Yellowstone National Park # 2

As we drive deeper into Yellowstone, a small herd of bison sauntered by enjoying the ease of the modern road.  Gary and I walk thirty meters behind, with their innate understanding that the descendants of the 19^th C. hunters would do them no harm in the security of today’s national park world.

Others have joined us: Will and Eric, friends of Cush's from his community medicine world, in their early 60s, gentle, observant souls who live in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.  They are regular xc skiers who have traveled the world, as well, Will on Utila in Honduras and Eric to Ladakh in northern India.  They, too, value this lonesome landscape.

Further ahead, a band of elk by the river, use their hooves and well-endowed snouts to push aside recent snow to reveal a cornucopia of burnished grasses to feed their hunger and ease their survival during these winter months. 

Instinctively, these larger beasts linger near the water as bands of wolves or lone coyotes that prey on them are more fearful of the water.  The elk and bison can protect themselves by moving to the deeper currents of the river in case of attack.

In the distance, to the north, are the snow-covered Absaroka mountains of the Gallatin National Forest, smooth and round, remains of the edges of the great Yellowstone caldera that last erupted some 650,000 years ago.  Mute, exquisite witnesses to the tortured geomorphology above these 6,000’ plains. 

Closer by, our guide, Tom, a Celtic scholar become national park guide, points out 500’ lava ridges frozen in time, now covered by pines and shrub dropping dramatically to the Gibbon river shore.

One cannot travel far within Yellowstone before the intense geo-thermal activity which defines this part is self-evident.  Pillars of smoke on the horizon or the stank of sulphur fumes nearby.   There is no place on Earth with more concentrated geothermal pressure so close to the surface than this corner of Idaho-Montana and Wyoming.  Remarkably, half of the world’s geysers are in this Park.

We stop to take a walk by the Norris geyser basins.  On a wooden path that encircles the mudpots, the gurgling geysers and the colorful bacteria, we stroll in wonder at this realm of Mordor, a sense of wicked foreboding in these over-heated, volcanic beds.  ('By the cracking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes...' Macbeth)

Clouds of steam spray around the overheated pools of clear water, as barren of complex forms of life as the earlier open snow fields driving in were full of four-legged creatures and birds of prey above. 

Yet there are bison track near the hot springs and geysers.  They, too, come here for the warmth during the worst of the winter.  Some fall into the water and are burnt, occasionally to death.

With the temperatures today in the glorious upper 40s and the sun shining brightly, the miniature snowdrifts collected on the Lodgepole pines plop off their branches on to the ground as we stroll by. 

It’s an absolutely brilliant blue-sky day.  Today, my polyester clothing could be replaced by handmade pashmina shawl and a raw silk herringbone jacket with color coordinated earth tone topi to blend in the environment.

Further ahead another guide pointed out a kill not far from the snow-laden road.  We stop, of course, and bring out our viewing gear. 

Cush’s tripod-held spotter quietly observe from 300 meters an ivory-colored vulpine coyote lying down possessively beside the once-bison’s rib cage.  It roughly severs a rib from the rest and chews its few remaining sinews to suck out its marrow. 

It’s a fearsome sight, beguiling, awesome: the coyote intensely cracking the bones while keeping a distant, attentive cold eye on those distant, occasionally dangerous humans observing him.

A cluster of black, wily ravens nibble nearby on the skull and other body parts that have been scattered nearby by various predators over the past few days.

We have left the civilized sprawl of man’s needs outside the Park; inside the basic desires of the animal world surround us. 

Yet we are humbled and powerfully attracted by the sight.

Around 5 pm we reach the camp near Canyon Village in the heart of the Park.  There are a dozen small, two-person heated baby yurts and a double set of large tents where the cooking and dining take place.  Snow is piled nearly as high as the walls of the tents, their tops above the drifts like linen sails on a white sea. 

The guides park the transport while we unpack and move our goods and skis into and beside our tents.

 

Once again, I am assigned to room with Gary, as the last to commit and newest recruit, the gang laughingly places me with the most notorious snorer in their ranks.  But for me, it’s all good, as Gaspar and I dear and committed friends.  It gives us, as well, some extra precious few hours to speak more openly about issues in our lives that the camaraderie and gamesmanship of the larger male cohort can divert or neglect.

There is a movement to take a lap over to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by twilight ski.  I am hesitant as my first attempt yesterday on skis was exhausting, especially learning the tricks of keeping one's weight back to stay up while going downhill.   I was amazed at how challenging the slight angle of a downward slope that would have almost gone unnoticed while walking proved so agonizing on xc skis.   I learned, through hard-earned experience, that getting up after falling was never easy -- or fun. 

I knew that the skiing part of this expedition would be the roughest part, not having skied in thirty years and joining friends who do this as regularly as others ride their bicycles.  All of whom have lived in North American winter climes for as long as I’ve lived in semi-tropical South Asian Kathmandu. 

In some ways, I think I’d obscured the potential difficulty in my desire to join these distant friends, not to mention the rare opportunity to do so in Yellowstone National Park. 

As Gary said after the first day on the trail, “I’d warned you in the emails that the skiing would be difficult.”  

Maybe I just didn’t listen…

Like so many things, xc skiing looks so effortless, which masks the effort, strength and time gaining such skills.  I’d been doing my running religiously the past two months around the B’kantha School, but this conditioning had to be more rigorous.  In fact, I’d forgotten, or not realized, the necessity of upper arm strengthening, given the reliance on one’s arms for the skiing.

Gary and Dan and others were complimentary about how well I was doing that first day given that I hadn’t skied for decades, and I was able, at times, to keep a reasonable pace going uphill or on some level trails.  However, my initial efforts to control my skiing on the downhill required my friends to spend too much time waiting for me to catch up.

So, given the chance for a first night's ski, I retreat to my tent to sit and read while the others get ready to take this evening ski.  However, after saying I wouldn’t join, and opening Tolstoy on my bed, those second thoughts came swirling in like a tidal pool. 

“You’re here now. 

It’s a rite of arrival. 

An opportunity to share deeply with these friends. 

