In my garden fall the plum blossoms --
Are they indeed snowflakes
Whirling from the sky?
The nightingale sings
Playing at the lower branches
Lamenting the fall of the plum blossoms.
from Man'yoshu (Collection of Myriad Leaves)
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Iroha-uta, a Poem & Meditation
Although fragrant in hue,
(blossoms) are scattered
For everyone, life is impermanent.
This morning I crossed the uttermost limit
A shallow dream I will not dream, nor will I become intoxicated.
...the japanese version of an original sanskrit poem...
Whatever is phenomenal is impermanent;
Their essential characteristic is appearance and disappearance;
When these appearances and disappearances come to repose,
tranquility is comfort.
...the chinese version of the same japanese poem...
(blossoms) are scattered
For everyone, life is impermanent.
This morning I crossed the uttermost limit
A shallow dream I will not dream, nor will I become intoxicated.
...the japanese version of an original sanskrit poem...
Whatever is phenomenal is impermanent;
Their essential characteristic is appearance and disappearance;
When these appearances and disappearances come to repose,
tranquility is comfort.
...the chinese version of the same japanese poem...
Human Rights Acropobia While Throwing Pebbles in a Backyard Stream
like many of us, i suppose, i prefer saturdays spent in our garden, lingering, watering the trees, finding pebbles for the stream bed or taking a walk up the hill behind our home. it constantly amazes me how 8 or 9 am can so easily b/c 2 pm in such languid times. i'm not sure that i can yet slide into such quiet regularly, but it feels good on the w/end when i don't even have go into an increasingly busy & crowded town from friday night to monday morning...
although last saturday, it was good to cross town to help the national human rights commission (nhrc) with the planned press conference on impunity issues. i'd been encouraging them to bring actual victims of such human rights abuses, be it abduction by the maoists or disappearances by the government or killings, torture or the sad litany of human casualities from the past ten years of conflict. we were fortunate to receive frontpage news the next day w/ headlines on impunity and the government's lack of seriousness to respond to past nhrc recommendations on these cases -- esp. w/ louise arbour, the un high commissioner for human rights here in nepal for a week.
still, you would be shocked to hear all of the subtle and not so subtle politics that goes on iin this human rights' world. sometimes i think it's b/c we aim toward the highest levels of human aspiration, the top of maslow's pyramid of human values, whereas we're still dealing w/ the nature of the human ego with all of its passions, jealousies and self-centeredness. one can get moral acrophobia (fear of human heights...) in this type of lofty, at times rhetorical human rights environment. then, of course, we're dealign w/ some of the lowest forms of human distemper, as well, when our beastly nature overwhelms our self-control and we are able to murder another soul in a fit of anger, revenge or mere ruthlessness. some days, when you see the faces of those who have suffered, and the accusations made, i think i've stepped into the nyc prosecutor's world of crimes and investigations -- leaving my past development world of literacy, public health and micro-loans far behind...
then there are the institutional politics between international and national bodies, not to mention, not far in the background, the influence of the political parties on the main actors in the human rights field in nepal. add the donors with their own agendas and, at times, arrogance, with the wealth that is lavished on western organizations while nepalis who work in places like the nhrc must make do with salaries of $150/month and offces that are barely equipped with heaters or computers or vehicles. sometimes i feel like, even in the human rights field, its the equivalent of working in an inner city school with the handsome, well-endowed prep school in over across town up on the ivy-coated hill. after so many years in save the children, which is part of the well-endowed world, maybe it's a good opportunity to be reminded of the realities of the barriers that we try to avoid seeing in our daily lives.
whoosh! as someone said to me when i started this work last september, 'human rights makes child rights look like kid's play...' ;-)
as many of you know, dear nepal, within this unsteady peace process, remains on the knife's edge. political change continues at a dizzing pace w/o actually creating a sense of greater security or stability. we've been rocked by riots in lahan, siraha, of all places, down in the terai (near the indian border) the past few days w/ young students killed and the madeshi (terai people) liberation groups leading the charge. then a few days ago we had a national transport strike for two days, too, protesting their busses being burnt in siraha & elsewhere due to these demonstrations. more, whoosh!
although the strike is over, so no more long 25 km bike rides from home across the valley to pulchowk and back... the political instability promises to continue. the govt is intent on elections to a constituent assembly in june to write a new constitution (over two years), but one wonders if this is an exercise in collective day-dreaming. the signs are not exactly promising, even as everyone keeps promising that the election will go ahead as stated. with all of the political maneuvering going on in the background, proverbial trenches and media airwaves, it sounds, to say the least, and based on recent nepal experience, mildly optimistic.
