Gurung Uncle

Yikes, what a summer! Kathmandu has a new water park and guerilla-general-turned-prime-minister-turned-political-outcast Prachanda is prime minister again. I've been abroad for some time due to visa difficulties (grumble), and between gallivanting and working, little time has been left to me for the upkeep of this site. Hopefully my glorious return to Nepal will come in 2017, and meanwhile I'll try to keep things moving in the old Fate's Clay newsroom. This one was dredged from the murky nether region of my journals, written about six months ago:

I wish I could rock a hat like that

I don't know this man's real name, but we all affectionately refer to him as Gurung Uncle, Gurung being his caste / ethnicity. He is a groundskeeper and guard at Surya Boarding School in Khandbari, where he has worked for more than twenty years. Every morning he dresses up in his uniform and plays with the kids as they enter the school. He's a really sweet old guy and I've loved him since I arrived here.

Gurung Uncle is now about sixty, by my reckoning and has a son studying in college. They lived together in a one-room thatched-roof hut in the countryside about ten minutes' walk from the school. Gurung Uncle's lifelong dream has been to buy the terraced fields surrounding his house so that he can retire and live off of the land. The cost of the land is $1,500, and he had managed to save about $1,000 so far in his many years of work.

Last month his house burned down in an electrical fire. Since it was entirely wooden and very small, it was quickly engulfed in flames and impossible to save. We saw the smoke from a distance, but we didn't know what caused it until the house was already destroyed. He lost everything he had, including his life savings, his food, and all of his clothes except what he was wearing. We raised money for him through the local branch of the Red Cross, and some friends have given him sacks of rice and other supplies, but it's not nearly enough to cover his losses. Now he's staying at our school, and on his own he'll probably be unable to rebuild his house, and will certainly never achieve his goal of purchasing that land.

That's where we come in. The owner and benefactor of our school has, in gratitude for Gurung's many years of service, funded the replacement of an old shack in the school's fields with a three-room house, which will belong to Gurung until his death. He will also get complete health insurance coverage, which is unheard of in Nepal. A while ago, a bunch of us teachers tore down the shack and leveled the land, all in less that three hours. That's the power of teamwork! The next day, much to my amusement, I caught Gurung working there, expanding the area of the leveled plot. A group of Japanese tourists later came to Khandbari to volunteer as construction workers on the project and made somewhat notable progress. For the time being we'll have to file this one under It'll Get Finished Eventually, but Gurung Uncle is down there every day building it on his own.

Since then, the school forced Gurung to retire with a pension, but he comes up to the school in his uniform and salutes all the kids every day anyway.

That's all. It's nice to get a success story like this once in a while amid so much difficulty.

Water pours

Without words

Showing me the Way

Unexpected Photo Dump #2

Yikes, it's time to dust off the old blog. My goal was to post monthly, and I'm disappointed to see that I couldn't even do it for one lousy year. Anyway, here are some more notable higher quality photos from the last six months or so. Like last time, they're organized by how far I had to go from my room to take them, and include such locations as Downstairs, Surya Boarding School, Tumlingtar, Chainpur, Itahari, Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, and Boulder, Colorado (upon Mr. Kitty's request). I've also standardized my formatting in past posts (hard to do on a smartphone with very slow WiFi), and even removed a few grammatical errors (gasp!) from past entries. Fate's Clay has a couple regular readers (or perhaps, by now, even several!), so sorry for the delay. More written material will follow soon...

Narayan Shrestha

I don't know where to begin with this one. I'm trying to write just a few pages about someone who deserves an entire biography. Although not well known in the United States, Narayan Shrestha is renowned across Nepal for his philanthropy and eccentric-rich-guy antics. In Sankhuwasabha, people talk about him all the time, even when he's not here. When he comes, the army and police both send escorts, and people start gathering at his office before he arrives. His typical day in Khandbari starts with meetings from seven until lunchtime, followed by some public function, inspecting his projects at our school and elsewhere, and then wining and dining some local official - not out of gluttony, but for bringing them under his influence. In Kathmandu he does the same thing with congressmen and ministers. He doesn't always drink beer, but when he does, he drinks Tuborg, because it's the only imported beer that's widely available in Nepal. He's the most interesting man in the world. He's also my employer, friend, Nepali grandfather, and teacher.

