November 2008 - World Chump

There’s a movie I have in my DVD collection titled ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’, the story of a guerrilla column (a ‘flying column’, as they were called) in 1920 colonial Ireland fighting the British. This is an absolute must for anybody with half a sense of history. After all the trials and tribulations, the Irish manage a peace treaty in 1921 with the British, only to turn the guns on each other (leave it to the Irish to fight each other after getting the British out after 700 years) when the terms of the treaty fail to satisfy everybody. Fittingly, there is a scene where a priest is roaring from his pulpit, crying out to the divided Irish congregation, “What in God’s name is going on?”

The same could easily be said about the Far East these days. A couple of days ago, demonstrators seized the new International Airport in Bangkok (a wonderful, modern looking airport indeed), protesting the very being of the current Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, accusing him of being a, you guessed it, a puppet. It is my understanding that there are several American Embassy employees stranded there as we speak, and no compromise in sight. This comes on the heels of his predecessor resigning because of illegally hosting a cooking show on television. Protesters clashed in the city center of Bangkok, even exchanging gunfire before the military restored order. Nobody ever claimed Thailand boasted political stability.

Not to be outdone, India’s financial hub Mumbai was shocked by coordinated attacks allegedly carried out by Islamist militants. The gunmen occupied a dozen spots in the city, including several well-known hotels where they are still holding hostages. India was not caught with their pants down, they were caught completely naked from the looks of things. My understanding is that there are over 150 million Muslims living in India. This is not the time to be practicing intolerance, and Muslims might have to brace themselves for some bloody reprisals. In a country with about one billion people, this does not bode well. We might be looking at the very real possibility of a population decrease if the demands for blood are answered.

And China? Well. We really don’t know what’s going on there most of the time, do we? Case in point: The Chinese government widely praised the military for arriving so promptly after the August 30 earthquake in the Sichuan province. What the government did not tell us was that the military had been in nearby Tibet, cracking skulls and razing villages after the latest uprisings in that troubled region. One can only imagine what would have happened to the good people of Sichuan had the military been compelled to occupy every car of every train if they had started out from Beijing. China would be funny, if their situation wasn’t so tragic. I half expected them to deny the earthquake altogether.

Reporter 1: What is being done to assist our comrades in Sichuan?
Government Spokesman: Why would they need our assistance?
Reporter 2: Something about an earthquake, sir…
Spokesman: Ah, I see. You’re referring to the oven furnace that blew up a few houses in a tiny village.
Reporter 1: That caused an 8.0 on the Richter scale?
Spokesman: Well, they were using gas.

On a smaller scale, we have already heard about Burma and its junta that almost makes the Bush Administration look competent by comparison. And in Nepal, it is not a question of if this government will be toppled, most people agree, but when. Here the opposition is merely biding its time until it can strike and usher in the tenth government in three years or so, not counting the monarchy.

This is positively the Middle East all over again. When we lived in Jordan, you obviously had (and still have) the Iraq war to the east, the perennial football match in the West Bank to the west, evil doer (I still can’t believe any politician could use a term like that, but then again I didn’t think a chimp could become President either) Syria to the north, and our best friends Saudi Arabia (who would have been nuked ages ago if it wasn’t for something called petroleum) to the south. Come see the new powder keg for yourselves here in Asia. Only you might want to turn on the news for a change before you do.

But world affairs, who needs them? Back to more important issues, I will be going to Chitwan this weekend, where I will be reporting about an exciting elephant safari. Stay tuned.

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I guess I was overdue for one of these, a bhand, also known as a protest staged by any given group for any given reason. This is a serious sideshow, one that will freeze activities of entire neighborhoods, not to mention the streets that go through them. Some of the reasons for these bhands can be quite trivial, others will drag on for days.

But this is not about fuel prices or the quality of birdfeed. According to ‘The Himalayan’ daily newspaper, the murder of two UML (United Marxist Leninist Party) youths was carried out by YCL (the youth force of the Maoists, or the Maoists' answer to the Nazis‘ SA), prompting large and long demonstrations. Wow. The Far Far Left killing the Extreme Left. Even the Department of State couldn’t have scripted it any better.

The city seems innocuous enough early in the morning: Cars are still cutting each other off, motorcycles continue to zip through even the smallest openings in traffic unimpeded, cows stretch to occupy vital intersections near the Royal Palace, daring any vehicle to so much as graze their tails.

