The world begins to oblige...

It's raining. That's fantastic.

Mind you, it's not coming down hard, and the sky is giving us fitful volleys of hail along with the rain. But I'm optimistic that it will disperse a bit of the suffocating ABC (Asian Brown Cloud) that's currently choking Nepal, along with most of South Asia. The ABC is a kilometres-thick layer of haze and soot, an unhappy consequence of unregulated vehicles and power plants, burning agricultural waste and literally billions of cookfires fueled by wood or cow dung. It reduces sunlight so much that it's been markedly colder here the last couple of weeks, obscures anything a kilometre away and, incidentally, kills millions of people each year. It's both fascinating and horrifying, and I'm eager for the end of it, which will only really come with the start of full monsoon rains in May or June. Today's short shower is only that, and sadly it's already over. Damn.

In other news, the Nepalese Free Student Union, a student government pervasively aligned with the uncountable, incomprehensible political parties, held its elections this week. Since most of the affected campuses were between me and my office, I skipped work for the day and took photos instead. This being Nepal, it's inconceivable that such an event wouldn't cripple traffic across the entire city. The elections blocked Durbar Marg, the main North-South street in central Kathmandu, for the entire day. Traffic would have a rough time getting through this:



The enthusiasm was remarkable, and occasionally unsettling, given the alignment of the various student parties with larger political groups who cheerfully demonstrate their capacity for violence whenever given the opportunity. There was even a super-fan, with his support painted across his body, leading a marching rally:



Police, either fearing violence or eager for it, kept a careful eye on the whole thing:



Oh, and Nepalese students are still rather like ours, give or take a few years, in some fairly universal ways:



But there's no denying the marked fervour of the whole process, relative to the much-ignored (but nearly as corrupt) process of student politics in Canada.



I spent a few hours there, curious as to whether the zeal would turn to aggression and the relative order to a maelstrom. Most students cheerfully obliged my intrusions with my camera and, satisfied that things might actually remained peaceful, I took off.

Later in the day, riots at polling stations in East Nepal (and the heavy-handed police response) killed one student and injured hundreds, some of whom are not expected to survive their wounds. Pipe bombs went off at university poll about 90 kilometres from here, wounding six students. This is Nepal, after all - can't have things being settled by a free and peaceful election, can we?

I neither know nor care who won the election.

What a change...

It's been a complex week, for a number of reasons. One of the biggies is that it's quite a transition to move from Asia’s armpit to its bustling brain and back again, in the space of 3 days. Hong Kong feels like the centre of the world. Kathmandu… doesn’t. I’m still wrestling with the enormous difficulties of getting anything done here; electricity, despite numerous optimistic promises from the powers that be, has predictably not improved, remaining at a miserly 8 hours per day. The street situation is tense – there are police and military checkpoints left and right, but I don’t have much idea whether they’re specifically looking for someone or just making themselves seen.

Over the last two weeks, much of southern Nepal has been consumed by riots over a classification error that lumped one distinct ethnic group, the Tharus, in with a much larger and thoroughly different one, the Madhesis. In inimitable, illogical Nepali style, the aggrieved responded by burning tires, trashing cars, and beating (occasionally to death) people who disrespected the righteousness of their crusade by (horror of horrors) driving to work. If there was also an attempt to vent in a less vicious, counterproductive fashion, I surely missed it. Though this transpired hours from Kathmandu, the effects were widely visible here, as the stricken region straddles the key trade routes from India. My housekeeper, whose son is severely ill with some form of liver failure, was long unable to visit him at their home in Nepalgunj, far to the west. Petrol lines snake around the city as desperate drivers with dry tanks follow the rumours that a fuel shipment here and there has snuck through the southern blockade. Things have apparently calmed down now, but this isn’t a unique event. There’s always another aggravated group that feels the best (and only) way to make a point is to radically disrupt the lives of millions who have done them no wrong. If there’s a shred of civic responsibility at play in Nepal’s public arena, I haven’t seen it. Painfully few people are out to improve the lot of Nepal as a whole; most seek only enlarge their personal piece of the pie. But Nepal, you have surely inferred, has a very small pie, and most are quite openly indifferent to the fact that taking more for themselves drives others further into poverty.

