ROAD BLOG AHEAD

Sunday, 23 April 2006
Bhagawan Bahal, Kathmandu, Nepal

I’ve been an avid reader all my life. My tastes are pretty ecclectic, but, in fiction at least, run towards both Fantasy/SF and historical fiction. Between these genres, there have been probably hundreds of depictions of life in a city under seige or in the throes of revolution. Now, here I am, describing such scenarios from life and I can’t help but chuckle as I compare it to the different things I’ve read.

In this instance, the seige is a kind of stand-off that lets nothing in or out of the city of Kathmandu. If this were New York or even Des Moines, it might look quite different. Of course it would be extremely difficult for such a thing to happen in New York or Des Moines by sheer virtue of inclusion in a larger area. Kathmandu - and the valley it sits in amidst the Himalayas - is one of the more isolated places on the planet, very difficult to get into or out of in the best of times. It doesn’t take much to cut off access to the handful of major arteries and create a standstill in transportation of goods and people.

There is a break in the ring of mountains through which the main road runs and through which the planes can fly with minimal risk. It’s this singular pass that makes the fertile, beautiful Kathmandu Valley what it is - a kind of fairytale kingdom, a Shangri-la isolated from the rest of the world for much of the year. There’s a higher pass to the Northeast that gives access to China, but it’s much more difficult terrain. People do go up to Tatopani, the last Nepali village before China, but they do it for business or maybe curiousity. From what I hear, the Chinese side of the border is even less developed than the Nepali side - there’s just not much there there.

So the combination of the government-imposed curfews which make going about anywhere very very difficult and the general strikes which have essential businesses and services shut down creates a city at standstill. Then there are army and police checkpoints everywhere, with platoons stationed all along the ring road that surrounds Kathmandu and it’s southerly suburb, Patan. You can’t get in and out without a pass and almost no one gets passes - not merchants, not the press, not even essential medical personnel. Only the royal couriers and those bringing supplies for the palace actually are allowed to cross. THAT is what I’d call a seige. What’s so bizarre is that it’s a seige of the government upon it’s own populace!

And, as with a military seige, attempts are made by the opposing side to break through. The demonstrations and protests, hundreds of thousands strong, have the potential force of an invading army. Only this army is armed solely with banners, slogans and, occasionally, leafy branches that here symbolize victory. Oh, there are occasional bands of teenagers who throw rocks nd bricks. These kids actually don’t seem to care much WHICH side they’re on - they’re looking for trouble and, if they don’t find it, they’ll make it. But such gangs of testosterone-driven hoodlums have existed everywhere, always. They are a tiny minority.

Sadly, some of those same sorts have found their way into the armed police force and have been given guns, lathis (long clubs) and tear gas as well as protective armour. Not ALL the police and army want this conflict. I’ve seen with my own eyes some of them who clearly do not have any desire to hurt anyone, who wish it would all calm down before they receive orders to charge. When the peaceful demonstrators meet the non-hostile police force, generally things go well. But there are enough hotheads on both sides that things sometimes get out of hand and then young people are shot and killed, women are beaten, old people are knocked to the ground. Even the tourists have been roughed up in the zeal of some of the more out-of-control cops to beat everything in reach to a bloody pulp. Those are the scary ones, the drunk soldiers, the guys with mad eyes and automatic weapons. These are the ones who shot and killed protestors execution style, at point blank range. These are the ones who beat to death an eight-year-old caught in the chaos and a fourteen year old boy. It’s the crazy cops who have bashed in heads, shot out eyes and killed women standing on their verandas watching the protests go by. And the king has done nothing but praise the loyalty and steadiness of his armed forces, no regret for the violence or the unnecessary deaths. Thus does a revolution begin, when an essentially compassionate and sane people are pushed past tolerance by the arrogance and uncaring of the ruling class!

Well, that was a diatribe I guess! But perhaps I’ve given some necessary background on why it is a seige not just a “strike”. Understanding the outrage and determination of the Nepalese people is key to understanding why this is all happening - and why people are willing to accept this hardship in order to bring about change. Instead of giving in and returning to business as usual, the population of Nepal is rallying together to withstand the difficulties imposed by both the curfews and the general strike. I, for one, am very impressed by what I see.

