplemented by the cawing of the crows near sunrise. Our insomnia could easily be treated with a good book….except that the electricity was being rationed, aka “load-shedding”. So, the room stayed pitch black until dawn. Lying awake in bed, one of us would end up waking up the other by tossing and turning. By morning we were exhausted. Daytime hours are lengthening this time of the year, but in actuality, they were being truncated by our naps from midday narcolepsy. For two weeks we struggled with our day-night schedule.
Getting into the Swing of it and Tripping out
After a few days of recovery, however, we decided to get to work despite our jetlag. So, Som and I engineered a trip north to the Langtang National Park on the Tibetan Border. We would visit some schools in the Highlands of the Himalayas…new territory for us. Som, his new wife Nisha, MJ and I, and two of our “ANSWER children” Uma who is now a nurse and Sujana, a second year nursing student would be escorting us.
The jeep we hired
The trip, which was intended to be fun and scenic, turned out to be a nightmare. We hired a large Indian Jeep cum driver as we knew there were unpaved portions of road. We soon learned that the greater portion of the way is still in total disrepair: it was 4-5 hrs of “bumpy, dumpy roads”, as Som calls them, which even our jeep had a hard time navigating. Half way there, in Trisuli, we all welcomed a rest stop (to scout out a school) as much as we dreaded climbing back in for another 2 hours of bumpy-dumpiness to Dhunche.
Finally, in the late afternoon, tired, stiff, and weary, we made it to Dhunche, unloaded our bags in a rustic hotel, and marched down “main street” to a very nice school where we met the principal and recruited another set of candidate children, two prospective nurses and one doctor wanna-be! The Question for us is….do we want to spend two days traveling on jarring roads two to four times a year, for just a half dozen children? We soon rationalized that we could probably do this in rotation with our staff, so everyone bares the onus. With schools both in Trisuli and Dhunche, we could probably make it a dozen children and even pick up another school somewhere else along the way.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that we do this outreach into the interior. These children in the remote areas are the ones who are totally out of the flow, totally overlooked, and forgotten. If we made sure that the bright ones get good educations through college, they would set the example for others and promote rural development as well. Only within the past two years or so have TV and cell towers linked them to the happenings of the rest of the world. This means educational and career opportunities beyond farming, shopkeeping, or portering supplies in and out for trekkers are now conceivable. With TV they are now aware of how the other half lives, but with no hope for improving their own lot, their once contented lives would soon transmute to despair and resentment, and possibly even violence and rebellion.
On the other hand, TV has a wonderful way of modernizing thinking. I read a nice piece in Super-Freakonomics (the sequel to Freakonomics, a must-read) about the frustrating experience family planning programs have faced in rural India. With bazillions of illiterate peasants, everything India has tried, from educational programs to making injections and devices available, including sterilization, nothing has made a dent in the population growth outside the cities where the vast majority of Indians dwell. Nothing that is, until TV towers and cables began to penetrate the interior. Once rural women were finally able to see well-to-do women on TV with small families and careers and enjoying “the good life”, the birth rate plummeted and attendance in family planning programs began to swell. This is now happening all over the developing world.
And so it is in Nepal, too, with additional ramifications. For example, we used to see EVERY little girl expressing her desire to be a doctor, and we still do, but now one in ten or twenty is now saying, “I want to be a pilot!” One girl this year told Som she wanted to be a lawyer! Where did that come from?” I asked. Som pushed it aside with, “Just a TV program.” But the point is that boys and girls now have a new source of information and they are paying attention to options beyond just what daddy wants. That’s a huge step in individual choice and independent thinking!
View of the Himalayas
Anyway, as dusk was setting in and around Dhunche, things were getting a bit chilly. Dhunche is at 6200 feet and things cool down quickly after sunset. In Katmandu we slept under sheets. Here we had several heavy blankets (albeit, the cheap Chinese rayons have replaced the wool and yak hair ones even out here). The next morning, with no hot water, we skipped our showers, had our tea, and all went out to explore the town some more. With the goats running around everywhere in a bucolic, alpine setting with children running all around, I couldn’t help but think of Heidi and Grandfather! And yes, the icy peaks of the Alps, or rather the Himalayan range, were visible at last. Dhunche is built on the north side of a mountain facing the Himalayas, but we needed to hike higher to appreciate the full majesty of the range. Even so, it was a glorious morning with jagged, glacier-ladened peaks jetting up beside us.
The splendor, however, was short-lived as we had to jump back in the jeep for a long “bumpy, dumpy” and uneventful ride back to Katmandu. Uneventful is a good thing: Som’s wife Nisha is “a little bit pregnant” and in the throes of morning sickness, MJ couldn’t help but focus on her condition.
