once you've experienced actual, free-range monkeys, you will never feel the same about them again.
my friend emily, working in shimla, india on energy issues, writes more.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
english as the global language and some implications for development
i am reminded here, pretty much every day, how lucky i am to be an english speaker. both socially and professionally, i have it pretty darn easy being fluent in english and more or less conversational in nepali...and i know plenty of foreigners who get by just fine with no nepali at all (although i think you have a MUCH more fun time here if you learn).
this article [h/t virtual linguist] talks about the rise of english to its current status as the global language. it is, unsurprisingly, a story in which oppressive power structures and pervasive inequalities play a leading role. just a reminder that privilege and power are inherently self-reinforcing.
another things that this article made me consider is the degree to which the professional circles in which i run are highly english-medium. development is an industry that has a lot of rhetoric about decentralization, local ownership and empowerment, capacity building, etc in the global south. but the power and priorities are all too often driven by donors in the global north, for whom english is the lingua franca.
for instance, at my organization, everyone except for the director and myself is nepali, with anywhere from limited to proficient english. what language we use casually and conversationally depends on the speakers and the topic, but we inevitably file much of our nuts-and-bolts work in english...because we're communicating with northern donors or headquarters in DC. we mostly implement through (ie in partnership with/supervising) local, district-level NGOs. there are lots of good arguments for the functionality of this model, and they shouldn't be ignored (more on this later?). however, these reasons talk mostly about the constraints on us implementing directly, rather than why these local groups aren't being directly funded. the arguments don't fully articulate the implicitly symbiotic nature of the relationship. we need them for lots of reasons, and they need us because they (theoretically "as yet") "lack capacity". speaking generally, local-level/grassroots NGOs, especially new ones, often do lack familiarity with the donor standards of accountability, have green personnel, are (in nepal, anyway) affiliated with local political parties etc, but most foundationally they lack the language, both literally (in terms of english skills) and more broadly (in terms of connections and the familiarty with the norms, terminology, and dance specific to the industry) to be able to appeal directly to those with the money.
**let me be totally clear that this is not meant as any criticism of the organization i work for, specifically. i actually think they are pretty darn great at what they do. overwhelmingly, i think we put our (or, i suppose, our donors') money where our collective mouth is and really commit to local planning, priorities, and capacity building. the model used is, under the circumstances, entirely necessary and largely effective. i've worked with some of our local partners and have tremendous respect for their abilities and dedication. one day i'll get around to writing about some of our programming and give you specific examples of this. **
this also isn't one of those "the WHO creates epidemics" conspiracy theories (yes, i have heard that one). however, i am saying, in a broader practical and philosophical sense, that the current structure of the development industry restricts access to resources to those who possess a certain figurative proficiency in the industry's "language" (including the latest trends in jargon and practice), and, by extension, a certain literal fluency in english. this often necessitates a trickle down method of program implementation, which is intuitively at odds with the industry's rhetoric, and can make fulfilling its ostensible aims even more challenging. it is one of the many things that leads one to ask...whose aid is it anyway?
this article [h/t virtual linguist] talks about the rise of english to its current status as the global language. it is, unsurprisingly, a story in which oppressive power structures and pervasive inequalities play a leading role. just a reminder that privilege and power are inherently self-reinforcing.
another things that this article made me consider is the degree to which the professional circles in which i run are highly english-medium. development is an industry that has a lot of rhetoric about decentralization, local ownership and empowerment, capacity building, etc in the global south. but the power and priorities are all too often driven by donors in the global north, for whom english is the lingua franca.
for instance, at my organization, everyone except for the director and myself is nepali, with anywhere from limited to proficient english. what language we use casually and conversationally depends on the speakers and the topic, but we inevitably file much of our nuts-and-bolts work in english...because we're communicating with northern donors or headquarters in DC. we mostly implement through (ie in partnership with/supervising) local, district-level NGOs. there are lots of good arguments for the functionality of this model, and they shouldn't be ignored (more on this later?). however, these reasons talk mostly about the constraints on us implementing directly, rather than why these local groups aren't being directly funded. the arguments don't fully articulate the implicitly symbiotic nature of the relationship. we need them for lots of reasons, and they need us because they (theoretically "as yet") "lack capacity". speaking generally, local-level/grassroots NGOs, especially new ones, often do lack familiarity with the donor standards of accountability, have green personnel, are (in nepal, anyway) affiliated with local political parties etc, but most foundationally they lack the language, both literally (in terms of english skills) and more broadly (in terms of connections and the familiarty with the norms, terminology, and dance specific to the industry) to be able to appeal directly to those with the money.
**let me be totally clear that this is not meant as any criticism of the organization i work for, specifically. i actually think they are pretty darn great at what they do. overwhelmingly, i think we put our (or, i suppose, our donors') money where our collective mouth is and really commit to local planning, priorities, and capacity building. the model used is, under the circumstances, entirely necessary and largely effective. i've worked with some of our local partners and have tremendous respect for their abilities and dedication. one day i'll get around to writing about some of our programming and give you specific examples of this. **
this also isn't one of those "the WHO creates epidemics" conspiracy theories (yes, i have heard that one). however, i am saying, in a broader practical and philosophical sense, that the current structure of the development industry restricts access to resources to those who possess a certain figurative proficiency in the industry's "language" (including the latest trends in jargon and practice), and, by extension, a certain literal fluency in english. this often necessitates a trickle down method of program implementation, which is intuitively at odds with the industry's rhetoric, and can make fulfilling its ostensible aims even more challenging. it is one of the many things that leads one to ask...whose aid is it anyway?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
china exerting undue influence? say it ain't so...
two posts in one day? someone has a backlog of possible blogging topics and a report due for work, hm?
right then.
so, i'm not sure why the revelation in the leaked Delhi cables , that China may be directly paying off Nepali police to arrest Tibetans crossing Nepal's northern border, is a particularly newsworthy one (and maybe it isn't...aside from the syndicated news story, there doesn't seem to be much commentary on teh interwebs). China makes no bones about its priorities as concerns its diminutive neighbor to the south. About two years ago, China pledged $2.6million in non-lethal security aid, in the same breath praising Nepal's support for the one-China policy. It doesn't exactly take a career diplomat to decode the expectations associated with that aid money.
what is presumably supposed to be more shocking is the direct incentivization (read: bribes) provided by the government of one country to the security forces of another country to bypass nationally and internationally sanctioned immigration policies to deliver illegal immigrants directly back to their country of origin.
but come on now...the Chinese government's reputation is not exactly one of the highest respect for international norms, and the Nepali security sector is notoriously corrupt and inefficient (in a country where there is a historically instantiated, institutionally incentivized and generally accepted attitude of official impunity in pretty much every sector). surely this can't be that much of a shock.
what's also always interesting for me is the huge disparity between Nepalis' opinions of India (and Indians) and China. there is a LOT of distrust and dislike for India and Indians* (which, to be fair, is reciprocated by the feelings I've heard some Indians express about Nepalis, which are more than a little racist). dislike for the Indian government stems from what Nepalis describe as a long history of gross interference in Nepali politics. now, i'll give you that India likes to keep its hand in, so to speak, and that there has been a history of border disputes going back to the formation of Nepal as a country.
on the other hand, China has just as much interest in influencing Nepali politics, especially as it seeks to maintain regional dominance. Nepali hydropower, for instance, is an area in which China is eager to have a say, and one in which Chinese investment is probably going to be detrimental to India's interest...with no particular stake in promoting Nepal's interest except as a tool for gaining geopolitical leverage. while it's not like that's a zero sum game for Nepal, hydropower is essential both as the main power source for Nepal and as one of the only exploitable natural resources in this small, landlocked country defined by its lack of development and inaccessible terrain....and it's not like the Nepali government or private sectors have the capacity to really compete (let alone cooperate to compete together) against the staggering efficiency and economic power of Chinese state-owned hydropower interests.
i happen to think that China does these things more "quietly", exerting economic influence both openly and discreetly, while India tends to exert more open political pressure on its neighbor. it's for others to decide if one of these is "better" or "worse", but i guess i find it kind of ironic that some individuals rail against India, but have no concerns about China, and especially odd that political parties, mostly certain maoist factions, rally popular sentiment against India to score political points, while still cuddling up to Beijing.
* i am in no way arguing that a nation's people and its government SHOULD be conflated, i'm just saying that they are here, inevitably for worse.
right then.
so, i'm not sure why the revelation in the leaked Delhi cables , that China may be directly paying off Nepali police to arrest Tibetans crossing Nepal's northern border, is a particularly newsworthy one (and maybe it isn't...aside from the syndicated news story, there doesn't seem to be much commentary on teh interwebs). China makes no bones about its priorities as concerns its diminutive neighbor to the south. About two years ago, China pledged $2.6million in non-lethal security aid, in the same breath praising Nepal's support for the one-China policy. It doesn't exactly take a career diplomat to decode the expectations associated with that aid money.
what is presumably supposed to be more shocking is the direct incentivization (read: bribes) provided by the government of one country to the security forces of another country to bypass nationally and internationally sanctioned immigration policies to deliver illegal immigrants directly back to their country of origin.
but come on now...the Chinese government's reputation is not exactly one of the highest respect for international norms, and the Nepali security sector is notoriously corrupt and inefficient (in a country where there is a historically instantiated, institutionally incentivized and generally accepted attitude of official impunity in pretty much every sector). surely this can't be that much of a shock.
what's also always interesting for me is the huge disparity between Nepalis' opinions of India (and Indians) and China. there is a LOT of distrust and dislike for India and Indians* (which, to be fair, is reciprocated by the feelings I've heard some Indians express about Nepalis, which are more than a little racist). dislike for the Indian government stems from what Nepalis describe as a long history of gross interference in Nepali politics. now, i'll give you that India likes to keep its hand in, so to speak, and that there has been a history of border disputes going back to the formation of Nepal as a country.
on the other hand, China has just as much interest in influencing Nepali politics, especially as it seeks to maintain regional dominance. Nepali hydropower, for instance, is an area in which China is eager to have a say, and one in which Chinese investment is probably going to be detrimental to India's interest...with no particular stake in promoting Nepal's interest except as a tool for gaining geopolitical leverage. while it's not like that's a zero sum game for Nepal, hydropower is essential both as the main power source for Nepal and as one of the only exploitable natural resources in this small, landlocked country defined by its lack of development and inaccessible terrain....and it's not like the Nepali government or private sectors have the capacity to really compete (let alone cooperate to compete together) against the staggering efficiency and economic power of Chinese state-owned hydropower interests.
i happen to think that China does these things more "quietly", exerting economic influence both openly and discreetly, while India tends to exert more open political pressure on its neighbor. it's for others to decide if one of these is "better" or "worse", but i guess i find it kind of ironic that some individuals rail against India, but have no concerns about China, and especially odd that political parties, mostly certain maoist factions, rally popular sentiment against India to score political points, while still cuddling up to Beijing.
