Between hate and love in Kathmandu

In general very few things have changed since I’ve started my boring PhD existence in Kathmandu, but I’ll describe the few.
1.  Bicycle or improving surviving skills on the roads of Kathmandu

Local KFC

Night traffic-no lights

Bicycle perfectly expresses my general feeling to Kathmandu-love and hate and nothing in between. I was so happy to get my own vehicle, mostly because now I can reach the shop in 7 minutes and not 15, and that significantly saves my time. In the euphoria of “I’m so independent not-a-tourist” I’ve challenged myself and have never taken a taxi ever since, so I’ve made all my travels by MYSELF! This is totally crazy and I’d never advice anyone to do that unless you have a strong belief in your faith as I do. On the roads you feel deep holes and high bumps. You sometimes get stuck by thousands vehicles on both of your sides, being deathly afraid to move by a centimeter to the right or left. You experience that the road is too small and everyone is fighting for the place, and those who are going on the opposite lane simply go on your lane and you have no escape. Your eyes envy your nose, which is under the protection of the pollution mask. You want to show your third finger to all those people who seem not knowing that the road is for transport. You even stop and close your eyes realizing that you cannot go to any other direction and the only way to survive is to accept the hit (and that actually doesn’t happen). But at the end you laugh loud seeing Nepali turning their head up to maximum to see a “bidasi” (foreigner) on the bike.

I could write poems about me and my bike, and especially about me getting lost and spending an hour for the distance of 2 kilometres. Nevertheless, I am enormously proud of myself of fighting with my fear and topographic idiotism (I hope my colleagues-geographers do not read this!)
2.  Unforgettable (!!!) festivals 

I was lucky (actually unlucky) to be in Kathmandu during the Tihar (alternative to Indian Deepawali) or the festival of lights. My Nepali teacher was very kind to invite me to her place to explore real Laxmi puja (workshipping of goddess Laxmi, the one who is bringing wealth and prosperity).

But that’s what actually happened.

Preparation for Laxmi puja-the feet are left in the corners of the house for Laxmi to find the way

Before worshipping I was taking pictures of preparations in my natural excitement and enjoying an apple. Later we went with my teacher to pick up her German friend. On the way I somehow felt weird with my stomach…. And when we reached the house of the friend, I already occupied toilet throwing out everything I could. The way back was the most horrible experience in my long and colourful life of puking. My entertainment was continuing during the whole sacred night, luckily I’ve had the separate room to enjoy…

But don’t worry about me, next morning I was fresh, thin and almost totally healthy. Lesson learned though-don’t be stupid and peel all the fruits if you can.

In the evening I went to the Tihar+ Newari New Year with my wonderful hosts. Newaris are one of the ethnicities in Nepal and they have New Year in November. Woman in red sarees, many lights and symbolic worships, traditional food…well, just look at the picture.

Newari New Year

   3. Cold or winter in my house

Another topic for me to write a lot. Yes, it is damn cold here. The temperature might rise up to 25 during the day, but in reality only during few hours it is so warm and at nights it is 2-3… Don’t laugh, dear Northern people! When you have -30, you make walks and then happily go inside the warm house, drink tea and enjoy snow from your perfectly isolated window. Here I wake up and see my breath in the room. Most of the time the temperature inside the house is much lower than outside and most of the people wear hats in the house, also when they sleep. I needed to include 2 workouts during the day, make daily shoppings and finally, to give up and to buy a gas heater. Actually soon I got too much poison in my lungs and blood and refused that improvement too… So now I am just patiently waiting for the spring and hope to survive even colder months.
 4.  The story of high morale

Research visa is something so important and annoying at the same time. Why would I need to get “no-objection” letter from Embassy of Latvia, stating that they agree that I stay in Nepal? At the end I called plenty of institutions and managed to “squize” out of Consulate of Latvia in Riga some stupid sentences like “in general we don’t object anyone to study in Nepal”.

But the story is not about that but about another lucky day of mine.

I spent another hour in the local bank creating another account and becoming very ethnocentric, thinking about the inefficiency of people working there. After that I grabbed my map, put the mask on the nose and head toward immigration office. Being situated very close (some 4 km) within one hour I was rather close to the highest peak of my hate to this unorganized and not understandable city rather to immigration office. Nevertheless, miracles happen and I reached my destination, stopping shortly to the nearby shop to make a photocopy of my passport.

!!!!

My wallet with 150 euros was gone.

…

Having faith in general honesty of Nepali I didn’t want to believe in theft, so I imagined me dropping the wallet in the bank. Without any hope my feet were slowly paddling and my emotions almost cope with getting lost on the way back again.

