Monthly Archives: March 2009

Kathmandu After the Rain

The loose refuse twinkles with dewy drops – sparkly garbage ornaments decorate every alley.

Everyone is lazy, slowly moving, barking less, smiling more. They look scrubbed and fresh too as though they spent the night under a downspout.

The air, fresh and suffused with richness, shook clean of dust, odor, and heat. The breeze plays it cool.

Filaments of sharp, crisp, verdant smells are layered over a rich earthiness.

Feet have trampled the casualties, melting them into a carpet of pink blossoms, a tribute to the wind, a cushion for my soul.

Mud tracks, previously roads, gush with silty water making sandy, dusty swirls as the sun bakes their waters to steam.

A drip drop is all that is left. Enough to quench no thirst but my ear, wanting to hear, for one moment more, the rain song.

Honouring Fridays: March 27th, 2009

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I have spent the whole day today in a incredibly interesting consultation forum on the drafting of a new youth policy in Nepal. Youth from all regions of the country were invited to review the draft policy and provide feedback, suggestions, and critques about how their voices were reflected in the policy. Youth from many ethnic groups, with disabilities, religious minorities, and those displaced from conflict zones in Nepal shared passionate and emotional stories with the policy committee and have clearly invested much of their future in the development of “New Nepal”. I left feeling hopeful for what they should be able to achieve within Nepal, provided the government listens to their voices.

Fragrance. Kathmandu is alive and bursting with flowers now that the winter chill has subsided. Besides the colourful beauty of these flowers, my favourite part is the fragrance. At night in my little neighbourhood you can walk down these small winding alleys and find yourself in a haze of jasmine – sweet, pungent, and rish was sumptuous frangrance. The other flower that has been casting a spell over my walk to work the past few days is a bit like a large grapefruit flower. The smell is intoxicating and I have taken to picking a couple blossoms on the way to work that are an easy counter smell to some of the nasty odors one encounters on the walk (garbage, pollution, smelly river etc.). And both of these blossoms make wonderful natural perfume, dabbed on the wrist when walking past a bush.
Vacations. Next Friday my lovely hubby and I will be leaving to take a short 3-day trip down to Chitiwan with some of our friends. Another volunteer has a travel agent for a landlord so the deal we have gotten is simply incredible. We have all transportation, food, and accommodation included, PLUS, some great activities in Chitiwan – tiger walks, elephant rides etc. I have been in Kathmandu for about 3 months with only a short respits to a village and training centre for 1 month – I am itching to get out of he city and into something more peaceful. I think this trip will be the perfect salve for my battered nerves and polluted lungs 🙂
Rainstorms. Storm season has officially started. Nothing torrential and as heavy as a monsoon rain, but at least some scattered and intense showers to freshen things up. The heavy clouds billow like blackend marshmallows and hang there for what seems like hours. The thunder will grumble, grumble, grumble and then finally, as though lightening is the decision maker, a streak of electricity will get the whole thing started. The storm will thunder on for about an hour and then like a faucet being turned off will suddenly stop. Brilliant sunshine comes back out and everything dries in a matter of minutes. But I love the storms – it reminds me of Vancouver, of being cozy, and of a fresh new start.
Ovens! We had a lovely and generous gift of a small toaster oven this week. Another volunteer who is leaving inhertited one when she arrived and is passing it along. I have grown so familiar with gas flame cooking that it has been sitting in our kitchen all week gathering dust because I don’t know what to do with it. Oh, and I guess because we need electricity to run the darn thing. But once we have more power I am certain that some cookies, cakes, and perhaps muffins might emerge from it 🙂

Student Elections in Nepal

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Last week marked the annual student elections for some of the major university and college campuses in Nepal. These elections, unlike most of the student elections I have seen, are incredibly heated and tumultuous events. They are political statements of youth who through their voting align themselves with national political parties. That’s right, you heard me, ALIGNING themselves with variious national Nepali parties. The result is a highly charged, dangerous and fear festering process that looks nothing like a demoncratic voting process and more appears to resemble violent mob behaviour. Each student party is a youth wing of the major political parties and the ripe and fertile grounds of higher education institutions are used as a grooming ground for future national politicians. Through the ranks of student politicians come the national leaders. The current politicians take student elections very seriously – this is their opportunity to froth, foam, and rile the groups into a turmoil. To pit youth parties against each other and crush any chances that these youth might for a moment consider collaboration more fruitful than war.

UBC students please take note…this message is for you. You are so incredibly fortunate to be able to undertake a safe and democratic process through which you hopefully elect student leaders who sincerely care about your experience. Please imagine for a moment, as was the case in Nepal last week, that 1 student was killed while voting. He was risking life and limb to cast a vote and was killed in his student union elections. Add to that the 6 students who were seriously injured as a series of bombs exploded near various voting stations. Imagine, what it must feel like to be a university student here. Imagine the intimidation tactics that can play into election campaigns. Please, please count yourself so lucky to be part of a system that allows you to voice an opinion safely. You have peers in other countries that are not as lucky and would be ashamed to know that so many of you do not vote – that you do not take the democratic process seriously. If they can get themselves to the polls and risk death…it means you have no excuse.