* i am in no way arguing that a nation's people and its government SHOULD be conflated, i'm just saying that they are here, inevitably for worse.
tongba time
so i am sick, tired, and, since the gas heater in my office is producing more odor than warmth, increasingly unable to type as my fingers seize up with the cold and i go lightheaded from the fumes.
however, i am warmed by the discovery of this article, "20 iconic and unusual hot drinks from around the world", and the realization that it has become the most magical time of the year in kathmandu. yes, the pollution gets worse every day there's no rain (aka until monsoon starts again in june). yes, we are already facing electricity and water shortages. yes, you have to sleep with two comforters and your sleeping bag, because there's no way to heat the brick and concrete bunkers in which we live.
so what is tongba? you might rightly ask, having read this far. well. tongba is a warm, lightly alcoholic beverage served throughout eastern nepal. it's made of fermented millet grains, which are steeped in hot water in a wooden vessel, and sipped through a perforated metal straw in a process not unlike drinking mate. the wooden vessel (also satisfying to warm your hands on) will be refilled with boiling water until the grains have lost all their flavor (usually about three or four times). it has a sort of sour, grassy, and slightly nutty taste, and is very warming, but even after three hefty refills (or even a second serving of millet), you don't feel unpleasantly drunk, and never wake up with a hangover. basically, it's the ultimate session brew for the long winter nights in nepal, when the lack of electricity makes your best choice sitting around with friends, trying to stay warm, and shooting the breeze. when my brother visited, it was the first time we had lived together, independently from the parents, as (something resembling) adults. it was both really fun and a really interesting time in our relationship, and we did a lot of that interpersonal re-negotiation with tongba in hand.
anyway, i'll spare you (for now) the tongba-inspired, tired, proust-ian reflections on the passage of time and my life in nepal...but i will advise you to try to find a nepali/tibetan grocery or restaurant and try some if you can. i haven't had my first serving this winter, but i'll definitely be going for it this week. it's just that time of year.
update: wikipedia tells me tongba refers to the vessel, not the drink. could be, although i've never heard it distinguished that way.
however, i am warmed by the discovery of this article, "20 iconic and unusual hot drinks from around the world", and the realization that it has become the most magical time of the year in kathmandu. yes, the pollution gets worse every day there's no rain (aka until monsoon starts again in june). yes, we are already facing electricity and water shortages. yes, you have to sleep with two comforters and your sleeping bag, because there's no way to heat the brick and concrete bunkers in which we live.
my own bunker in happier (warmer) times. we had about 6 people living in 3 rooms
during a one-week bandh, not to mention the friends who live nearby and wandered
over for meals, etc. this is when our house got nicknamed "the commune".
i won't pretend for a second that i don't love it.
that said...the onset of winter means that it's TONGBA TIME. the list in the article above includes the two kinds of tea served in nepal, the chiya of the plains and hill folks (like masala chai in india), and the butter tea of the high mountain and tibetan ethnic groups (which tastes like the salted inside of a yak...in a good way). but no tongba, which is a tragedy.
when my brother came to visit last year (almost exactly a year ago, actually) for a month, he and i discovered tongba together. we first had some when we went out to see my friend annie, who lived in boudha, an area of town dominated by the tibetan community (which is unusual, most parts of the city aren't really very ethnically segregated, with maybe a couple of exceptions). dave and i were pretty much instantly addicted, and made a habit of going a few times a week to the hole in the wall joint right near our place (called "separate choice kitchen", which never ceases to please me) to grab some after work.
my brother's first taste of tongba.
so what is tongba? you might rightly ask, having read this far. well. tongba is a warm, lightly alcoholic beverage served throughout eastern nepal. it's made of fermented millet grains, which are steeped in hot water in a wooden vessel, and sipped through a perforated metal straw in a process not unlike drinking mate. the wooden vessel (also satisfying to warm your hands on) will be refilled with boiling water until the grains have lost all their flavor (usually about three or four times). it has a sort of sour, grassy, and slightly nutty taste, and is very warming, but even after three hefty refills (or even a second serving of millet), you don't feel unpleasantly drunk, and never wake up with a hangover. basically, it's the ultimate session brew for the long winter nights in nepal, when the lack of electricity makes your best choice sitting around with friends, trying to stay warm, and shooting the breeze. when my brother visited, it was the first time we had lived together, independently from the parents, as (something resembling) adults. it was both really fun and a really interesting time in our relationship, and we did a lot of that interpersonal re-negotiation with tongba in hand.
anyway, i'll spare you (for now) the tongba-inspired, tired, proust-ian reflections on the passage of time and my life in nepal...but i will advise you to try to find a nepali/tibetan grocery or restaurant and try some if you can. i haven't had my first serving this winter, but i'll definitely be going for it this week. it's just that time of year.
update: wikipedia tells me tongba refers to the vessel, not the drink. could be, although i've never heard it distinguished that way.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
this week in bandhs (and other news)
so probably the biggest new story this week is the arrest of former prince (and international playboy?) paras shah for firing off a gun at a resort in chitwan after a disagreement with the daughter and son-in-law of the current deputy prime minister. although that arrest seems pretty fair to me (history demonstrates it's wise to be nervous about the combination of nepali royals and firearms), the royalist party blocked roads in basantapur, protesting his arrest. classic.
in other news, loadshedding (scheduled power outages) goes up to 56 hours a week due to hrydo shortages. bad news for those of us who like a hot shower in january.
#statingtheobvious: 'Roads in Nepal Substandard'
in other news, loadshedding (scheduled power outages) goes up to 56 hours a week due to hrydo shortages. bad news for those of us who like a hot shower in january.
#statingtheobvious: 'Roads in Nepal Substandard'
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
spot on aid humor
like i said, i've been getting into reading development blogs lately. many of the authors of these fall into the category of practitioner/skeptic, and i've enjoyed expanding my reading list (suggestions welcome!). but i have to say, i particularly love when these skeptical insiders just let. it. rip. about all the absurdities of the industry.
two hilarious blogs featuring self-deprecating commentary on international aid/development work are:
Hand Relief International: it's a submission-based parody blog, and so the post quality is a little uneven, but the "do i work for an HRI affiliate?" post is BRILLIANT.
Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like : really funny spin on the ever popular stuff white people like trend, by a couple of talented aid/development bloggers, including j. from tales from the hood, which is another new favorite. i totally want to submit one of these.
two hilarious blogs featuring self-deprecating commentary on international aid/development work are:
Hand Relief International: it's a submission-based parody blog, and so the post quality is a little uneven, but the "do i work for an HRI affiliate?" post is BRILLIANT.
Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like : really funny spin on the ever popular stuff white people like trend, by a couple of talented aid/development bloggers, including j. from tales from the hood, which is another new favorite. i totally want to submit one of these.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
yay my roomie
aside from the joy of promoting a good friend's work (my own roomie's in this case), there is a lots to be learned from reading articles like this, which are entirely typical of research that (rightly) focus on the local benefits (or lack thereof) to international schemes for carbon offset.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Can Technology End Poverty?
...this is the title of an ongoing boston review forum debating just that. i've only gotten through a few of them, but i particularly like this installment by kentaro toyama. after five years working on ICT4D (information and communications technologies for development) research for microsoft in india, he comes to a conclusion that really should strike us as common sense (but then, i'm often struck by how little common sense sometimes plays a role in development)....
This myth of scale is the religion of telecenter proponents, who believe that bringing the Internet into villages is enough to transform them. Most recently, there is the cult of the mobile phone: one New York Times Magazine headline ran, “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?” The article went on to assert, “the possibilities afforded by a proliferation of cellphones are potentially revolutionary.”
“Revolutionary.” The myth of scale is seductive because it is easier to spread technology than to effect extensive change in social attitudes and human capacity. In other words, it is much less painful to purchase a hundred thousand PCs than to provide a real education for a hundred thousand children; it is easier to run a text-messaging health hotline than to convince people to boil water before ingesting it; it is easier to write an app that helps people find out where they can buy medicine than it is to persuade them that medicine is good for their health.
This myth of scale is the religion of telecenter proponents, who believe that bringing the Internet into villages is enough to transform them. Most recently, there is the cult of the mobile phone: one New York Times Magazine headline ran, “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?” The article went on to assert, “the possibilities afforded by a proliferation of cellphones are potentially revolutionary.”
“Revolutionary.” The myth of scale is seductive because it is easier to spread technology than to effect extensive change in social attitudes and human capacity. In other words, it is much less painful to purchase a hundred thousand PCs than to provide a real education for a hundred thousand children; it is easier to run a text-messaging health hotline than to convince people to boil water before ingesting it; it is easier to write an app that helps people find out where they can buy medicine than it is to persuade them that medicine is good for their health.
