People have asked me more specific questions about Nepal, such as, “What exactly do you see from your house?” I think it’s a simple answer. What do most people see back in the States? Cars, houses, children playing, your basic package of a (sub)urban neighborhood. And yet, it’s certain that that’s where the similarities end.
On Sunday morning, I climbed to the top of my house. It is three stories high, but there is also a circular stairway that leads to a deck on top where you find the solar panels. Climb a ladder to yet another deck, and you’ll find the water tower. The water tower is the equivalent of what would probably be the fifth floor in the States. And if you have squeezed your way up the stairway and climbed the ladder, you should have a nice view.
From our house you will see an even bigger and fancier house to the south and a house of equal size and quality to the west that is vacant. To the east there once was an old dilapidated two story house that has now been leveled. Only a few weeks before that, the poor family living there with their seven or eight kids had been evicted. We now know why. As you gaze past the ruins of the old house, the lot is at least five times what ours is. The owner of the property must have bigger plans, I am thinking. The lot is subdivided by old short walls that remind me of the boundaries erected by old English and Irish clansmen to mark their respective properties. And yet it’s almost a guarantee that these borders, too, will be torn down to make way for the bigger and better plans about to be fulfilled.
Further to the east, past the property lines of the now vacant lot, there’s a little hut with corrugated tin roofs, a shanty deluxe really, a little shop that was built next to the main road through our neighborhood. To the north is the small narrow road, only recently paved, that leads to our house and the adjoining lot. In another vacant lot to the north, I see children playing. It appears they are shooting rubber bands at something, possibly birds in the tree.
It is very hazy today, so the mountains can only be seen as through a fog, which is unfortunate, but not uncommon. A closer scrutiny will reveal Mount Chivapuri, the featured peak of the National Park bearing the same name. I have hiked up that mountain twice now, although now it seems like a mere picture postcard, distant and untenable.
I can see a stretch of the Ring Road to the south, where traffic is operating at its congestive best. On certain days there are stretches of the Ring Road that resemble arteries with not enough space to offer the bloodstream that is the Kathmandu traffic. You always have to wonder when the next hemorrhage might occur.
An old man is now leading his goats onto the vacant lot, although there are pitifully few trees and equally meager drippings for the land to offer them when it comes to their staple of choice, grass.
That’s the postcard from Nepal in words, if you will. Unremarkable, as far as I’m concerned, but then again, I’ve stopped being a tourist here months ago and have become a resident.
On Sunday morning, I climbed to the top of my house. It is three stories high, but there is also a circular stairway that leads to a deck on top where you find the solar panels. Climb a ladder to yet another deck, and you’ll find the water tower. The water tower is the equivalent of what would probably be the fifth floor in the States. And if you have squeezed your way up the stairway and climbed the ladder, you should have a nice view.
From our house you will see an even bigger and fancier house to the south and a house of equal size and quality to the west that is vacant. To the east there once was an old dilapidated two story house that has now been leveled. Only a few weeks before that, the poor family living there with their seven or eight kids had been evicted. We now know why. As you gaze past the ruins of the old house, the lot is at least five times what ours is. The owner of the property must have bigger plans, I am thinking. The lot is subdivided by old short walls that remind me of the boundaries erected by old English and Irish clansmen to mark their respective properties. And yet it’s almost a guarantee that these borders, too, will be torn down to make way for the bigger and better plans about to be fulfilled.
Further to the east, past the property lines of the now vacant lot, there’s a little hut with corrugated tin roofs, a shanty deluxe really, a little shop that was built next to the main road through our neighborhood. To the north is the small narrow road, only recently paved, that leads to our house and the adjoining lot. In another vacant lot to the north, I see children playing. It appears they are shooting rubber bands at something, possibly birds in the tree.
It is very hazy today, so the mountains can only be seen as through a fog, which is unfortunate, but not uncommon. A closer scrutiny will reveal Mount Chivapuri, the featured peak of the National Park bearing the same name. I have hiked up that mountain twice now, although now it seems like a mere picture postcard, distant and untenable.
I can see a stretch of the Ring Road to the south, where traffic is operating at its congestive best. On certain days there are stretches of the Ring Road that resemble arteries with not enough space to offer the bloodstream that is the Kathmandu traffic. You always have to wonder when the next hemorrhage might occur.
An old man is now leading his goats onto the vacant lot, although there are pitifully few trees and equally meager drippings for the land to offer them when it comes to their staple of choice, grass.
That’s the postcard from Nepal in words, if you will. Unremarkable, as far as I’m concerned, but then again, I’ve stopped being a tourist here months ago and have become a resident.
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