The wallet was actually there. Found no in the bank though, but by security guard outside the bank.

That’s the story of my lucky day. And about how my ethnocentric hate has transformed into long bow towards the sincerity, honesty and kindness.

I should be more careful with my thoughts; otherwise these lessons of life are a bit too hard.
5. Work. Work?

Learning Nepali

Only two nights more and I will reach Far East Nepal. So much looking forward.

In the illusions of post-workshop time: a post of home-hunt and some challenges of a big city

The workshop of 8 intense days has finished with a great relief and rosy illusions about deserved rest. Before I move to the process of broken dreams, let me say few words about the workshop.

Kathmandu Univeristy. School of Management

The workshop gathered 5 frustrated PhD students from Denmark, Nepal and India; as well as their primary and secondary or tertiary supervisors. To summarize these were the processes we were going through in this period: 
1. Killing our babies. Most of PhDs had carried several carefully kept and maintained ideas, which were brutally killed. 
2. Eating candies. This most popular snack was generously given on our tables and it was highly consumed at times when no one really understood what is going on. 
3. Long and heavy dinners of Nepali food, which is very good, but absolutely impossible to have every day twice for my spoiled western stomach.
 4. Listening to political frustrations during the political symposium. 
5. Upgrading geekiness through learning a new software for research.

Overall, apart from these things inhabitants of the wonderful expensive Summit hotel (the one which kicked me out from the room 3 times; also the one having cockroaches in the most expensive rooms) were enjoying conditions of a vegetable in the greenhouse. All the meals, transportations and even planning of a day were not of our concern. At the end, though, together with my colleague we sabotaged few evenings and went outside in the real world.

Even though it all may sound quite nice and interesting to a reader, don’t get misleaded: at the end of the day my brain capacities were below zero and the only escape from the shameful situation was putting a mask of smartness on the face and trying to follow with eyes the speaker. It didn’t always work though; I still managed to fall asleep during the symposium.

Now you can understand how happy I was after the final workshop day – to go to my hotel room and to think about sweet tomorrow, which would consist of hotel hunt, managing research visa and, finally, enjoying massage at the spa center.

Ha!

First of all. Finding a guest house in a non-touristic, quite but not isolated area, with a room, which could be used for working and living (not only sleeping), having constant electricity and internet… it is impossible in Kathmandu. My first frustrations started to grow when I looked for one specific hotel for 30 minutes (it was less than a km away from me)! In Kathmandu only few streets are given names and you just need to know all the other locations since maps are VERY imprecise and locals know only MAJOR landmarks. That means that if you are lost, you are lost and there are no signs helping to identify your place. This fact together with my topographic idiotism should make you feel pity for me.

Anyways, first day I struggled across dusty roads towards the noise of hippies (there is a street, which gathered first western hippies). Another interesting fact about Kathmandu – most of the  streets/roads are not divided for pedestrian and transport. Accordingly, people, bicycles, motorbikes and cars have equal rights. For the safety purpose, all the vehicles feel obliged to use a horn every time they see anyone else. For me it is a disaster –  I have some sort of “noise-phobia” and loud sound totally knocks me out. So you can imagine how frustrated I was standing at the crossroad, being totally blocked by cars and motorbikes and hearing cacophony of tens vehicles.

On the second day I already thought – oh no, why did this workshop ended up?!!! Feeling totally helpless in this city I thought I need to give up and to go to old good Thamel (a small touristic district) neighbourhood, simply because it is so much easier.

I was lucky though. Going through airbnb the evening before I have noticed one room offer, which seemed a nice option for me. I called, I came to see it and I was happy to move in the next day. The house is rented by Australian-French couple and they rent me out the big room+common are+bathroom and the kitchen. A really nice option. Although the people already made me feel like being a part of the family and calling this place my “home”, I am still facing challenges of a Nepali house. Often electricity blackouts. We have a generator, so we are not totally left in the darkness, but this light is still quite dark. Cold. The house is constructed in the way that I am freezing even when it is hot (25 degrees) outside, so in evenings (when it goes up to 5-6) I lose my abilities to function. Impossibility to fully close windows, leaking sink, etc. etc. All this was passionately minimized by the western couple, therefore I still feel happy. Also because it is so quite, I hear birds and I don’t need to put dust protection mask immediately I leave the house.

Ah, don’t send me letters, I do not have any address. I am 10 min away from Patan Dhoka and you will never be able to find me. That’s why I understand that in the application for a bank account people are asked to “draw the map of their home”.