Friday, December 10, 2010
my (fun) humla reading list...
right, so, understandably, i didn't just pickle my brain in the brine of academic lit while i was out there. i also read trashy (and not so trashy) escapist fiction! there is an odd mathematics to my field visits so far, almost a rule of physics, that no matter how many novels i bring, i will read each of them twice. this time i brought three and owe a hat tip to rae and tim for the first two, and to eli for the third.
Motorcycle Diaries: read pretty much all of this on my layover day in nepalgunj on the way there (the first time). this may or may not have influenced my decision to keep a journal (which i will post, emo queen that i am). don't make fun of me; it's a good book. if you ARE going to make fun of me, make fun of me for seeing the movie when it first came out, getting to the end, reading the subtitles and going "wait a second...that was about CHE guevara?!"
The 19th Wife: oh my god. polygamy, cults, murder, historical fiction/period stuff. WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE??? (oh, that's right, they made a lifetime movie and made the main character not gay. way to be awesome, lifetime network.)
Cloud Atlas: man, i can not recommend this book enough. it is six resonating narratives, nested like russian dolls and stretching from the 19th century sea voyage and commentary on colonialism through a post-apocalyptic narrative set on hawaii which has plenty to say, unintentionally or not, about the role of the anthropologist. exactly what i needed to be reading, and exactly what i would write if i were that smart and creative and wanted to write a dystopian fantasy. there's ALSO a movie in the works for this one, and i can't wait to see how they do it.
Motorcycle Diaries: read pretty much all of this on my layover day in nepalgunj on the way there (the first time). this may or may not have influenced my decision to keep a journal (which i will post, emo queen that i am). don't make fun of me; it's a good book. if you ARE going to make fun of me, make fun of me for seeing the movie when it first came out, getting to the end, reading the subtitles and going "wait a second...that was about CHE guevara?!"
The 19th Wife: oh my god. polygamy, cults, murder, historical fiction/period stuff. WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE??? (oh, that's right, they made a lifetime movie and made the main character not gay. way to be awesome, lifetime network.)
Cloud Atlas: man, i can not recommend this book enough. it is six resonating narratives, nested like russian dolls and stretching from the 19th century sea voyage and commentary on colonialism through a post-apocalyptic narrative set on hawaii which has plenty to say, unintentionally or not, about the role of the anthropologist. exactly what i needed to be reading, and exactly what i would write if i were that smart and creative and wanted to write a dystopian fantasy. there's ALSO a movie in the works for this one, and i can't wait to see how they do it.
my humla reading list, and a couple extrapolations based thereon...
i'll be getting a post-trip update on my research and my experiences up over the weekend/early next week, but i thought i'd throw in a couple of additions to the bibliography for those of you who are into those things (you know who you are...all two of you).
far and away the two most important books i've read for this project are Barry Bishop's Karnali Under Stress: Livelihood Strategies and Seasonal Rhythms in a Changing Nepal Himalaya, and Jagannath Adhikari's Food Crisis in Karnali: A Historical and Politico-economic Perspective.
Bishop was a geographer who spent 1969/1970 doing GOD's work (ethnographically speaking), collecting some incredibly detailed data on the land and people of the karnali region. specifically, he looks at people's livelihood strategies, or how they make their living, and the way that had changed over time up to 1970. basically he did what i was/am intending to do (more on this later) in an inevitably more superficial way. it's daunting as hell looking at what he did (seriously, i lack words for the quality of the appendices), but it's also GREAT because it basically gives me baseline data for a pre-civil war, pre-major aid intervention period. one of the things that's unbelievably striking is how little has changed, at least superficially. with the addition of massive deforestation and cell phones, pictures bishop took 40 years ago look almost exactly like the ones i took two weeks ago. i'll try to scan a page in and do a side-by-side example.
Adhikari does a much broader sweep of an update through 2006 (the conclusion of the civil conflict, and basically where i sort of pick my research up), including a chapter on the effects of government and foreign aid. unfortunately, he doesn't go to humla, where i'm working, but at least i don't feel geographically redundant. his thesis is that "much of the problems in Karnali relates to the hegemonic and exploitative relationship imposed by Kathmandu (the power center) over Karnali (a peripheral region treated as colony) since its unification in Nepal", and i'd say that's pretty accurate. it's not the whole story, and especially in combination with the Bishop, you can see how much is attributed to other factors as well....
aw hell, i was going to wait to put up a more complete research update, but i'll start with this one set of thoughts and how it's sort of refined my thinking...
basically, i finished the Bishop while i was in humla, it struck me (literally, at the top of a mountain), that you could conceptualize pretty much all of the observable, substantive livelihood changes that have happened there since 1970 as a function of one of these variables:
1) population growth
2) climate change and environmental degredation (not unrelated to 1)
3) externally driven political/economic developments (most importantly: the closure/restrictions on the northern border with tibet, and the penetration of roads, and access to india, from the south and west)
4) political upheaval, most recently, the maoist conflict
5) direct aid intervention by the government and NGOs (with most of it being from NGOs)
please don't be TOO harsh with this, those of you more knowledgeable than i (although kind, critical feedback more than welcome). since it's just sort of a rough rubric to consolidate my thoughts and refine my future research. ideally, now, what i'm doing is trying to understand the changes that have been wrought by factor 5, bearing in mind that it's probably impossible to fully isolate these causes from each other, as they're all part of a complicated system. going forward, i'm trying to understand those changes both, to some degree, etic-ly (that is, through the collection of "hard data" on livelihood adaptations from the field and secondary sources), and, in my mind more importantly, emic-ly (that is, locally situated understandings of those changes as informed by participants' narratives), and to try and start to get at the way those changes have affected people's understandings of themselves and their relationships to larger institutions, specifically, the government and (vs) non-governmental organizations.
well. if you're still reading, you'll probably find the following list interesting. it's what i'm sort of continuing to pick my way through as background reading. these are the books anyway, and pretty much just the tip of the iceberg of the canon. at some point maybe i'll do a list of the articles as well, although it's a LOT of sort of dry, methodological stuff....
Ferguson, James The Anti-politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho
Fisher, Julie Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World
Scott, James Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes
i've also started reading a LOT of development blogs, thanks to my google reader, so i think i'm going to start trying to link to some of those and comment on the debates, insofar as i can follow them.
far and away the two most important books i've read for this project are Barry Bishop's Karnali Under Stress: Livelihood Strategies and Seasonal Rhythms in a Changing Nepal Himalaya, and Jagannath Adhikari's Food Crisis in Karnali: A Historical and Politico-economic Perspective.
Bishop was a geographer who spent 1969/1970 doing GOD's work (ethnographically speaking), collecting some incredibly detailed data on the land and people of the karnali region. specifically, he looks at people's livelihood strategies, or how they make their living, and the way that had changed over time up to 1970. basically he did what i was/am intending to do (more on this later) in an inevitably more superficial way. it's daunting as hell looking at what he did (seriously, i lack words for the quality of the appendices), but it's also GREAT because it basically gives me baseline data for a pre-civil war, pre-major aid intervention period. one of the things that's unbelievably striking is how little has changed, at least superficially. with the addition of massive deforestation and cell phones, pictures bishop took 40 years ago look almost exactly like the ones i took two weeks ago. i'll try to scan a page in and do a side-by-side example.
Adhikari does a much broader sweep of an update through 2006 (the conclusion of the civil conflict, and basically where i sort of pick my research up), including a chapter on the effects of government and foreign aid. unfortunately, he doesn't go to humla, where i'm working, but at least i don't feel geographically redundant. his thesis is that "much of the problems in Karnali relates to the hegemonic and exploitative relationship imposed by Kathmandu (the power center) over Karnali (a peripheral region treated as colony) since its unification in Nepal", and i'd say that's pretty accurate. it's not the whole story, and especially in combination with the Bishop, you can see how much is attributed to other factors as well....
aw hell, i was going to wait to put up a more complete research update, but i'll start with this one set of thoughts and how it's sort of refined my thinking...
basically, i finished the Bishop while i was in humla, it struck me (literally, at the top of a mountain), that you could conceptualize pretty much all of the observable, substantive livelihood changes that have happened there since 1970 as a function of one of these variables:
1) population growth
2) climate change and environmental degredation (not unrelated to 1)
3) externally driven political/economic developments (most importantly: the closure/restrictions on the northern border with tibet, and the penetration of roads, and access to india, from the south and west)
4) political upheaval, most recently, the maoist conflict
5) direct aid intervention by the government and NGOs (with most of it being from NGOs)
please don't be TOO harsh with this, those of you more knowledgeable than i (although kind, critical feedback more than welcome). since it's just sort of a rough rubric to consolidate my thoughts and refine my future research. ideally, now, what i'm doing is trying to understand the changes that have been wrought by factor 5, bearing in mind that it's probably impossible to fully isolate these causes from each other, as they're all part of a complicated system. going forward, i'm trying to understand those changes both, to some degree, etic-ly (that is, through the collection of "hard data" on livelihood adaptations from the field and secondary sources), and, in my mind more importantly, emic-ly (that is, locally situated understandings of those changes as informed by participants' narratives), and to try and start to get at the way those changes have affected people's understandings of themselves and their relationships to larger institutions, specifically, the government and (vs) non-governmental organizations.
well. if you're still reading, you'll probably find the following list interesting. it's what i'm sort of continuing to pick my way through as background reading. these are the books anyway, and pretty much just the tip of the iceberg of the canon. at some point maybe i'll do a list of the articles as well, although it's a LOT of sort of dry, methodological stuff....