to be honest, it's also a bit tedious as this story never seems to find its balance. after a week in cambodia over new years seeing the economic growth & potential there, it's disheartening to see how beloved nepal stays stuck in the present continuous tense, or even rewind, w/o finding a way to fulfill the country's wondrous potential. even eternally optimistic shakun is getting a bit fed-up w/ the situation, as she also gets more invovled in the drama of janjati/ethnic politics, proportional representation and constitutional change.
in that sense, i can appreciate joshua deciding a week ago to apply for the world college program. he is eager for something new for his young life, even it means doing his 11th grade over again in a different, challenging environment. the world college program is based on an IB curriculum which emphasizes community service, created by the founder of the outward bound program, there are some dozen campuses around the world, including italia, wales, singapore and british columbia, which is josh's order of preference. however, admission is exceptionally competitive given the limited places for americans which he understands. still, it'd be absolutely wonderful for him, even as we'd miss him terribly at home if he was accepted.
lastly, there is still english premier league football. the boys command the tv on the w/end nights when their principles play. last w/end it was the league leading manchester united vs a resurgent arsenal. alas, ez was emotionally crushed when thierry henry scored w/ seconds to go against man utd. ezra, literally, sat still for ten minutes, staring away from the tv, then rolled over and slept on the floor of the room. i felt so bad for him, but he wasn't to be comforted, alas. whereas josh seems to have made some emotional separation from liverpool (a girlfriend, methinks, helps...), but ez is in blind young teenage love w/ his redmen from the north country...
xoxox from afar...
although last saturday, it was good to cross town to help the national human rights commission (nhrc) with the planned press conference on impunity issues. i'd been encouraging them to bring actual victims of such human rights abuses, be it abduction by the maoists or disappearances by the government or killings, torture or the sad litany of human casualities from the past ten years of conflict. we were fortunate to receive frontpage news the next day w/ headlines on impunity and the government's lack of seriousness to respond to past nhrc recommendations on these cases -- esp. w/ louise arbour, the un high commissioner for human rights here in nepal for a week.
still, you would be shocked to hear all of the subtle and not so subtle politics that goes on iin this human rights' world. sometimes i think it's b/c we aim toward the highest levels of human aspiration, the top of maslow's pyramid of human values, whereas we're still dealing w/ the nature of the human ego with all of its passions, jealousies and self-centeredness. one can get moral acrophobia (fear of human heights...) in this type of lofty, at times rhetorical human rights environment. then, of course, we're dealign w/ some of the lowest forms of human distemper, as well, when our beastly nature overwhelms our self-control and we are able to murder another soul in a fit of anger, revenge or mere ruthlessness. some days, when you see the faces of those who have suffered, and the accusations made, i think i've stepped into the nyc prosecutor's world of crimes and investigations -- leaving my past development world of literacy, public health and micro-loans far behind...
then there are the institutional politics between international and national bodies, not to mention, not far in the background, the influence of the political parties on the main actors in the human rights field in nepal. add the donors with their own agendas and, at times, arrogance, with the wealth that is lavished on western organizations while nepalis who work in places like the nhrc must make do with salaries of $150/month and offces that are barely equipped with heaters or computers or vehicles. sometimes i feel like, even in the human rights field, its the equivalent of working in an inner city school with the handsome, well-endowed prep school in over across town up on the ivy-coated hill. after so many years in save the children, which is part of the well-endowed world, maybe it's a good opportunity to be reminded of the realities of the barriers that we try to avoid seeing in our daily lives.
whoosh! as someone said to me when i started this work last september, 'human rights makes child rights look like kid's play...' ;-)
as many of you know, dear nepal, within this unsteady peace process, remains on the knife's edge. political change continues at a dizzing pace w/o actually creating a sense of greater security or stability. we've been rocked by riots in lahan, siraha, of all places, down in the terai (near the indian border) the past few days w/ young students killed and the madeshi (terai people) liberation groups leading the charge. then a few days ago we had a national transport strike for two days, too, protesting their busses being burnt in siraha & elsewhere due to these demonstrations. more, whoosh!