So what AM I seeing? There’s really so much, both on a small scale and a much grander one, to be seen in the streets and alleys of Kathmandu that it’s hard to know where to start to describe it all. Why don’t I begin with the garbage…

No one who has not survived a summertime garbage strike in New York City will be able to imagine the reek of over two weeks of trash piled up in the hot sun. And even those who have endured the New York strikes won’t have experienced so much unbagged, unrestrained refuse heaped into the intersections, clogging up the gutters and the alleys.

This is just the worst of the trash. Unlike western cities whose trash collection and recycling systems turn pretty much any sort of rejected materials into landfill or lawn furniture, Nepal’s system is multi layered and rather organic, something you’ll see throughout much of Asia. First of all, there are cows and monkeys that root through trash for their sustenance. Both are sacred in their own way, the cows more than the monkeys. Cows manage to digest most of the cellulose based rubbish. Old newspapers, leaves, clippings, the tops and parings of old vegetables. In the market food stalls, disposeable dishes are still woven of leaves. Once the food is consumed, the leaf plates and bowls are thrown into the gutters for the cows to eat. There are not quite enough cows though, not anymore. The monkeys are even more omnivorous and will eat food scraps, fruit parings, most leftover bits that the cows ignore. Most neighborhoods have a spot where plates and dishes are scraped. These spots are well away from those kinds of places you don’t want monkeys to get in to! They are mostly night scavengers, even though they share humans’ diurnal cycles. Nighttime is safer.

Then next level includes dogs and cats and crows. The crows overlap the monkey’ niche but will also consume carrion and rotting meat. Coming in from above in full daylight, they are prolific and effective scavengers as well as strong indicators of what’s going on around the city. I pay a lot of attention to the crows and learn a lot that way.

It’s actually a pretty efficient system and worked even better before the advent of plastic and styrofoam. But now there is a lot of trash that nothing can or will eat and it is interspersed with human waste, badly rotted organic material and just plain junk. In better times it is collected manually a few times a week and hauled away - where I have no idea and neither does anyone else I’ve talked to.

Oh, I forgot about the street kids. They go through the garbage too, not for edibles for for anything that might have the slightest bit of resale value. Ragpickers they are called because one of the most desireable things to scavenge is old rags that can be sold for paper. These are the abandoned kids, the lowest of the low who live in utter filth in the narrow back alleys and are about as socialized as the stray dogs that also abound in the same environments.

So, although it sounds like the garbage is well recycled or utilized, there’s an amazing amount of it piling up in intersections and alleys. Wrappers, dead shoes, shit, bones that even the dogs are done with, water bottles, juice boxes and just plain old rot. Occasionally someone makes an attempt to burn some of it. Unfortunately, these things don’t burn well so they just add to the stink and the smoulder. Since some of the demonstrations are burning effigies of disliked politicos, the police often disperse a crowd around a pile of burning garbage, and, thinking it began life as an effigy of the king, proceed to beat the heap violently in an effort to put it out. It’s a surreal sight to watch a group of uniformed men armed with semi-automatic rifles fiercely pounding a smoking bundle of cheese rinds, radish tops and biscuit wrappers to bits, thinking that they are preserving the spiritual integrity of their commander in chief!

So we have garbage. Not everywhere, but when you encounter it, it’s quite startling and odiferous in the extreme. The worst is in the alleys which really are just stony footpaths between buildings, barely wide enough in places for people to walk single-file. When the trash piles up there, you have no choices other than to climb over it or turn back and go another way. Sometimes there IS no other good way. So you climb, trying to ignore the squishing noise under your feet.

The worst was in the pouring rain. For some reason I can’t fathom, picking my way through one of these narrow alleys in the rain, I discovered that the garbage always seemed to have the choicest spots, the high, level places with good footing, leaving us to slog through puddles and turn our ankles on half bricks slimed with mud and worse. Much much worse as the alleys become sewers with only a bit of precipitation. Kathmandu has some spots with fairly modern drainage facilities, but not many. THere are ditches in places where the sewage runs and reeks in the midday heat, occasionally but not predictably covered over by paving stones. And there are places where the tiny hovels and broken down shacks have no plumbing at all and the alleys ARE the disposal facilities. Once it rains and all the effluvia washes out of cracks and crevasses and into the center of the path, the going becomes trecherous. Generally here the practice is to wear rubber sandals and hose off your feet when you arrive home.