Ferguson, James The Anti-politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho
Fisher, Julie Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World
Scott, James Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes
i've also started reading a LOT of development blogs, thanks to my google reader, so i think i'm going to start trying to link to some of those and comment on the debates, insofar as i can follow them.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
the prodigal returns
i got back to ktm on sunday evening after a pretty grueling trip. it was...in many ways not as bad as i feared, and in certain moments worse than i could have imagined. after i get life/work straightened i'll come back with more details, but for now, enjoy these photos of the trip.
Friday, November 19, 2010
out to the wild west
so, i think the one of the last substantive posts i did was just a lazy copying and pasting of my research proposal for this year. what that post managed to conceal, of course, is that it is the fruit of years and years of secondary-source research practice, strong analytical and verbal skills...and a tremendous ability to bullshit my way into situations in which i feel ultimately out of my depth. i certainly never concealed the fact that i have virtually nothing (ok, just nothing) in the way of field research experience. but, given my blithe confidence (and, to be fair to myself, legitimate excitement at the possibility of new data sets...god, how do i have friends), it didn't, y'know, really come up.
and now, my friends it is time to pay the piper. i leave tomorrow for humla (which, if you look back at the original proposal, is a change of plan), which is, arguably the most remote district in nepal...one of the last truly roadless places in the world....'cause that sounds like just the sort of thing i do for fun, right? i am going to be using methodologies (rapid assessment/participatory rural appraisal), with which i have only a desk-chair familiarity in a place where the language barrier will be significant, working with a translator whose english skills are about at the level of my nepali skills (if that).
basically, there is no part of this little adventure that doesn't turn me into a quivering, gelatinous pile of anxiety.
i am a jello mold of neuroses.
with that said, i had a long chat with a friend who's just spent about eight months out in humla. i don't know whether it was the sage advice or the multiple beers, but it really helped. he helped me recalibrate my expectations of myself and this trip significantly, reminding me that field work is always unpredictable, no matter how prepared you are, and that this will be a valuable experience, no matter what kind of data i get on this particular jaunt. and he said, and i believed, if only for a second, the magic words: "and that's ok".
we'll see if i still feel that way when i haven't showered or eaten anything but buckwheat pancakes for two weeks, and am trying to hitch a ride out of the district on a WFP rice 'copter before i get snowed in...but i guess we'll have the answer to that when i get back in a few weeks.
let's dance.
and now, my friends it is time to pay the piper. i leave tomorrow for humla (which, if you look back at the original proposal, is a change of plan), which is, arguably the most remote district in nepal...one of the last truly roadless places in the world....'cause that sounds like just the sort of thing i do for fun, right? i am going to be using methodologies (rapid assessment/participatory rural appraisal), with which i have only a desk-chair familiarity in a place where the language barrier will be significant, working with a translator whose english skills are about at the level of my nepali skills (if that).
basically, there is no part of this little adventure that doesn't turn me into a quivering, gelatinous pile of anxiety.
i am a jello mold of neuroses.
with that said, i had a long chat with a friend who's just spent about eight months out in humla. i don't know whether it was the sage advice or the multiple beers, but it really helped. he helped me recalibrate my expectations of myself and this trip significantly, reminding me that field work is always unpredictable, no matter how prepared you are, and that this will be a valuable experience, no matter what kind of data i get on this particular jaunt. and he said, and i believed, if only for a second, the magic words: "and that's ok".
we'll see if i still feel that way when i haven't showered or eaten anything but buckwheat pancakes for two weeks, and am trying to hitch a ride out of the district on a WFP rice 'copter before i get snowed in...but i guess we'll have the answer to that when i get back in a few weeks.
let's dance.
Girls' Education and Climate Change Mitigation
Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education just released a report called "Gender Equality and Education: A Report Card on South Asia Living and Learning for Future -The Power of Adult Learning", which ranks girls' access to education among South Asian countries. Sri Lanka comes in first, India second, with Nepal trailing at fifth, and Afghanistan last. It's not clear how many countries they're including in South Asia, but with 60% of girls without access to a secondary education, Nepal obviously has some work to do.
...especially in light of this paper by David Wheeler and Dan Hammer at the Center for Global Development. The paper suggests, based on projections that developing countries will contribute as much as 50% of global carbon emission by 2030, that the best dollar-for-dollar impact in aid programming targeting climate change mitigation is...a combination of family planning and girls' education.
Now, I think there may be some potential issues with this, although I'll admit to sort of skimming at this point. For instance, the 2030 projection is based on a definition of "developing" (from a 2007 study by Wheeler) that equates the term with the Global South, which includes China. While China ranks first in emissions, family planning isn't exactly a problem. I don't know how much this affects projections, but since China isn't really getting a royal share of foreign aid, maybe it doesn't matter. The second issue I have is that two major sources of CO2 from developing countries cited by Wheeler and Hammer and are "rapidly industrializing countries" (like India, China, and South Africa), and massive deforestation, like in Brazil. Now, I'm not going to summon the statistics to back up what I'm about to contend (just now, anyway), but I would say that we need to think about to what degree the unsustainability of those systems of production is driven by unsustainable patterns of consumption in the global North. I'm not sure Wheeler's 2007 "inconvenient truth" ("A Carbon-Intensive South Faces Environmental Disaster, No Matter What the North Does") is so true; I think we have a moral imperative to change our consumption patterns to reflect a dedication to sustainable systems of production (something I think they are ignoring in their critique of Naucler and Enkvist).
However, that said: there is an awful lot of money being thrown at climate change right now, especially in places like Nepal (and rightfully so, given that, according to ICIMOD the Himalayas are suffering temperature changes at eight times the global rate). Some of that money is going to effective mitigation and prevention programming...but then you have the motherload of climate mitigation aid: REDD. I can't necessarily speak to other countries, but in Nepal, for instance, I can't really see REDD working in practice, for a whole slew of reasons, despite a robust tradition of decentralized forest management. Despite my tentative reservations about Wheeler and Hammer's conclusions, and especially taking into account the other proven economic development outcomes of programs aimed at women's empowerment, they make a compelling argument to look at other strategies before diving headlong into REDD and other similarly expensive and expansive, yet largely unproven, systems.
...especially in light of this paper by David Wheeler and Dan Hammer at the Center for Global Development. The paper suggests, based on projections that developing countries will contribute as much as 50% of global carbon emission by 2030, that the best dollar-for-dollar impact in aid programming targeting climate change mitigation is...a combination of family planning and girls' education.
Now, I think there may be some potential issues with this, although I'll admit to sort of skimming at this point. For instance, the 2030 projection is based on a definition of "developing" (from a 2007 study by Wheeler) that equates the term with the Global South, which includes China. While China ranks first in emissions, family planning isn't exactly a problem. I don't know how much this affects projections, but since China isn't really getting a royal share of foreign aid, maybe it doesn't matter. The second issue I have is that two major sources of CO2 from developing countries cited by Wheeler and Hammer and are "rapidly industrializing countries" (like India, China, and South Africa), and massive deforestation, like in Brazil. Now, I'm not going to summon the statistics to back up what I'm about to contend (just now, anyway), but I would say that we need to think about to what degree the unsustainability of those systems of production is driven by unsustainable patterns of consumption in the global North. I'm not sure Wheeler's 2007 "inconvenient truth" ("A Carbon-Intensive South Faces Environmental Disaster, No Matter What the North Does") is so true; I think we have a moral imperative to change our consumption patterns to reflect a dedication to sustainable systems of production (something I think they are ignoring in their critique of Naucler and Enkvist).
However, that said: there is an awful lot of money being thrown at climate change right now, especially in places like Nepal (and rightfully so, given that, according to ICIMOD the Himalayas are suffering temperature changes at eight times the global rate). Some of that money is going to effective mitigation and prevention programming...but then you have the motherload of climate mitigation aid: REDD. I can't necessarily speak to other countries, but in Nepal, for instance, I can't really see REDD working in practice, for a whole slew of reasons, despite a robust tradition of decentralized forest management. Despite my tentative reservations about Wheeler and Hammer's conclusions, and especially taking into account the other proven economic development outcomes of programs aimed at women's empowerment, they make a compelling argument to look at other strategies before diving headlong into REDD and other similarly expensive and expansive, yet largely unproven, systems.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
today's headline 14/10/2010
Nepal Fashion Week stuns the senses in resplendent finery
"The event also marked the first public appearance of the newly crowned Miss Nepal Sadiccha Shrestha, who shimmered and radiated ethereal beauty in her shimmering ethnic wear."
i love that this style of prose characterizes a major english language daily.
also, i SWEAR i'll be posting something less cheap than just skewering the english press here soon. been really busy, but have a whole list of topics to post on.
"The event also marked the first public appearance of the newly crowned Miss Nepal Sadiccha Shrestha, who shimmered and radiated ethereal beauty in her shimmering ethnic wear."
i love that this style of prose characterizes a major english language daily.
also, i SWEAR i'll be posting something less cheap than just skewering the english press here soon. been really busy, but have a whole list of topics to post on.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
nepal's first gay marriage
so, granted, the legal status of this couple is a bit ambiguous. however, for a country that still practices chaupadi pratha (confining women to cowsheds during menstruation) in some rural areas, and is still hammering out the practice of will-based inheritance and the implementation of women's property rights, this is pretty damn progressive.
the progression of LGBTQ rights in nepal has largely been the result of the efforts of sunil babu pant, the first openly gay MP in south asia, and the advocacy group he founded, the blue diamond society. after BDS filed a complaint, the nepali supreme court ruled in 2008 that
"The government of Nepal should formulate new laws and amend existing laws in order to safeguard the rights of these people....Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex are natural persons irrespective of their masculine and feminine gender and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society."
since the constitution still yet to be drafted, there are no laws yet that define these rights more specifically (a major part of the legal limbo in which the couple above found themselves). however, it's both awesome (for nepal) and distressing (for LGBTQ and allies in the states) that nepal has gone further* than the US in making progress towards equality.
looking forward to going to the gai jatra pride festival scheduled for aug 25. if you're in the 'du, i hope i'll see you there!