Honouring Fridays: March 20th, 2009

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The march of the week days continues on. One thing that I can confidently say about working in a new country is that work is still work is still work, any way you slice it. I had kind of thought (naively) that somehow working overseas would feel not like work! But who am I kidding really – it is still fraught with the same pitfalls as work anywhere – overtime/weekend work may be expected, office politics still run rampant, not everyone loves their job and it is still hard to get people to work together and collaborate. All that said, work in Nepal is nothing like work in Canada 🙂 Yes, it still feels like work and still has many of the same pitfalls, but …it is indescribably different. So, to honour this particular Friday some things that I am grateful for at work 🙂

Talented and wise colleagues. It is often the case that I seek the wise council and advise of my “supervisor” R. I have found myself a bit stumped this week on how to address some internal politics and clearly unethical behaviour within the coalition I work with. What I am continually so impressed with is R’s ability to read a situation for the subtle and often incredibly sensitive cultural messages that I so easily miss. He understands so well the dynamics of human behaviour within the Nepali context and can so easily and gracefully adapt his own communication to these complex social situations. Hi wisdom and talent is impressive and I have so much to learn from him.
The official VSO Library. Not everyone knows this, but one of the simple pleasures of being at the VSO office is that I can sherpa back to my apartment every day a couple of books from the VSO library. These are years and years worth of books collected by various volunteers and left for the enjoyment of continuing volunteer generations. All free and totalling about 1500 books in total. From the obscure, to the mundane, to the breathtaking one can find just about anything. And I have also discovered that there is a point after which one will read ANYTHING simply for the sake of reading. So far I have read books (fiction and non…you decide) on the following topics: British culture, tennis and drug addiction, incest in frontier France, the Nepali civil war, walking the Appalachian Trail, lesbian love in the early 1900 British theatre scene, down’s syndrome, the life of a writer, the culture of a small fishing village of the coast of france…and I have only just dipped a toe into the literary excitement of the VSO library.
Riding on the back of my boss’s motorbike to get to meetings. It is hard to imagine how I would have reacted in Canada to the suggestion that I hop on the back of a bosses motorbike and zip off to a meeting. But, today, that was exactly what happened. Indulge me for a moment and just imagine your own boss riding a motorbike. Now, imagine yourself, dressed in traditional Nepali clothes but topped off with a black motorcycle helment and hopping on the back. Weaving in between cars, traffic, and bicycles, balancing precariously on the back, trying to make your body flow with the bike rather than against it. After the meeting, we debrief the meeting while whizzing through the streets….incredible! I must admit that I loved it and hope we have more meetings we need to get to where we will need to take the motorbike.
Meetings where a mutiny occurs! The above mentioned motorbike trip took us to the first all-members meeting of the Global Campaign for Education-Nepal. About 15 people in total attended but the big news, and something I was considerably grateful for, was the fact that a mutiny occurred! The chair was essentially kicked from his position by both his organization and the rest of the members. There was a reshuffle of the steering committee which hopefully resulted in renewed focus and energy. AND, all this happened while the (ex) Chair was not in attendance! He wasn’t even there to defend himself. Bizarre to think that he was part of the coalition a day ago and now is no longer involved…and I don’t even know that anyone has told him yet…yikes! But I must admit it was a step in the right direction – and it was just such a interesting process to observe.

Honouring Fridays: March 13th, 2009

Honouring Fridays: March 6th, 2009

Let there be light and chana masala

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So, we are now up to 19 hours per day without electricity…a radical increase from the 14 we had last week! However, this increase coincided with the arrival of the Sri Lankan President in Kathmandu. And although these two separate events would seem isolated and unrelated to an untrained observer, the result for our small domestic corner of life is ELECTRICITY!

We are luckily living in the same region as Nepal’s Prime Minister which, for whatever reason, has meant that for the last two days he needs extra power in his house during this important diplomatic visit (and you can’t tell me the man doesn’t have a generator at his house anyway…I am sure power cuts are not something he experiences regularly anyway). But we won’t complain.

We are basking in the glow of our low energy lightbulbs and computer screens, staying up to the unthinkable hour of 11pm (truly a rarity for anyone living in Nepal who is not tied to Thamel, the trendy tourist area with all the bars) to simply enjoy it! I know, I know, we have gone a little crazy, but we know what waits at the end of this tunnel – 19 hours a day with no power…can you blame us?

To celebrate our second evening of cooking by something stronger than candlelight we made one of our new favourite dishes, chana masala. A spicy tomato-based curry of chick peas. Rex made fresh roti to top off the celebration factor.

So, for those of you craving a recipe of “electric” capacity try out this simple recipe for Chana Masala, compliments of one of my favourite Indian food bloggers, Hooked on Heat. We added a bit of extra spices, garlic, ginger, and cilantro and a whole small eggplant as well to boost the veggie intake. Also used dried chick peas soaked over night and then pressure cooked till tender, but mostly because we are too cheap to buy the canned variety and not because it tastes any better.

CHANA MASALA
CHICKPEA CURRY
Prep time: 10 min | Cooking time: 20 min | Serves: 2

1 can
1 medium-sized
1 large
1-2
1 tbsp
1 tsp
1 tsp
1/4 tsp
1/4 tsp
1/2 tsp
1/2 tsp
2 tbsp chickpeas, drained
onion, finely chopped
tomato, chopped
green chillies, finely chopped
ginger-garlic paste
tomato paste
cumin seeds
red chilli powder
turmeric powder
coriander powder
cumin powder
light cooking oil
salt, to taste
water, as needed
fresh chopped coriander, as garnish
lemon wedges, as garnish

SAUTE cumin seeds in hot oil till they start to sizzle and pop. Add onions and green chillies, and fry till tender.

ADD in tomatoes, ginger-garlic paste, tomato paste, salt and spices, and cook till tomatoes pulp and starts to give out oil from the sides.

STIR in about a cup of water, allow it to come to a boil, and then add chickpeas. Let simmer covered for a few minutes till chickpeas are soft and tender to the touch.

GARNISH with fresh coriander and a sprinkle of lemon juice.