The reason you came so far.

 ‘A short ski’, they said. 

Just a kilometer (or was that a mile…) to the canyon rim. 

It’s soon dark, it can’t be that far away…”

So, closing the book, I lace up the xc ski boots that Gary brought for me, putting those polyester under-socks on beneath the woolen smart socks.  Trying on the heavier black snow pants that Lee had recommended.  Inner fleece jacket, outer fleece jacket.  Turtle fur.  Woolen cap. Gloves.  Check.

As the light began to wane, we head out along the road to a trail through the forest.  The gliding comes easier than the day before.  The tracks in the snow firmer and more defined.  Cush kindly trades ski poles with me so that I have ones with bigger baskets near the tips to hold more easily in the deep , twilight snow.

There is a silence that envelops the skiing that soothes the mind.  The steady sliding over snow, skating past the trees amid the forest.  The light diminishing adds to the atmosphere.  We are not on a road or manicured trail, but along the edge of a precipice to our left.  We can see the shadows of a gorge, but it’s quiet. 

The moon illuminates the landscape, shadows on the snow, shadows in the mind...

As we get closer to the deep Grand Canyon, of the Yellowstone the sound of the river rises up as a surging rumble fills the night-time silence.  The force of tumbling water in a jagged gorge, dropping precipitously and powerfully below.

There is a golden reflection on the rough distant river below shimmering from the almost full moon’s radiant glow. 

From where we stand, we hear only the sound of the river,  see only the light of the moon and feel the darkness of the forest nearby.

This is the moment. For this I came so far.  

The magnificence of nature, the sublimity of her grandeur and the necessary isolation from our modern lives. 

We take photos, even in the dark.  The requisite record of camaraderie and achievement.  Six college friends, forty years after our initial acquaintance here together again in the wild celebrating simply being here, the journey taken, the gift redeemed.

Others gather to depart.  They put their skis back on. 

I stand entranced. 

Gary steps back to put his arm around my shoulder saying, “You have a hard time leaving places, don’t you?” 

He gives his warm, enchanting smile, knowing that there are multiple levels of meaning to this observation for us to explore.

“You have a hard time leaving places, don’t you?” 

He smiles...

Yellowstone National Park #1

Full moon rising.  

The light fades as the snow sparkles amid the shimmering rays of the early evening Yellowstone backwoods sunset.

 

We put our xc skis on and gently skate out of the snow-bound Yellowstone Expeditions campsite headed to the darkened serrated edge of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone not far away.

 

There is a quiet and sense of meaning for these six solitary men as they glide in a row through in the forest of their lives.

A return to nature to find the space for a deeper, richer reflection on their nearly six decades of life.  

Since the morning, we have been on the move from the commercial world outside to deep within the isolation of this unique national park.  Riding modified Yellowstone Expeditions commuter vans raised on caterpillar tracks wound around the small, pugnacious wheels with iron ski tips breaking the snow and ice over the wintry park roads. 

We stayed last night in West Yellowstone, a tourist town on the edge of the Yellowstone National Park.  My friends had arranged a few comfortable, heated cabins with all the amenities that I have long since ceased to expect in the developing country ‘hotels’ where we usually stay in Nepal. 

The degrees of differences between my Nepali and American lives would never cease to amaze me, if I spent much time thinking about it.  But, in truth, it’s simpler and more convenient to compartmentalize (as the modern distinction is described). 

In truth, I’m merely pleased to feel the warm gust of air when I open the motel room in the below zero temperature of winter in Wyoming.  The room’s wooden walls, carpeted floor, plush bed, bathtub and air of cleanliness seduce me as I lay down my tired muscles after my first day skiing in over thirty years.  

Yet I can’t resist smiling to myself remembering my hotel room in Dadeldhura some months ago with the darkened blood red pan stains on the dingy white-washed walls, the stale, musty fragrance, the thin blanket, plastic flipflops and idealized Thai country scene poster on the wall.

But, I remind myself: I’m not in the hills of Nepal now.  Almost a week away from Kathmandu, I’ve reached the western entrance to Yellowstone National Park with my Amherst ’76 friends, Gary, Lee, Cush, Dan and Peter, to join them on their annual adventure in the American wilderness.

I’ve crossed the globe to attend a more personal ritual of male bonding and friendship premised on time away from the daily demands of family and professional lives dispersed across suburban America from New Jersey to Connecticut, Wisconsin, New Mexico to Alaska. 

I’ve traveled ten thousand miles from Kathmandu to renew these ties of youthful companionship and promise after decades away.  When my recent UNDP contract closed at the end of December, it created an opportunity to loop back to reconnect with the distant spirit of my younger life.  

Through the magic of email, I’d observed these friends’ annual cross-country ski pilgrimage from afar for a decade and always felt a tug to join them. 

After having lived far away in so many ways from our shared collegiate experiences forty years ago in a four-story brick and ivy freshman dormitory in the early 70s in western Massachusetts, I sought better perspective on our individual paths through those youthful thickets of hard-earned experience to seek to create caring and meaningful lives.     

From where we had started, where had we come?

From where we had arrived, what did we recall of our youthful ambition?

Had we honored the lives we had been given in ways true to our early hopes?

Since such time opens only occasionally in one’s adult life, I accepted this work interregnum as a message of mindful awareness and personal reflection.  

As I know, once the current of life picks up speed again, it will likely sweep me along the rapids of another decade toward a more final reckoning of my existence.

Thus I grabbed this opportunity in early February to join my five fellow Amherst alumni now swaddled in our winter boots and heavy parkas wading among 6’ banks of snow in rural Wyoming.  

But first, as hale and hearty Americans, it was essential to start the day before entering the Park at a nearby diner for a breakfast of sausage or cheese omelets, pitchers of hot coffee, whole wheat toast and orange juice.  We then proceeded to the Yellowstone Expeditions office for our ride with all of our personal gear packed away and the long, bundled ski bags on the roof of the SUVs.  