In the words of a friend, all that's missing are a few explosions in the back

Narayan grew up in a village close to Khandbari, at a time when there was no electricity and no vehicles, and when Khandbari was little more than a village itself. He got a job at Tumlingtar Airport, which was only a dirt landing strip, and he rode a horse one hour each way to reach there. By meeting and helping foreign trekkers at the airport, he got connections and assistance in the United States and was able to hop over for college. That was about forty five-years ago. After graduating, he got an office job and shortly thereafter opened Old Tibet in Boulder, Colorado, the first kitschy Nepal/Tibet tourist shop in the United States. Anyone who knows Boulder can imagine how well that went. Riding on his success, he opened many other stores and restaurants across Colorado, and gave most of them to his Nepali friends and relatives. He has helped many more Nepali people come to the United States for studies and other work, along with helping refugees of Nepal's civil war to get asylum. The number of Nepalis legally residing in the United States due to his intervention is about three thousand now. However, I'll be the first to say that the solution to Nepal's problems is definitely not having everyone leave, so let's talk about what he has done on his home front.

Total baller

Some of Narayan's early antics include bringing the first land vehicle to Sankhuwasabha, via helicopter, no less, in the '70's, and founding our school, the first private school in Sankhuwasabha, in 1989. After creating Helping Hands Health Education, he began bringing countless medical professionals, both American and Nepali, to provide a caliber of healthcare far beyond what was available locally, and built Sankhuwasabha's first hospital. He was also involved with the building of Sankhuwasabha's only major paved road, which is considered a rare success story among Nepal's government-led projects. At one time he owned a sizable proportion of the land in Khandbari, but he has donated most of it to people in need and to various development projects. Just about every public building has a plaque in it thanking him for his contributions. Everyone in town has a story of how he helped their family.

Lately he's been expanding outward, giving particular attention to Chainpur, a lovely little hill town nearby that has gone unnoticed by the outside world despite its natural beauty, remarkable cleanliness, and unique enterprises such as a fantastic winery and traditional metalsmithing. He's sponsored an ongoing series of free medical clinics, and is working with the town's committee to create and promote tourism. In Bhaktapur, which is perhaps the greatest cultural and historical treasure of Nepal, he has built two thousand temporary houses for those who lost theirs in the earthquakes last year.

Outside of Nepal, he's building a school and hospital in Nicaragua, following the successful model used in Khandbari, developing trade and educational relationships between Nepal and Bhutan, and bringing the Japanese NGO Shumei to create a permanent presence Khandbari. In the typical month, he spends ten days in Colorado, ten days in Nepal, five days in Japan, and five days traveling. He also has a wife, two kids, and his very successful business. I don't know how it's possible.

The dark side of all this is that he attracts greedy, selfish people like a magnet. Even in the face of this and the seemingly endless corruption of the developing world, he forges ahead, sometimes drawing criticism and intrigues disseminated by those who have failed to abuse his kindness. The thing that is really incredible about him, though, is that he finds ways to improve the lives, and minds, of even the people who are trying to take advantage of him, and he does it without ever losing his temper or good humor.

I could go on and on telling stories, like the time that he called the Prime Minister to un-cancel a flight to Tumlingtar during last autumn's fuel crisis, or the time that he came with a battalion of soldiers to retake our school from Maoist guerrillas, but I'll leave it at that. We may soon be hearing much more about him in the United States, as the Democratic Party of Colorado is conspiring to have him elected to a significant local office, followed by a potential Senate run. I have a general distaste for politicians, but I'd have to make an exception for him. He's shown me nothing but kindness and I'm honored to work in his shadow.

Holi

March 22nd was stained in vivid contrast against all others of the past year in Nepal. The country once again descended into the state of unmitigated chaos which is all too common here. Gangs roamed freely, some containing even young children, heavily armed with a variety of firearms and explosives, some homemade and some brought across the Chinese border, brutally attacking anyone who dared venture into the streets. The police were out in full force to curtail this menace, but were largely outnumbered and outgunned. Some of them even defected, whether for ideological reasons or simply from fear we shall never know. I suppose it doesn't matter now. Two of us were caught outside when a gang entered our neighborhood. As they unleashed their unholy barrage upon us, I managed to run inside and bar the door in time. My friend was not so lucky. I peered out through a crack, and I could only see a growing pool of red where he had stood before.

Khandbari thugs

Of course, I mean to say that the day was stained in vivid contrast by a various dyes, that the gangs' arms consisted of water balloons and super soakers, the growing pool was colored by vermillion, and that all of this occurred in celebration of Holi. Unlike the Protestant holidays of the United States, in which we compensate for the undeniably dull prescribed worship by appropriating Pagan rituals such as decorating the floors of our homes with dried pine needles and searching for the leavings of a particularly anti-gallinacean rabbit, all the while trying our best not to ask questions about how it all flies in the face of the predominately exclusivist outlook of the Church, Holi is unabashedly nonsensical.

