News Flashes in Daily LIfe

I know friends prefer a brief written highlight or update from the darkened state of our lives in Nepal, rather than me sending an email clipping from the 'Guardian' on Kate Winslet's acting… so since I have a bit of time at the moment, let me slip into my natural blogging identity for a moment…

Hmmm…

Ok, not a great start.

On the weekend, I delved into ‘Sophie’s Choice’, the astonishing novel by William Styron that was made into a movie 25 years ago w/ Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline. A career bursting film for both of them that must have won a few Academy awards. It is an incredibly heart-breaking, soul-wrenching story set in 1947, but full of the agony and crisis of the Holocaust's shadow in Brooklyn. Stinko, the young, insightful Southern character who tells the tale is keenly observant that he has entered Sophie and Nathan's world that summer in NYC with the passionate couple living overhead and their stories flowing, drenching across the pages. I’m only 100+ pages in, but it’s a great read that, I'm sure, having seen the bitter movie, promises more pain ahead.

These nights, I actually enjoy reading by candle light from 9 to 11 pm, while Shakun finishes up homework w/ Ms. Leah Prajna Rose. I try to read Leah a book or two (how quickly we can get through a stack of her charming child’s picture books…) before dinner, then Shaku takes over with the serious writing & math homework. By that time, I’m feeling too tired to do my addition or subtraction, so I leave it to the girls to do the heavey lifting w/o me.

Although, given our present circumstances, I am a bit worried by the risk of fire when we have so many candles burning bright in the night. Last night, I came in when Shaku and Leah were already asleep about 11 pm and put their candle out. Earlier, when Giru, our Man Friday, had brought in our evening tea, he accidentally knocked the candle next to Leah’s bed over into her reading bag. There was a moment’s uncertainty, not quite panic, until he lifted it out, still burning, and put it back on the candle stand. I told Shaku this morning that we should get more enclosed candle stands, the types with glass around them, so I won’t worry at night about the real risks of returning to the 19th century in Kathmandu.

On the social prominence side of life, I am proud to say that I gave a talk at Leah’s class last week on “Bamboo and Other Living Plants”. Of course, I was anxious and uncertain, facing a class of seven and eight year olds on my own, but without too much undue self-flattery, I was a hit! The class was enthralled for nearly an hour and a half at the various bamboo that Leah & I had brought to class, plus the dozens of leaves that I’d picked from our garden that morning and in the dark the night before. I knew, of course, that Marcus would love the thin, 5', reed-like ‘Chimonobambusa’ bamboo, which earlier only the Shogun had been permitted to grow as horsewhips for his trusted steeds. This was so precious that I personally carried it in to the school, heroic, like Moses’ rod before the Pharaoh. All Leah's classmates enjoyed touching the leaves of so many textures, sizes and colors. Leah stood with me as my assistant throughout the talk, offering information and proudly knowing the answers to many of my questions to the class. Ms. Mathema referred to me as the local ‘botanist’ in this week’s 2nd Grade newsletter, although that’s more than a bit of an exaggeration. As you know, I just like to sit near bamboo to feel good about the world…

Anyway, most importantly, I think I scored serious points w/ Leah as she's been holding my hand and walking around the yard and home from school with me since then. After all, who knows the secrets of a seven year old gir's heart...

Also, on the professional front, my colleagues and I finished a two day workshop yesterday at the Park Village with the sixteen NGOs we selected for our civil society outreach initiative under this UNDP “Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal” Project. They were selected out of 148 applicants to work with grassroots ‘historically marginalized’ communities to provide submissions & recommendations to the on-going Constituent Assembly. The NGOs spent two days in groups of four discussing and revising the objectives, strategies, activities, beneficiaries and budgets in their proposals. Hopefully, we’ll get the proposals approved by UNDP next week, then start in the facilitator’s training for these “Loktantric Sambad” (Democracy Dialogues) at the community level.

To say the least, I’m thoroughly enjoying this process of getting resources out to the most disadvantaged communities in Nepal so that their voices, too, may be heard above the fray. We've set up almost an NGO unit within UNDP, fully supported by the powers that be.

With Sila, my wise Kenyan colleague, Binda, our local Indigenous legal eagle, Deevya, our Tamang monitoring/evaluation specialist, Surendra, the grassroots Tharu activist, Kalpana, the UN insider among us, plus the ever-resourceful Saku P. to take of all of the essential arrangements, we make a merry band of fellow travelers who enjoy our work and working together.

Such is the local worldview in Kathmandu, all the news that's not fit to print in the NYTimes, nor heard on CNN, Al-Jazeera or BBC, today, Wednesday, February 5th, 2009.

Bye!!