My LL Bean duffle, borrowed from Joshua, was full of the hi-tech xc ski clothes Lee and Gary had guided me to purchase over the past two months.  Piles of black shimmering undergarments and silky shirts made of micro-thin, breathable polyprophene and similar polyester fibers. 

Although, after decades sharing life with Shakun and her own beautifully designed, elegant and refined earth tone pashmina clothes, purchasing these polyester clothes felt like heresy on a clothes hanger. 

Though from my friends’ coaching, I learned that in the sub-zero temperatures of northern Wyoming, wool or cotton clothes, even pashmina, would steadily absorb sweat and turn bitterly wet and cold during the day. 

Whereas these modern synthetic materials breath and wick more easily, thereby allowing sweat to escape my clothing as I struggled to traverse kilometers of snow fields on our cross-country skiswith my much more experienced friends.

‘Clothes make the man’, as they say out in the wilds...  

So as I pulled on these polyester linings and inner socks, fleece jacket, acyrylic neck lining and Sherpa Gear (made in Nepal) nylon and spandex pants, I felt like I’d not only changed continents, but identity.

This simply wasn’t me – at least not the ‘me’ I’d known over the years: certainly not uber-athletic or outdoor adventurer, or triathalon competitor, or mountain man, or sportive wunder-kid. 

None of the above…

C’est not moi.

But for the joy of lasting friendship, the desire of shared experience, an opportunity to reflect on time past -- or merely a winter week in a spectacular environment to challenge the body and soul -- even this, too, was possible. 

As the commuter van on steroids pulled out of the parking lot, sitting next to Gary and Dan, I felt an elation and affection that obscured the challenges and anxiety of the novitiate cross-country skier from Nepal come to the American wilderness.

I think it was Dan who noted that part of the draw of this gathering was the allure of Yellowstone itself. 

These National Parks are the ‘piece de resistence’ of the American West, nature unbound and protected.  

Testaments to the original, unspoiled American wilderness, the pre-Columbian, pre-United States of America, pre-suburban 20th C. worlds of memory: a sacred communion between G-d as nature and our primordial soul.

In fact, 1872 marked the year Yellowstone became the first national park established in the world.  A wise if desperate last minute 19^th C. recognition by politicians and environmentalists alike that if nothing was done through the coercive force of legislation and regulation, the grand poetic sweep of these sublimely rare and unique American landscapes would quickly become another crassly commercial Niagra Falls absorbed ineluctably by the inevitable advance of modernizing civilization.

Thus, with a tip of my russet, woolen, head-hugging Sherpa Gear topi to the wise souls who put boundaries around this immense vista, we drove through the Park entrance into a world of vast natural beauty and wildlife.  The strips of tourist shops, diners and motels of West Yellowstone held at bay by the map-maker's delineation of the National Park Service. 

'Three million tourists a year come to Yellowstone,' says our guide Tom.  Yet the whole country of Nepal hasn't even broken a million in one year!

Yet, a friendly, solitary woman ranger in uniform collecting tickets and passes was enough to hold a whole society’s baser urges at bay.  The authority of the NPS allows Mother Nature to rule hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness, wildlife and ancient geothermal activity for generations to come.

In winter, the number of tourists or guests is certainly reduced.  We passed handfuls of snowmobiles and only a few other winterized tourist caravans in the Park.   Each waved with the knowledge that we were among the fortunate few to have the Park and its magnificent open, snow-covered landscape to ourselves.

Well, mostly to ourselves…

For soon in the Park, twenty minutes down the road, we stopped as Lee noticed a bald eagle sitting majestically on a short limb of a tall, dead pine tree across the river. 

Cush pulled out his Canon spotter and Peter his amazing array of camera equipment, as we stood by the river’s bend to observe an ambitious black raven unsuccessfully try to irritate and dislodge the bald eagle.  The view through Cush's 20-60x spotter was phenomenal.  Through that enhanced lens, the bald eagle’s yellow, fearless cold eye gazed imperiously on the landscape around.  

As we stood in the snow, surrounded by an open world of forested ridges a bevy of golden-eyed ducks and trumpeter swans floated by on the icy stream.

Not another ten minutes further into the Park, we stopped again to observe a herd of placid dark bison gathered in a nearby field munching peacefully on the stubble grass showing among the distant snowfields.  

We stopped to observe in silent joy and a communal pride in their mere continuing existence.  

An American pride in the resistance and survival of our foundational lives… 

The dark brown hirsute, hump-backed bison of earlier days, that noble ponderous head that once graced the US nickel, a memory of our once open, flowing North American plains and the Native Americans who lived in a more cultural symbiotic spirit with that hoary beast.

Memories that awaken us to possibilities of life, the power of nature and a primordial past...

And yet burden us with man's willful destruction and the risks of continuing loss that surround us still…

(to be continued...)

Montana

There's snow and it's cold and it's good to be among these dear, ancient friends..

We had a waiting game day today.  it started early for lee and me.  We got up at 4:45 am in New Jersey to take a taxi to Newark airport for our flight via Salt Lake City (Utah) to Bozeman (Montana).  The Delta flight was at 7 am.

Before we boarded Lee heard that Gary's flight through Denver was delayed b/c of a huge snow storm in Colorado.  By the time we reached Salt Lake City around 1 pm, we knew that he'd gotten to Denver but missed his connection to Bozeman.  At the Bozeman airport, we rendez-vou'd with Cush from Connecticut, Peter from California and Dan from Alaska, although Gary was wait-listed for a 6:30 pm flight.

We all went out for a pizza lunch in downtown Bozeman, where there was blue skies and no snow in the city.  Afterwards  one SUV headed out the hour+ drive south to the 320 Ranch, where we are staying en route to West Yellowstone tomorrow. 

After they departed, I napped at a local coffee shop with Lee and Dan, while the others had an afternoon ski somewhere closer to the mountains.

Tomorrow, the plan is to ski in the morning and afternoon at Big Sky, a local  ski resort.  Then, drive to West Yellowstone from where we’ll be taken into the park on Sunday (through Friday) on these large vans on skis.  I’m told it’ll take 3-4 hours to make the journey into the park, at the least, as we’ll do some side tours of the geysers and fields of bison on the way in to our yurt camp. 