*in terms of US equivalence...sort of like if lawrence had been decided based on equal protection rather than privacy/due process? or like what the legal (if not political) implications of what will happen if perry is not overturned? dunno. law school friends will have to help this weak analogy out.
the progression of LGBTQ rights in nepal has largely been the result of the efforts of sunil babu pant, the first openly gay MP in south asia, and the advocacy group he founded, the blue diamond society. after BDS filed a complaint, the nepali supreme court ruled in 2008 that
"The government of Nepal should formulate new laws and amend existing laws in order to safeguard the rights of these people....Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex are natural persons irrespective of their masculine and feminine gender and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society."
since the constitution still yet to be drafted, there are no laws yet that define these rights more specifically (a major part of the legal limbo in which the couple above found themselves). however, it's both awesome (for nepal) and distressing (for LGBTQ and allies in the states) that nepal has gone further* than the US in making progress towards equality.
looking forward to going to the gai jatra pride festival scheduled for aug 25. if you're in the 'du, i hope i'll see you there!
*in terms of US equivalence...sort of like if lawrence had been decided based on equal protection rather than privacy/due process? or like what the legal (if not political) implications of what will happen if perry is not overturned? dunno. law school friends will have to help this weak analogy out.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
BEST. THING. EVAR.
so this is only vaguely (at best) related to nepal, but it is legitimately one of the best things i have ever seen (and this in an afternoon where i watched a clip of a chubby taiwanese boy do a spot on whitney houston impersonation).
Monday, August 9, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
i'm pretty sure my grandmother is going to buy me a billion of these...
so! i had planned to write an entry about the auspicious hindu month of shravan (approx july 18-august 17 this year), when married women pray for the health of their husbands and unmarried women pray for a decent husband, but my friend, the articulate and charming ajnabee, beat me to it.
i'll add that i was equally clueless a few weeks ago when presented with green bangles by a friend of mine. i, always the awkward bideshi, immediately broke two trying to get them on. the next night i asked the same friend and her husband why i was wearing bangles all month, and subsequently accused her of tricking me into matrimonial aspirations. her husband laughed and tried to soothe me by offering a slightly different (if totally unorthodox, foreign feminist friendly) explanation. the month is holy to shiva, who's consort is parvati. shiva and parvati are among the most important manifestations of the male/female divine, and so their love/consortship is supposed to represent a sort ultimate, divine balance in a relationship. so, when you're praying during shravan, you aren't (or don't have to be) asking to find a traditionally "good" husband (with its hints of patriarchy and heteronormativity), but to find someone, like shiva and parvati, who will balance and empower...a complement and life partner.
i sort of thought i could live with that.
i'll add that i was equally clueless a few weeks ago when presented with green bangles by a friend of mine. i, always the awkward bideshi, immediately broke two trying to get them on. the next night i asked the same friend and her husband why i was wearing bangles all month, and subsequently accused her of tricking me into matrimonial aspirations. her husband laughed and tried to soothe me by offering a slightly different (if totally unorthodox, foreign feminist friendly) explanation. the month is holy to shiva, who's consort is parvati. shiva and parvati are among the most important manifestations of the male/female divine, and so their love/consortship is supposed to represent a sort ultimate, divine balance in a relationship. so, when you're praying during shravan, you aren't (or don't have to be) asking to find a traditionally "good" husband (with its hints of patriarchy and heteronormativity), but to find someone, like shiva and parvati, who will balance and empower...a complement and life partner.
i sort of thought i could live with that.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
today's headline 01/08/2010
classic (and mildly self-promoting? sure).
the kathmandu post: Nepali film features foreign actors.
the kathmandu post: Nepali film features foreign actors.
Friday, July 30, 2010
a children's treasury of terrifying apocalyptic scenarios
"The non-profit organization “Geohazards” ranks Kathmandu at the highest risk for earthquake fatalities than any other city in the world."
USGS
NepalNews
AFP: After Haiti, Nepal braces for big quake
AlertNet
Nepal National Seismological Centre
i actually lose sleep over this. i would take some sleeping pills...but i'm afraid they'd make me sleep through the apocalyptic earthquake.
USGS
NepalNews
AFP: After Haiti, Nepal braces for big quake
AlertNet
Nepal National Seismological Centre
i actually lose sleep over this. i would take some sleeping pills...but i'm afraid they'd make me sleep through the apocalyptic earthquake.
^this doesn't really help
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
what i'll be doing this year...
...aside from stocking up on candles and immodium, like always.
so at the risk of cursing this whole situation (because things can always go wrong in truly unexpected ways in nepal...adds spice to life), it looks like i've got a visa AND a project i'm really excited about coming up. as the only native english speaker in the office aside from my boss, the director, it's sort of inevitable that i write a lot of grants and edit a lot of reports. this is fine. it's necessary, i'm pretty decent at it, and it's even enjoyable...but it's not really super productive in terms of career path for me. so imagine my glee now that it looks like i'll be doing research for TMI (where i've been for the last year) and the UN World Food Programme for whom TMI implements food aid delivery in karnali. hopefully i'll be producing a more theoretically informed, academic piece, as well as a more slimmed-down publication for an NGO audience. ANYWAY... i figured i would just post my proposal below for people who are interested. feedback and reading recommendations totally welcome.
This research is also concerned with local communities’ understandings of and aspirations for governance, particularly at this critical political juncture in the country. Although food aid (governmental and non-governmental) fashions itself as deliberately apolitical, this research takes as a starting point that the delivery by non-state actors of any basic service that is commonly understood as the province of the state will fundamentally affect people’s understandings of what a government should be, as well as their rights and responsibilities, and those of non-governmental actors. This component of the research seeks to reveal the unintended consequences of even “non-political” service delivery on communities’ political understandings and participation.
so at the risk of cursing this whole situation (because things can always go wrong in truly unexpected ways in nepal...adds spice to life), it looks like i've got a visa AND a project i'm really excited about coming up. as the only native english speaker in the office aside from my boss, the director, it's sort of inevitable that i write a lot of grants and edit a lot of reports. this is fine. it's necessary, i'm pretty decent at it, and it's even enjoyable...but it's not really super productive in terms of career path for me. so imagine my glee now that it looks like i'll be doing research for TMI (where i've been for the last year) and the UN World Food Programme for whom TMI implements food aid delivery in karnali. hopefully i'll be producing a more theoretically informed, academic piece, as well as a more slimmed-down publication for an NGO audience. ANYWAY... i figured i would just post my proposal below for people who are interested. feedback and reading recommendations totally welcome.
The NGO-ization of Service Delivery: Food Security and Community Response in Jumla District, Nepal
In countries where governments have little capacity to address basic social service delivery, the responsibility for service delivery across multiple sectors often shifts to non-governmental and/or non-profit organizations, funded (in the case of developing countries) largely by foreign donors. Focusing on food insecurity in Jumla district, in the remote Karnali region of Nepal, I aim to describe the division of labor (and changes in that division over time) between government and non-governmental organizations as a function of social, historical, and political processes. Then, I aim to analyze the effect of this division of labor on the strategies and understandings of local communities, specifically, how systems and methods of delivery affect local food security and livelihood adaptation strategies (for instance, crop choices or labor migration patterns).
I intend to conduct my research in partnership with the UN World Food Programme and The Mountain Institute (TMI). TMI, as the implementing partner for the WFP’s Food for Work (FFW) project (part of its Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations in the country) has a working presence in eight of the most vulnerable VDCs in Jumla district, in which research will be conducted. Jumla was selected based on its overall Human Development Index (HDI), which ranks 69th out of Nepal’s 75 districts, with 74.1 percent of children under five classified as chronically malnourished. Since 2008 TMI has distributed over 1,170.15 metric tons of rice and built strong relationships and trust with the some of the most vulnerable members of the district. These eight VDCs, identified as the most vulnerable clusters in the district, based on the WFP’s mapping for food sufficiency, include 4,591 households with a total population of 26,928 people.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
There is significant debate in the literature concerning the pros and cons of the “NGO-ization” of service delivery (as well as capacity building, good governance promotion, and other functions); the legitimacy of INGOs; and their effects on state sovereignty, capacity, and governance structures. This debate is extensive and largely beyond the scope of a brief research proposal, although it will be considered in more detail as background in the final report resulting from this research. It does, however, inform the framework of inquiry. This research is aimed at contributing to the broader debates outlined above, as well as those on the efficacy of food aid paradigms, but seeks to do so through a necessarily limited case study.
The first component of this research, describing the division of responsibilities between governmental and non-governmental agencies in the delivery of food security services in Jumla district, seeks to identify the structural and historical causes of the current status of service delivery. Currently, government capacity to deliver basic services is at such a nadir in the region that most service delivery is performed by non-governmental organizations. This project seeks to identify more accurately and specifically the extent to which “NGO-ization” of service delivery has taken place in the region, and the factors that have influenced this outcome (ie levels of centralized and local corruption, lack of government presence, political instability, etc) both in current moment and historically. Furthermore it seeks to address questions of future service delivery: who is best placed to provide social protection? To what extent can NGO and donors work through local government and what needs to happen to shift the balance so that major development partners can begin to work through local governments? This research also aims to be a sort of organizational ethnography, describing the understandings of actors within organizations as well as the organizational cultures that influence the formulation of policy.
The second component of the research takes as a premise that food aid does not merely serve as a supplement to local livelihoods. Instead, communities will adapt their existing livelihood practices (for instance crop choice, patterns of labor migration, and/or production of marketable goods), in order to effectively leverage the new inputs while managing risk and conserving energies. By focusing first on how current food aid systems affect local livelihood practices, the research hopes to offer insight on how to create more sustainable and effective delivery mechanisms, both governmental and non-governmental, and how to transition successfully from short-term aid delivery to a long-term sustainable development model.