9th graders trying to get some work done

Depending on who you ask, it celebrates the coming of Spring, the victory of good over evil, or the universal chaos that we futilely spend most of our time trying to quell. However, much like the Protestant holidays of the United States, most people aren't concerned about the religious underpinnings of Holi and really just want to have a good time.

The day begins when someone smears dye powder all over your face. The day continues when everyone else comes and smears dye powder all over the rest of you. After that, everyone gets drunk, dances, eats tons of good food, and has an all-around fantastic time. One of the things that I admire most about Nepali people is their seemingly boundless ability to relax and enjoy themselves regardless of the pace at which the world is disintegrating around them (sometimes literally - immediately after the first big earthquake last year, many people of Khandbari gathered in the bazaar and, thinking that they were all going to die soon, had a big dance party - not a bad way to go, in my opinion), and it's rarely more appreciable than during Holi.

Waking the next day
Light reveals a teacup's steam
And purple ceiling

Nepaliaustralian 2015 Blog Awards

Hello friends, enemies, frenemies, and other dwellers of the Internet. One of my big sister blogs, Nepaliaustralian, is hosting a contest to name the best blogs of 2015 in a variety of categories. Fate's Clay is a baby compared to several others in the Nepali realm of blogging, and I don't aspire to win, but I'd really like to get the publicity of being nominated. So, if you're inclined to help, please click on the big, shiny button below and write a nomination.

Thanks, stay reading, don't eat junk food, and have a nice day.

On the Importance of Public Transportation

Picture the scene: You're rocketing down the side of a mountain on an unevenly paved road in a flamboyantly colorful bus with poor suspension. The next landmark on your path, a small bridge, is visible at a sobering downward angle. The sparsely placed roadside barriers are only one or two feet high and will do nothing to stop the bus, should it stray in their direction. The air is thick with the smoke of incense burning on the dashboard shrine, and the positive karma thusly accrued is the only thing preventing the bus from briefly transforming into a plane and shortly thereafter into a fiery coffin several thousand feet below. The seats are minimally cushioned, and, if you're a normal-sized person, are too small. The radio is playing a mix of Nepali and Hindi dance music, primarily drawn from Bollywood and Kollywood films (Kollywood, the Kathmandu film industry, is to Bollywood what Bollywood is to Hollywood), along with the occasional top-ten American rap song of yesteryear, the awful, vulgar nature of which dawns on nobody other than you, and which would almost certainly not be broadcast if the censors understood them. It goes without saying that this is all at a completely excessive volume.

After careening around a particularly sharp bend in the road and finding, to your pleasant surprise, that you're still alive, the guy sitting across from you leans over to explain the count and details of past deadly bus crashes that have occurred on this stretch of road. At such a moment, there's little else to do other than remember that your odds aren't much better in a plane, laugh at the illusory nature of life, and join with the other passengers who are all having a great time singing and dancing in their seats. For you New Englanders, it'd all be just like going down the Mount Washington road in the Magical Mystery Tour bus.

The Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away...

This describes the greater part of the journey from Khandbari to Dharan, the closest city to the south, which I've experienced several times now. It takes 7 - 10 hours, depending on the size of the vehicle, the recklessness of the driver, and the condition of the road. The scenery is really spectacular; the road passes through low-lying fishing villages, alpine forests and hill station towns, and countless terraced mountainsides, many of which offer stunning views of Mount Makalu and its surroundings. Sometimes the bus gets stopped by a homemade roadblock in a village, providing the locals with enough time to jump on board and try to sell everyone their sugarcane or oranges or something like that. Sometimes it's stopped for a police search, although nobody knows what they're looking for or, with their very cursory searches, how they'll ever find it. If they happen to notice me, there's about a 50% chance that they'll take me outside to fill some forms about my passport, itinerary, length of stay, etc, but they're usually far more interested in watching the giant foreign guy who can speak Nepali than in checking the completeness of the forms.

Now we move to Kathmandu. This time, you're in a small minivan, although it contains about as many people as the full bus from last time. You had to play a game of Twister to find a space for yourself, and now you're standing in an L-shaped position holding on for dear life with your one finger that could reach a handle. You don't know where you are since you can't see out of any windows, not that you would recognize most of the mottled streets of Kathmandu anyway, and the only indication that you've reached your stop comes in the form of a shout from the teenage boy whose job is to hang out of the sliding door and wrangle new passengers. The situation on the roads would be akin to rush hour in Boston if one were to remove the saner drivers, and yet, somehow, there are never any accidents.

Sadly, I don't have many pictures of any of this, partly because I prefer not to act like a tourist when I'm with a bunch of Nepali strangers, and partly because letting go of one's handholds on a bus even for a few seconds can result in serious injury from face-to-back-of-seat impact.