At least for the moment, we have internet at this ranch home where we're staying tonight, but that could be the last connection for the week.  It seems certain that there's definitely no real electricity, phone or internet inside the yurt park in Yellowstone.  Just a hot water bucket bath...

Actually, it seems more like a village in Nepal than being in the united states....

Yet there's a good feeling among these guys.  Many of them have been doing this annually for over ten years (since our 25th reunion).  They are good, gentle souls.  professionals, doctors, lawyers, scientists, mostly, with clean hearts and kind minds.  Although some of them were not my closest friends way back when at Amherst, we had an easy, good feeling about each other that retains.

During those early ‘70s college years, I was more on the political and counter-cultural side with Scott, Heading out to California during our summer breaks, being alternative characters, studying philosophy and religion and seeking new revelations in our daily lives.  

While these good folks were more grounded, serious and directed -- but with fun  in their lives and compassion in their souls.

Still, it's a warmly positive feeling to be among them, not only one on one, but as a community of six once upon a time Amherst students become graying, thoughtful,  experienced men reflecting on the paths taken and not taken.

Of course, I'm the outsider in certain ways: non-skier, non-resident American, non-professional...  who has made a life outside the United States, living in a foreign land, married into a distant culture and new to these male bonding annual adventures.

Guilty on all counts.

Yet, i have the sense that there is a joy and delight that I am among them, too.  They listen and observe me, as I listen and observe them, hearing the distinctions and revelations that distinguish our various lives.  The words, expressions and experiences that have defined our individual worlds and expectations.

There is humor aplenty with a bevy of scotch bottles open on the table.  Gentle ribbing and kidding about ourselves and each other.  Wry comments on our ages and our places in life.  Moments of true reflection and efforts at understanding.

If I can stay up on my skis and find a pace the befits me among these quite experienced cross-country skiers, I think this will be full and entertaining week.  The idea of going out in that snow for hours and hours, covering kilometers and kilometers of trail still seems a bit daunting, but all life is worthy of its challenges.

If I don't write more for a week know that I go out into this American wilderness with all of you in my heart and thoughts.

February Journey to America and Back Again...

On Tuesday I'm off to the States on Etihad.  There's my usual hotel room at the airport in Abu Dhabi, then the four movie, fourteen hour stretch to JFK.  I arrive in NYC on Wednesday, February 1st where I'll go to stay at Eileen's that evening.  Then on Thursday I'll move to Lee Wilson's home in NJ as we have a 7 am flight on Thursday to Bozeman, MT.  

From the 3rd to the 10th, I'm with Lee, Gary Giorgi and a few other Amherst friends x-c skiing in Yellowstone NP.   From Bozeman, we'll drive to West Yellowstone, spend a night, then Yellowstone Expeditions will take us i into the park by their strange snow-guzzling catamarans.  We'll stay in their winter yurts for six nights taking daily xc ski trips around the park.  

Of course, since I haven't xc skied since a day trip in the Jura in 1978, I've order the latest translation of 'War and Peace' (EML's recommendation).  I can spend my days with a cast of thousands if my legs, body or mind don't wish to over-indulge myself out in the winter mischief.

To be honest, I'm rather apprehensive about going into the heart of winter cold-turkey.  Ok, in Kathmandu we have no central heating, see our breath inside the home during winter nights, and 14 hours/day of electricity load-shedding -- but, at least, it's warm and toasty outside during the daytime (given our southern latitude...), plus we now have our own sauna on the roof.

I seriously can't imagine LIVING in a yurt immersed by snow for a week.  

I mean not just snow, but surrounded by the stuff w/ only a pair skis to power one's escape, and what an escape: out into MORE snow, everywhere snow, essential snow, white-washed snow, primordial snow, essential snow, dramatic snow, frigid snow, frightening snow, fresh snow, global warming snow, national park snow, reindeer snow, elk snow, bear snow, rabbit snow, bald eagle snow,,, freezing cold snow...

Am I obsessing?

At least, that's my image of what our six days in the park will be like.  

I've been taking advice from Lee and Gary on my appropriate attire.  I've bought from an outfitter, Campmor, which has more categories of sports clothing than I thought possible.  It's that Nepal-US divide again...  Here in Kathmandu choice is much more limited (to say the least...).  Then, when I get on-line and start to look at the winter, light-weight, polypropylene, waffled, breathable, synthetic under-armour, it's like stepping into a parallel post-modern universe of skin-tight, earth-colored polyester Star Trek outfits -- missing only the heroic Star Command badges.  

Whoosh!

Fortunately,  Gary will be my main outfitter for my xc ski 'gear'.  He's bringing my boots, skis and poles, as he lives in Wisconsin which does snow the way that Kathmandu does g-ds.  I think his garage is a used ski store that he is waiting to open when he retires from clinical medicine.  Although, actually, from the time he seems to spend up north (can you go further north than Wisconsin...) at his cabin, I think he really retired a few years ago but hasn't quite gotten up the courage to let the rest of us know the truth.

I've also been exercising.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it happens to be true...

I actually frightened myself thinking of being like Commander Perry lost on the north pole of Yellowstone, blinding Russian snowstorm whipping through the fir forests, wolves howling in the distance, tracks lost in the sweeping gusts of wind across the open fields, a moose staring mutely at me as I pass by lost in translation.  Making a small fire under a tree to keep my warmth and strength until the snow on the tree above melts and buries my last hope as the darkness settles in and I realize that I will never see the sun again.  

Or, something like that...

For the past six weeks, our Budhanilkantha neighbors have been treated to the sight of that grey-haired Western guy they thought had a real job and true status in Nepali society dressed in his leopard pattern pajamas and a SOAS sweatshirt with a pashmina cap and scarf wrapped around his neck.  They've seen him jogging down past the Sleeping Vishnu temple, around the front of the extensive B'kantha School compound, across the Vishnumati stream, and then back uphill on the dirt track toward the Hari Krishna center toward the backside of the school to our home.  

