Advertisement
Published: August 6th 2007
There was no way to prepare ourselves for what we were about to experience - sheer chaos, utter filth and downright poverty.
The streets of Kathmandu are unpaved, rutted and full of debris thrown into the roads by locals who appear to have no concept of a garbage can. Stray dogs, monkeys and cattle rummage through the trash in search of scraps to fill their rib-revealing bellies. Tents line the sidewalk off the main drag where entire families struggle to make ends meet. Hundreds of cars and mopeds queue on the streets daily at one of nine stations not yet depleted of gas, as the country struggles from a gas shortage due to outstanding debt. Disorder dominates the roads as cars weave in and out of oncoming traffic lanes, barely avoiding contact with other vehicles, pedestrians and roaming cattle. Locals freely drive Roto tiller in the streets as a common mode of transportation. Goats are openly slaughtered and gutted outside of makeshift shops each morning. Raw meat for sale lies out in the open all day, in the dust-filled and fly-infested air. Women occupy the grounds of street corners selling vegetables and cooking corn over scrap wood fires. Crowds of
people ambulate through a busy shopping district as a young Nepalese boy relieves himself curbside. Pedestrians are unfazed as a homeless man lies naked along the main thoroughfare. Women transport oversized furniture, bricks and casks of water on their backs, held in place by a single strap around their forehead while other locals market their goods from the baskets of their dilapidated bicycles. Children and teenagers bathe themselves in bowls of water outside of family-owned shops and underneath public water pumps as women soap and scrub clothing against the wet cement. Nepal is nothing less than an assault on the senses.
It took Gene and me no longer than five minutes after exiting the terminal to get swindled once again. As we scanned the expressionless faces along the row of representatives holding up paper signs, I gestured Gene toward the sign indicating, “Genie Sawyer.” As soon as we acknowledged the driver, he and two others, who we assumed were also hotel employees, took our bags and guided us to the tattered hotel shuttle bus. With our bags loaded into the back and the driver settled up front, the two young men popped their heads into the back of the
vehicle demanding, “Tips!”, while our driver remained voiceless in the front seat.
I peered over at Gene who had just returned from the cash station and asked him if he had any small bills. Opening his wallet to reveal several 100-rupee bills, Gene advised the young men that he didn’t have any change.
“You give us 100 rupees!” the boy insisted. Before Gene had enough time to calculate the exchange rate, he handed over a 100-rupee bill to the unrelenting impostor who laughed as he and his partner quickly vanished from beside the vehicle with our money in hand.
“What does that equate to in US dollars?” I asked Gene.
“About eight dollars,” Gene replied.
“You just gave $8 dollars to some shyster who pried our luggage from our hands and doesn’t even work for the hotel?!! We don’t even tip bell boys in the US that much!” I scolded.
Gene, immediately jumping to his defense, countered, “You were the one who told me to tip them!”
“Yes, but I didn’t tell you to hand over your entire wallet! You can’t just hand out money to anyone and everyone who asks for it!”
Needless to say, a point-the-finger pissing match ensued. After a great deal of bickering and the
silent treatment, we both agreed that the driver was to blame for the incident and would therefore forgo any tip from us.
After a long drive through town, we finally arrived at our hotel, the Le Meridien, and were greeted at the door by a cheerful bellboy, whom we would later come to know as Sudarshan. As we entered the hotel, we were quick to realize that the Le Meridien of Kathmandu is no match to the palatial estates of the hotel chain in the States. On the other hand, the price for a night’s stay in Kathmandu in no way compared to that of the States, either.
Quick to grab both Gene’s and my luggage, I told Gene to help the poor bellboy as he struggled across the lawn with our three bags in tow. As I tried to grab hold of my roller bag, I was firmly denied: “It’s my job, ma’am.” Appreciative of his efforts to earn a few bucks, Gene and I tipped the porter and sent him happily on his way.
We soon after received
a tour of the hotel grounds by our new friend, Sudarshan, who tickled me with his congeniality and inexhaustible smile. We learned that Sudarshan worked on the hotel’s golf course for 9 years as a caddy and was promoted to the position of bellboy just 4 months prior. He explained that he alternates the morning and evening shifts with another employee, and provides tours of the city and his village to hotel guests when he is off duty. Gene and I had a new-found respect for Sudarshan and his strong work ethic and, without knowing the costs associated, agreed to one day take him along as our tour guide.
