Nepal - Day 19

After a brief interlude of good health yesterday today I was feeling less than perfect again. Thankfully it was just the sniffles so it was more of an annoyance than discomfort.

Work itself was more of the same: mixing cement and passing it to the skilled worker. We finished early today and played badminton with the children.

On my return from badminton Guy greeted me with an uncharacteristically serious tone and advised me that I should 'check my wallet'. I did so and realised that I was missing 5000 rupees. Guy was missing 2000. After a brief discussion it became apparent that we had been stolen from.

Given my tight budget I found it rather irritating (and a little stressful) that I would now have to re-budget and my - already tightly monitored - expenditure; however it is hard to remain angry when you realise the circumstances in which we (and by 'we' I am generically referring to westerners) live in comparison to the vast majority of Nepali people. I read in the Kathmandu Post (which is, by the way, a terrific newspaper) that the average Nepali lives on about $1.97 US dollars a day. This means that if our stolen 7000 rupees are put to good use it could feed a Nepalese person for a month. Given that all I lose in the equation is a) trust in my host family and the students of the school and b) some extra souvenir shopping at Kathmandu it would be hypocritical of me as a vocal consequentialist so condemn such a theft were I to be sure the money would be used in such a way.
 
Despite my initial frustrations I can't help but feel like I've been 'Robin Hood-ed'; which is something that - although it isn't the perfect means of wealth redistribution - I feel that I should accept.

Nevertheless I can't say I terribly enjoy harboring a suspicious and incessantly accusing inner dialogue. "Was it him? I did humiliate him at the table tennis. . .Nah. Or maybe it was you Ansita, I do complain about your daal baht being too spicy. . ."

     ^ This photo has no relation to the blog entry. It's the pump. Where the children wash and where the vegetables are prepared every night. Every afternoon the girls prepare the food. They spend hours chopping and washing potatoes.

Nepal - Day 18 - Parsha

I spared you the details of my illness yesterday (sort of) but needless to say I couldn't make it to work. Today, however, I was keen and chirpy.


This weeks work is erecting the concrete pillars. The skilled worker prepares the foundations for the pillars and Guy and I mix the cement and pass it to him. It's repetitive work but it's far less strenuous then shoveling so feels like a breeze by comparison. Often the children will come and help us in their lunch break, forming a sort of production line passing the large bowls full of cement back and forth.

The evening was fairly standard - Guy and I wandered into the village. He had some beers, I had a fanta. The power went out at 6pm (or so) and we all went to bed early. All in all it was a good - albeit a noneventful - sort of day.

Nepal - Day 21 - Chitawan

Ahh Chitawan, you and your guilty non-Nepali pleasures. I can only justify going to the undeniably touristified (Yes, it IS a word. Well it is now. . .) Chitawan because my week-to-week experience at Parsha is authentically Nepalese. Disclaimer out of the way; now down to details.

Breakfast was banana pancakes. I am salivating over the memories. Then (because Guy has a sort of 'hey-you-smoke-and-I-smoke' sort of rapport with the manager) we went to do some elephant bathing for free. I'd refused to go on the elephant safari a few weekends ago because I'd ridden and elephant in Thailand and didn't like the way that the elephant was treated. Bathing, I figured, would be a little different. If I were to imagine an elephant's life things like eating, bathing, and interacting with other elephants/animals would seem like relatively enjoyable and natural things. 

From all I could examine from the shore my suspicions were correct. The elephants didn't need coaxing into the water and I sometimes saw them do natural 'elephant things' like drinking the water and throwing dirt on themselves. Perhaps all this justification is overkill but it's necessary for me to feel at ease.

MOVING ON. . . the experience itself was incredible. The majesty and sheer size of an elephant is striking up close. With me (and some danish tourists) on it's back the elephant sprayed itself (and us) with water. Guy took some excellent photo's from the river shore.

Back at the rainforest hotel I sun-dried and read a bit while Guy talked with the manager and in the afternoon I had a nap.

At dinner we met some incredibly attractive danish travellers (and for the second time writing this diary entry I am salivating) who spoke English very well. I shamelessly showed off and broke the ice with a few card tricks (2 succeeded, 1 miserable failure) and afterwards we all went out together for 2-for1 cocktails.