METHODS
In addition to a literature review and development of a theoretical framework, my research will be based on qualitative data collection, primarily through a semi-structured interview format. Since the project concerns both the formation of service delivery policy and strategy, as well as community responses to that strategy, interviews will include those with the staffs of NGOs concerned with food security service delivery in Jumla, specifically the World Food Programme, The Mountain Institute, TMI’s local NGO partner (Integrated Community Development-Jumla), and concerned government entities, such as the Ministries of Local Development and Health and Population.
Although research staff will be based in Kathmandu, extended field trips to Jumla district, of three to five weeks each, are planned for both the Fall and Spring, when travel remains easier. This timing also coincides with major planting and harvesting phases, which will allow research staff to simultaneously observe and discuss subsistence and livelihood choices with residents. The trusted nature of the relationship that exists between TMI and their local NGO partner staff and local communities will allow research staff to reduce the amount of time normally required to build relationships necessary for deeper qualitative research and to access local knowledge. As research staff will be working closely with NGO staff implementing programming in the area, there will also be a component of participation observation to the research.
Interviews will be conducted in English and Nepali, as necessary, with a translator present if the situation demands, although all members of the research team will possess at least basic Nepali language skills.
TIMELINE
Literature review and the development of a theoretical framework will be done in the summer months before the fall field trip. Winter months will be utilized to build relationships and conduct the majority of NGO-based research in Kathmandu and Nepalgunj, as well as to analyze findings from the first half of the research period. The spring field trip to Jumla will be used to deepen the understanding of the issues initially researched in the fall, and explore issues uncovered during the Kathmandu phase of the research. After returning from spring fieldwork, research will be compiled into several formats: a policy briefing appropriate for NGO and government reference, as well as a more extended and theoretically informed piece suitable for distribution in academic contexts. Information sharing will also be facilitated by two workshops, one for each component of the project, a) the “NGO-ization” of food security service delivery policy as a function of historical, economic, and political processes and b) community response to delivery policy in terms of livelihood strategy adaptation.
originally, i had planned a third "component" to the research, which i've posted below. unfortunately, it's a pretty big project already, and it's not really in WFP or TMI's wheelhouse. i still think it's pretty cool though, so i'm going to try to answer the question anyway, and maybe write something separately.
This research is also concerned with local communities’ understandings of and aspirations for governance, particularly at this critical political juncture in the country. Although food aid (governmental and non-governmental) fashions itself as deliberately apolitical, this research takes as a starting point that the delivery by non-state actors of any basic service that is commonly understood as the province of the state will fundamentally affect people’s understandings of what a government should be, as well as their rights and responsibilities, and those of non-governmental actors. This component of the research seeks to reveal the unintended consequences of even “non-political” service delivery on communities’ political understandings and participation.
today's headline 28/07/10
nepali papers may not have particularly in depth coverage...or impartial reporting...or copy editors, apparently, but they do have an ineffable charm to them. thus, i bring you headlines of the day: screen grabs, headlines, and quotes from nepal's finest english-language journalism.
the himalayan times 25 july 2010: HURPES Probe Panel
ok, so it isn't the HT's fault that Human Rights and Peace Society took such an unintentionally hilarious acronym. so i'll make up for it with what ranks as my current all time favorite from the kathmandu post (11 may 2010):
Govt colleges dungeons of poo
to be fair, i think we all had a shitty time in high school (BA DA BING. tip your waitress, goodnight!)
the himalayan times 25 july 2010: HURPES Probe Panel
ok, so it isn't the HT's fault that Human Rights and Peace Society took such an unintentionally hilarious acronym. so i'll make up for it with what ranks as my current all time favorite from the kathmandu post (11 may 2010):
Govt colleges dungeons of poo
to be fair, i think we all had a shitty time in high school (BA DA BING. tip your waitress, goodnight!)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
yet more proof that hindus are JUST like jews
i wore my new kurta salwaar today.
a coworker told me i looked just like his mother.
he meant it as a compliment.
a coworker told me i looked just like his mother.
he meant it as a compliment.
Friday, July 23, 2010
question time, kiddies!
so, i think i'm going to start soliciting questions from you good folks, my few but dedicated (dedicated? sure, let's go with dedicated) readers (hi, mom). anything you want to know about nepal or related topics, i will try my best to answer through personal experience, research, or just asking around. we'll call it "prasnaa chha?" which means "any questions?".
i figure it will be a good way to keep me blogging and to "crowdsource" content (am i using that correctly? eh, who cares, i don't know what crazy technology you kids are dancing to today anyway...damn kids).
you can submit to me at mollyclarkbarol at gmail. wheeee.
i figure it will be a good way to keep me blogging and to "crowdsource" content (am i using that correctly? eh, who cares, i don't know what crazy technology you kids are dancing to today anyway...damn kids).
you can submit to me at mollyclarkbarol at gmail. wheeee.
THE ARISTOCRATS! (or the reader's digest version of the last 15 years of nepali politics)
starting to blog again resolution: do not fear the short and mediocre in posts.
now, i'm not an expert, but i do try to keep my finger on the pulse of just what is going on in nepali politics. it is absolutely fascinating, for the most part. as a (really) brief rundown: 1991 was really the first true seated multiparty parliament (a sort of royal parliamentary system with the king in place) since nepal was "unified" in 1768. after a series of schisms, the Communist Party Nepal-Moaist (CPN-M) began a civil war in 1996 to topple the monarchy (among other things) that lasted for 10 years in which about 12000 people died. in 2001, the crown prince went on a shooting spree (conspiracy theories abound) and killed most of his family and himself, leaving his significantly less popular uncle to take the throne. in 2005, the king dissolved parliament and took over all executive powers, ostensibly to better control the insurgency (the political parties' success was...mixed). in late 2005/early 2006, a people's democracy movement forced the king to restrict his power. subsequently, a parliament was reinstated, the comprehensive peace agreement being written, and everyone started getting ready for the 2008 elections... which, when they happened, were considered, y'know, more or less free and fair, and in which the CPNM won the largest number of seats, one of the big three that include the . fast forward another year, and the Maoists leave the government after being prevented from firing the army chief, UML candidate MK Nepal becomes PM. fast forward yet another year (spring 2010)...the constitution remains undrafted a month from its deadline. the CPNM stage an indefinite (turned out to be weeklong) strike (called bandh in nepali), shutting down the country to push for their demands to be met (resignation of PM, consensus government under CPNM, among other things). at the 12th (no, not even 11th, literally 12th) hour, the parties came together to extend that madate of the constituent assembly (CA, the constitution writing body) under the interim constitution for another year. however, agitation against MK Nepal continued. he resigned last month, and this week elections have been held to try to replace him.
ANYWAY...sorry this was such a half-baked post. i actually wrote all of the above as a prelude to my expression of astonishment (well maybe not "astonishment") and confusion at the state of things today. again, i'm not an expert, but i usually have SOME clue what's going on. today, i'm pretty much stumped. on the bright side, now you've got the basics...if you bear with me, i promise more coherent/in depth posts on nepali politics in the future!
in the meantime, for more about nepal since the CPA (2006), check out the carter center's reports. they've been monitoring the implementation of the peace accords and constitution writing.
now, i'm not an expert, but i do try to keep my finger on the pulse of just what is going on in nepali politics. it is absolutely fascinating, for the most part. as a (really) brief rundown: 1991 was really the first true seated multiparty parliament (a sort of royal parliamentary system with the king in place) since nepal was "unified" in 1768. after a series of schisms, the Communist Party Nepal-Moaist (CPN-M) began a civil war in 1996 to topple the monarchy (among other things) that lasted for 10 years in which about 12000 people died. in 2001, the crown prince went on a shooting spree (conspiracy theories abound) and killed most of his family and himself, leaving his significantly less popular uncle to take the throne. in 2005, the king dissolved parliament and took over all executive powers, ostensibly to better control the insurgency (the political parties' success was...mixed). in late 2005/early 2006, a people's democracy movement forced the king to restrict his power. subsequently, a parliament was reinstated, the comprehensive peace agreement being written, and everyone started getting ready for the 2008 elections... which, when they happened, were considered, y'know, more or less free and fair, and in which the CPNM won the largest number of seats, one of the big three that include the . fast forward another year, and the Maoists leave the government after being prevented from firing the army chief, UML candidate MK Nepal becomes PM. fast forward yet another year (spring 2010)...the constitution remains undrafted a month from its deadline. the CPNM stage an indefinite (turned out to be weeklong) strike (called bandh in nepali), shutting down the country to push for their demands to be met (resignation of PM, consensus government under CPNM, among other things). at the 12th (no, not even 11th, literally 12th) hour, the parties came together to extend that madate of the constituent assembly (CA, the constitution writing body) under the interim constitution for another year. however, agitation against MK Nepal continued. he resigned last month, and this week elections have been held to try to replace him.
ANYWAY...sorry this was such a half-baked post. i actually wrote all of the above as a prelude to my expression of astonishment (well maybe not "astonishment") and confusion at the state of things today. again, i'm not an expert, but i usually have SOME clue what's going on. today, i'm pretty much stumped. on the bright side, now you've got the basics...if you bear with me, i promise more coherent/in depth posts on nepali politics in the future!
in the meantime, for more about nepal since the CPA (2006), check out the carter center's reports. they've been monitoring the implementation of the peace accords and constitution writing.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
back on the blogging horse
Hey there folks. So this blog definitely seems to have fallen off the agenda in the last year. BUT as many of you likely know, I’m back in Nepal for another year. I want to do a better job maintaining this, and doing more writing about Nepal in general, rather than just my experiences here. When I was home for a visit, I was psyched to find out how much people were interested in the country and culture. However, I’m going to start out with more a “personal” “entry”…also known as my 6-month report for my fellowship (handed in at a cool 10 months…oops). I figure it will give people at least a rough idea of what the last year was like. (I didn’t realize it was supposed to be in narrative form until I’d done all the questions separately, so sorry that it’s kind of choppy/awkwardly transitioned!). I also realize there’s not a whole hell of a lot about my job in here, so I’ll do another post on that later.
