Nepal: Nepal 10 years ago and today

Today we went out for lunch with Sandy's co-worker. He comes from a rural village and is a lower caste Dalit. He works at PDRC with Sandy to help bring awareness to the the Dalit cause. He has come to Kathmandu valley with his 4 other brothers to look after them while they are in school and their parents stay in the village. He has a pretty big responsibility but PDRC has helped out a lot.

After lunch we hired a taxi for the day and went to a couple fair trade shops in Patan...but we realised once we were there that many are closed on Saturday's as Saturday is their holiday. We decided to head into Patan durbar square afterwards. You have to pay 200 rupees to get in because they use this money to keep it clean and functioning. Although, by ts current looks, you can tell the amount of people in the region out numbers any restoration and clean up.

Talking to Sagun, my program officer at CECI, she said 10 years ago Kathmandu Valley was not like this. She said since the Maoists, plenty of people migrated to the valley and the Kathmandu centre looking for security and a future. People in the rural villages felt unsafe during the 10 year civil war. Sagun said there are 3 times as many people in Kathmandu centre then there was 10 years ago, and even for those who live here and have seen the change it is quite a shock to them. Now that the civil war is over, people do not want to relocate back so they have stayed in Kathmandu.

Tomorrow is another Bandh and so is Monday so we get a 4 day weekend which is nice :D...except we can't go anywhere. It is still nice to be able to catch up on reading and some home work and relax. The Bandhs are getting more serious...there are now rallies going on I wish I could attend/witness. I asked Sandy's friend what he thinks will happen come May 28th, 2011 and he said people will be upset but they have hope still that a constitution will come eventually... he doesn't think there will be any big acts of violence of course or any rebellion. The Nepali people are very humble and are filled with a lot of happiness and hope..which is why i think they are able to continue living as they do. They do not even have road rage! They know one day things will improve and they operate differently then western countries. They know that whatever can't get done today, can get done tomorrow or the next day (I love this concept because it gives them time to talk amongst themselves (colleagues, families, friends) instead of constantly rushing around and ignoring each other becuase we are too busy to care about how our co-workers are doing etc) Their concept of time is circular and never ending.