My small frame means that 2 cocktails really hits me, and the joint that was passed around afterwards (offered as casually as one might offer an after dinner mint) probably didn't help my rapidly declining state either. The conversations were lively and great and I wish I'd taken photo's. We walked (ok, stumbled) back to the hotel only stopping for the obligatory late night inebriated snickers bar. It tasted like ground up unicorns. 

Nepal - Day 20 + Small Sam Harris book review.

Work was fairly casual again today: more mixing and passing cement. The skilled worker is an interesting sort of character. The first time we met him he was wearing a leopard skin patterned undershirt; today he was sporting one with butterflies on it. He also has grown his pinky fingernail really long and painted it red. I think the fingernail thing might be culturally symbolic of something but his effeminate clothing choices seem to be unique to him (and amusing to Guy and I).


I've been progressing through Sam Harris's 'The Moral Landscape' during work breaks and I've found it (dare I say it) quite good and even uncontroversial. Most accounts I'd heard of the book were negative, yet most of the people I'd talked to hadn't actually read the book. I bought the book half expecting to find flaws and inconsistencies on every page but found nothing of the sort. Sure, the book lacks philosophical rigor, but it's a book aimed at a general readership so such criticisms are misplaced. As for the alleged is/ought blunder Harris doesn't defy Hume but merely sidesteps the issue. His definition of well-being is vague but sufficient and once it is established that it is worth valuing it is not a difficult step to realize that science is best equipped to discover the 'how-to's'.


Harris essentially presents a form of Utilitarianism (or so it seems to me) but frames it scientifically, based primarily on subjective ratings of happiness as examined through neuroscience. Seeing as utilitarianism - put to best use - would require a great deal of knowledge about the external world (AKA 'scientific knowledge') the viewpoint that Harris adopts is not only justified but necessary.

^The tea room

ENOUGH BOOK REVIEWING, BACK TO THE BLOG. Ok, ok.

In the afternoon Guy and I were summoned to the tea-room. Waiting for us was the school chairman, the teachers, and our i-to-i co-ordinator. They apologised for the theft and promised to ensure that it would not happen again. The apology was sincere and heartfelt. It helped.

Afterwards Guy and I caught the public bus to Chitawan again for another the weekend.

Nepal - Day 17 - Travel bug.

Eergh. eergh. eergh. eeergh. Sleep.
Zzzz.
Zzzz.
Zzzz.
    zzz.
      zzz.
         zzzz.
Eergh. eergh. Eergh. eeeergh. Errahh. VOMIT.
                                                             vomit. vomit.
                                                                     VoMit.
                                                               vomit. vomit.
                                                                     Vomit.
                                                                   Vom-errgh-it.
Eergh. eeergh. Eergh. eerggh. eergh. eergh. Sleep.


And so forth.  

Nepal - Day 16 - Pokhara to Chitawan

The bus trip from Pokhara back to Chitawan wasn't much fun. My allocated seat on the bus had a back that would spring back and forth on the tiniest of bumps. Apart from feeling like an unwilling passenger on the world's shittest rollercoaster it also made a loud creak every time it moved (which turned out to be about once every second over the 5hr trip). I tried to sleep but the seat kept talking to me - It had nothing interesting to say. In fact it had a limited vocabulary and was rather repetitive. 

I endured that contraption for about the first 3 hours until I got an opportunity too good to miss - a chance to move from the worst seat on the bus to the second worse! This seat was in the back row and had an opposing problem to seat-horror number one. The seats in the back row had no tilt function whatsoever and remained in their (very) upright position.

*this days journal entry ended ubruptly here. . . recalling the seat and writing about it probably rendered me far too annoyed to continue writing*

Nepal - Day 27

It's about 4:50am and I'm sitting on the roof of the school waiting for the sun to rise. I woke up at around 4am and realised that today I would have to say goodbye to all the children and teachers and accept that one of the best experiences of my life was coming to an end.

I can hear the sounds of rural Nepal coming to life. Roosters are crowing and the distinct metal clank of water pumps can be heard from many directions. It just occurred to me that I've never awoken solely to watch the sun rise and I'm glad to do it for the first time in Nepal.