Also, in case you don’t have facebook, I’ve got public links up to some of my photos from the last year, just to the right in the sidebar.
For better or worse, I always come over all cynical whenever someone claims to be doing something in order to “find themselves.” It’s sort of like the inherent contradiction when someone uses the term “classy” un-ironically. If you’re saying it, you’re probably missing the point of what the term is supposed to convey. Did I go to Kathmandu to hone the personal and professional skills in a new and challenging environment where I could meet people and see things that I wouldn’t have otherwise? Yes. Did I go to “find myself”? Why don’t you just excise $160,000-in-tuition’s worth of self-righteous (and yet elitist) class warriorship from my brain, and call it a day. Did I, nonetheless, find out the true meaning if the phrase “finding yourself”? Surprisingly, yes. Did I do so by actually pooping myself? Oh, you betcha.
It was spring, when the hills of the Kathmandu valley are covered in blooming flowers, and the waters are filled with blooming parasite populations. We were all down with something those days, and I did what every foreigner I know in Kathmandu does when faced with gastro-intestinal issues: firebomb your system with a cocktail of anti-diarrheals, heavy duty antibiotics, and a parasite-killer for good measure (all available over the counter!), and stay near a damn toilet. Well, I did it for a few days, anyway. And then—I got cocky. I was leaving a meeting fully across town from my apartment, looking for a café from which to work with a friend. We were turning around at a dead end, and my stomach began to gurgle ominously. No sooner than I thought, “Man, was drinking that coffee a bad idea,” I stopped dead.
“Roger” I hissed at my friend. He turned around. “I just…I just POOPED MYSELF” I whispered, overwhelmed with a sense of horrified violation.
“Well, do you, uh, need a bathroom?” He asked with remarkable aplomb.
“I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that one, dude.”
We hustled (or, in my case, waddled damply) to the first cabs we could find. In my second great shock of the afternoon, the cab driver agreed to put the meter on, rather than make me negotiate a price. I didn’t wish to question my good fortune, but it did present me with a dilemma. Since the nice man had given me meter, actually sitting down in the seat seemed, well, karmic-ly injudicious. And so I spent twenty minutes making polite conversation in Nepali made all the more stilted by fact that I was hovering not terribly casually an inch above the seat…only to discover that my road was closed, the cabbie didn’t have change, and that I was beginning to get leakage down my leg. I threw almost double fare at the cabbie, waddled as quickly as possible through my neighborhood, past my landlord’s demon dog, and up four flights of stairs, only to discover that there was no water in our apartment—at all. At this point I called a neighbor and friend whose apartment had unusually consistent water supply, and confessed my problem. “Oh,” she said, “happens all time, lovely. Come on over and shower.” I received similar confirmation from other friends to whom I related the story, over (many) beers. (“Happened to me twice last week” ) And so occurred a major moment in my journey of self-discovery, a rite of passage, it seems—the realization that no matter what age you are, or where you’re from, you should never, EVER take for granted being able fart with confidence.
Realizing that, in other parts of the world, discussing your bowel movements is NOT the conversational equivalent of commentary on the weather was only one of many small adjustments I had to make when I came back to the States for a visit this summer. I didn’t even realize how many things were just normalized for me in Nepal until I came back and people asked me about “culture shock”. I guess don’t know what “culture shock” really means. When I first got to Nepal, I suppose it meant feeling like everything was a little bit more difficult, or that everywhere I went I went with an air of incompetence palpable enough to be conspicuous across the street. I called them my “big, stupid bideshi [foreigner] days.” The reverse culture shock was those little, quotidian things that you internalize until they become instinctive, because that’s, y’know, just what one does where one happens to be. When I came back to the States, it took me a while to adjust back: drinking the tap water felt like secret agent-level sexy danger (look ma, no parasites!), and ditto eating unwashed vegetables; wearing a sundress made me feel self-conscious in ways I haven’t felt in skimpy clothing since sophomore year of high school; and, speaking of feeling naked, I totally did without my cell phone fully charged and a second computer battery in my bag, even in the carnival of infrastructure that is the USA.
And just when I’ve stopped reflexively “Namaste-ing” every time I get to the check out counter, I’m heading back to do it all over again. I imagine it will just be a matter of slipping back into familiar patterns. People ask what my life is like “over there”, and seem to expect some really wild answers. In fact, it’s a lot like my life as a young professional anywhere else in the world would be: work and friends, eating and drinking, paying bills and getting out of town for a weekend…I just do it with a lot less electricity. Being back in the States for a month really clarified how much, for better or worse, Kathmandu doesn’t feel like “an experience”; it feels like home. Moving there was like moving anywhere else, a series of relatively minor adjustments and accommodations that eventually add up to sneaky feeling of belonging.
As much as I appreciate how normalized my life IS there, I do want to do a few things differently the second time around. This past year, I did a yoga class here, an afternoon at an orphanage there, but I really haven’t consistently been involved in much. I was just at the National Gallery of Art in DC with a friend who lives there, and we both agreed how much living in a place makes you stop “taking advantage” of it. That said, now that I’ve got my life established in Nepal, I’m really going to start looking for ways to integrate other things into my life, especially: some form of exercise, and independent projects that will bring issues and complexities of Nepal to the States when I’m back (hopefully while raising some money for worthwhile organizations). I’m also going to work on designing and doing some research, and trying to get it published.
I suppose I did forget one significant extracurricular: my “Kollywood” debut. Some friends and I were involved in filming a Nepali movie where they needed some foreigners to be…well, foreign. Granted, we were playing “gangsters”, and “Kollywood” seems to be just as campy (“Kampy”?) as Bollywood, but, as a friend pointed out, we were playing un-ironically exaggerated versions of Nepali conceptions of foreigners. Women were dressed suggestively (by Nepali standards), those of us who were too “ethnic” looking (ie had brown hair and light tans) had blonde streaks put in our hair (with face makeup!), and my friend’s gangster “bling” was an enormous crucifix. So there you go: wealthy, promiscuous, blonde, and Christian (that’s the response I get when I try to explain being Jewish: ”so…you’re like a Christian?”… I usually just go with it). The assumptions that I, personally, run into most are the assumptions that get made about Western women. It can be exhausting and frustrating sometimes, but eventually you figure out ways to negotiate interactions and to ignore comments and interactions that you can’t defuse. And most importantly, like anywhere in the world, once you actually make friends with people, the assumptions tend to dissolve.
In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves has to do with the foreign conception of Nepal. At the risk of generalization, Nepalis are really very lovely, friendly, generous people; the mountain views are, in fact, stunning; and of course I’m aware that Nepal is not really of the greatest geopolitical importance. However, there’s this incredibly oversimplified, ill-informed notion of Nepal as this harmonious land of poor but smiling, mountain-dwelling Buddhists, all of whom are Sherpas--never mind that Sherpas are an ethnic group (one of over 100 in Nepal) and not a profession, that there was a civil war raging from 1996-2006, or that 80% of the population identifies as Hindu (in fact, Nepal was the world’s only constitutionally-defined “Hindu” country until 2008). In the news, for instance—despite the fact the world’s youngest democracy was on the edge of collapse this spring, you had to pull proverbial teeth to get international media attention about anything if it didn’t involve trekking, animal sacrifice, or festive ethnic garb. It all makes a very pretty postcard. However, aside from being good for tourism (which, when it comes to the Nepalese economy, is actually nothing to sneeze at), I find it pretty outrageous when people come to Nepal and don’t bother to educate themselves enough about the country to recognize the complexity, diversity, sophistication, and, yes, conflict that is represented there. Those are the things that make Nepal an amazing place to live, not the nuns with nunchucks (yes, this was actually a news piece).
Although my life may seem to be all glamour, what with the poop and the blackouts and the makeup in my hair, I actually work, too! As the only native English speaker in the office (aside from the director of the NGO), a fair amount of my job has been editing and proposal writing (in fact, researching and writing grants was the majority of my job description for the last three months I was there). On the one hand, it’s not the most thrilling work. On the other hand, there was something satisfying about using skills I already have (strong writing and logical thinking) and applying them to gaining fluency in the grant-writing jargon/skill set. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it (we’re batting about .500 for major grants so far), and, maybe more importantly, I’m doing something no one else really can. I’m also proud that my coworkers trust me to help them improve the presentation of their own work. It leaves them more time to do the things they’re really good at, many of which are based on knowledge and skills that I don’t have, at least not yet.
The major project I worked on (an enterprise-development opportunity assessment) was also interesting, and I did the best I could with it. Honestly, my spoken Nepali and subject knowledge was probably not initially (in the fall) at a level to make the most of it. I also didn’t know enough organizationally (or, again, in terms of content, since I’ve never been exposed to this kind of work before) to contribute to or question the way the project was structured. During my first year I’ve learned a lot about the kind work I’m doing (both through direct work experience, and by attempting to read things and engage with people outside of the office in a way that will extend my development “education”), the organization I’m working in (what its strengths and weaknesses are, and how to exploit or compensate for them), and about the language and cultural milieu of Nepal. I think this will allow me to take a more proactive role in the program design and monitoring components of my work, which is something I’m really looking forward to.