I'm not sure my adventuresome friends will be impressed.  I think I'm off with those American exercise types, I fear, who run five miles before breakfast or spend an hour on exercise machines (man against machine?) for an hour before bedtime.  

When I started running I couldn't make it all the way around the school without walking part of the way.  Now, however, I've gone around the school compound twice the past two days, which takes me about 50 minutes.  It feels good and, hopefully, on those days when I am trailing my friends, eating the snow dust kicked up by their effortless gliding through those miles of wintry forests, these weeks of exercise will pay their dividends and I will feel the ease of gliding on my own skis while chasing my own dreams of the American wilderness.

Then, after our week in Yellowstone, we each head back to our own lives, this snow-filled mini-Amherst, Class of '76 reunion over.  We drive back to Bozeman, then catch early morning flights to our various directions.

For me, I'll go to Seattle to see my dear friend, Matthew, who's made a new life in Seattle after nine years in Vietnam.  We worked together in Nepal in the early '90s, then became even closer friends through our mutual Save the Children lives while we raised sons, directed staff and programs and pursued our dreams.  We've been close over the years from visits to our home in Kathmandu and their home in Lagrasse, France to his mother watching over Joshua from her book-filled home in Georgetown during his first two years in DC and us doing the same for Jeremy, Matthew's oldest.  

Jeremy, who was born right before Matthew and Laura came to Nepal in '91, spent four months in Nepal this past fall on a high school program studying Nepali language, Nepali culture and Buddhism.  He's a serious teenage soul, forever questioning the nature and purpose of life and living, meditating, exercising and observing.  It'll be a joy to see him again, soon after he left Nepal, in the American life from which he was parachuted after spending his whole childhood and youth overseas.

If I'm lucky, I'll also see Bill Green of youthful JD and Cazenovia fame who has made a full life and career in Seattle for decades and my beloved friend and travelling companion, Dave Ellenberg, who may come up with his endearing daughter, Iris, from Portland for the day on Saturday.

Much to look forward to in a mere 48 hours in Seattle!

Then, after that weekend with close friends facing the Pacific, relaxing in Matthew's backyard hot tub to ease my sore and stretched muscles, swirling some enchanted bottles of his fine wines, after reaching the westernmost point of my first 2012 journey in America, I'll turn around and fly to see Mom in Florida.

From the wilderness of the American West to the warm, tony gated hamlets around West Palm Beach.

Enough of winter!  

I'll have a week with the essential Priscilla Rose of our family's shared existence, bearer of the original Rose-Marie Rose transmission, the Muse of 57th Street, and the heritage we all share, closely bound up in our parents' 20th C. lives, their early professional struggles to create a family around we four children, our suburban homes and, no less, the expectations and love we felt from them.  

This was the 1950s/60s version of 'Modern Family' in which we were raised with all the hopes, humor and challenges of our own youthful times -- long before we, too, knew what it meant to be a parent raising our own children... and could see our own parents' lives with more clarity, sensitivity, empathy and understanding of what these complex adult roles and responsibilities mean.

In this way, too, it's right that it is my last stop in the US before returning home to my life in Nepal.  Right that at this latest interregnum of my professional life, the space between my recent UNDP constitutional work and what will come next, to return to the comfort, peace and ease of being in Mom's home, her excellent home cooking, the talks on our lives, my kids, her grandchildren, their futures, our past, the continuity of our lives, the circling back to the source...

The Alpha and Omega of our deepest personal existence, the cycle of the seasons, the ending that seeks its own beginning, the inner life that animates our external life, the emotional balance that creates the physical setting of our lives, the beauty and trauma blended so closely that it is impossible to untangle them, but breathe, adore and stand in amazement before them...

This is us.  This is here.  This is where.  This is source, the origin, the first flight, the first journey, the first steps that have created the distance and time from which to reflect, deeply, while there is still time, time enough, to appreciate the wonder of it all and the value of each person and moment and passing...

Then, departure again.  'Beam me aboard, Scotty!'  These departures that have been rehearsed a hundred times in a short lifetime.  Always coming and going, being and becoming, traveling between worlds and always ready to enter a new one.  'To bravely go where no man has gone before...'  

Such has been the nature of our private worlds, as well.  Always one foot in the past, another on the cusp of the unknown, the future, the next adventure in time.

So, even a month ahead I can perceive another JetBlue flight up the East Coast from the warmth of Florida to my last of vision of winter in NYC.  A long afternoon in the Etihad lounge at JFK before my night flight on Etihad back to Abu Dhabi.

My global town and a hotel room when traversing continents.  

Then three weeks after leaving, back to the darkness of Kathmandu, no doubt sixteen hours of load-shedding by then, however, where spring will have arrived (even today I saw peach blossoms on trees in the backyard), new bamboo shoots will have begun to peek above ground and I'll have to start thinking a bit more seriously about the next stages of my later life, as well.  

From winter to summer to spring, it seems, during three weeks to America and back again.

Curious...

International Indigenous Conference in Dharan, Nepal

I'm sitting in Dharan, a growing town on the borderlands between the hills and terai of Nepal at an international conference on Indigenous rights organized by Shankar Limbu and LAHURNIP, a law firm working on Indigenous Peoples (IP) issues. 

Many noted Nepali IP intellectuals and political leaders are here among us.  There are South Asian IP activists and academics from Jharkand, Nagaland, Chittagong Hill Tracks (Bangladesh), as well as experts from INGOs and a NYU law school fellow, plus a three or four hundred Nepali IP from all over the country.

A Swiss expert, Chris was speaking about land rights and subsidiary rights using his native Switzerland as examples.  He's given us some historical background on how Swiss land rights have evolved and the authorities of the cantons vis-a-vis the central government.

But, stepping back, momentarily, from the specific Swiss example, it’s interesting to consider how human settlements land rights have changed over time in various countries. 

A millennium or two ago, during the development of our early civilizations from the Euphrates and Yantze, through the later Bronze Age, one wonders how land was ‘owned’, expressed and possessed by different cultures and societies.  How those Indic, Babylonian, Ugartic and later Aegyptian societies articulated either communal or individualistic definition of land rights.  