My dear Danish friends – if you feel happy about living in a quite and organized country, I will try to destroy your feelings now. Every morning I wake up, run to the window/balcony…. and enjoy the warmth of the first sun rays. The sun is always here  Always (the picture below shows a view from the hotel room_early morning)

From homeless to the palace

Probably my life and the blog would not be so interesting if I didn’t have a special talent to make my life…hmmm ”unsmooth”. Last time I managed to get into a plane together with an aggressive mad person (read the blog “fieldstudyinnepal”), so this time I do not complain at all.
I just forgot my phone. Being a person who likes to plan and pack everything systematically and very well it came as a shock and feeling of helplessness. Already in the airport I have realized that actually my phone is at my home, because I took it out from the travel kit to answer the person calling just before my leave… and I never put the phone back in the back. Instantaneously my eyes were filled with tears of being desperate and imagining everything what usually happens to me – unplanned landings, delayed baggage and flights, motion sicknesses and ambulances next to the plane… And that’s all- without a phone?! I gave a heartbreaking look to Kardi and stepped into “non-Eu” area, running for the boarding, which have already started. Later I was regretting a lot for my inability to cope with my fears and to transfer them to another person. But at that time I just felt like a small girl going to the jungle. Such a western phone dependency!

Anyway, I was flying with nice Qatar Airways and watching several new movie premieres on my private screen, then sleeping like a log on the chair in peaceful oasis (Doha’s airport lounge) and flying again to Kathmandu. After staying for 2 hours in visa issuing queue in Kathmandu airport I was very happy to finally arrive in my hotel. Though not so happy to find out, that there are some “small problems” with my room. Due to whatever miscommunication problems my room was booked, so I needed to go to another “not so nice” room with shared facilities. Well, it is still so much better than my sleeping place in the field. And actually it was. Besides, I had a chance to move to the better place after 2 days. After 2 days I came to check about my moving and found out that I MUST move out from the hotel, because the hotel doesn’t have the room for my for next 6 days of workshop.

Apparently my curse of being homeless doesn’t leave me.

Being so much used to be “on the move” I realized the annoying part of this at most only after I shared my trouble with the rest of the group and receiving lot of support.
So I packed my bags next morning and left them at the reception hoping not to be left on the street.
And so I wasn’t. A call from a right person to a right person made me hear promise that a manager “will try to do something tomorrow”.
Tonight I sleep in the best room of the hotel, I guess. I think it is of the size of my flat in Copenhagen, which I share with my friend  I don’t have hopes for being allowed to stay here further, but at least today I’m the queen in this palace.


By the way, my problem with the phone is also to be solved. My Austrian friend (currently staying in Ktm) promised me to help with that in following days.

I’m going local. I’m going networking.


P.S. I’ ve just discovered cockroaches of the mouse size in my palace. But I’m not taking my “queen” title for tonight anyway

Back in Nepal

So I’m in Kathmandu again. Have I ever been away? I’ve been driving in the taxi today, leaving a piece of me in those vegetables on streets, women in colourful, shining and blinking clothes and jewelleries, in people’s beauty and above all – polluted dirty air, traffic, traffic, traffic (meaning hundreds of bikes and old cars miraculously going in between the people). Memories took over and started living their own life. I am here again. Is this all, is this real? Somehow I think that everything what was in between – was unreal and I actually I have never left this place.

But let’s finish with the philosophy. I think I need to give some more explanation to those who don’t know me or if know, then they still are confused about what is it that I am actually doing here.

Last year I went to Nepal for my first time. Together with my friend and master thesis colleague Linda we went through different stages of one month long field work. Long enough for me to get sick and never leave the feeling, the wish to come back. At that time we did a crazy thing – we combined environmental and developmental science in order to explore the role of social capital in adaptive capacity of rural Nepal. Crazy because we combined different disciplines along general principles of interdisciplinarity and against policies of our 2 different departments.

Half a year after being done with my master thesis I came across PhD announcement and there was one name which caught my attention – Nepal. I was reading the announcement cross over, being more convinced that it is not really what I want to do (I fully commit my soul to environment), but this one word didn’t go out of my mind. So I decided to apply, just for the sake of applying and training in going for interviews. And that’s how it started.

Now I am a PhD student of Copenhagen University department of Geology and Geography, proudly calling myself human geographer. To be more precise, I’m a part of the Danish-Nepali-Indian project called “Nepal on the Move”. What I am doing is analysis of multilocalities impact upon community construction in rural East middle hill Nepal. In practical terms it means 8+3 months of fieldwork in Nepal, the rest devoted to literature review, articles and teaching.

But this blog is not about my PhD or ethnographic experiences (in fact, I will write this as well in a separate ethnographic blog). It is about…

instead of defining it I prefer to bring up the quote “travelling brings unconsciousness into consciousness”. Whatever you may understand with that.