Our Sponsors Arrive and the Political Turmoil Begins
Mary & children with Manju & mom
Within the next day or two, our sponsors began to arrive: Mary with her two teenage boys Pat and Duncan from Michigan, and a couple from Maine, David and Marty, who had visited Nepal with us in 2007. With their arrival we switched to a more upscale hotel to be rid of Midnight’s barking, and it made a significant difference.
Dave & Marty
However, as our sponsors were recovering from jet lag, a nationwide strike was called by the Radical Student Union ANNISU-R (Maoist) against all 6000 private secondary schools for tuition hikes. AND, no sooner had the Private schools agreed to roll back the increases to appease the Radical Student Union, than the Maoist Party called for a nationwide, general strike to get the current Prime Minister to resign and hand them the reins of power. So, for a week and a half we were ready to roll, visiting our schools and students, reading and writing letters, etc., but completely thwarted by the political situation.
To describe what all this entails would require another one of my ten page letters, so enough to say that this is one of the tightest lock-downs Som and I have ever experienced. In this case essentially, many rural Maoists were bussed into Katmandu, and coalesced with urban Maoists in the streets in such numbers that shops were afraid to open and defy the strike. All transportation except Army, Police, Ambulances, and a few Tourist Buses were forced off the road….if not, a barrage of stones, or worse, would pummel the vehicle. Roads were blocked off in the cities, the villages, and the highways running between them. Only the airports remained open, but taxis, buses and even rickshaws are all verboten.
This was one of the most effective strikes ever…nothing was running, nothing was open. Som and his brother had to walk 4-5 miles each way to and from their homes to visit us. Usually, taxis run after sunset, but not this time….it took Som well over an hour to walk home after dark. Graciously, from 6-8pm the tourist area is allowed to open for dinner…the Maoists recognize that this is not our dispute and do not want to alienate a large portion of those who bring in tourism and foreign aid. Even so, few restaurants wanted to go to the trouble of opening for only two hours, and soon the exodus began and the arriving tourists began cancel ling their visits. Even Mary and her boys got tired of waiting it out and left to finish their vacation time in California. We were so disappointed, but no doubt they were even more so.
During this time Prachanda, the Maoist Leader, made a speech to his cadre saying it was time for the rural people to bring the aloof urbanites to their knees. This essentially alienated a good number of Katmandu citizens, especially the intellectuals in the press. Prachanda had cut his own legs out from under himself which led to his having to lift the strike. Since then, the Maoists have been surprisingly conciliatory and haven’t even mentioned reinstating the strikes.
Nowadays, with the heat and impending monsoon, there are few foreigners left. I am now one of the few remaining bideshi (or foreigners) which makes me the sole object for every shoe shine boy, open-hand child wanting a rupee, and itinerant street hawkers of tiger balm or hashish. I am so fed up with it all that I even bought the classic Katmandu tourist t-shirt that reads: “No Rupee, No Hashish, No Rickshaw, No Tiger Balm, No Problem.” Before, I tried to be polite, now I simply say, “NO!” and point to my shirt.
To continue with the saga, while the schools and highways still closed due to the strikes, we had to delay our plans to tour and visit schools for the time being. Because the planes were still flying, we flew out to Pokhara simply for a change in venue. Like I said, the airports were open, but nary a taxi or rickshaw to be found. All of us had to walk nearly 2 miles to our Lakeside Lodge. MJ and I arrived on a later flight and were lucky to have two bicycles available to us. MJ hadn’t ridden a bike for 3 or 4 years and was a bit nervous, so she sat sidesaddle on the back of a hard, bare bicycle rack and survived. It turned out that there was a bicycle rental store just up the street from us, so we did one or two school visits in Pokhara pedaling, and while we were at it, there were pedal-boats and paddle-canoes and hikes to keep us further occupied.
Mary Jane & Earle
Finally, after a few days, the strike was lifted, and we made bee line to the airport to fly into the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas to the village of Jomsom at 9000 feet of elevation. This was really a stark, rocky passage between two tall mountains through which the Great Kali Gandhaki River flows southward into India and the Ganges.
Earle with two Nepalis
Mary Jane and I were accompanied by Marty and David, Som and Nisha, Bal and Sanoj, an ANSWER graduate in Accounting and our newest staff person. We had no trouble finding a room for all of us…a large party of tourists had just canceled their trip to Jomsom!
We had at last begun our visits to the schools, and for the next two weeks needed to visit more than 100 schools, or at the very least all of them outside the Katmandu Valley, and be back by the 28th of May, Constitution Day. It was pretty clear that the interim government had not produced the Constitution over the last two years, as was promised, and the Maoists would have a field day once again, demonstrating and most likely, it would mean more strikes. We had to make record time! No telling what God was going to throw at us next.