In our Western world, of course, after the rise of royal or papal rule for centuries, the sovereign and his courtiers controlled most of the land rights.  Then, there must have been a lengthy transition to where the state began owning, allocating and registering the land and resources within its territory. 

No doubt the fame of the Magna Carta had to do w/ forcing the king to release some of his control over land rights to his dukes and earls who wanted a greater share of that land wealth and prosperity.

While these centralizing tendencies occurred across the world, many Indigenous peoples, who never formally or legally registered their community ownership of their plentiful land, lost their self-perceived g-d given land rights as external, neigboring or colonizing military powers, representing a different, distant or foreign state, gained authority by the coercive force of the newly aggrandizing empire(s). 

For most of us, these historical land use issues rarely trouble our lives.  In most Western nations, the idea of Indigenous Peoples or concerns about their minority rights has long since become a distant, sepia-toned fading memory.  The history, culture and imagination of Indigenous Peoples have been thoroughly overwhelmed by the ineluctable diffusion, aggrandizement and ‘advance’ of our modern, industrial, technological worlds.  

The cruel trauma of earlier centuries forgotten by the pressures and demands of our own modern lives and homogenizing power or our impressive and all-encompasing global cultures. 

Even in relatively recent 19^th C. American history when the European immigrants and frontier worlds collided is deeply buried in our national consciousness.  The cultural scars too searing and wounded, no doubt, to acknowledge as clearly as future centuries, looking safely back across time, may likely perceive and accept... 


‎'It's this idea of destruction, this conception of near and inevitable change which gives in our opinion so original a character and so touching a beauty to the solitudes of America. One sees them with melancholy pleasure. One hastens in a way to admire them. The idea of this natural and wild grandeur which is to end mingles with the superb images to which the march of civilization gives rise. One feels proud to be a man and at the same time one experiences I know not what bitter regret at the power G-d has given us over nature. The soul is agitated by these ideas, these contrary sentiments. But all the impressions it receives are great and leave a deep mark.' 
Alexis de Tocqueville, August 1831

That torturous American history appears, at times, in award-winning films like John Ford’s classic “The Searchers” starring John Wayne, ironic exposes like “Little Big Man” starring Dustin Hoffman, Roland Joffe's brilliant "The Mission" starring Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro in 18th C. South America, Kevin Costner’s Civil War era “Dances with Wolves”, Bruce Beresford's haunting "Black Robe" set in 17th C. Quebec, Terrence Malick's "The New World" poetic evocation of a 17th C. Virginia settlement, or even the recent allegorical, mythological science fiction "Avatar".

Yet here, in South Asia, where the 19th C. European colonizer had neither the demographic dominance nor physical ability to completely remove the local or Indigenous communities, these original, more communitarian peoples remain scattered around their nations, often in the remote Himalayan mountains, but also in selected inner Mahabharat valleys and along the often equally isolated widespread Gangetic plains. 

Although in Bangladesh they represent only 2% of the total population, in Nepal IP are over 40% of the national population, including some 108 languages and disaggregated ethnic-indigenous communities scattered all across the country.   In Northeast India, they are a majority of most of those smaller states with on-going independence and liberation movements troubling the Indian state.

Therefore, given the much larger prominence of the IP in the social structure of Nepal, one appreciates the greater intensity and agony of debates on IP rights in the design of a modern 'new' Nepal.  

Thus, with the sudden collapse of Nepal's 240 year old Hindu monarchy and rigid hierarchical society after the 2006 People's Movement, and the centralizing, unifying role of its state, these IP issues have gained more searing prominence and priority in local politics.  

Clearly, the previous socio-political-cultural bonds of the ancien regime are slipping quickly.  The rise of identity politics, started by a sense of discrimination and alienation from the state in the 1980s then pushed more profoundly by the rhetoric of Maoist liberation in the 1990s, have opened a fascinating Pandora’s box for the realignment of a new Nepal.

No longer ‘One King, One Language, One Religion’, the Nepal of the 21^st C. will be a more diverse, inclusive and argumentative nation.  

The Indigenous Peoples at this three-day conference in Dharan, in Eastern Nepal, are more aware, more conscious, more politically active than earlier generations and insistent on their rights.  They are aware of the numerous international UN human rights resolutions including ICCPR, ICESCR, CERD, UNDRIP and ILO 169.  

These Indigenous Peoples of Nepal are asking hard questions of the state regarding its authority over their cultures, their languages, their religions, their land and their resources. 

For the past two days there have been presentations on international, regional and national examples of indigenous rights issues.  These political and human rights issues would be considered ‘radical’ in the West, given the homogenizing and ‘melting pot’ nature of our federal and unitary political systems.  Yet these issues of cultural survival and rights are being debated vigorously and insistently by the many indigenous in Nepal.

How the evolving political structures of this new Nepal are able to incorporate these latent demands, the sense of historical exclusion, the pressure for recognition of their languages and cultures, the insistence on proportional representation in all state organs (to ensure access to political power) and the expanding political consciousness of these previously subaltern communities in Nepal will go far to determining how stable and successful will be the next incarnation of a new Nepali republic.

Yet we have seen, in Europe in particular, in earlier era, the tortured history of promising new republics and reichs, e.g. in France or Germany, as those ancient nations sought new, hopeful compacts with and among their peoples in the 19th and 20th Centuries.  

Will Nepal be able to navigate the process of social inclusion, diffusion of political power, restructuring a republican state, the creation of new federal units, the role of identity in the state, the issue of communitarian vs individual land, and natural resource rights without resorting to violence again?

Will the ten years of conflict from 1996 to 2006 remain a painful and persistent memory for the diverse range of people of Nepal -- Indigenous, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Dalit, high caste, Tibetans, Indian merchant traders and a few of us ex-foreigners?   

Will the effort to share power, acknowledge historical claims and soothe the rights of the Indigenous with the dominant communities find the right balance in the new constitution, form of government, judicial system and legal code?