This is the brutal logic of Nepal, the crushing truth that keeps this place starving and marginal. I’ve heard it said by many Nepalis: “We would rather see everyone suffer equally than see anyone else get ahead”. It may sound egalitarian, but that reasoning destroys a country. I could see it in January, when the small town that hosts Kathmandu’s dump blockaded the trash trucks for three weeks over whatever grievance, leaving this city of 2.5 million to marinate in a sea of rotting garbage, swarming rats and rivers of fermented liquid foulness running along the main streets. Or in February, when the residents of the village nearest one of Nepal’s few functioning power plants padlocked the facility, demanding 24-hour electricity at the expense of the rest of the country. Or this month, as I’ve described above, when militant Tharus decided that depriving a malnourished country of cooking gas furthers the cause of universal justice. The government and their police blithely indulge such political temper tantrums, which mystifies me. Even in Canada, a free society by all but the most absurd ideological measures, no group gets free rein to starve others in order to make a point.

With the exception of Burma, whose vicious tyrants deliberately keep the people on the very margins of survival, Nepal is the worst-governed country I’ve ever seen on the ground. And just about everybody pitches in to make it happen.

Regarding all things afoot...

Life may begin to calm down a bit after this week. I've just concluded the toughest and most important interview of my life (thus far). I'm tolerably confident I succeeded, but it'll be up to two months before I truly know.

Meanwhile, I LOVE Hong Kong! Though it's ridiculously consumeristic and not the least bit friendly, it's kinetic, clean, effective, and full of fascinating sounds and alluring smells. It has reliable electricity, drinkable water, traffic lights (that are consistently obeyed) and enticing food left and right. Most compellingly, not once in the last two days have I felt the need to scream "Why #@$^%$@# bloody @#$@#% doesn't this work the way it's supposed to!!!"

Methinks Kathmandu has lowered the bar for what amazes me. It will be a hard adjustment going back, which I'll be doing in a few minutes.

Pictures to follow, if the electricity ever comes back on again in Nepal.

Argh.

Update...

Definitely going to Hong Kong, on March 8th... now I'm just waiting for DFAIT to send me the vital details so I don't show up hideously unprepared.

Power still goes out 16 hours a day, but may improve by the beginning of March.

And I'm going to make a concerted effort to resurrect the blog despite the energy crisis in Nepal.

Argh

For at least 16 hours a day, I'm without electricity, and often without water simultaneously. This is crippling my blog.

But I AM definitely going to Hong Kong!

Fun with scientific notation!

Zimbabwe's inflation rate is now believed to exceed 13 quadrillion percent per month, which works out annually to the absolutely fantastic number of 2.3 * 10^193. Now since that number isn't nearly as fun in scientific notation, let's also think of it as:

• 2,329,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.
• Two thousand three hundred and thirty vigintillion vigintillion vigintillion.
• More than the number of elementary particles in the entire universe.
  

For the record, that means that prices double approximately every thirteen hours in Zimbabwe. So if you're a Zimbabwean in the employ of the civil service (like most Zimbabweans still lucky enough to be employed) you have to run to the store with your thrice-daily pay, as what few goods are still on the shelves will become noticeably more expensive in the time it takes you to get to the shop.

Isn't it amazing what going absolutely bonkers with a banknote printing press will accomplish?

Wow, continued...

This is a good day.

If he can do half of what he promises, tomorrow will be a good day too.

It's hard to keep walls of cynicism up tonight.

And so it is.

Wow. It actually just happened.

It's been a very big week...

During which the full force of the energy crisis hit me, crippling my ability to blog. But in brief...

