We Canadians are few

A big long post with hardly any photos

It is quite apparent that the majority of foreign people I meet here are German, French, British and Dutch, with the odd Japanese, Russian and possibly American.  But nothing sounds so sweet as a very particular lilt in speech that indicates that the new friend you are talking to is none other than a good old Canadian.  Admittedly Canadians are a special breed, but we number very few here in Nepal and I started to wonder why.

Why is such an outdoorsy, adventuresome group of travellers not here in Nepal, the mecca of trekking and traveller’s trots and truly cheap exchange on the dollar?

Perhaps we are not educated, I conclude.  Perhaps I need to devote a few words to pitching you on coming here in the future.  Even though my breadth of experience in Nepal is limited, I feel I have put in good enough time that I can tell you with certainty, you should come here before things change, or they figure out what they’ve got here and start charging appropriately for it.

Just 'cause its cheap, doesn't mean someone ain't paying

On that note, travelling in a developing country is cheap.  Food is cheap. Getting from one place to the next is cheap.  Souvenirs and local clothing are cheap. Your dollar goes a lot further here than it does in Copenhagen, or Barcelona or Paris or Warsaw or any other major city I’ve been to recently.  But beware, there is a social cost to that cheapness though.  I asked a rug dealer in Kathmandu recently, where his rugs were made.  “In my factory!” he proudly exclaimed.  To which I countered, “Yes but are the people happy working in your factory?” and he looked me straight in the eye and unflinchingly replied “Yes of course!” which I barely believed. I googled ‘fair trade rugs’ and found a place in Patan to shop when we’re in Kat next.

But I think it’s a good point to make though, often when things are cheap it means that someone is paying the price for your choices.  Cheap food at a restaurant means low wages, no social safety net for employees and low wholesale prices for farmers.  Cheap souvenirs can mean child labour or really crappy working conditions for those making the goods. So I try and think about that as I go through my days here.

The airfare to get here is certainly expensive, but that’s true when you want to fly anywhere these days, however when you arrive here it’s quite affordable, shall we say, so then what?  Well, Kathmandu is a huge sprawling city that nearly ate me alive, but I’m glad I went there because the capital is often the centre of activity for a country. 

A quick and dirty take on things to do

This time around, the SAARC meetings are happening next week when all the South Asian countries meet to hash out a unified future for their countries.  This has also brought to light some of the social issues in Nepal such as the ill-advised spending of the government.  Why does the government need to spend such a huge and special budget on things that the Village Development Community funds (VDC) or the VAT tax money should be continually updating anyway, just to impress their friends?  I guess, that’s they way things are here for now and this is one of the reasons it’s still a developing country.

But for the average traveller, Kathmandu offers historical and religious sites like Pashiputinath, the oldest Hindu temple, and Kathmandu Durbar Square, or Patan Durbar Square with its ancient architecture or Swayambunath Temple with its monkeys or nearby Bhaktapur or Nagarkot (by hiking or taxi ride) for the sunrise. There’s lots to see and it’s easily accessible if you’re patient and ask a lot of questions—but don’t let that deter you because getting there is half the fun!

After that there are other larger cities that can easily be reached by plane (usually late and a little scary) or bus (less scary, less expensive and a full day) and shows you more of the natural splendor that this country has to offer.  Most people head to Pokhara as a launching pad for trekking on the Anapurna mountain range and a plethora of famous treks.  Palpa (aka Tansen), where we were this week is considered ‘off the beaten path’ has a little less to offer as a city, but some pretty manageable ‘walks’ that don’t require a bunch of gear and overnight commitments.

Lumbini being close to the Indian border is a destination for pilgrims and school trips alike.  It’s also located in the Terai region, which is astonishingly flat compared to the hilly region of Kathmandu and Pokhara.  After spending 6 weeks in the hills, it’s really, really flat and the agriculture is evidently different (you’ll see why when you get there).

Insight on the people

And what else?  Nepal wears its culture on its sleeve while quietly keeping the integrity of the everyday life of its people a little discreet.  Home life is different than Canada or western culture.  Most marriages here are arranged marriages rather than love marriages.  Families with similar outlooks often strike a deal to marry their children who are probably compatible but mostly ‘family-culture’ compatible.  The couple most often moves into the home of the groom’s family, where he possibly grew up, and the wife often is subject to the mother in law as well as the males of the household. 