A closer look at the College then reveals the familiar pitch black billows of smoke, compliments of charring tires. Whenever you come across a bhand in Kathmandu, there is only one thing to do, and that is turn around. Unless you want to pull an Evil Knievel and entertain the angry mob by racing through the fire, or if you wish to receive a cracked skull by any of the protesters, you should leave quietly and quickly. People here will convert to Scientology before they let anybody cross their barriers.

So far, so bad. Luckily, I am not headed anywhere near the bhand. I am moving away from it. Smart money now says that I would be in the clear, right? Only if the bhand turns out to be an ordinary bhand and remains cemented where it originated. The charge of murder being levied at the government can change your perspective of things, however. Thus the bhand turns into a mobile one, and I tell my driver to hit the rubber and go home.

In the tourist quarter of Thamel, protesters clash with police and shop owners, which is remarkable, considering the police rarely gets involved in this kind of civil unrest. I go to Thamel later in the afternoon, and nearly every store is as closed as a World Wildlife Fund booth at a NASCAR ring. My driver Sam points out the gigantic holes in some of the windows, a time honored tradition of any angry mob. There will be no tourists in Thamel that day.

Hard to imagine why this government doesn’t have the confidence of its people. If the rebuttal to criticisms of the government is death, that can shut people up (though not in this country) or fan the flames of bhands coupled with reprisals. Any newspaper poll will reveal that the majority of Nepalis give the government here two years or less before they self-destruct.

The next day, I am told that they have reached a compromise, that there would be a panel created for a full investigation. Good idea. Not the panel, mind you. Nobody doubts that this will be a complete whitewash, and that its findings will sound as ludicrous as the deduction that these people were killed by cow bites rather than their own people. Simply the truce seems to make Kathmandu breathe more easily, a welcome exercise for a city that seems to be downright asthmatic when it comes to political stamina.

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Before Nepal, I had never seen people carry an umbrella over their heads without the rain prompting them to. Until now, I had always assumed that these were figments of the impressionists’ or Henry James’s imagination.

But here in Nepal these (mostly) girls and women are real, and one quick look at the weather will tell you that the umbrella-carrying women were created here.

It has never taken me long to figure out the pattern of any region’s climate. Morocco, for example, came in two temperatures: hot and pal jehenem, meaning hell. Dry or not, 130 degrees Fahrenheit will stunt the ambitions of any workaholic, no matter how acute the caffeine buzz.

In Germany, where I grew up, you will very rarely have a cloudless day. In fact, I don’t even expect it there anymore, regardless of how sincerely the weather girl will lie to you through her pearly whites.

SoCal (Southern California) is like Groundhog Day. Seventy degrees, sunny. Never fails. Even global warming hasn’t changed that. The polar bears will be walking on San Diego’s beaches before the climate changes there. The East Coast would grow teeth and saw through your skin until you felt it nibbling at your bone in winter...only to miraculously morph into a spatula and crack your shell to fry you in summer. The South, on the other hand, has the perfect weather, if you’re lucky enough to be part of the majority population there, the insects. Amman, Jordan has arguably had the best weather: consistently around 80-90 degrees for most of the year, but with a nice breeze, as the city is almost one k above sea level.

With time, it has never been hard to establish just what the weather would be like on any given day. The jury (in this case, me) is still out on Kathmandu. I can only confirm that taking an umbrella with you in these parts is a very good idea.

There’s the rainy season that supposedly has just ended. Typically, it would run from March to September.

And yet, there was plenty of rain in October. Predicting it is quite another thing, but the umbrella users are quite correct about this, too, without having to kill the two birds with their one umbrella. If it isn’t a muggy 80-90 degrees, you will be in for a warm rain. This past week, we’ve had rain clouds and the sun try to eclipse each other, that’s how inconsistent either one was. An English expat compared it to his own weather, with the difference that England has less sun in a year than Nepal in a day.

Both are quite nice. I prefer a good drop of rain myself, although nice weather has given me some good quality days with the family. With the sun out and the sky clear you have a magnificent view of the mountains around Kathmandu. When it rains you still see the mountains, only now they are shrouded by a thick veil of clouds attempting to scale them, or, failing this, to bypass them altogether.

From what I can tell so far, the weather is quite extraordinary so far, albeit admittedly lacking the pattern that a control freak like myself covets. I will still pass on the umbrella for now.

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What could possibly be the worst event that could happen to a child in the United States? Abuse by the family? Losing their family? Never having had any family? You can make a strong case for any of these scenarios, and one is as painful to imagine than the other. Cruelty toward a child in any form will stunt a child’s development, and possibly leave it scarred for life. You wonder who or what would allow that to happen.