I published my first book, of which I am the editor and uncredited co-author: "Reporting Safe Migration and Human Trafficking: A Guide for Media Practitioners". The bloodless title was not my idea.

I was named the Best-Dressed Person working for CECI (my employer) in Nepal. That's a little like being the tallest midget at the circus, but hey, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

I've got a job interview with the Canadian Foreign Service! I'll be off to (probably) Hong Kong in (probably) early March. Joy!

I'm trying to come up with something profound and insightful to say about Obama's epic inauguration tomorrow, but so far I've been lethargic with an incredible swell of relief that the catastrophic reign of Bush is finally at its end. I'll think hard about what to say by tomorrow.

It's that time again!

When the Buffalo Beast's delectable new edition of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America is released onto unsuspecting web audiences. If you can tolerate bitter satire laced with a total lack of regard for human decency, this one's for you. Just try to get past the Obama listing if you're fragile.

May I live in Nepal in interesting times...

This is a complex place.

We have 4 hours of useful electricity per day.

There are occasional street riots, though I've been unable to find them each that they've happened.

Cows graze on garbage here, rather than grass, which contradicts everything I thought I knew about ruminant gastroenterology.

And there are rumours of an imminent military coup swirling about. I don't think it would be like the one in Thailand.

For such a small, poor country, Nepal has phenomenally Byzantine politics. This blog will, for the foreseeable future, focus on decoding this insanity, until my employers or more sinister forces tell me to stop.

It's late and I'm tired...

Which merely emphasizes the urgency of what I'm about to say: Slumdog Millionaire is absolutely fantastic. If you haven't already seen it (and if you're in a comfortable Western country, shame on you) cancel all other plans, skip work, and go see it right now. It has quickly elbowed its way into my all-time Top Ten, and may even have dethroned The Dark Knight as my favourite movie of the year.

OK, now I'm going to bed.

I'm still here!

Today I went to Asan, a wondrously crowded warren of shops and stalls hawking pashminas, spices, crafts and tools. I went camera in hand, and found it a photographic goldmine - I'll post the results here as I'm able to upload them.

For example:



And:

In which I state the obvious...

Happy New Year from Kathmandu! Hopefully yours was eventful and brought little agony the next morning. Last night I reveled in the one-day suspension of Kathmandu's draconian 11PM curfew, and with a handful of other impoverished Canucks wandered from bar to restaurant to bar to scuzzy sandwich joint to bar to mysterious tower block in the midst of this odd urban wasteland. I rediscovered my genuine affection for Bhangra music, and surreptitiously dumped mystery shots (pure vodka, I think) into the fountain of one of Kathmandu's classiest restaurants. I got home at 5AM, and for some unrelated reason I'm a mite foggy today...

...

...

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!

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.

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.

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!

In which life continues apace…

Friday’s banda never materialized, which is surely for the best. I’ve got far too much to do to be dodging flying brickwork in the process. And yet… sigh…

I completed my first semi-week at work. I’ve spent my mornings at Worldview Nepal, an organization that (at the moment) trains reporters, teachers, and other change agents (in the parlance of the field) in human rights-related issues. I’ve been editing a couple of reports and brochures on how to combat human trafficking without trampling on the rights of the trafficked. It’s undeniably grunt work, mainly copy editing, but on a fascinating subject that will allow me to get my feet wet with the organization before I attempt to shoehorn myself into their program work.

A bit of clarification on that last point is due. I’ve been hired as a Communications Advisor, which means that my official capacity is to write, edit, design and proofread English-language proposals, training manuals and marketing materials. This is not what truly fuels my professional passions. Why then, you ask raptly, did you take the job? I took it because the primary preoccupations (human rights, post-conflict development and microfinance) of my two employers just happen to be things that fascinate me to no end, and the things for which I’ve really been trained. My rat-race profession of Communications Something-Or-Other will serve mainly to bring me closer to those far more fascinating subjects, close enough (in theory) for me to jam my fingers into many different pies. I’ll start, the theory, by working on their written materials, and then pop my head in all the appropriate doors, wedge myself into all the relevant meetings, and generally make a nuisance of myself until I’m doing hands-on fieldwork. I’ve discussed my intentions with my liaisons at CECI, the Canadian organization that funds and organizes this entire endeavour, and they wholly endorse my mildly deceptive strategy. Nifty.