This ought to be the dry season, the time of predictably fair weather and sunshine, but it isn’t. None of the past three rainy seasons have come and now, in the spring, we’re having torrential rains and thunderstorms that make rivers run in the streets. People are muttering about displeased fertility gods and divine intervention in the affairs of state. Who or whatever is responsible for this unlikely precipitation, it means that the garbage and the sewage are occuring together, presenting a genuine sanitation problem, especially in the poorer neighborhoods.

I’m sure this is making Kathmandu sound dreadful and that’s not at all my intentions. It’s a lovely city, really, full of colour and sound and bursting with life. There is a wonderful aesthetic here that shows itself, not only in the finest examples of architecture, but in the smallest things as well. Even the meanest shack, the plainest tin roof has some little touch - a row of potted herbs or a printed curtain over the door or a tiny shrine affixed to the wall - to give it beauty, to honor the side of human nature that adorns itself and its surroundings to the best of its ability. This tendency is stronger in Nepal than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

There is a graciousness as well, in the people. Even the most modern and hurried of shop girls and waiters would never dream of slamming something down in front of you or handing your change one-handed. You are supposed to present it with both hands, a goodwill gesture and, even with arms full, there are ways to symbolize this for politeness so that courtesy is observed. Likewise, thanks is given with a small bow and often with both hands pressed together at heart level. It underscores the warmth of the appreciation for gifts or favours or kind words. That same hands-together posture is used for the ritual greeting of Namaste, used very much as Aloha is used in Hawaii, as hello, goodbye, good to see you, I acknowledge your presence, all of those things that mean that one human respects and/or likes another. In these ways, every interaction is graced with a degree of beauty as well.

My theory is that, in doing these things, showing these courtesies, life is made a kinder, more thoughtful process. Indeed you may be wandering through a very medieval alley of tumbled stones with shit running in the gutters so that you have to carefully pick your way along and lift your skirts to avoid fouling them in the muck. The reek is awful (though you do get somewhat used to it after awhile) and the trash is not only unsightly but somewhat rat chewed and likely to make you trip or slip. But, coming around a turn you encounter another person. They could be pretty much any age, from an elderly man with a stick to a young woman in a salwar kameez to a small kid followed by a scruffy dog. You don’t know each other, you’re going to have to squeeze by and possibly get pretty slimed, still you stop, smile and meet the other’s eyes and, if your hands permit, make a little bow and say “Namaste” - wishing the best to the other. And meaning it. The small kid may stare at you openmouthed, the woman may blush a little (or not) but they will be unfailingly warm and courteous and expect the same of you.

Now a lot of “tourists” never set foot into the actual alleyways that twist and turn and form a backside maze to the main thoroughfares. It’s easy to get lost in them. Some dead end. Some take weird jogs and turns, having simply had a building put at some time where no building was before and so a way was found to go around. Even the bigger streets of Kathmandu are haphazardly marked so that, even with a map, half the time you’ve no clue where you are. The alleys aren’t on any map and never have had names. They are simply the short cuts, the back ways, the bolt holes and living spaces of the people who form the support structures for all the grand hotels and the businesses and the markets. They are another strata of the city and very much alive, but, no, they have no name, no map, no rhyme or reason to their meandering. If you have a poor sense of direction you can get hopelessly turned around in them. Fortunately, my sense of direction is pretty good.

Lena says that it is along these ways and in the small public squares and marketplaces they open to, that the old Kathmandu is still to be found. When she lived here 30 odd years ago, the place was very much a warren of alleyways and tight spaces. She lived then in a place called “Pig Alley” near the infamous Freak Street. They’ve opened some spots up, built modern buildings and broadened the avenues as much as possible to permit motor traffic, but the older parts won’t permit anything wider than a bicycle and haven’t changed much over the years. I might hazard to guess that they haven’t changed all that much in centuries, at least the buildings that haven’t fallen down.

