On The Road

I am now back from my second field trip, which ended 5 days early due to the Maoist strikes in the capital. The Maoists are a tricky bunch, they protest a LOT, and when they announce strikes, the city shuts down. Stores are closed, cars are not allowed to run, all the while in the center of town Maoist supporters have something of a celebration with singing, dancing, and cheering. In the past they have been known to get a little violent and burn tires, harass shop owners and beat up people who thought they'd get away with driving. This time however they say this will be a peaceful endeavor and that they'll behave . Either way, they have announced a week-long strike for this week, with an intent to put pressure on the government to make a constitution and to oust the prime minister of whom they are not a fan. To make a long story short due to this activity I had to return and miss 4 days of school visits and interviews, because had I stayed, I would have gotten stuck away from Kathmandu and missed a meeting with my supervisor and possibly my flight to Thailand.

Anyway my second field trip took me to Syangja, a beautiful mountain region near Pokhara, where we visited a number of schools in order to distribute scholarship materials, and for yours truly to conduct a number of interviews. Once the road past Pokhara was over the Syangja roads were mountain paths on which you could travel no faster than 15 km/hour and one day in particular we took 50 kilometers in almost 3 hours. Words can’t describe how much I missed long 4 lane highways and how easy it is to get speeding tickets in Europe and the US. The entire time i felt like i was sitting in a salt shaker and wax anxious for us to arrive. At one point we had to stop our huge SUV and fill a hole in the road with rocks in order to pass, and on numerous occasions we drove through streams and rivers. In the four days we spent driving on these roads we passed around 4 other vehicles total. Surprisingly, one of the mentioned mountain paths took us to Sirubari, a model village which does get tourists on occasion, where we spent the night. I was a little disappointed, because other than the cute stone paths and neat houses, there were no people out, no shops, and only one stupa to look at. Wonder what other tourists do when they go there…

Syangja was very different from Makwanpur (where I was in March), in the fact that trafficking is rare and all children are likely to be enrolled in school. Weather they attend is a different story, but in Makwanpur enrollment was also an issue since a lot of children, especially girls, don't ever get the chance to go to school. One of the schools we visited was right near the model village I mentioned, and was solely for Dalit (untouchable) children. Even though the village itself is a haven, and people have a source of income and pride, Dalit children in that community are barred from the Gurung school of the local people and have to walk further in order to attend the one school available tot them. In that sense the impact of my NGO could truly be seen in the small primary school we visited. For the short material distribution program we did there, the locals had planned a grand welcome, with flowers and presentations, and was the only time anyone expressed a gratitude like this out of all the schools we went to. I was touched.

So now I am in Kathmandu, my field visits are incomplete (which wasn’t the plan), I am 4 days away from my vacation to Thailand, and 3 weeks away from returning back to Europe. Needless to say the stress level has risen to code red.