The main reason I maintain this blog, aside from communicating with people I know, is to remember things later. Sometimes I go through some of the entries form the Jordanian times, and I’ll have a good chuckle.
What I have noticed about the entries from Kathmandu is that one commodity here is seriously shorted: people! Looking back here, I am thinking, this does read all right for tourists, but what are people like? What do they believe in? What do they do? How do they fare in impoverished Kathmandu? What are their hopes? I thought I would rectify that a little.
So meet Dipendra of Kathmandu. Dipendra is a gardener/guard for a European family. Although he works for a private company, he is not above trying to hone his skills in other areas, like planting and learning about pets.
Dipendra looks like the average Joe from Kathmandu: dark-skinned, five foot four, in good shape, looks younger than his 36 years, and always grinding to make a living. His pay per month is 7,000 rupees, which is less than a hundred dollars. Of course this is not Manhattan, so he pays market prices for food. His wife was a teacher for five years before she became pregnant in consecutive years, adding a boy and a girl to the family. That left her with no time for work. No such thing as daycare except for foreigners who can pay a hundred bucks per month or so for a didi or a school, depending on the child’s age (guilty). Rent in their two bedroom apartment near Durbar Square is 40 dollars a month, which leaves the family of four to fend for themselves on sixty bucks a month. And somehow they do it.
“We still have money left at the end of the month,” he grins. “Five or ten bucks barring disaster. But if one of the kids gets sick, that will wipe out that surplus.”
Even more difficult is the inflation that is constantly driving up food prices.
“We used to be able to afford meat, now it’s vegetarian,” he explains. “But that’s all right. My wife’s a good cook.”
About his job?
“Six days a week, ten hours per day,” he says while counting on his fingers.
I refuse to do some counting of my own, in this case his per hour rate. This is far more atrocious than minimum wage, if there is such a thing. How does a person live on that little, I wonder. You have to buy clothes too. He gets to work riding a motorcycle, like most people in the Valley.
“You change what you wear every other day,” he shrugs, “sometimes every third day. And my wife made most of the kids’ clothes.”
The kids are his daughter Chitanna, aged eight, and son Jittendra, five. Both are in school, but don’t seem like they are lacking anything. There might be a hole in the sweater or pants, but they seem like normal kids by anybody’s standards.
“They are happy,” Dipendra says, “and they should be. I rarely see them with matching socks. There are days when the shoes have more holes than I can count. But they don’t miss anything.”
They threw away their television a few weeks ago. It was an old German Grundig, a model made decades ago.
“There’s only twelve hours of power per day,” he laughs. “No time to watch anything anyway.”
He refuses to discuss politics.
“They’re all bad,” is his simple statement. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t elaborate. In these parts you learn to keep your mouth shut. Doing the opposite might earn you a visit from a Maoist or somebody claiming to be one.
What does he hope for in the future?
“A better job,” he shrugs, “and that the kids are educated. They need more of a choice than me. I never finished tenth grade.”
And just how are these people different? Not at all, really. Do you know of any similar stories, say in New York? In London? Rome? The only discernible difference is the lack of income, but this is your same average family of four you could encounter anywhere. The kids play outside all day, unlike their counterparts in the west who will play inside as well with other, more modern electronic means. It is impressive to be reminded that you can live with less. I was much more impressed with Dipendra's positive outlook on life, which is very refreshing and something you don't see that often anymore back home, where people are wealthier and supposedly can create more opportunities.
The next local I will describe will come from a different walk of life with a different income and different education. Either way, people will agree that these are tough people, tough but positive, ready to tackle any obstacle with a smile. Good for them.
What I have noticed about the entries from Kathmandu is that one commodity here is seriously shorted: people! Looking back here, I am thinking, this does read all right for tourists, but what are people like? What do they believe in? What do they do? How do they fare in impoverished Kathmandu? What are their hopes? I thought I would rectify that a little.
So meet Dipendra of Kathmandu. Dipendra is a gardener/guard for a European family. Although he works for a private company, he is not above trying to hone his skills in other areas, like planting and learning about pets.
Dipendra looks like the average Joe from Kathmandu: dark-skinned, five foot four, in good shape, looks younger than his 36 years, and always grinding to make a living. His pay per month is 7,000 rupees, which is less than a hundred dollars. Of course this is not Manhattan, so he pays market prices for food. His wife was a teacher for five years before she became pregnant in consecutive years, adding a boy and a girl to the family. That left her with no time for work. No such thing as daycare except for foreigners who can pay a hundred bucks per month or so for a didi or a school, depending on the child’s age (guilty). Rent in their two bedroom apartment near Durbar Square is 40 dollars a month, which leaves the family of four to fend for themselves on sixty bucks a month. And somehow they do it.
“We still have money left at the end of the month,” he grins. “Five or ten bucks barring disaster. But if one of the kids gets sick, that will wipe out that surplus.”
Even more difficult is the inflation that is constantly driving up food prices.
“We used to be able to afford meat, now it’s vegetarian,” he explains. “But that’s all right. My wife’s a good cook.”
About his job?
“Six days a week, ten hours per day,” he says while counting on his fingers.
I refuse to do some counting of my own, in this case his per hour rate. This is far more atrocious than minimum wage, if there is such a thing. How does a person live on that little, I wonder. You have to buy clothes too. He gets to work riding a motorcycle, like most people in the Valley.
“You change what you wear every other day,” he shrugs, “sometimes every third day. And my wife made most of the kids’ clothes.”
The kids are his daughter Chitanna, aged eight, and son Jittendra, five. Both are in school, but don’t seem like they are lacking anything. There might be a hole in the sweater or pants, but they seem like normal kids by anybody’s standards.
“They are happy,” Dipendra says, “and they should be. I rarely see them with matching socks. There are days when the shoes have more holes than I can count. But they don’t miss anything.”
They threw away their television a few weeks ago. It was an old German Grundig, a model made decades ago.
“There’s only twelve hours of power per day,” he laughs. “No time to watch anything anyway.”
He refuses to discuss politics.
“They’re all bad,” is his simple statement. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t elaborate. In these parts you learn to keep your mouth shut. Doing the opposite might earn you a visit from a Maoist or somebody claiming to be one.
What does he hope for in the future?
“A better job,” he shrugs, “and that the kids are educated. They need more of a choice than me. I never finished tenth grade.”
And just how are these people different? Not at all, really. Do you know of any similar stories, say in New York? In London? Rome? The only discernible difference is the lack of income, but this is your same average family of four you could encounter anywhere. The kids play outside all day, unlike their counterparts in the west who will play inside as well with other, more modern electronic means. It is impressive to be reminded that you can live with less. I was much more impressed with Dipendra's positive outlook on life, which is very refreshing and something you don't see that often anymore back home, where people are wealthier and supposedly can create more opportunities.
The next local I will describe will come from a different walk of life with a different income and different education. Either way, people will agree that these are tough people, tough but positive, ready to tackle any obstacle with a smile. Good for them.