And I still don’t think any of the disasters I pointed out can compare to being sold by one’s family. Yet, that is as common in Nepal as trash in the streets or bird dung on my roof.

The prime benefactors are the friendly neighbors to the south, India. Not surprisingly, rural Nepal is the hotbed for fresh brothel/sweatshop labor. The transaction is as easy as contracting STD from said brothels. The children -usually the girls or younger boys- are lured to Kathmandu by a 'friendly' relative. The kid in turn is sold to a ’recruiter’ for a paltry sum, usually in the neighborhood of around 200-300 NR (Nepali Rupees), which amounts to three to four dollars, or a ham sandwich. The recruiter will then turn around and sell the child to a brothel if it’s a girl (anywhere from $500 to $1,300), or to a sweatshop if it’s a boy. The children themselves are lulled into the false belief that they are traveling to Bombay or Delhi for a better job and more opportunities. The reality will quickly introduce and establish itself in the form of rape and physical abuse.

The children are told that they can buy themselves free, as soon as they have managed to pay the money the pimps or factory managers put up for them. Imagine that. If the girl herself was worth only three bucks to her family, what appreciation (depreciation) will she enjoy from the good old men of Bombay? If she’s a Hindi, she will probably think she will have to turn tricks in her next lives as a rabbit, tree etc.

And just what is the leitmotif here, the profit the family expects to gain from selling their children into slavery? Some have told me that the money would help put a (usually) older brother through school or to help buy a house.

If by some miracle the girl happens to return to Nepal, the family is ready to welcome her back, and a lavish celebration is thrown that would make the lost son in the bible green with envy and try to run away from home again. If only. More than that, the girl is refused admittance back home, as she is believed -more than not correctly- that she is disease riddled and will wipe out their entire village. Of course, since most people in Nepal don’t know HIV from HiFi, many neighbors will come to gape at the girl. Sadly, for most of these girls, life is over by the age of thirty, a sad end in a storybook, but a happy coup de grace for them.

When Sher Bahadur Deuba, former Prime Minister of Nepal, was asked by Nepali expatriates in New York what programs were being implemented to prohibit trafficking as well as to rehabilitate homecoming Nepalis from a life in exile, he famously quipped that “there are more pressing matters in this country.” The man couldn’t be more right. The most pressing matter and the biggest problem, of course, is electing complete jackasses like him into office.

What is even more tragic is the fact that international NGO’s who have established offices in Kathmandu to battle the very heart of the problem often directly contribute to it by exploiting children for personal - and frequently sexual - gain. Wicked. That’s like finding out that Mickey Mouse is carnivorous and will actually devour little children at Disney Land, or that Elmo has sold his goldfish Dorothy to Gorton's.

According to the U.S. Department of State, around 12,000 Nepali children, most between the ages of 9 and 16, are trafficked every year, tendency rising. India, with its weak laws and corrupt officials, is no help, either. And because child marriage is perfectly legal in India and Nepal, many girls technically are not smuggled across.

Too bad the girls will only later find out they’re literally in for one hell of a honeymoon. On the positive side for me, I have found a charity worth working for.

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“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” - Mahatma Ghandi

It is quite possible that the venerable Mr. Ghandi toured extensively through Nepal before forming this theory. Whereas people in Jordan rarely omitted the slightest opportunity to smack or whack a critter, you almost have to wonder where Nepalis rank animals in their overall hierarchy. And considering how old-fashioned gender relations can still be here, I am not far off the chart.

The relation to cows has already been documented. Cows linger in this city at their own pace and leisure, and I still haven’t seen a cow with a leash or a bell around it. People will throw themselves between a cow and a vehicle if there’s a close call in traffic. Wonder if they would do the same for their spouses? In fact, a cow’s dung and urine are used during Puja, a religious ritual where people honor their gods. Wow. Cowpiss as Jordan water. In the States, we call that by its actual name (Bud Light). Then there are the dogs. It seems almost every building has a dog guarding it. People go to great lengths to avoid hitting dogs here. So far, I have only seen one dog that’s been killed by traffic.

To Hindis, animals are merely creatures of the lower evolutionary scale, perfectly capable of becoming human the next time around the wheel, i.e. when they are reborn. They, like any human being, can achieve salvation. There is little doubt that animals enjoy a special status. There have been animal gods, and various divinities have assumed animal form at one time or the other, according to legend. Theology aside, a walk in the streets will suffice to recognize just how much Nepalis value their animals. I don’t think you will find a country with fewer road kills. Although this will certainly not prevent them from eating them (the slaughtered animals, not the road kills).