I like to pretend that all the flowers are tiny airbags

These days I always travel by public busses for the completely practical reason that I can't afford to make a habit of using taxis on my meager Nepali salary, but I think I'd choose to travel like this anyway. Aside from saving money and allowing one to see more of the country than by plane (flying over Nepal on a clear day is an experience that would reduce even the most calloused person to tears at the ineffable majesty of the Himalaya, but the domestic airlines charge double for foreign passengers and flights are regularly canceled due to dangerous weather conditions), it also helps with our public image. Nepali people really appreciate seeing foreigners who aren't higher-than-thou rich jerks, too good for the typical ways of doing things here, as, unfortunately, so many are.

Also, public busses have provided me with many of my best memories while living in Nepal. There was the time when, due to lack of space, a girl wearing the clothes of a Hindu devotee had no choice but to share my seat, raising a riot of heckling from other passengers. There was the time when the goat tied to the roof became too upset, so they decided to shove it in the trunk instead. There was the time when I was sitting in the back-center seat to get better legroom, and I ended up having to spend hours bracing a several-hundred-pound pile of rice sacks from toppling over me and crushing the little boy sitting on the other side. There was the time when I was the only passenger in a Kathmandu minivan, so the driver decided to close the door, crank the stereo (it was playing a techno remix of Toto's "Africa," if I remember correctly), and drive as fast as possible across the city. There was the time in the mountains when my bus was the first to happen upon an impasse caused by a fresh landslide; the driver, totally unperturbed, produced some shovels, and everyone started digging out the new road.

The last time I went to Kathmandu, I got my best bus-related story yet. When I got in my bus (jeep) in Khandbari, I asked one random guy sitting next to me if he would help me buy my ticket from Hile, my first transfer point, to Dharan, so that they wouldn't give me a bad price (giant foreign guy). He was traveling through Dharan himself, so he offered to stick with me until there and help me to get my ticket to Kathmandu from Dharan, as well. In Dharan, the people selling tickets to Kathmandu were charging too much and claiming to have a very nice bus that they were unable to show us. It smelled like a scam, so my random bus friend offered to take me to his house in Biratnagar, a city several hours south but equidistant from Kathmandu, give me dinner there, and then provide me a ticket on a nice bus for a cheap price, since he had friends who work for a local bus company. We went to his house, had dinner, sat on the floor watching "People Are Awesome" YouTube videos until 10:30pm (very late, by Nepal standards), and then he drove me across town to catch the bus at its scheduled departure, which was, at that time, fairly dangerous for him as the driver due to road strikes in the area. The next day, both he and his wife called me to make sure I had arrived safely and to ask when I would come to visit them again. This was all from some random guy on a bus, and what's truly amazing is that this kind of story is common in Nepal. When I told one of my Nepali friends what had happened, he just smiled and said, "I'm glad our people are still like that."

That's why I love this country, that's why I prefer living here, and that's why you should travel on public busses in Nepal. It's not for the faint of heart, or the faint of stomach, but for the rest it's always a heck of a ride.

Washing Clothes

Saturday was the first sunny day in a while; it had been cold and foggy every day for some time, leading to such problems as the cancelation of all flights to Tumlingtar (the only alternative way to get here is a harrowing multi-day bus ride - more on that in a future post) and low morale in the mornings. However, my boss was flying here on Saturday, so the universe conspired to facilitate his arrival. I decided to celebrate the heat in the best way possible in far-afield Nepal:

1. I made a mug of unsweetened tea, which is nothing short of an assault on the very foundations of Nepali society;

2. I went up on the roof of my house, from where one finds a spectacular view of the "hills" (regular-sized giant mountains that are dwarfed by the extremely large giant mountains behind them); and

3. I washed my clothes.

I've been doing my best to ignore the political nonsense happening in the US - Nepal has more than enough of its own to hold my attention - but I support whichever candidate will make it mandatory for every American kid to wash their clothes by hand one time. There's no doubt in my mind that this will directly lead to the eradication of most of the world's dire problems.

For those of you youngsters who have never washed your clothes by hand, let me tell you that it's a Herculean task. After my first few attempts at doing it myself, I felt like I had finished a forearm-marathon. I'm more fit now than I've ever been in my life, partly because I have to walk up and down big flights of stairs to get just about anywhere, and partly because I always wash my clothes by hand.

Buckets!

Here's how to do it: collect two buckets, one bar of detergent soap, several gallons of water, and about a thousand Calories' worth of effort. Combine vigorously, while maintaining an air of actually knowing what you're doing, so that all of the Nepali people who may be watching you don't laugh. Repeat weekly ad infinitum.

That's all for now.