Until that happens, however, I’m getting the lay of the land here, and reducing the odds that my travels will kill me. I found a cruelly expensive, viciously ugly, canary yellow bicycle helmet that will nevertheless be more attractive than a skull fracture. Speaking of my wheeled commute, I had a bit of a run-in last week with the Chinese diplomatic corps. Cycling past the Embassy, I curved around a parked car at the precise moment that the driver (shoulder checks be damned!) decided to pull out, indifferent to my presence. I clipped the corner of his car and, startled, staggered to a stop without suffering any particular insult to myself or my precious bike. Not so lucky the lesser vehicle – I mightily tore the bumper, headlights and all, almost free from the car, and it dangled feebly by a few wires. A Chinese gentleman (whom I judge to be a diplomat by the fact that his English was more eloquent and precise than my own) leapt from the car, apologizing profusely, and assured me that the blame was his (or his driver’s, whichever). I bid him adieu before he could change his mind. Paul 1, China 0.

Much else has been underway: language classes, moving, plotting some epic treks, and a tale of $600 dumplings (not my money, thankfully). My internet connection will be a bit inconsistent for the next 3 weeks, by which time I’ll move into my permanent digs, but in the meantime I’ll sure I’ll find the bandwidth to share more tales of Kathmandu.

I've only been here two weeks...

... but I know what it means when the distinctive "you've got a text message" chime wakes me up - it's Banda time, baby!

In practical terms, this means I won't be able to make it to work, since it's needlessly provocative for me to try to run the blockades. It means that my long-delayed haircut gets delayed a little longer, since the shops will be closed. Food will be a little more difficult to acquire - I'll have to eat in the hotel restaurant, methinks. And, oh yeah, I'm going to go out and get some snazzy photos. It's just 7 AM, and I hear whooping crowds from the direction of Lazimpat, the nearest major street. Don't worry, they've no problem with photographers - helps to publicize the cause.

Yesterday I wandered through the mob that constituted the embryonic phase of this banda, which is called to protest (?) the as-yet unexplained deaths of two 15-year-olds, likely by nefarious means, on the outskirts of town. As I rode my bicycle home from work in suspiciously sparse traffic, I saw with curiousity that other cyclists were dismounting and walking their bicycles. It seemed wise to do the same, and shortly I came upon a nearly empty intersection normally swarming with taxis and tuk-tuks. A swarm of perhaps a hundred youths roamed the street, none visibly older than 15 (though it's hard to tell, in a country where malnutrition masks age very convincingly). They carried makeshift banners, photos of the two dead boys, and they accosted anyone disrespectful enough to drive a car or motorcycle through the bare street. I couldn't understand these conversations, but I infer that the protestors demanded the drivers show the banda the proper respect by walking home. Those who refused and tried to drive on had to dodge a rain of fist-sized chunks of masonry (none of which connected with anything fleshy, so far as I saw). A few plumes of black smoke that I (correctly, as it turns out) took to be the product of burning tires rose a few blocks away. Once safely clear of the mob, I slowly, and respectfully remounted my bike, like many other commuters, and enjoyed a remarkably smooth ride home on a street nearly devoid of traffic.

Oddly, about 30 minutes later, when I'd grabbed my camera from the hotel, life seemed to have resumed its normal pace. Traffic had returned and there was no mention of the riot. And yet, it appears that yesterday was the rehearsal - today we see a full-blown city shutdown. Photos and eyewitness accounts to follow.