Speaking of eating, the outsider can’t help but wonder if Nepalis have chosen the wrong animal to worship. I don’t want to sound insensitive, but do they actually realize that Elsie is carrying a few hundred Big Macs with her? Did the cows merely bully (pun intended) their way into divine status? This is Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world. Something tells me that an eagle might be the better animal to worship. True, eating a cow will seriously mess up your karma and/or send you straight to hell in your next life, but it will very likely make you lose that rumble in your tummy in this one.

Another encounter I have had here was with crows. Smart little bastards, those Nevermores. When I exited the gym a few days ago, I spotted a crow staring directly at me. I shrugged him off and put down my bag to get a sip of water. The crow walked toward me, using only its feet, virtually daring me to chase him off. When I made a move toward him, his buddies made theirs. One of them swooped in from my left toward the bag, trying to hook it by the straps with its beak. Luckily the bag was too heavy for him. This didn’t stop the crow coming from the right to zoom in to complete the ploy. I was lucky to get out of that ambush with my bag intact. And oh, there is a festival to celebrate the crow here as well.

Animals enjoy the somewhat equal status extended to them and will also abuse this unique power they have. Monkeys too, as I have already learned, are overly aggressive in their pursuit of material well-being and will jump into cars and steal, even when they are occupied.

There are numerous festivals worshiping different animals, from the bird to the snake. When animals are slaughtered during festivals (usually goats and chickens; again it sucks to be at the bottom of the food chain), this is not considered a senseless death, but an opportunity for the animal to be reborn as a human being. My question is: what makes us think they want to become human?

The Nepalis and I will disagree about certain aspects pertaining to certain animals, among other things. But it is refreshing to see that animals can be treated with dignity and not just as lunch or method of transportation that needs to be whipped at every corner to maximize its output.

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Funny how it goes when you’ve just moved to a new place. The first thing you will inspect by default is traffic. You really have no choice. You know from the first time you're picked up at the airport. This in turn will determine your method of transportation. In a place like New York City, for example, that was a no-brainer. I will eat fried sewer rat before ever getting behind a wheel for an opportunity to run over one. In DC, it was a little different. There are three stages you go through as an observer and potential candidate for driver on the Beltway.

1. These people are damn fast. I don’t think I can.
2. What morons. I wonder if I can.
3. These people drive like jackasses. I know I can.

That, of course, applies to jackasses only. Everybody else will drive and follow the rules, presumably because they have a brain. In Jordan we noticed that people had rules of their own, and here I am referring to a different set of rules that applies to every car. Some people will hug lanes, some will use the wrong lanes, the ablest within this jungle will create lanes. So the instinctive ‘no way’ will slowly metamorphose to a ’what the heck’ to the smart and final ’Screw this. I am going to drive, all right. I am going to get enough horse power to run all of these delinquents off the road‘. The rules of the road were that simple in Jordan: might makes right. If I have an SUV, you will move your 3 PS pansy-ass golf cart out of the way, or somebody will do it for you. A sound q.e.d. for Darwin’s theory as applied to the road.

Which brings us to Kathmandu. I have been here for almost two months. After observing traffic on multiple occasions, my first instinct was that I would rather celebrate Hannukah in the West Bank than drive here in Nepal. Almost two months later, after further review, I would still rather celebrate Hannukah in the West Bank than drive here.

Never mind the pot craters in the street I have amply described, or the fact that people fancy themselves descendants of subjects of the British Empire and drive on the left side. But this is not just about the streets and the cars, or the cars in the streets. If only the streets were actually for the cars, then the choice would be a simple one to make. Even though people in California choke on smog by the millions, there is little room for interpretation in regard to who uses the freeways: cars. Simple, huge, loud, smog-belching, emphysema-carrying cars.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works here.

Today, on my way home from the Embassy, I come across motorcycles, bicycles, cows, dogs, goats, busses, and rickshaws. Oops, forgot the pedestrians. Very important. So far, so good, right? I won’t complain that that street is the width of a pool table. But, let’s make this a little spicier here. How about no sidewalks? And why stop there? Those damn traffic lights, they only conserve much-needed energy. Away you go. And since people are in the business of progress here, what would you say if they decided to schedule road repairs…during rush hour? A capital idea, I say. This will enable thirty cars, bicycles, and buses to occupy a couple of square feet for hours, thus making this whole spectacle far more entertaining than the thirty clowns packed in a Smart car. And for kicks, let’s just lose the signs, shall we? Leave the rules on the street up to the imagination of the good Nepalis here. Throw a policeman in the middle of every tenth intersection, and traffic in this city might actually work and flow freely. Everybody listens to a cop, right? Only if you can't buy him.