although the strike is over, so no more long 25 km bike rides from home across the valley to pulchowk and back... the political instability promises to continue. the govt is intent on elections to a constituent assembly in june to write a new constitution (over two years), but one wonders if this is an exercise in collective day-dreaming. the signs are not exactly promising, even as everyone keeps promising that the election will go ahead as stated. with all of the political maneuvering going on in the background, proverbial trenches and media airwaves, it sounds, to say the least, and based on recent nepal experience, mildly optimistic.
to be honest, it's also a bit tedious as this story never seems to find its balance. after a week in cambodia over new years seeing the economic growth & potential there, it's disheartening to see how beloved nepal stays stuck in the present continuous tense, or even rewind, w/o finding a way to fulfill the country's wondrous potential. even eternally optimistic shakun is getting a bit fed-up w/ the situation, as she also gets more invovled in the drama of janjati/ethnic politics, proportional representation and constitutional change.
in that sense, i can appreciate joshua deciding a week ago to apply for the world college program. he is eager for something new for his young life, even it means doing his 11th grade over again in a different, challenging environment. the world college program is based on an IB curriculum which emphasizes community service, created by the founder of the outward bound program, there are some dozen campuses around the world, including italia, wales, singapore and british columbia, which is josh's order of preference. however, admission is exceptionally competitive given the limited places for americans which he understands. still, it'd be absolutely wonderful for him, even as we'd miss him terribly at home if he was accepted.
lastly, there is still english premier league football. the boys command the tv on the w/end nights when their principles play. last w/end it was the league leading manchester united vs a resurgent arsenal. alas, ez was emotionally crushed when thierry henry scored w/ seconds to go against man utd. ezra, literally, sat still for ten minutes, staring away from the tv, then rolled over and slept on the floor of the room. i felt so bad for him, but he wasn't to be comforted, alas. whereas josh seems to have made some emotional separation from liverpool (a girlfriend, methinks, helps...), but ez is in blind young teenage love w/ his redmen from the north country...
xoxox from afar...
Monday, January 15, 2007
Visions from Utpal & Caroline's Porch at 1 am on Friday Night & Memories of Scott & Sochua's Riverside Home in Cambodia
in the half-light that passes as electricity in kathmandu during winter, ms. leah's testing colors on the palm of my hand for the rainbow she's painting for her best friends, choyang and tsering, while i'm importing a paul simon collection (nick drake queued up next...) on our computer for future (and present...) aural amusement. my dear chelsea friend, nick dawson, handed us a major part of his massive cd collection when he thought he was leaving nepal this past spring. he's back (i guess k'du, for all its hardships, is a hard place to leave...), so i should move, at last, to stockpile some serious tunes on our hard drive while the the music is nearby...
actually, about 1 am this past friday, standing in the cold, night-time air on utpal and caroline's front porch for their house-warming party, i was telling computer-savy nick about my mental blocks w/ computers. even at the age of 52, i'm still intimidated by their plugs, wires and commands. maybe a phobia from too many late night viewings of kubrick's '2001: a space odyssey', "open the pod doors, hal" -- but it's since it's already 2007 and we still haven't our space colony on the moon, maybe it's time to join the 21st computer literate century. after all, talk about a slow learner...
so, this w/end, with the able assistance of ezra, i've made some modest steps forward that have lifted my techno spirits and given me some slight (and needed...) confidence that i can master some more complex tasks in the future. i learned (at least practiced...) how to download photos from our new mini sony cybershot, as well as these exquisite rock n' roll songs, onto our user-friendly apple computer. so, my next tremulous lesson next w/end will be to move these soulful western rhythms onto the ipod for easy access at my office during the day. such, it seems, are the emotional achievements that these middle years offer this greying soul... ;-)
as I've repeated a few times... it's winter in nepal. that means lovely autumnal days w/ a gentle warmth in the crystal cerulean air -- but, no secrets among friends, the night chill is monstrous, if i may say. zero centigrade w/ zero central heating. of course, partially we're to blame with the exquisitely semi-tropical home shakun designed (when she still thought nepal was bali...). for those of you who have been here, you'll remember that this house has more glass per wall space than anything designed since i.m. pei's pyramid in front of the louvre. not to mention that charming nepali craftsman-like work, which has left space around all of the wooden window and door frames allowing the mountain breezes to unself-consciously waft into the house from the 8,000' shivapuri national park behind us. yes, we have lovely ridgetop views, a magnificent acre+ garden with scores of conifers, fruit trees and bamboo amid streams and ponds to delight us -- but nothing will stop the january wind from blowing in off the 20,000' snow-clad peaks only 15 kms behind our home -- until central heating comes to nepal. ahhh, nature in her frozen glory...