There are some amazing old buildings within a couple of blocks of this place we moved to. I’ll try to take pictures and post when I’m able. The oldest temple in Kathmandu is just a minute’s walk up the road, a tiny place whose guardian stone lions are so worn from years of hands that they are now no more than vaguely organic lumps to either side of the entrance. A little farther down is another temple, this one to honor Parvati, patroness of artists. I cannot stand up in any of these places, the ceilings were built in a time when no one anticipated a visitor over six feet tall. The Parvati temple houses a tea shop and a million happy sparrows that fly in and out through the metal grillwork windows. I’ve never seen another westerner in there and we get stared at by the other patrons. Still, Lena and I find it a wonderful place to stop and sip a glass of hot Nepali chai while sitting on very crude, low wooden benches that are bowed and literally worn convex by probably millions of human posteriors sitting on them over the ages. The woman who makes chai over a fire near the entrance appears also to care for the shrine. She looks quite as old and sooty as the building. A glass of sweet, spiced, milky tea here is five rupees - about seven cents US. In a place set up for Western tourists, the same chai runs as much as 50 rupees a glass and is served with far less courtesy in lesser (though cleaner) ambiance.

Close to ourlittle garrett room is a shrine to Ganesh, the elephant headed god of prosperity. There is something very alive and cheerful about this one and I often stop and say hello to the small figure within. These are only a few of the many, many shrines in this district that are still very much in use and maintained. The Kali temple may be our favorite, it has such a powerful aura, but there are others in the running, including some small stupas and a massive naga pool with pumps for the spring water and places for ceremony and offerings.

I still have quite a bit to say about being in this city of amazements during a siege. It’s Sunday night now and it’s been rather a quiet day, and not just because I’m sick and have stayed in for most of it. All the squares where there were protests yesterday were sealed off today with armed troops and razor wire. People are nervous, waiting. Supplies really are running out. There are no vegetables in the city today, not even the limp and wrinkled ones that I saw yesterday morning, only a few piles of rotting green stuff that no one will buy. The price of a kilo of chicken is less at this point that a kilo of mustard greens! And you can actually get the chicken if you’re willing to pay for it. We tried to get vegetables today to share with our landlord and his family, but they couldn’t be had for any price. There is a rumour that tomorrow they will let some produce wagons into the city, but so far it is only just that, a rumour. We shall see.

Last night’s dinner was soup that Lena managed to scrounge from a local Sherpa that mostly sells chang (rice beer) She told the proprietor that her sister was ill and she wanted to bring back some soup. So he made her some with what he had still in stock. Lots of noodles and a weak broth heavily reinforced with a ton of chili pepper. A few shreds of tough buff meat, probably less than an ounce all told. An even scanter sprinkling of shredded carrot and a few leaves of cilantro stood for vegetables. And it really was the best available! This in a place where spinach is the national dish and you have three kinds of vegetables for dinner! He made a lot of soup so we could share and apologized for having to charge her 30 rupees when it used to be 25, but in these times… She sat down and had a big glass of chang for 15 rupees while she waited. Most of the people in there were drinking it too, partly because, at that price, it is cheaper than dinner and more filling. The chang they serve is as thick as a thin rice gruel. Fills a person up, keeps ‘em warm and has some nutrition while you get pleasantly buzzed. In these days, it’s a meal.

