The Size of the World

    two weeks have passed on living in a house in kathmandu, and i have not yet succeeded in writing anything. now my head is spinning with the 630 rush of sunlight and i am trying to find a way to start the connection i have wanted to make with my world far away.

I can start by telling everyone that i am incredibly impressed with the program, especially since i had no idea what to expect. the house is beautiful with lots of balconies, the food is covered for and made for us everyday (although not my ideal situation since i would rather be cooking), and they have really organized and thought out this orientation period.

They brought in people that they worked with in the past to be Nepali teachers for us, and we broke into groups of 3:1 with the the teacher so its practically private lessons. The schedule has been rigorous at the least, but enjoyable because it is so interesting. We have had people come to the house and talk to us about the history of Nepal and the political situation over the years, discussions of globalization and the pros and cons and how our work fits into it, economics (which is hard enough for me to grasp in English, let a lone trying to understand it in Hebrew), the different castes in Nepal, and a thorough run through of the different organizations they have thus worked with.

A short brief on the current situation here...
Nepali Elections are coming up for the first time since Gyanandra assumed power unjustly in 2001, after many members of the royal family were killed by Dipendra (another royal member) but he happened to not be there. After that the Maoists became more agressive and fed up with the worthless government, and assumed power in villages where there was no police stations nearby to argue with them. In 1957 a panchayat system was installed, meaning people had to support the king. In 1980 they let the people chose if they wanted democracy or the system to continue and somehow King won and got more power. Then, in 1990 multi-party democracy was established (with lots of parties, making it a little crazy). In 1996 a civil war was started killing thousands of people between the Maoists and the police forces and people in the villages suffered greatly. Police thought the Maoists were hiding in the villages so they would come and pillage there, and then the Maoists thought they were hiding police inside so they attacked as well. Things have calmed down, but it obviously left lots of tension and distraught throughout the country, not to mention thousands displaced and orphaned from conflict.

On top of that, around a month ago the Terai area started their fight for autonomy and more recognition as an area made up of minorities/indigenous groups. Since it is on the border with india they cut off petrol coming from there, so for 2 weeks the country was almost without any gas at all- meaning no gas for cars, cooking, showering, Eventually the king relented and gave into most of their requests. The hope is that the outcome of the coming elections will also focus on ways to help satisfy the roughly 60 minority groups in Nepal. The groups are asking for a type of autonomy within a federal system, in which they get recognition of their culture, education, language and are sovereign over their economics and development. The same election that brought in democracy in 1990 also made the country a more secular state and said that Hinduism and Nepali no longer acted as the national identity, a success for all the groups who long suppressed their language and religion under the regime.

Elections are coming up in a few days and you can see demonstrations all over the country. This coming election will be deciding what will happen with the constitution, they will be writing their manifestos and need to agree on a constitution and how power will be divided. We are going to be acting as international election monitors as part of a number of other NGO's in the country. We are going to a village where there is less people to monitro (since most are  based around Kathmandu) and help out there. It roughly means that we act as a psychological comfort to people voting who feel distrust in the system, because we are not supposed to say anything at all while we are there, just stand there and be a presence. We had a respected intellectual from Bangladesh come to us last night, Dr. Kalimullah, who told us that in a recent situation, a place that had one officer sitting around had a fairer outcome than a place that didnt, despite his outward lack of control and interaction with the people. It should be very interesting to go and be part of such a tremendous event in the country, even if it means standing around for a lot of hours. I was very upset last night though, we got t-shirts, hats, and bags from the committee- in a country so poor I see the same corruption of goods exists as it does with all the other organizations Ive thus taken part in, who feel that it is important to spend the little money they have on such materials rather than on the people.
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On a different note...
As part of the orientation they also had us go out one day for five hours, alone, and just go around the city. They set some goals for us to meet if we wanted to, like inviting someone to tea, talking about elections with them, using two forms of transportation, etc.
It was a great experience, and I forgot how much I need to feel free after sitting in the house all week. I started out simply walking the opposite way outside of the house than I normally do, and kept going for around an hour. I came upon a funeral procession and followed the scent of their incense and beat of the drumming through the winding streets and little alleyways. I came upon a closed market selling everything you could think of, surrounded by the dirty river and cows and shacks where people live, On the other side, there was an open market with fruits and vegetables, including "quuter" which I took a picture of and then found out from the Nepali dictionary that it was how jackfruit looks outside of a can. It was a great time to walk around and try to use the words I know in Nepali and get the sentence order down. It started raining and I hopped on the bus back, where there was some man slurring words to me I couldnt understand, so the bus people yelled at him and I switched seats to sit next to a man with his masters in Environmental Conservation who works for the water purification committee or something like that in Kathmandu and we had an amazing time talking.
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With so much going on in the past two weeks I am trying to see how to sum things up and maintain my feelings within all of it.

I had an amazing time this weekend, I went with a group of people from the group that I hadnt really spoken to at all on a bike trip we did ourselves. The 6 of us rented bikes from town and followed the signs to Baktapor, around an 1.5 away. As we rode the colors changed from city grey to country green and the air became breathable once again. I felt such a feeling of liberation and being alive. Ive always felt that sitting in a car or any vehicle feels like watching television and the world is passing you by, being on a bike reiterated that thought, as I felt I was taking part in it all, and happily not polluting more in the process.