Two days later, we found ourselves in a taxi with Sudarshan headed over to the Monkey Temple (Swayambunath Stupa). The temple, sitting on a hill that overlooks Kathmandu, got its name from the many hundreds of monkeys which have made the temple their home. At the center is a large
stupa from which the eyes of Buddha gaze in four directions.
As Gene and I climbed the steep staircase leading to the shrine, Sudarshan teased us with each stop we made to catch our breaths. Other than his insistence
on carrying our umbrellas, watching our shoes and his services as photographer, Gene and I had to laugh at the worthlessness of having him along as our private guide. At the end of the day, however, we knew in our hearts that we were helping someone in need.
Ascending the hill to a lookout, I spotted an adorable baby monkey alongside the path. Too young to have yet grown habituated to people, the monkey, startled by my presence, pounced like a cat onto its mother’s back. Before I had a chance to react, the mother, who was instantaneously distressed by her baby’s leap for safety, let out a high-pitched, unruly shriek and charged at me. Frightened by the creature less than 1/3 my size, I let out a scream of my own and sprung onto Gene’s backside as he was trying to take a photograph. Convinced that I was a wild monkey on his back ready to transmit rabies, Gene let out a squeal as he frantically shook to free his monkey wife from his back. When the catastrophe was finally over, we turned to find Sudarshan keeled over in a fit of laughter.
With everything else closing at
five on Sunday, our tour was complete by the time that we left the Monkey Temple. Before heading back, Sudarshan walked us up the road to a small shop for a cold beverage. I requested a Sprite and Gene a beer before asking Sudarshan what he wanted to drink. As he stood there speechless, I sensed his awkwardness in telling us what he wanted. After reassuring him that he could have a beer if he would like, he accepted with a smile. Gene and I sat there with Sudarshan over the next two hours, discussing Nepalese culture and his life at home. After just two beers, Sudarshan lost all inhibitions and talked himself silly.
We were shocked to learn that a Caste system is still in place in Nepal with individuals being forced to marry within their same caste. Moreover, marriages are still arranged and spouses chosen by your parents. Sudarshan claimed that he had a steady girlfriend at the age of 24 and was told one random day by his parents that he was to marry another woman the next. He spent only one day with his soon-to-be-wife before their wedding day and she moved into the family
home immediately thereafter. He claims that it took him only a few days to get to know his wife, which Gene and I found rather unorthodox. We could not, however, muster the guts to ask him whether or not he was in love with his wife, but assumed that, as expected, he does his best to make things work.
Sudarshan is compensated only $42 USD per month and is responsible for providing food and shelter for his wife and 2-year-old son as well as his live-in parents. It is customary for the men to work and the women to stay home with the children, with most families comprised of 2-3 children. An entire family can subsist on three bags of rice per month. Sudarshan explained, however, that it tradition for the men to be served different food than the women at mealtimes.
Most families, including that of Sudarshan, do not have plumbing or electricity in their homes. Those that have electricity are required to function by means of torchlight for 2-2 ½ hours every night while the electricity in Kathmandu is shut off; generators are owned only by the wealthy. Furthermore, women are required to shower outdoors in
the early morn to avoid any invasion of privacy by perverted men.
As Gene and I drove back to the hotel accompanied by Sudarshan, we began to feel exploited by our loopy companion who reminded us repeatedly of the heavy responsibilities that he held at home. This sentiment would develop into a theme over the next few days in Nepal as Gene and I consistently felt taken advantage of by the Nepalese and hotel administration. On numerous occasions when we requested the hotel to call us a taxi, we were picked up by shabby private vehicles with no meter, presumably acquaintances of the hotel employees looking for easy business. The drivers would then attempt to negotiate a price, which was more often than not, at least twice the price that it had previously cost us by meter. Weary of the exploitation, Gene and I frequently got into squabbling matches with the drivers and demanded that a metered taxi be called before the driver caved in and accepted the more-than-reasonable fare offered.