There is quite a lot of literature specifically looking at this dynamic, whereby women in many developing countries with arranged marriages are always on the bottom:  as girls, as brides, and then as wives (for more accessible reading on this look up “Unequal Citizens: Gender, Caste, and Ethnic Exclusion in Nepal” and other papers written or managed by Dr. Lynn Bennett).  It is only after the mother in-law passes on that the girl then grows up and takes over her own household when her children marry she can be in charge of the incoming bride.  She essentially spends her life waiting for the power to shift in her favour, so when it finally arrives, who can blame her for taking advantage?

The long standing expectation for women and men here in Nepal is you will marry whom your parents choose, do the bidding of the household, later bear children, and carry on the cycle after the previous generation passes on.  It’s a scary prospect for some young women, who are either influenced by western culture, or by the notion that perhaps a bit more choice in their own destiny should be allowed.  Its also a strong part of the social culture here, and this approach to marriage is not to be underestimated in its importance to broader society, no matter which role they are playing in its construct.  The literature I have read only sometimes touches on how important the integration of two distinct families is in a broader societal sense, and as such we can sometimes walk away with a one sided, western-driven view of it all.

Either way you cut the pie, marriage is a commitment of two people for life, and the current divorce rates in western marriages would certainly stand to say that its not a perfect system we have developed by any means.

Wrapping it up

While I do avoid going out at night, it’s mainly because I am a solo traveller wary of the dark when nightlife happens with alcohol and emboldened men and children working in dubious trades—it’s just not my scene. But overall I feel safe moving around and I often see people with their kids on vacation here.  I really enjoy the simplicity of village life that is easily observed: the early morning feeding of goats and buffalo; the hand crank fans used to clean the chaff from rice grain; women washing their hair at a roadside fountain, always dressed in brightly coloured clothing, muted colours not being preferred at all in Nepal because that simply wouldn’t suit their dispositions.

While I am not sure I did this sales pitch justice, I will conclude by saying I definitely recommend you visit Nepal because its much more accessible than you would think. The climate is ideal, the people are open and friendly, and if you play your cards right, you probably won’t come down with the trots at all, or at least not that badly anyway. 

 

Nifty nifty, this is fifty - Sunday photos

The fiftieth post! Huzzah! Whizz bang!

If you're still with me, then thanks for reading!

Here are some more photos from Lumbini… 

Photos of Lumbini

IT was 28C and hazy all day today, but we managed to see much of Lumbini park.  I made a huge miscalculation on how far one has to go to see all of the temples here.  We failed miserably at the end of the day in getting either a rickshaw or a minims back to town so we walked about 5km back in the dirt. There were also tons of police, army and special forces out, likely due to SAARC happening next week.  They are making a presence before all the dignitaries arrive.  The police seem to carry black sticks but the army guys have full-on AK-47 rifles.  As I walked by them I couldn't fathom what would have to happen in order for them all to need to open fire with one of those suckers?

Ezina was here a little while ago and has seen changes already-- not only is construction happening for SAARC there is also a continual building and upgrading of the existing temples. There is so much land here it's goig to take awhile to fill up.

The basic premise is that many Buddhist countries and some non-Buddhist countries (i.e. France or Germany) have built their own temple in the style of the architecture in their country.  The vast iterations of Buddha are really interesting, both for the pose or face they chose to put on him, but also the materials from which he is made.  Generally it would be gold but we saw one really large copper Buddha in a stark white, marble circular hall with heavy black pillars all around and a copper lotus on the ceiling.  It was a really interesting and calming place to walk into.  

The others used colours or just placement (such as many paintings, or mini statues or statues in the water what have you) or lots of gold gilding to represent Buddha.  There were throngs of Indian and Nepali school children moving en masse to and fro.  Many said hello to us, or where are you from, a few asked for our pictures which is still weird to me.  I was joking with Ezina that everyone thinks she's Canadian now because they all try and speak to her in English when we're together.

Overall it was a really fascinating place to visit and I am thankful Ezina took us down here because I probably wouldn't have made it here on my own.