we escaped our himalayan winter for ten days over new years to scott's wondrous new tropical home near kampot, two hours south of phnom penh. his new home puts paid to any hotel on the beach in thailand forever. i'm not sure we have an open winter invitation, but there's no other place now i'd rather be to escape the cold. what scott and sochua created over the past eighteen months has been magnificent, much more beautiful than i had imagined or expected. i call it his 'four seasons' home -- it's that exquisite, aesthetic and peaceful...
like the frangipani tree at the entrance to their home, the joy of the vacation w/ scott and sochua is still fragrant. imagine a large, two story wooden frame home rising like a dream on stilts in the expansive, open pasture of rice fields, with a twin (hans' home) next door, as if you're seeing double. then, as you drive around toward the front of the home, facing the 200 m. wide kampot river, you see a stairway to heaven, reaching from the young garden below up to a wide porch on the second floor at the center of the broad v-shaped home. as you climb up the stairs, your mind is drawn across the river toward the rounded ridges on the highlands beyond, until you step into a spacious dining/living room with wooden floors, a 22' open pyramidal ceiling, a gracious, modern kitchen, and a lengthy, elegant dining table with perfect views back to the river and mountains beyond. not bad, bodhi. not bad, at all...
of course, if the physical setting wasn't divine enough, there were three 'didis' on duty at all times. sochua's table is always set for the guests. with her gently smiling cousin-cum-cook from phnom penh there under mu's supervision, if one's spiritual appetite wasn't filled by the cambodian landscape, there were snacks, fresh baguettes from kampot and fresh seafood and vegetables every afternoon and evening. with a holiday bar, cold drinks (in the bright orange plastic ice box) and some 'quintessantly quite' on the daily menu, days and evenings passed with the quiet, tender ease of a thirty-four year friendship... although, for a measure of excitement, there were always evening swims in the kampot river or next-door in hans' swimming pool when the sun was hottest or for more adventure two man kayak trips up amid the lush, tropical palm banks -- although the peacefulness of the environment rarely called for more stimulus or travel. we had arrived.
now, back to nepal's himalayan winter of discontent, the political situation remains vague and uncertain, hun sen's cambodia certainly showed the economic strength (and moral vacuum...) of a democratic dictatorship. but, even for the seasoned observer, it's hard to see which way nepal is going. we hope for greater peacefulness and stability, given that the country has slipped steadily backward over the past ten years (made more evident by the comparison w/ cambodia). but, even with the positive steps of the maoists tentatively giving up their weapons and agreeing to participate in future elections, there are new ethnic and regional splinter groups taking up where the maoists left off in blocking the highways, blackmailing the economy and murdering to make a point. it's hard to know if we're takling two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two back...
we live in a country of epochal uncertainties. not always easy on the state of mind, unless national uncertainty is your pleasure. still, it appears that the worst of the internecine war is over. now, it's time to wonder what nepal's peace will look like? the continuing semi-chaos of a fragile democracy or an evolving semi-benign communist dictatorship? or something in between? put down your bets before the wheel stops spinning! although in nepal the wheel of life never quite stops spinning... as the dharma says...
next there is a constituent assembly election planned to write a new constitution in june 2007. will it happen? what new forces will it unleash? who will be thrown to the foreground and who into the background? and, who will go peacefully? do we predict greater political openness or grinding repression? will we achieve new forms of economic stimulus or the continuing draining of national resources out of the country? the constituent assembly's first vote is supposed to be about the king. remind me: which was the last country to peacefully vote out a 250 year old royal family? not to meniont, when did a recently 'royal army' ever integrate with a 'revolutionary people's army'? reasonable questions, methinks...
or, dear g-ds, can nepal, true to it's remarkably syncretistic and wordly cultural identity overcome some profound classical mental categories to churn out a surprising 21st century hermaphroditic national political identity? will nepal's youthful population take this opportunity to create new inspiration and optimism? or, will the past dogmatic social forces that continue to afflict the national identity still play the 'zero sum' game to everyone's detriment?
best to remember the final words of 'the count of monte cristo', that monumental tale of historical passion and renewal: 'wait and hope'. for like any great novel, the joy is in the reading or, in this case, in the living through remarkable times... even w/o electricity occasionally and w/o central heating always ...