The morning after our so-called tour, we were awakened by the ring of the telephone at 6:30 a.m. Woken from a dead sleep, I heard Gene slur
“hello” into the phone. It took only a couple of moments before I was able to deduce that it was Sudarshan calling to see if we wanted a tour of his village before the start of his morning shift. Gene, through clenched teeth, managed to let Sudarshan down lightly, informing him that we were still sleeping and planned to stay asleep until a decent hour. Unfortunately, Gene had already uttered one too many words to our overzealous friend to be able to fall back asleep. As a result, I was left in bed to listen to his frenzied, single-fingered
tap tap tap tap tap on the keyboard, unable to fall back asleep myself.
Good for the two of us. We spent the remainder of the morning in our room, Gene catching up on our blog and I on
Discovery Channel episodes. Later, as I attempted a midday shower, Gene inquired regarding the cause of the wail opposite side the bathroom door.
“There’s no @#$%!&(MISSING)*! hot water, AGAIN!” I shouted while standing goose-pimpled outside of the shower.
“This is ridiculous,” Gene yelled back, as he headed toward the phone to contact reception. Within minutes, Gene’s panties were in
a bunch as he informed me that the hot water at the hotel is turned off during the day. He reassured me, however, that he ordered the front desk to turn it back on and that I should have hot water within the next 15 minutes.
So much for our palatial estate! Anxious to see the residential lifestyle of the Nepalese first-hand, Gene and I agreed to tour Sudarshan’s village on our last night in Katmandu. Unwilling to dish out another fistful of cash, however, we asked Sudarshan what we could purchase from the village as a gift to his family. His standard response: “Whatever you would like ma’am.”
When Gene offered to buy a couple of bags of rice, Sudarshan explained that he had purchased rice with the money we had already given him and that anything that we could provide his son would be very much appreciated. As we approached a local shop that sold various sorts of children’s toys, we nearly had to pull Sudarshan’s teeth to get him to tell us what his boy would like.
After loading a bag with a soccer ball, a Nepali-to-English picture book, a toy car, stuffed dog
and Kit-Kat’s, Gene and I were eager to meet Sudarshan’s family and to see where he lived. As we approached the $8,000 USD mud-block home, Gene and I took a deep breath and entered inside. The house was comprised of three floors, containing only three small rooms - a bedroom for Sudarshan, his wife and child on the main floor, a room for his parents on the second floor, and a kitchen on the third floor. Each room could be accessed only by climbing a wooden ladder, crouched over to avoid hitting your head.
Sudarshan insisted that we keep our shoes on in his home and directed us to his kitchen where his wife, mother and child were situated. We were both handed circular footstools to sit on as his mother took a seat on the mud floor and his wife stood at the gas stove to prepare tea. There was no table, no refrigerator, no cabinets and no chair. One of three fluorescent lights in the home hung overhead and cast a dim light over our meager surroundings. Three elongated pots held the family’s subsistence for the month - rice, flour and third unrecalled ration. Sudarshan’s mother sat
on the floor nearby kneading handmade dough in a wooden bowl.
I fought back tears as my attention focused on a cheery little boy running to greet his father. Ignorantly happy, Sudjan cradled himself into his father’s arms and peered shyly back at the two unfamiliar faces inside his safe haven. A smile contagiously spreading across my face as I pulled out the toy car from the bag and handed it to the boy. Awaiting approval from his father first, he reached out his tiny hand, grinning from ear to ear. The next moments were full of laughter as Sudjan acquainted himself with his new toys and tossed the ball around. Gene and I have never experienced a more humbling moment.
We spent the next two hours playing with Sudjan, sipping tea, looking through family photos, and visiting with Sudarshan’s parents, wife, and niece and nephew, as Sudarshan played translator. Gene and I secretly took note of household items that would come in use to the family and pondered how we could manage to make a difference in the lives of a family with so little. I reflected on holidays past with my family and the piles of
gifts that line the floor for birthdays, Christmas, and other Hallmark holidays. I thought about the many items in my own home that have gone unused over the years and would be of great benefit to a family in need.
While poverty exists all over the World, it touches you in a different way when you look it directly in the face and see for yourself that, at the end of the day, we are all people.
To those of you who may be interested in assisting Sudarshan’s family, I procured his contact information prior to leaving Nepal and would be more than happy to provide it upon request.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0507s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
darby
non-member comment
so does this mean?
you forgave him for the 6:30 AM wake up call?