At the risk of sounding like a wimp or a broken record, this picture captures a little of how far one has to
walk to get around this place.

If I look like a sweaty mess its because I was one.

The ever lovely Ezina.

To Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha

So this is what flat looks like...

Since we are all done our field work and Ezina took the whole week off from her ‘real work’ running her school and being a student, she thought it would be fun to go to Lumbini where Buddha was born.  It’s about a 4-6 hour bus ride from Pokhara but only about 4 hours from Tansen, and it is also about 10km from the Indian border.

We took local buses all the way here which admittedly is worth the price of admission, about $2 to get all the way here, but not without a sore back and a headache.  I really can’t complain too much, it was cheap, they drove slowly (not the one coming down off the mountain, I thought we were done for) and we really didn’t have to wait very long for any of the 3 buses.

The landscape quickly changed after we coasted down the final mountain pass. It’s flat here, and hot, and the roads are long and wide.  We went through Butwal and basically it looked like one big sprawling city divided in two by the highway.  The guidebook suggests there’s no reason to stop there, and I can see why.  The rice fields are also larger and the stacks of rice chaff are much larger which means a bigger crop.  There’s also bananas!

Baby Buddha Statue

Lumbini is a real pilgrimage destination for people of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths and the 2.5km by 3km site itself has a long history of temples and other shrines being built over the last couple thousand years in reverence to the great Lord Buddha.  Today we went into the Maya Devi Temple, the very place where Siddhartha Guatama or the Buddha is said to have been born in 563 BC.   

Thanks to the SAARC meeting, things are being fixed up, or built for the first time, like a metal tent structure that blocks where you put your shoes to go into the temple.  We saw about 15 people in one of the giant ponds cleaning out the weeds, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the other giant ponds all over the grounds that are really overgrown… is there enough time or is the visit going to be so precisely staged that no one will notice most of the grounds need some sprucing up too?

Anyhow, today was mostly a bus day and then a short jaunt into the grounds, so tomorrow we’ll have a bit of walking to do to cover the big long walk down to the rest of the temples which will be really interesting I am sure.

At the Maya Devi Temple.

Downhill, uphill, uphill downhill… done

Ezina and I wrapped up our 11^th interview here in Tansen which makes 69 total which means Team Ashley’s Thesis has exceeded all expectations!

When I was doing last minute planning with my prof in September and all my plans were slowly crumbling apart, I literally couldn’t imagine even getting ten interviews. It seemed an insurmountable task to reach the 60 that I laid out in my thesis plan that was based all around working with this one group my other advisor had linked me in with.  It would have been way easier had that worked out because we wouldn’t have had to sweet talk so many ‘friends of friends’ into trusting us enough to introduce us to the community they work with.  I think that there is quite a lot of writing on the ‘community entry’ part of research, and it’s for good reason.  Each person you meet has zero knowledge of who you are, what you really want, and has zero trust for you.  You have to earn it.

My profs kept assuring me that once I got here, things would happen. I’d meet people, the lay of the land would become more clear and I’d be able to make something happen. And they were right. 

My one contact in Kathmandu turned out to be amazing and the classmate I met just weeks before I left pulled through with a few other solid contacts as well.  Throw in a couple of brilliant and tenacious research assistants to help with translation and logistics and all of a sudden 6 weeks later we have gone to far flung corners to meet with farmers in a commercialized market who had really interesting stories to tell.

Since we only got 7 of an expected 10 interviews Monday and Tuesday, today we took an overpriced taxi out of town to a small village and met with Gopal who works in project coordination for an NGO.  He took us down a short way to a lady farmer who has aspirations of being the president of a yet to be formed women’s group. This Saturday they meet to work out the details.

Then we went back up to the road, and then up--without exaggeration-- the steepest longest hill yet.  We came across a few farms and paused to talk and as I was looking around wondering when the hike was over, it appeared no one was around for most of the farms we passed.  Dread consumed me… were we hiking all the way up here to find out the rice harvest had stolen our farmers once again?

But then, further, further up we arrived at the courtyard of a large house and were invited to sit down.  One by one women and men came out from various buildings smiling, offering Namaskars and pulling up chairs.  We had a lovely group of ten or so people with 4 serious vegetable farmers to interview.