In fact, as I head back to Kathmandu for another year, I’m looking forward to many things. It has really struck me, both coming and going this summer, how incredibly lucky (dare I risk my cynicism street cred by saying “blessed”?) I am to feel at home in multiple places. I feel as excited about going to one place as I do sad about leaving another, by virtue of being able to be with people whom I love in both locations. Except my colon, of course. We still aren’t on speaking terms.
Also, in case you don’t have facebook, I’ve got public links up to some of my photos from the last year, just to the right in the sidebar.
For better or worse, I always come over all cynical whenever someone claims to be doing something in order to “find themselves.” It’s sort of like the inherent contradiction when someone uses the term “classy” un-ironically. If you’re saying it, you’re probably missing the point of what the term is supposed to convey. Did I go to Kathmandu to hone the personal and professional skills in a new and challenging environment where I could meet people and see things that I wouldn’t have otherwise? Yes. Did I go to “find myself”? Why don’t you just excise $160,000-in-tuition’s worth of self-righteous (and yet elitist) class warriorship from my brain, and call it a day. Did I, nonetheless, find out the true meaning if the phrase “finding yourself”? Surprisingly, yes. Did I do so by actually pooping myself? Oh, you betcha.
It was spring, when the hills of the Kathmandu valley are covered in blooming flowers, and the waters are filled with blooming parasite populations. We were all down with something those days, and I did what every foreigner I know in Kathmandu does when faced with gastro-intestinal issues: firebomb your system with a cocktail of anti-diarrheals, heavy duty antibiotics, and a parasite-killer for good measure (all available over the counter!), and stay near a damn toilet. Well, I did it for a few days, anyway. And then—I got cocky. I was leaving a meeting fully across town from my apartment, looking for a café from which to work with a friend. We were turning around at a dead end, and my stomach began to gurgle ominously. No sooner than I thought, “Man, was drinking that coffee a bad idea,” I stopped dead.
“Roger” I hissed at my friend. He turned around. “I just…I just POOPED MYSELF” I whispered, overwhelmed with a sense of horrified violation.
“Well, do you, uh, need a bathroom?” He asked with remarkable aplomb.
“I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that one, dude.”
We hustled (or, in my case, waddled damply) to the first cabs we could find. In my second great shock of the afternoon, the cab driver agreed to put the meter on, rather than make me negotiate a price. I didn’t wish to question my good fortune, but it did present me with a dilemma. Since the nice man had given me meter, actually sitting down in the seat seemed, well, karmic-ly injudicious. And so I spent twenty minutes making polite conversation in Nepali made all the more stilted by fact that I was hovering not terribly casually an inch above the seat…only to discover that my road was closed, the cabbie didn’t have change, and that I was beginning to get leakage down my leg. I threw almost double fare at the cabbie, waddled as quickly as possible through my neighborhood, past my landlord’s demon dog, and up four flights of stairs, only to discover that there was no water in our apartment—at all. At this point I called a neighbor and friend whose apartment had unusually consistent water supply, and confessed my problem. “Oh,” she said, “happens all time, lovely. Come on over and shower.” I received similar confirmation from other friends to whom I related the story, over (many) beers. (“Happened to me twice last week” ) And so occurred a major moment in my journey of self-discovery, a rite of passage, it seems—the realization that no matter what age you are, or where you’re from, you should never, EVER take for granted being able fart with confidence.
Realizing that, in other parts of the world, discussing your bowel movements is NOT the conversational equivalent of commentary on the weather was only one of many small adjustments I had to make when I came back to the States for a visit this summer. I didn’t even realize how many things were just normalized for me in Nepal until I came back and people asked me about “culture shock”. I guess don’t know what “culture shock” really means. When I first got to Nepal, I suppose it meant feeling like everything was a little bit more difficult, or that everywhere I went I went with an air of incompetence palpable enough to be conspicuous across the street. I called them my “big, stupid bideshi [foreigner] days.” The reverse culture shock was those little, quotidian things that you internalize until they become instinctive, because that’s, y’know, just what one does where one happens to be. When I came back to the States, it took me a while to adjust back: drinking the tap water felt like secret agent-level sexy danger (look ma, no parasites!), and ditto eating unwashed vegetables; wearing a sundress made me feel self-conscious in ways I haven’t felt in skimpy clothing since sophomore year of high school; and, speaking of feeling naked, I totally did without my cell phone fully charged and a second computer battery in my bag, even in the carnival of infrastructure that is the USA.
And just when I’ve stopped reflexively “Namaste-ing” every time I get to the check out counter, I’m heading back to do it all over again. I imagine it will just be a matter of slipping back into familiar patterns. People ask what my life is like “over there”, and seem to expect some really wild answers. In fact, it’s a lot like my life as a young professional anywhere else in the world would be: work and friends, eating and drinking, paying bills and getting out of town for a weekend…I just do it with a lot less electricity. Being back in the States for a month really clarified how much, for better or worse, Kathmandu doesn’t feel like “an experience”; it feels like home. Moving there was like moving anywhere else, a series of relatively minor adjustments and accommodations that eventually add up to sneaky feeling of belonging.
As much as I appreciate how normalized my life IS there, I do want to do a few things differently the second time around. This past year, I did a yoga class here, an afternoon at an orphanage there, but I really haven’t consistently been involved in much. I was just at the National Gallery of Art in DC with a friend who lives there, and we both agreed how much living in a place makes you stop “taking advantage” of it. That said, now that I’ve got my life established in Nepal, I’m really going to start looking for ways to integrate other things into my life, especially: some form of exercise, and independent projects that will bring issues and complexities of Nepal to the States when I’m back (hopefully while raising some money for worthwhile organizations). I’m also going to work on designing and doing some research, and trying to get it published.
I suppose I did forget one significant extracurricular: my “Kollywood” debut. Some friends and I were involved in filming a Nepali movie where they needed some foreigners to be…well, foreign. Granted, we were playing “gangsters”, and “Kollywood” seems to be just as campy (“Kampy”?) as Bollywood, but, as a friend pointed out, we were playing un-ironically exaggerated versions of Nepali conceptions of foreigners. Women were dressed suggestively (by Nepali standards), those of us who were too “ethnic” looking (ie had brown hair and light tans) had blonde streaks put in our hair (with face makeup!), and my friend’s gangster “bling” was an enormous crucifix. So there you go: wealthy, promiscuous, blonde, and Christian (that’s the response I get when I try to explain being Jewish: ”so…you’re like a Christian?”… I usually just go with it). The assumptions that I, personally, run into most are the assumptions that get made about Western women. It can be exhausting and frustrating sometimes, but eventually you figure out ways to negotiate interactions and to ignore comments and interactions that you can’t defuse. And most importantly, like anywhere in the world, once you actually make friends with people, the assumptions tend to dissolve.
In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves has to do with the foreign conception of Nepal. At the risk of generalization, Nepalis are really very lovely, friendly, generous people; the mountain views are, in fact, stunning; and of course I’m aware that Nepal is not really of the greatest geopolitical importance. However, there’s this incredibly oversimplified, ill-informed notion of Nepal as this harmonious land of poor but smiling, mountain-dwelling Buddhists, all of whom are Sherpas--never mind that Sherpas are an ethnic group (one of over 100 in Nepal) and not a profession, that there was a civil war raging from 1996-2006, or that 80% of the population identifies as Hindu (in fact, Nepal was the world’s only constitutionally-defined “Hindu” country until 2008). In the news, for instance—despite the fact the world’s youngest democracy was on the edge of collapse this spring, you had to pull proverbial teeth to get international media attention about anything if it didn’t involve trekking, animal sacrifice, or festive ethnic garb. It all makes a very pretty postcard. However, aside from being good for tourism (which, when it comes to the Nepalese economy, is actually nothing to sneeze at), I find it pretty outrageous when people come to Nepal and don’t bother to educate themselves enough about the country to recognize the complexity, diversity, sophistication, and, yes, conflict that is represented there. Those are the things that make Nepal an amazing place to live, not the nuns with nunchucks (yes, this was actually a news piece).
Although my life may seem to be all glamour, what with the poop and the blackouts and the makeup in my hair, I actually work, too! As the only native English speaker in the office (aside from the director of the NGO), a fair amount of my job has been editing and proposal writing (in fact, researching and writing grants was the majority of my job description for the last three months I was there). On the one hand, it’s not the most thrilling work. On the other hand, there was something satisfying about using skills I already have (strong writing and logical thinking) and applying them to gaining fluency in the grant-writing jargon/skill set. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it (we’re batting about .500 for major grants so far), and, maybe more importantly, I’m doing something no one else really can. I’m also proud that my coworkers trust me to help them improve the presentation of their own work. It leaves them more time to do the things they’re really good at, many of which are based on knowledge and skills that I don’t have, at least not yet.
The major project I worked on (an enterprise-development opportunity assessment) was also interesting, and I did the best I could with it. Honestly, my spoken Nepali and subject knowledge was probably not initially (in the fall) at a level to make the most of it. I also didn’t know enough organizationally (or, again, in terms of content, since I’ve never been exposed to this kind of work before) to contribute to or question the way the project was structured. During my first year I’ve learned a lot about the kind work I’m doing (both through direct work experience, and by attempting to read things and engage with people outside of the office in a way that will extend my development “education”), the organization I’m working in (what its strengths and weaknesses are, and how to exploit or compensate for them), and about the language and cultural milieu of Nepal. I think this will allow me to take a more proactive role in the program design and monitoring components of my work, which is something I’m really looking forward to.
In fact, as I head back to Kathmandu for another year, I’m looking forward to many things. It has really struck me, both coming and going this summer, how incredibly lucky (dare I risk my cynicism street cred by saying “blessed”?) I am to feel at home in multiple places. I feel as excited about going to one place as I do sad about leaving another, by virtue of being able to be with people whom I love in both locations. Except my colon, of course. We still aren’t on speaking terms.
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