for spring grows eternal even in the heart of this father of three children, husband of a single wife, who once, long ago aspired to be a 'philosopher-poet/itinerant painter'...
actually, about 1 am this past friday, standing in the cold, night-time air on utpal and caroline's front porch for their house-warming party, i was telling computer-savy nick about my mental blocks w/ computers. even at the age of 52, i'm still intimidated by their plugs, wires and commands. maybe a phobia from too many late night viewings of kubrick's '2001: a space odyssey', "open the pod doors, hal" -- but it's since it's already 2007 and we still haven't our space colony on the moon, maybe it's time to join the 21st computer literate century. after all, talk about a slow learner...
so, this w/end, with the able assistance of ezra, i've made some modest steps forward that have lifted my techno spirits and given me some slight (and needed...) confidence that i can master some more complex tasks in the future. i learned (at least practiced...) how to download photos from our new mini sony cybershot, as well as these exquisite rock n' roll songs, onto our user-friendly apple computer. so, my next tremulous lesson next w/end will be to move these soulful western rhythms onto the ipod for easy access at my office during the day. such, it seems, are the emotional achievements that these middle years offer this greying soul... ;-)
as I've repeated a few times... it's winter in nepal. that means lovely autumnal days w/ a gentle warmth in the crystal cerulean air -- but, no secrets among friends, the night chill is monstrous, if i may say. zero centigrade w/ zero central heating. of course, partially we're to blame with the exquisitely semi-tropical home shakun designed (when she still thought nepal was bali...). for those of you who have been here, you'll remember that this house has more glass per wall space than anything designed since i.m. pei's pyramid in front of the louvre. not to mention that charming nepali craftsman-like work, which has left space around all of the wooden window and door frames allowing the mountain breezes to unself-consciously waft into the house from the 8,000' shivapuri national park behind us. yes, we have lovely ridgetop views, a magnificent acre+ garden with scores of conifers, fruit trees and bamboo amid streams and ponds to delight us -- but nothing will stop the january wind from blowing in off the 20,000' snow-clad peaks only 15 kms behind our home -- until central heating comes to nepal. ahhh, nature in her frozen glory...
we escaped our himalayan winter for ten days over new years to scott's wondrous new tropical home near kampot, two hours south of phnom penh. his new home puts paid to any hotel on the beach in thailand forever. i'm not sure we have an open winter invitation, but there's no other place now i'd rather be to escape the cold. what scott and sochua created over the past eighteen months has been magnificent, much more beautiful than i had imagined or expected. i call it his 'four seasons' home -- it's that exquisite, aesthetic and peaceful...
like the frangipani tree at the entrance to their home, the joy of the vacation w/ scott and sochua is still fragrant. imagine a large, two story wooden frame home rising like a dream on stilts in the expansive, open pasture of rice fields, with a twin (hans' home) next door, as if you're seeing double. then, as you drive around toward the front of the home, facing the 200 m. wide kampot river, you see a stairway to heaven, reaching from the young garden below up to a wide porch on the second floor at the center of the broad v-shaped home. as you climb up the stairs, your mind is drawn across the river toward the rounded ridges on the highlands beyond, until you step into a spacious dining/living room with wooden floors, a 22' open pyramidal ceiling, a gracious, modern kitchen, and a lengthy, elegant dining table with perfect views back to the river and mountains beyond. not bad, bodhi. not bad, at all...
of course, if the physical setting wasn't divine enough, there were three 'didis' on duty at all times. sochua's table is always set for the guests. with her gently smiling cousin-cum-cook from phnom penh there under mu's supervision, if one's spiritual appetite wasn't filled by the cambodian landscape, there were snacks, fresh baguettes from kampot and fresh seafood and vegetables every afternoon and evening. with a holiday bar, cold drinks (in the bright orange plastic ice box) and some 'quintessantly quite' on the daily menu, days and evenings passed with the quiet, tender ease of a thirty-four year friendship... although, for a measure of excitement, there were always evening swims in the kampot river or next-door in hans' swimming pool when the sun was hottest or for more adventure two man kayak trips up amid the lush, tropical palm banks -- although the peacefulness of the environment rarely called for more stimulus or travel. we had arrived.