This morning what we found for breakfast was rice and eggs. And not good rice, apologized that proprietor. THe city is all out of good quality, long grain rice and has had to resort to stores of short grain, broken and less flavorful stuff kept mostly for making beer. This is a bigger deal to the Nepalis than it was to us - we were happy to find any of it at all, seasoned with the tiniest smear of curry and eaten with our fingers from a common plate along with the eggs. Eggs are still available as many people keep chickens even in the city and this is a good season for laying. It’s the primary protein source right now. I’m almost as sick of eggs as I am of noodles.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m in no great danger of dying of starvation any time soon. I’ve got plenty of reserves, enough probably for a small town. So living with a temporary food shortage isn’t going to be bad for me. Particularly since we are among the wealthy here, those who do have enough money in our pockets to be able to afford what food IS available. Sure I blanched at paying almost four bucks US for a package of oat cakes yesterday during the hour that the little import market was open. That was outrageous! But I could do it and it doesn’t mean I won’t eat again this week. When Lena went out this morning, before today’s curfew came down, she managed to find a bakery and bring home a loaf of brown bread, still hot. We still have a bit of cheese, some peanut butter and some jam to go with it, though the butter is getting rather rancid with no refrigeration. We’re doing okay. Actually, we’re tending, when we find a tea shop that’s open or a chang shop that serves food, to sit down with the people in there who are usually nursing the cheapest thing available and buy enough of whatever it is to share with our neighbors - momos or noodles or whatever. There are so many who haven’t worked in a couple of weeks and it’s really hard on them, much more than on the two of us who can comfortably afford to spend an entire dollar for lunch if we want to. It really puts things in proportion, you know?

Fortunately there are also still some frozen stores of water buffalo milk. The prices are up and it usually runs out by midday, but there’s milk for coffee (a priority, even over food.) The quality of it and the origin of it may be questionable however. It’s hard on mothers and little kids.

The family that runs the guesthouse where we’re staying has a seven month old baby. It’s clear that this baby isn’t thriving well and they are worried. He’s really tiny for his age, not very active and he is hung about with all sorts of traditional amulets and protections. We admire and make a fuss over him and that pleases his parents a lot. They are really sweet young people, somewhere in their twenties, trying hard to make a go of it with this slightly run down but charming old place. They are out of many things, behind on many things and working their butts off in these hard times for very little return. We’ve taken to paying in advance for our room rather than the usual custom of paying at the end of the week here because it’s clear that their cash flow is slim to non-existent. THere are hardly any tourists left in THamel and the guesthouse is more than half empty. This, in the peak of the tourist season!

So, the other day, when the really strick curfew was imposed beginning first thing in the morning and there were armed troops and police simply crawling in the streets, stopping everything that moved, Lena went down to give them the rent and found them fretting. The baby, as I said, isn’t thriving. He weighed under two kilos at birth and is still tiny. Don’t know for sure if mom isn’t producing enough milk or what, but they are having to supplement with cows milk and a little rice gruel. Only cow’s milk is not easy to get here. There’s a good bit of water buffalo milk, but it’s not suitable for human babies, too rich for them and tends to make them colicky. So Madan, the dad, had been walking a few kilometers north to his cousin’s place every day or so to get milk from her cow. Only, with the curfew, he couldn’t get there. They weren’t letting any Nepalis through the cordon that was between this road and his cousin’s house. However, Madan was going to try and see if he could somehow slip through, because, hey, he’s a father and his baby needed the milk. Problem was, there really were shoot to kill orders out and lots of people were getting hurt. So it was a big risk.

Well, Lena figured that there was a good chance that she could get through because she’s obviously a westerner and, so far at least, they hadn’t actually been shooting westerners. So, getting directions from Madan, she set off for the cousin’s place. That was probably the bravest part - going alone to an unknown location - considering how directionally challenged she can be LOL! She got to the police checkpoint and saw that they were turning pretty much everyone away who was trying to pass, including the westerners. None of the explanations of why people had to go through to the other direction were acceptable (probably because that road goes in the direction of the royal palace.)

When she got up there, the armed police stopped her and demanded to know where she was going. In a moment of inspiration, she gave them a big smile and a long, detailed explanation of her errand - in fluent French. As she suspected, not a one of the cops or soldiers either understood or spoke French. So she pointed and smiled and gestured down the road the way she wanted to go, making sure to use the word “hotel”. And, eventually, unable to make sense of it all, they shrugged and let her pass. She went on her way, actually found the cousin’s house and the cow and the milk. The soldiers who saw her come back seemed somewhat perplexed. Probably they thought she had been going to her hotel. Only now, here she was, waving a pail of cows milk and pointing back up the road and saying “hotel,” again. But she had a big smile, grey hair and blue eyes and seemed quite harmless. So they let her back in and she delivered the milk to the baby who didn’t show half the appreciation for it that his parents did. Lena has made friends for life. And she knows where to find a cow now.