Thursday, December 25, 2008

And a Merry Christmas from Kathmandu

There's a hint of rain falling outside, the first drops I've seen since I got here and very unusual for the season in Kathmandu. It makes me thing of the epic snow Vancouver's received this week, and I'm more than mildly jealous to have missed it. Moreover, I wish I had the chance to spend Christmas with my fine family and friends back home - the occasion is rather different here in this very Hindu country. Aside from the occasional "Merry Christmas" tossed my way, there's little to show Christmas is happening at all here.

So we Canadians and a few other assorted bideshi (foreigners) arranged a Christmas of our own, complete with presents, trees, and Santa Claus. We had a fairly epic party last nigh at my friend Craig's house, wherein a suspiciously skinny Santa (not me) orchestrated a somewhat spiteful but highly entertaining Secret Santa exchange. I spent morning making Christmas calls to back home, and it helps immensely to check in with loved ones on a very un-Christmas Christmas. This evening, about 15 of we volunteers gathered at the home of John and Cathy, two soon-to-depart volunteers who prepared a lovely Christmas dinner with virtually every trimming. It was relaxing and hugely appreciated. Now I'm whiling away my last hours of the day, and wishing deeply that Boxing Day were also recognized here.

Merry Christmas to all - I promise I'll be there for the next one!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Mein poor neglected blog...

I’m going to take a short break from ranting about Nepali traffic to rant, in brief, about the politics of other countries.

Every time we think Zimbabwe’s situation can’t get any worse, it does, and now a cholera epidemic that doesn’t officially exist is ravaging Harare. African leaders are beginning to make promising noises about ousting Robert Mugabe, but seriously, guys, couldn’t this have come 5 years ago? He is, with the arguable exception of (the possibly incapacitated or dead) Kim Jong Il, the worst person in charge of a government today. He has overseen the deaths of (at a guess) over a million people, mostly by malnourishment and disease, of his once incredibly promising and self-sufficient country. Zimbabwe is beautiful beyond description, and full of industrious and friendly people who need to have the shackles of the ZANU-PF party permanently removed. In the words of more than one Zimbabwean I met while travelling in South Africa, “We are just waiting for him to die – waiting so we can return home and get on with our lives.”
To the other African leaders who have quietly coddled Mr. Mugabe since he embarked on a rampage of ethnic cleansing in the province of Matabeleland in the mid-1980s, and half-heartedly clucked their disapproval at his spree of land theft early in this decade: it’s time you guys acknowledged a few things. Robert Mugabe is a vicious thug who will never willingly share or relinquish power, and he has already demonstrated his willingness to immolate Zimbabwe rather than give up the reins. His “power-sharing” agreement with rightful president Morgan Tsvangirai will remain a sick joke, as Mugabe will always undermine (or kill) anyone who represents a significant challenge. Every month he remains in power sets Zimbabwe’s development back by years, and all that wasted human potential is increasingly on your heads. He won’t be quietly shuffled aside, or coaxed into leaving the country as Charles Taylor was lured out of Liberia. Even at 84, he won’t succumb to illness nearly as soon as he ought to, displaying as he does the unfortunate resilience of the truly evil. He may have to be removed by force; either way, his continued vicious rule discredits the much-appealing vision of the New Africa.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Kathmandu brings out my inner nerd.

But then, so does everywhere else. Today’s geek spasm comes courtesy of Kathmandu’s incomprehensible traffic. Through the magic of queuing theory, a single taxi can pause to pick up a fare, and create an astonishing Gordian gnarl of outraged honks and stalled two-stroke engines that can easily take 10 minutes to untangle, during which time it will cheerfully paralyze traffic for kilometers in every direction. It’s absolutely fascinating, and it sets my mind abuzz with formulae I never really learned, the remnants of the queuing theory and game theory that I half-grasped in undergrad. (Econ 382, Applied Game Theory, is still the niftiest course I took at SFU, for those enrolled there now).

In a rational, well-ordered city, this would be impossible. Those two adjectives, however, are as likely to be applied to Kathmandu as “soothing” and “verdant”. This city is a mass of undifferentiated bloat, nourished by spontaneously-formed one-lane capillaries and gasping in cobalt-blue smoke, a vaguely benign urban tumour. But it offers me endless, tantalizing food for thought, filling my mind past capacity with tenuously-connected fragments of pop sociology, science, politics, and sheer (often aghast) wonder. And thus it reminds me why I travel.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Much is afoot.

I've been conference-enthralled much of this last week, and I'm leaving for Nepali lessons in three short minutes. I'm not neglecting my precious blog, nor either of its devout readers. I'm popping in to note that it appears I'll be professionally obliged to spend some time in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka at some point in the next year. Most excitingly, I've got a line or two into some short teaching gigs in Peace and Conflict Studies at some universities in South India. I'm not sure where this will all leave time for my actual job, but I'm sure it'll sort itself out.

I came here to network; I had no idea it would happen so bloody fast. Yippee!