now, back to nepal's himalayan winter of discontent, the political situation remains vague and uncertain, hun sen's cambodia certainly showed the economic strength (and moral vacuum...) of a democratic dictatorship. but, even for the seasoned observer, it's hard to see which way nepal is going. we hope for greater peacefulness and stability, given that the country has slipped steadily backward over the past ten years (made more evident by the comparison w/ cambodia). but, even with the positive steps of the maoists tentatively giving up their weapons and agreeing to participate in future elections, there are new ethnic and regional splinter groups taking up where the maoists left off in blocking the highways, blackmailing the economy and murdering to make a point. it's hard to know if we're takling two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two back...
we live in a country of epochal uncertainties. not always easy on the state of mind, unless national uncertainty is your pleasure. still, it appears that the worst of the internecine war is over. now, it's time to wonder what nepal's peace will look like? the continuing semi-chaos of a fragile democracy or an evolving semi-benign communist dictatorship? or something in between? put down your bets before the wheel stops spinning! although in nepal the wheel of life never quite stops spinning... as the dharma says...
next there is a constituent assembly election planned to write a new constitution in june 2007. will it happen? what new forces will it unleash? who will be thrown to the foreground and who into the background? and, who will go peacefully? do we predict greater political openness or grinding repression? will we achieve new forms of economic stimulus or the continuing draining of national resources out of the country? the constituent assembly's first vote is supposed to be about the king. remind me: which was the last country to peacefully vote out a 250 year old royal family? not to meniont, when did a recently 'royal army' ever integrate with a 'revolutionary people's army'? reasonable questions, methinks...
or, dear g-ds, can nepal, true to it's remarkably syncretistic and wordly cultural identity overcome some profound classical mental categories to churn out a surprising 21st century hermaphroditic national political identity? will nepal's youthful population take this opportunity to create new inspiration and optimism? or, will the past dogmatic social forces that continue to afflict the national identity still play the 'zero sum' game to everyone's detriment?
best to remember the final words of 'the count of monte cristo', that monumental tale of historical passion and renewal: 'wait and hope'. for like any great novel, the joy is in the reading or, in this case, in the living through remarkable times... even w/o electricity occasionally and w/o central heating always ...
for spring grows eternal even in the heart of this father of three children, husband of a single wife, who once, long ago aspired to be a 'philosopher-poet/itinerant painter'...
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Good Night, Moon!
too much spaghetti for dinner... or, was it the near-baguette-like quality of the bread that shakun brought home today from the german bakery...
either way, it's still quite cold here in the tundra of budhanilkantha while ms. leah sleeps gently in front of an electric heater. she's been down since shaks and i came home rather late, near-8ish. the boys have returned to the shelter of their rooms downstairs, where josh has a heater by his desk while ez usually does his homework lying horizontalysis on his bed.
since coming back from the generous warmth of a cambodian new year at scott and sochua's four seasons estate on the kampot river, i've been going to bed before 8 pm in kathmandu reading leah bedtime stories, then closing my eyes -- good night, moon! -- and snoozing off to a deeper, more distant peace.
maybe it's just the january darkness sky in the early evening, or the ice running through our wintry veins, but something in the air these days has shakun and i both feeling apprehensive about the near-term future of nepal. maybe it's just the daily newspapers with too much talk of politics, ambition, threats, intimidation, deceit and endless guile. rows of cheshire cats w/ the fish's boney tail jutting out of the side of their salivating mouths...
as i often say, everyone starts their high-minded speeches intoning symathetically on behalf of the 'women, dalits and janjatis' but forget them by the time the speech is over... our half-baked 'revolution' seems too often only so much 'sturm and drang' signifying little...
of course, i am open to being proven wrong and wait eagerly each morning for the sunrise hoping that the hosannahs will start to sing and that the meek will inherit nepal, but then the morning paper arrives and my wings fail me as the morning fog obscures the new nepal that has been so eagerly promised by politicians and revolutionaries, alike, but remains invisible on the rhetorical horizon.
maybe the ten years of war or apparent futility is finally taking its toll on even the most consciously determined optimist. or, as abraham joshua heschel said decades ago, and i've quoted innumerable times since, 'i'm an optimist against my better judgement.'
i think my better judgement is getting the better of me... ;-)
although, possibly it will all work out and nepal will finally (finally...) get a government that actually truly cares about its people, their profound rural poverty and the near total accumulation of power and privilege here in kathmandu. yes, and pigs may fly. or, as grandma rose used to say, 'if wishes were horses, even beggars would ride them...'