A Wedding
My first Nepali wedding was unforgettable. I spent all day first at the bride’s house, and obediently showed up early. I had absolutely nothing to do but be a token of adoration as “the American Doctor” and was carefully introduced to all the relatives on her side of the family and then and more importantly meeting all the relatives on his side (See whom we know!). When at last it was time to go to the wedding site (an open field with tents erected and a cloth barrier encircling half a football field), I was thoroughly bewildered, worn out, hot and hungry. There, the wedding ceremony droned on and on and I was too tired to stand in line to receive the feast, so I waited another hour for the line to work itself down. At last, I got some left-over chicken and rice. On the way home, I began feeling ill and chocked it up to the taxi ride, but as soon as I reached home, I was throwing up and expelling the tainted food that had been incubating organisms all day long. Years later I have yet to overcome my aversion to Nepali weddings, and so I always try to arrive late and leave early.
A couple of months ago, some of us on our Board started to get emails from our Country Director Som Raj (or Som) hinting that the time was now ripe for him to remarry. His first marriage was an inter-caste “love-marriage”: he of the Brahmin caste and his then beloved of the Chetri (Kșatriya) or warrior caste, just one step down the caste ladder from Brahmin. In some villages, such an affront to tradition would mean stoning if caught, even today, so such as association would require the couple to elope and live in the city, forever castaways. Som and his bride had relatively understanding parents and allowed it, but the marriage was wrought with problems from the start, exacerbated by in-laws and disappointed expectations. That was about 5 years ago, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, not the least of which Som, now 32 yo, has grown a lot via the school of hard knocks.
However, their divorce has tainted their “marriageability”, and finding a willing and understanding partner and family is not as easy as it would otherwise be. Since his “love marriage” failed, Som felt that he should respect his parent’s advice this time and opted for an “arranged marriage.” Som holds a number of impressive credentials. He is the director of an American organization, has traveled abroad with visits to the US and UK, holds a 5 year multiple entry US visa, and is now a householder. Still, he and his relatives were having a heck of a time finding a willing and “suitable” prospect.
When I arrived on the 11th of April, there was the possible prospect he was to meet, but by the 12th there was another submission, and on the morning of the 13th I was invited to meet that candidate Nisha and her uncle. This was their first and only meeting, and lasted about 90 minutes and all that remained was to set the date. That afternoon we picked up our 3 sponsors and a volunteer at the airport and explained to them that there was a slight change in our schedule as they were invited to Som’s wedding on the 15th, the earliest date that was in sync with the stars (there are astrologers that must be consulted for the most auspicious date). It was certainly understandable that Som couldn’t be at the airport to greet our incoming sponsors on the 13th as he had only 36 hrs to complete the wedding arrangements.
On the afternoon of the 14th Som combined trips to get a fresh haircut and to stop by the guesthouse to meet and make travel arrangements with all of us. He had dark circles under his eyes, his “Katmandu Koff” which had been resolving but was still holding, and it was clear that Som’s sense of mission had displaced his better judgment. Why Nisha assented to a marriage after only just two days is something no Westerner can understand. Why Som assented to a quick marriage is simple: expediency and over-dedication to the job: ANSWER Űberalles.
Nevertheless, the wedding went off as planned. All of us met at Som’s house the next morning and stood around taking photos of the wedding party. All our nursing students were “maids of honor” and, of course, they were “all-electric” to be there. The bride looked simply stunning in red veils, demurring her way through two hours of ritual and ceremony, kneeling, standing, circling, and kneeling again. Som looked dashing, proud and regal; and our staff who always wear t-shirts were transformed into Beau Brummels in their matching formal suits. 
Everyone, including the sponsors and I were all tika’d, blessed with a dab of red coloring of yoghurt and rice placed on our foreheads, and then we were all promenaded to the bus to go to the wedding palace. This was a last minute arrangement, so Som was lucky to find a place as this was the wedding season. The 22 members of the wedding party crammed themselves into a minivan like it was a clown car, while others got into their cars or onto the motorcycle to reconvene at the hotel. That left a dozen of us to board a great big tourist bus which was the only obvious miscue: The wedding party should have gotten on our bus to begin with, and we should have been riding in the minivan!
Som’s house is centrally located so it wasn’t but ten minutes until we arrived at the Maharaja Hotel. There was another wedding happening behind the hotel and we were situated on the eastside. Outside, there was a small layout with an altar, offerings, and sacred fire burning. The bride was kneeling there under the blazing sun and after a few photos we deserted her to suffer with the bridesmaids and sought shelter from the heat in the open auditorium just behind her. As luck would have it, the power was out so someone started up the diesel generator which was so loud that it finally drove everyone indoors into the cool auditorium. The rest of the ceremony was performed indoors away from the heat and din.
