Morning in Kathmandu

The View from my Window

The Small But Vital Reporter* has landed!

What a trip. So much to say that it's all I can say ... trippy in many senses of the word. left Thursday from Vancouver, landed in Delhi at 2:30 in the morning, was met by the brother of my friend Nazir who took me to their place to sleep. Got to bed at 4 am and didn't wake up again until 12:30 pm. Despite being in a very busy household where there was a lot going on around me. Their hospitality has been outstanding .. after I got up, I suggested that it might be time to find a hotel, to which they replied "no friend of Nazir's is going to be staying in a hotel. You must stay here". It's a two bedroom flat so it's not like there's a lot of room. Nonetheless, they gave me the king sized bed all to myself.

So I have been staying there, enjoying the wonderful food (and learning to eat with my hands .. they offered me a fork but I decided to do it the way the rest of the family does it). Supper is on a cloth on the floor and we sit around the cloth cross-legged. It has also been an enlightening cultural experience because I got to observe the first day of Ramadan with them. They didn't expect me to get up for 5:30 prayers, and they offered me food throughout the day despite the household Ramadan practice which is no food until sundown. Wonderful and gracious hosts, and I am so grateful to Nazir and his family for their outstanding hospitality (they also own a travel agency so have been helping me organize plane tickets and itineraries and such.

They also insisted (and rightly so) that I needed to visit the Taj Mahal. I got a
picture of myself sitting on the bench made famous by Princess Diana (huge lineup for bench space .. I don't think anybody thought much about sitting on it before she did).

We went to Agra (where the Taj is) by car and I am SO SO SO glad I was not the one doing the driving. From what people have told me about India, I think the traffic patterns are an appropriate metaphor for Indian life. Picture this ... cars, bicycles, camels, horses, people pushing carts of vegetables and anything else with wheels you can imagine. And cows. Lots and lots and lots of cows. Even though the roadway looks like our four lane highways, with a centre line and divider in the middle. But people don't drive in the lines. They're all over the road. And they don't use turn signals. Ever. They use their horns. All the time. Loudly. And every now and again, somebody would turn around and drive the other way. Like, we're talking large trucks coming straight at you fast. Whoa.

And now, here I am in Kathmandu visiting my friend Faruq who I've known for about ten years from Ottawa. I arrived by Cosmic Air. Cosmic, huh? Faruq is a development worker here in Nepal. This morning I woke up pretty early to the sound of cows ... I asked Faruq about this because I didn't think Kathmandu had the cattle population that Delhi has, but he tells me that Kathmandu is Hindu as well. So yes, there are cows.

The things I am learning range from the sublime to the truly heartbreaking. This
morning Faruq and I went to a little tea shop which he goes to often. Faruq lives in palatial quarters behind fancy iron gates (he isn't the kind of guy who looks for places like this, but he just happened to luck into a good deal). The streets are paved, the gardens are beautiful ... you walk outside the gates and it's another place entirely. little shops, some made of corrugated tin with no front walls or doors. People trying to make a living the best they can and not succeeding very well. Mud on the streets, muddy mangy dogs. But the people are really beautiful. One of the things that amazes me is that, even in the poorest areas, the women are beautifully, colourfully dressed in stunning saris and two piece suits and scarves (can't remember what they're called). And the smiles ...

This morning Faruq introduced me to one of the shopkeepers he has developed a close
relationship with. She is a young woman with a six year old daughter and another baby on the way. She opens her little open-air restaurant at 6 am and doesn't close until 9 pm. She works very hard and a lot of money goes to send her daughter to school.

We sat and talked to her while she served us tea (Faruq speaks Nepali, as well as Hindi, Urdu, French and English .. he's very handy to have around). One of her friends came over with her beautiful little 5 year old daughter and she asked Faruq "If I can get a passport, will your friend take her to live with her in Canada?" I thought she was kidding, but she repeated it three times, asking her daughter "do you want to go to Canada with your big sister?" So much said in that one question ... it is not a fabrication to say that many people are desperate for a better life for their children. If that means giving them up, some parents will do that. (I felt like adopting her little girl in a minute ...)

Friends who have been to this part of the world have told me that the poverty would be very difficult to look at. Another story -- When we went to the Taj on Sunday, one little girl followed me for half an hour trying to sell me a set of pens. It was hard to deal with because she was really obnoxious about it. When I got in the car she waited outside the window and stared at me as we drove off. It was tough. I was tired, I was hot and I needed to remind myself "she's only ten". The problem is, she's not likely working for herself. And paying them only keeps the cycle of slavery happening. She's also likely to get beat up by other children or adults if she is more successful than they are.

Oh, and another thing that's hard to get used to .. I was also warned about this by
friends. The Indian style of Commerce is something else. They say how much they want, you say "no, I only want to pay this much". They say "no, I can't sell it to you for that, how about this much" and you say, "no, I don't think so". They say no. You start walking away. Slowly as if to say "I'm walking. See, I really am" and just before you get out of earshot they say Okay.

Now, given the poverty of this country, I have a whole bunch of white liberal guilt
about haggling with them. But it's expected. My shopping trips have to be short
because I get too damn tired. Also, if someone says "do you want to pet my monkey?" the answer is no. I did and found out that it cost me a hundred rupees "Please ma'am, I am poor man ... 200 rupees, please ma'am you have money, I must feed family" Which is true. I have lots of money by their standards ... though I am not at all sure what to do about that in this context. Just giving them money doesn't help in the long run. I have the same difficulty with panhandlers at home. Think I'll do a story on solutions to the panhandling/begging issue. That much I can do and maybe in some small way it will make a bit of a difference.

So many stories. Lots of pictures too. Must update my blog, and I'll see if Faruq's computer will let me offload my camera. So those are some of the highlights so far and the trip is just beginning.

Write to me! Home seems like another planet and every voice from back home increases my comfort zone (it's been exciting but also uncomfortable being out of my element.

Over and out for now, thanks for reading and being there for me.

Love Victoria
* for those of you who don't know the "Small but Vital Reporter" reference -- the title comes from the long-running (now over) CBC Radio comedy show called "Double Exposure", in which there was a character called "Victoria Penner, Small But Vital Reporter". To this day, there are people who think it was me playing me. In reality, it was Linda Cullen, a Vancouver comedienne. I liked the character -- earnest, streetwise and stopped at nothing to get her story. I sometimes (often!) need her energy and drive!