so, we've turned the new year leaf and as winter turns to spring, much will unfold on the intentions of the power elites who rule this country. will they truly move to decentralize power and empower the disadvantaged communities (who seem to be pushed further away from real power no matter what political color comes to kathmandu)? will new investment finally come to the country to restart so much of what has been damaged or destroyed during these ten years of self-mutilation? will the public education system, at last, be depoliticized so that rural children, who do not attend private schools can receive a quality education near their homes? will ethnic leaders, women and even dalits be appointed to key positions of responsibility so that they may help these long-neglected communities? will the donor community realize that they need to invest more in local community institutions and leaders to ensure that their valuable and scarce funds get out of kathmandu to the deprived districts? will the tide of corruption wane so that every step forward doesn't grease the pole so that the country as a whole doesn't continue to slide down instead of slowly groping forward? will some of the children of advantage and privilege return to nepal to steadily and self-confidently rebuild the country that has been stuck under a frightened feudal mind-set for more decades than necessary?
i fear i see too much, too little and too deeply. these are not easy times for power is a charmless game. we can only hope that the players who hog the stage will remember the values they may have once cherished as young men; otherwise, they dance macbre for all to see, once again...
good night, moon!
either way, it's still quite cold here in the tundra of budhanilkantha while ms. leah sleeps gently in front of an electric heater. she's been down since shaks and i came home rather late, near-8ish. the boys have returned to the shelter of their rooms downstairs, where josh has a heater by his desk while ez usually does his homework lying horizontalysis on his bed.
since coming back from the generous warmth of a cambodian new year at scott and sochua's four seasons estate on the kampot river, i've been going to bed before 8 pm in kathmandu reading leah bedtime stories, then closing my eyes -- good night, moon! -- and snoozing off to a deeper, more distant peace.
maybe it's just the january darkness sky in the early evening, or the ice running through our wintry veins, but something in the air these days has shakun and i both feeling apprehensive about the near-term future of nepal. maybe it's just the daily newspapers with too much talk of politics, ambition, threats, intimidation, deceit and endless guile. rows of cheshire cats w/ the fish's boney tail jutting out of the side of their salivating mouths...
as i often say, everyone starts their high-minded speeches intoning symathetically on behalf of the 'women, dalits and janjatis' but forget them by the time the speech is over... our half-baked 'revolution' seems too often only so much 'sturm and drang' signifying little...
of course, i am open to being proven wrong and wait eagerly each morning for the sunrise hoping that the hosannahs will start to sing and that the meek will inherit nepal, but then the morning paper arrives and my wings fail me as the morning fog obscures the new nepal that has been so eagerly promised by politicians and revolutionaries, alike, but remains invisible on the rhetorical horizon.
maybe the ten years of war or apparent futility is finally taking its toll on even the most consciously determined optimist. or, as abraham joshua heschel said decades ago, and i've quoted innumerable times since, 'i'm an optimist against my better judgement.'
i think my better judgement is getting the better of me... ;-)
although, possibly it will all work out and nepal will finally (finally...) get a government that actually truly cares about its people, their profound rural poverty and the near total accumulation of power and privilege here in kathmandu. yes, and pigs may fly. or, as grandma rose used to say, 'if wishes were horses, even beggars would ride them...'
so, we've turned the new year leaf and as winter turns to spring, much will unfold on the intentions of the power elites who rule this country. will they truly move to decentralize power and empower the disadvantaged communities (who seem to be pushed further away from real power no matter what political color comes to kathmandu)? will new investment finally come to the country to restart so much of what has been damaged or destroyed during these ten years of self-mutilation? will the public education system, at last, be depoliticized so that rural children, who do not attend private schools can receive a quality education near their homes? will ethnic leaders, women and even dalits be appointed to key positions of responsibility so that they may help these long-neglected communities? will the donor community realize that they need to invest more in local community institutions and leaders to ensure that their valuable and scarce funds get out of kathmandu to the deprived districts? will the tide of corruption wane so that every step forward doesn't grease the pole so that the country as a whole doesn't continue to slide down instead of slowly groping forward? will some of the children of advantage and privilege return to nepal to steadily and self-confidently rebuild the country that has been stuck under a frightened feudal mind-set for more decades than necessary?
i fear i see too much, too little and too deeply. these are not easy times for power is a charmless game. we can only hope that the players who hog the stage will remember the values they may have once cherished as young men; otherwise, they dance macbre for all to see, once again...
good night, moon!
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