One thing is not up for discussion in traffic. Supremacy of animals must be respected at all times. Know that the animal always has the right of way, which is your first step toward enlightenment.

Traffic in Kathmandu is like watching a YouTube clip. Until you find out it's just a rerun of America’s Funniest Videos where people bang into each other, bicycles fly end over end into a pond, and animals escape from the zoo. In Kathmandu, I have seen people fill potholes with cow dung. I have seen dirt-paved alleyways jam-packed. I have seen pedestrians cross the crowded streets using car hoods as their stepping stones. And through it all, people always find new ways to improvise and stretch the rules, provided they exist. More than not, they don't. But that's perfectly okay. Anarchy is not such a bad thing, really. Because it means you will get away with far more than you probably would elsewhere. I don’t know what I’ll see tomorrow, but I am waiting with bated breath, actually a good idea with the air quality we have here.

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People will really label me a goob after they read this, if they haven’t already. Yesterday I wore black. This was not to hide a sick and obese figure (my weight is actually ideal), nor was I dressing up as Johnny Cash for a belated Halloween party. Nobody I knew of died. And I wasn’t into one of my Peace Corps flashbacks, either. Of course any former volunteer will recall that dark clothes in the Peace Corps could be worn for several days without people detecting dirt or food stains. But those days are over.

Black was for the new president-elect, Barack Hussein Obama (since our media seems to insist on pronouncing his entire name, I might as well too). I do not wish to use this site to make profound political statements, but eight years of cringing, hand wringing, and the most gut wrenching, illogical politics executed seem to have been forgotten for at least one day. I remember waking up every day, seeing a picture of W (or anybody from that administration) and thinking, “Lord, get me out of this rabbit hole”. Even Groundhog Day must have been like the Garden of Eden to Bill Murray compared to the past eight years in the U.S. of W.

At Phora, or the American Club, the Embassy had pitched a huge beer tent (although only tea and coffee were served) and invited people to observe the outcome of the results. Embassy employees were warned to be very discreet about their political preferences as there would also be locals and other foreign nationals at hand. I couldn’t be bothered with that type of event. I wore a clamp for long enough, in particular in 2003 and the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. I instead chose to do a regular workout at the gym. Not surprisingly, I was the only person there. Of course, this had the advantage of having the tube to myself. I switched to CNN International. The polls were surprisingly accurate, I noticed. No real surprises. The only question was going to be how large the winning margin was going to be for the Dems. I had predicted a final tally of 364, which might end up to be spot on, if North Carolina counts its provisional ballots and declares Obama the winner and the recipient of its 15 electoral votes. When that happens, I will give myself a big fat pat on the back.

I knew the race was over when Ohio was projected to go blue. That already gave Obama almost 200 electoral votes. Add to that the west coast states who would rather separate from the continent before voting for McCain in this election, and the victory was clinched. Following CNN’s projection of an Obama victory, a large roar erupted from the tent. Evidently this was a clear testimony of Embassy employees and what they thought of Uncle Sam’s zip-it policies.

Later I watched Deutsche Welle and BBC interview people around the globe. The responses given by the man and woman on the street were unanimous: Obama would make the world a better place. Now the US could be respected again, blah blah blah. They should have come to Kathmandu. People at the Club and throughout the city were huddling around computers and television sets to get the latest news about the presidential race. I don’t think the last World Cup or Olympics garnered that type of interest.

At Mike’s Breakfast (a restaurant frequented by Westerners mostly) later that evening, hundreds of people gathered for drinks and to celebrate the new President Elect. Songs were sung, Obama's acceptance speech was played, and locals and foreigners alike simply let it all hang out. I can only begin to imagine what the reaction to Obama’s victory was like in more significant capitals in the world, let alone the U.S. itself. If I had a ball in Kathmandu, just what were people doing in Grant Park in Chicago?

I am not sure what Obama will change, truth be told. I am not sure he can deliver on what he’s promised. I don’t know how far he can bend the ‘business as usual’ approach in Washington. Most people know better than that too, I am sure. What Obama has done, however, is give people hope again, which was so bitterly needed. He has my support, and I have never rooted more for any politician in my life.

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World Chump - Wanderlust

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