Will the eager and upcoming local political parties that are swelling just below the surface of the currently dominant established political parties find the wisdom, maturity and influence to bring political power and better services closer to the lives of the 30 million Nepalis living across the heights and terai of his Himalayan nation?  

Will the country finally find the right balance between the recognition of cultural identity and stable economic growth for a nation desperately in need of both?

What did the Greeks say about Pandora's box?

Only time will tell...

Images of Childbirth

"When a woman withdraws to give birth the sun may be shining but the shutters of her room are closed so she can make her own weather.  She is kept in the dark so she can dream.  Her dreams drift her far away, from terra firma to a marshy tract of land, to a landing stage, to a river where a mist closes over the further bank, and earth and sky are inseparate; there she must embark toward life and death, a muffled figure in the stern directing the oars.  In this vessel prayers are said that men never hear.  Bargains are struck between a woman and her God.  The river is tidal, and between one feather stroke and the next, her tide may turn."

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

Reflecting on a conversation the other evening at home with dear friends... 

She spoke of images from the Kathmandu British Embassy traditional Christmas carols voicing the pain of birth placed in the construct of a morally corrupting world.  Her words echoing her doubts about the value of such Western religious teachings.  

Her gentle Buddhist compassion wondering why the Bible, source of so much of our Judeo-Christian values, chose to expel women from a sacred and serene Eden through a scene of such vehemence and violence.

While, for me, those words recalled a passage of childbirth set during 16th C. Tudor England (above) I'd recently read with the fictional voice of the very factual Thomas Cromwell not far from my internal ear.  

The Christmas carol quoted the ancient Hebraic words describing the imposed pain of a woman's childbirth.  The price women have been told they pay for taking an apple from the Tree of Knowledge in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  

Genesis 3:16

          "I will make most severe

           Your pangs in childbearing;

           In pain you shall bear children."

Rather than seek to understand the heavy-handed theological punishment of this Biblical curse, I thought instead of the silent, darkened shelters, tents or rooms where our mothers, wives and sisters must have gone for the agonies of their intimate child labor during the early centuries of our nascent civilization and kulture.  

A place apart, hours of uncertainty, loneliness, isolation and, sometimes, premature death...  


I remember a passage from Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' where Count Pierre stood anxiously outside the door while his second wife, Natasha, cried with pain and fear during childbirth, from early 19th C. Russia after Napoleon's armies had marched toward St. Petersburg.

Or Rilke's beautiful passage from his "For the Sake of A Single Verse",

          'For the sake of a single verse... one must have memories... of many nights of love,          of the screams of women in labor, of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, beside the  dying...'

quoted in the Ben Shahn powerfully evocative lithographs on the emotions, experiences and passages of life.  

And, I sit here gazing outside toward those cowsheds in the remote mountains of Nepal where pregnant women, young and old, still go...

Are humans the only creatures so aware of the hope and risks of childbirth?  Do other animals moan and cry with the conscious pain that we know?

Do they dream of their hopes and fears for their newborn?

Why has the universe, nature or our idea of G-d created only women, not men, to give birth for our species to carry the seed of our existence and aspirations?  Why are we designed so?  Is there a purpose?  Is there a reason?  Is it arbitrary?  Without cause?

Or, is there meaning for us to find?  

Why is it that women can't release their children without the pain and agonies that accompany the passage from womb to life?

Why did the ancient Hebraic writers draw so much attention to the pain accompanying childbirth and attempt to give it a meaning?

Why don't we squirt out like fish in the sea from where we came?  (Asks the son of the Ob-Gyn...)  Do other animals endure the torment and risk that humans experience?  Or, is their childbirth more subtle, understated and without thought or reflection?

Why such a gulf between us and our fellow creatures?  

Is there a reason we have to go through more physical strain -- both mother and child?

Is there an unseen, unknown unconscious relationship between our painful passage into this mortal life with our higher moral mind?

Why, too, are the highest saints or prophets of religious tradition born without the travail of we lesser beings?

Moses' birth mother lost in the myth while he appears to us floating in a wicker basket on the Nile to be raised in the Pharaoh's family.

Why was Gautama Buddha born with his mother holding on a tree branch from her side with apsaras and devas pouring lotus petals on the ground?

Why is Jesus famed for his immaculate birth?  Mother Mary, distinct from other women, pure as the driven snow not suffering the agonies and fears of childbirth?

What is the tale or teachings of Mohammed's birth or Krishna or other avatars of pure insight, wisdom and consciousness?

Can't the miracle of life be less uncertain or anxious?  

One wonders... 

Appreciation for the UNDP SPCBN Civil Society Outreach Initiative, 2008-11

Here are some of the thoughtul and appreciative notes from my Nepali NGO colleagues regarding the end of our work together on the Civil Society Outreach (CSO) component of the SPCBN project.  

At the start of the SPCBN project in late 2008/early 2009. there was great enthusiasm for initiating this civic education on the drafting a popular constitution among the thousands villages of Nepal, as well as a publicly stated desire to see that their voices and opinions were brought into the drafting of the original eleven CA Thematic Committee reports.  

However, as the constitution drafting process extended past the initial (optimistic...) two year deadline in May 2010, the donors and others felt that this work had -- by and large -- been accomplished.  

In addtiion, there were concerns expressed among certain sections of the political parties and international community that the delays in the writing of the constitution were partially due to the persistent demands of some of these historically marginalized communities to protect their rights and representation in the new constitution.  

Yet, throughout the drafting process, I'm proud to say that UNDP SPCBN has been at the forefront of ensuring a voice was given to these Dalit, Indigenous, Madheshi and remote area communities in the drafting of the new constitution, especially through their own local community-based organizations.  

More recently UNDP has provided support to the Constituent Assembly Dalit, Women's and Indigenous Caucuses to present their issues and concerns to their political party leadership.  Many of these issues, in fact, were collected from the VDC-level Democracy Dialogues that these NGO federations organized around the country.

Nonetheless, due to reduced funding and concerns that the process has been (possibly...) too participatory, when the draft constitution is approved by the CA -- hopefully in 2012 -- there will be a more limited public outreach.  