The critical point of the wedding comes after the exchange of malas (necklaced garlands) and we all rush to the chow line. There were a dozen different offerings of rice, daal curries, nan, fish, chicken, and mutton, a respectable entourage of servings. As sumptuous as this array appeared, it could not compare to the amazing banquet spread of a wedding that Mary Jane and I attended last year of the daughter of a prominent restaurateur family. There must have been 50 chafing dishes of Western, Nepali, Chinese, Indian, Tibetan and even a Mongolian stir-fry. The piece-de-resistance was ice cream sundaes! Considering that Som and Nisha had only a day and a half to throw this together, they did a magnificent job, and we were all stuffed to the gills.
Except for the wedding, we wouldn’t be seeing much of Som until the next week as he would be taking his bride back to his family’s home village to meet his parents. He would fly out to his home village immediately after the ceremony with Nisha and also Uma (one of the nursing students who was ANSWER’s first sponsored child). Uma was to serve as a chaperone and maid of honor to Nisha as is the custom. You can imagine how a new bride taken back to live with the groom’s extended family might have been immediately set upon, put in her place, and exploited from the opening….a chaperone thus would provide some assurance of good treatment. In this case they weren’t retuning to live with Som’s mother and father, but to introduce her to the family. It was a quick overnight and then a long car ride back to Katmandu, so that Som could stop at towns along the way to visit schools! Combining business and pleasure is not just Som’s modus operandi; it is his sine qua non. Of course, he made these arrangements without informing me, and the very thing I had warned him about: putting the job before his new bride was happening all over again. Unless his bride has the strength and flexibility of a Mary Jane, I have real fears that Som thinks “his limits” are still the operative guidelines. Let us hope for the best.
Annual Holiday Benefit a Success!
Sunday November 23 2008, ANSWER held its 5th Annual Holiday Concert-Benefit at the Wege Auditorium at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids.
140 sponsors and guests attended to hear David Lockington, Musical Director of the Grand Rapids symphony and cellist; Aviram Reichert, pianist and Van Cliburn medalist; Joseph Conyers, on the double bass. Alexander and Mary Jane Miller, oboist and violist; and Gene Hahn, violinist. Avi closed with Etudes by Chopin. The pentultimate piece, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, featured the musicians together.
The musicians performed a wide breadth of musical arrangements from Bach, Shostakovich, Chopin and Mozart to the less traditional “Clapping Music,” an a capella duet by the Millers. Along this vein, Gene Hahn “fiddled” the familiar Shenandoah, Skip to My Lou, and Danny Boy which moved us from smiles to tears.
Among the several unique pieces were “Whispers in the Winds” composed, played, and sung by David and drawn on a poem written by his daughter, Mariama. The text was: “Beauty is just like time- always finding ways to piece lip by in sunbeams, or ride away like dandelion wishes in the wind”. Another featured David and Ale together on cello and oboe to perform one of Ale’s own musical compositions, “The Grass-cutter” or “Ghasi”, taking the lyrics of a 19th century poem composed by Nepal’s first great national poet Bhanubhatta.
He gives his life to cutting grass, yet he earns little money.
He hopes to make a well for his poeople,
So he will be remembered after death.
This high-thinking grass-cutter lives in poverty,
While I have achieved nothing with my wealth.
The image by Ale playing his oboe and swaying with the music as if charming the snakes lurking in the grass to stand clear,and David mournfully singing while moving his bow across the strings as if he were cutting the grass to sell for animal fodder was mystical. This visage and the poet’s pleating reminds us that supporting these children is “our well”, our legacy for which some on the other side of the world will never forget.
During intermission, a captivating video produced by Wayne Glatz documented and explained ANSWER’s role in providing educational opportunity and career placement to hundreds of Nepali children. As beautiful as the music was to the soul the dinner was equally appealing to the eye and palate: Moroccan spiced pork (or vegetarian strudel) was served with purple Peruvian mashed potatoes.
We were especially fortunate to have our country director Som Raj Subedi come all the way from Nepal to visit us. Som has been directly selecting and overseeing the progress of each and every child and is generally referred to by the children as “Big Brother.” The other night Som revealed a little homesickness in a passing remark, “I miss my children.” Som took the microphone to address questions from the audience such as how are our children are selected, how do we determine if the child is bright, and what about the Maoists.
We thank all of you who came to the Benefit, all who were unable to come but still sent in donations, all who purchased scarves and handicrafts at our Marketplace, and all who donated through the silent auction (even those who didn’t bid helped us by bidding up the final bid!).Special thanks to our board, the musicians, the Aquinas staff, and again ALL OF YOU–You helped make this our most financially successful Benefit ever. Please tell your friends to be sure to come to our Holiday Gala next year.