The interviews went really well.  The group was comfortable sharing with us as they had experience with outside researchers because they had had visitors from Bhutan, America and beyond.  One farmer was a rather large seed and vegetable farmer so I think that’s where the interest has been in the past. Seed is a huge issue here in Nepal because of limited supply of quality, local stock. Often farmers buy seed that has been adulterated at the processor or retailer, or they get a good seed one year and can’t get it the next.  To have a local seed cooperative is a huge plus for the surrounding villages.

We stayed for tea after two interviews at the first house, and then we all walked over to the next lady’s place and did the last two.  Then one of the first ladies came out with a new baby to show off, and asked to have her Polaroid taken with him, after which the grandpa also wanted one. 

After those interviews were done, Gopal offered to take us 40 minutes by bus and another 40 minutes walking to another area, but by then it was 2:00pm and we thought maybe that was out of scope for the day. So we took Gopal out for lunch at a roadside stand.  For three ‘mains’ and two boiled eggs with hot sauce it was 170 rupee, or about $1.70.

This time getting back to the guesthouse in Tansen was much easier because we got lucky with a bus ($0.25 each) coming by and then a jeep ($0.60) to take us the rest of the way as opposed to the 1.5 hour uphill hike like the last couple of days.  It was the best 85 cents I have spent yet.

It ain’t easy

Today we set out at a decent hour after having Man, the homestay owner argue for a cab to take us not very far to the village we had a list of contacts for today.  It seems no one wants to take anyone anywhere without being overly paid in this town.  So fine, we decided on a taxi for 600 rupees and headed on down the road.

In the car, Ezina tried the first name and after about 5 minutes of conversing found out the person we were seeking was out harvesting rice.  The next name held the same story and some numbers didn’t work, so we decided just to get there and see who was around.

The ups and downs of field research
come with some nice views!

We were quite lucky that the first farmer we found in the village was on the list and knew what we were there for. His interview went really well and he had some good perspectives to share.  This area is much more organized into cooperatives that collect and group market their product. So long as those in charge are giving the right prices, the farmers completely get around the ‘trader’ roadblock the other farmers we’ve talked to have, as far as getting decent prices for their product.

This man went through our list and deciphered that all four other contacts were out harvesting rice, and they were about a 1.5 hour walk from where we were.  The sad reality is that Ezina and I are willing to walk, but 1.5 hours to ‘see’ if they ‘maybe’ wanted to talk to us seemed a bit out of our comfort zone.  I kept thinking how lazy we are because those farmers probably walk there every day with loads on their backs but anyway… we’re researchers, not farmers!

He offered to take us to a neighbor, Laila, who actually was on out list so that was a good coincidence.  We conducted the interview with 11 good-sized chicks scurrying around our feet.  She too had some good perspectives including that she is co-head of household with her husband.  When she was younger it was felt that girls shouldn’t be educated so she wasn’t literate but was happy to share that her daughter is in her second year of her bachelors degree. 

The collection centre of one village. The chart shows
planting times, rates, and all the other information
they need to know for a whole slew of crops.

Again, at the end we asked if there was someone else they know that we could talk to that was a ‘professional farmer’.  I’ll take a pause to point out that this ‘sampling frame’ is perfectly legitimate.  It’s called snowball sampling until you reach your number, or quota or what have you. When you read all the complicated statistical sampling frames you can develop, snowball technique sounds like utter hog wash but then you get to Nepal, with all your plans sanctioned by your advisor and your ethics committee and photocopied out on crisp white paper, and you think yes, this is going to happen.  Then enters the NSS, the Nepali Shit Show effect to completely obliterate your lovely plans.  So what to do but try and find anyone and everyone who fits your inclusion criteria?  

Jus' chillin'.

But I digress.

We finished up the three interviews and decided to walk the 1.5 hours uphill back home. I think I broke Ezina’s legs, poor girl. But in my defense I don’t even think a bus passed us going our way!

And anyway, isn’t walking not only good exercise but also good for your mental health?  We should be really, really healthy after this trip.

One of the streets of Tansen.