Unfortunately, it will be without the grassroots support that these fifteen NGO federations were able to provide to the CA and political parties.  Jointly these NGOs reached nearly half a million people across the country through the three CSO phases in 2009, 2010 and most recently in 2011 

Therefore, the words of appreciation that these NGO partners offer below to UNDP, SPCBN and those of us who had the privilege of guiding these respected NGOs over the past three years.

For me these were some of the most genuine partners I've had the honor of working with, as well as among the most enjoyable and political challenges of my professional years in Nepal...

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear Keith jee, Wish you a very happy new year!

Working  with you as one of the CSO partners has been a wonderful opportunity for us. We were lucky that we could contribute in drafting the historical document of Nepal through this SPCBN project. We would like to thank you and your team for providing us the opportunity to bring the voices of the voiceless from different districts and also for the support and cooperation through out.

Wish you  the very best for the days ahead.

With regards, Sharmila Karki
Chairperson, Jagaran Nepal

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Dear Keithji,  Namaste!

It is really very sad news for us that you are leaving SPCBN project. I know you from very early of my job career. I had worked in Indreni Service Society as a Motivator to Project Coordinator.  During that period I had got mountains of opprtunity to enhance my capacity and ultimately that opprtunities dirived me in present condition.  You had maintained strong policy to uplift deprived community and people during your work at Save the Children.  

And, you also gave us to reach each nook and corners of the nation to participate the people on constitution writing process from SPCBN Project too.  I always admire your working strategy.  I wish and am hopeful to work with you in near future.  With best regards, 

 

Tejendra Lama  Nepal Tamang Ghedung

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Dear Keith Sir, Namaste.

I am very sorry to say good bye you in this regards. We (RDN Nepal) are very pleased to your support on a brilliant job on behalf of Nepali people specially the remote area of Nepal.  

RDN Nepal will miss you and hope we keep in touch to protect the rights of excluded people of Nepal which hope we collected by SPCBN project from 240 Electoral Region, 4000 VDCs and more than 200,000 people of Nepal.

Ganesh BK  RDN Nepal
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Dear Sir,  Warm Namaskar

Good to hear your experience and thoughts from you.  Thank you.

Pramila Gachhadar TINF

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Dear Keith Jee,

I am agree with your opinion, that coming and going is a natural process, but i will remember you for a long time for your great effort and support to not only us, for whole the nation. We will always sallute you for your great contribution for Nepal.  With best regards.

Kaushlendra Mishra  President
Federal Democratic Campaign
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Dear Keith,

Namastey. Ke garney, Bidai bhannu naramailo lagchha.  ("Saying goodbye isn't so nice...") 

But, yes, life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.

I feel sad to say bye..., however one has to say so at a certain point of time.  You are right in deed a great job has been done through SPCBN/CSO programs.  It was done smoothly despite the disruptive changing schedules in the course of time.  It was possible due to the strong support of SPCBN team that did have a good understanding and a high sense of support and cooperation.  It was a wonderful team indeed.  Myself and KYC people highly evaluate and appreciate it.  Thank you for everything.

Have a nice time. Hope to see you sometimes in future.  Best regards. 

Narayan Ninglekhu  KYC
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Dear Keith Sir, Namaste

We are very sorry to say good bye you in this regards. We (NMA) are very pleased to your support from SPCBN project of UNDP.  NMA team and whole Magar community miss you and hope we keep in touch to protect the rights of excluded people of Nepal.  

Again thanking you for your great support us (Magar Community).  With warm regards.

Gyanendra Pun Magar
Secretary of NMA

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Dear Keith Sir, Namaste

I highly appreciate you and SPCBN for your wounder contribution towards peace building and new constitution making process in Nepal.  In those days working with you as a partners CSOs we gained as much knowledge and experiences provided by you and your team. 

I hope working with you is not last but not the list, hope you and us will be working as a friends further days. Hoping to see your more progress and bright future!  

Lastly Happy New Year, 2012 to all your belongings!  Best Regards.

Dala Rawal  HCDA,Humla
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Dear Keith Sir, Happy New Year 2012.

I never think you will be out of my soul, my mind and my heart.  I never forget that you bring me and NNSWA up to this position as a social person work for the social transformation. Wherever you are you will be with us and our mind to direction us for the upliftment of socially, economically and politically backwarded people in Nepal. 

 

Sincerely, Ashok Bikram Jairu  NNSWA

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Namaste Keith Sir,   Finally the day came that you are bidding farewell to us and its our turn now. Going through your farewell note made me visit the past two years and made me nostalgic. I agree with you that we've made, with the support of SPCBN, valuable contribution to the Constitution Making Process in Nepal and I saw you there in pivotal place to support us with empathy.   We, CSO partners, especially representing the marginalized segment of the Nepali society will be missing you a lot in our future endeavours. It was a great opportunity for a person like me, who is in developing phase of career in the development field, to work with you. Your knowledge of Nepali society, state and of course, language deserve appreciation. A strong punch in your humour, how can I forget!   Our interest in bamboo is common which, I hope, will keep me in your contact in future. Hope to work with you in future. Wish you and your family a Happy New Year 2012!   Regards, Harka Raj Rai  KRY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Keith Sir, Namaskar---

I couldn't write for long time as I dipped into your mail in such a way that I can't express. Going through your mail, I saw me everywhere where it is related with constitution building process of Nepal. At last I came to the conclusion that, in every pages, every part, every articles and sub-articles of the New Constitution, there is your contribution. 

In fact, the credit of including the voices of distance people in new constitution goes to you and we are happy for being part of this as we are also with you in the whole process for bringing such distance voices, unheard voices into new constitutions. The constitution drafting process is going on and hope for its success. We have already contributed too much for this.

 

So, thank-you for providing this opportunity, to be your part in this process. We hope for being in touch with you in future days too, and working together again to make history, for creating series of natural and spontaneous changes in our life, country and world.  Thank You

Nub Raj Bhandari  Project Manager (CSO)
Janaki Women Awareness Society (JWAS), Janakpur

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