So another journey has begun, and here I am in Pokhara, Nepal - the midday heat is well upon us and small lizards have sought respite in the shade under the computer desk! This is my first day back in the land of computers and tourism, after two weeks on a permaculture farm in the mountains above Begnas Tal... but, I should begin at the start...
I flew into Kathmandu at night, and from the short ride to my hostel my perceptions of Nepal as a moderately developed country were shattered. Nepal is poor, Africa poor. The road from the air port was pot-holed and dusty and the tiny Susuki taxi's engine struggled to make it into the city - the smells of poverty are identifiable the world over... sewage, exhaust fumes, urine, animals. Even the massive amounts of tourism that this tiny country has seen has done little to alleviate the poverty issues of its people. The first morning I awoke and ventured out into the city, the same sad sights met me as in Africa - rubbish, defeated faces, hagglers, tiny children playing in the streets, cheap Chinese printed tee-shirts for sale and the air a cacophony of vehicle horns and the calls of traders. The main difference between Kathmandu and a West African city is the amount of Western tourists - everywhere!! New-age types attempting to relive the "silk road" trails of the 60s and 70s, hikers and mountaineers in their North Face clothing, volunteers and gap year students - a hugely diverse mix, and so many!! But they remain very "separate" and the Nepalese who live along the "Lonely Planet Trail" seem a bit jaded...
Without realising it, I arrived in Nepal in the midst of the country's first national elections - and Kathmandu was alive with campaign fervour - Nepal has suffered from political turmoil for many years, and has suffered a violent insurgency by the country's Maoist party who fought the government troops in the hills for a number of years, only calling a truce in 2005 under international mediation to prepare for a democratic election. This process has been stopped and started for many years and with the fragile peace at stake, I could feel the tension. My first day some small bombs were set off in Kathmandu, and some larger ones in the South. With public transport being closed down in the run up to the election day I decided to head out to the first WWOOF farm nestled high in the mountains between Pokhara and the famous Annapurna ranges of the Himalaya. The bus ride out of Kathmandu was amazing - winding roads down cliff roads, past tiny villages and terraced hills, with the amazing Himalayas sitting on the horizon like some ethereal hallucination.
I arrived in Begnas, a tiny town on the edge of a lake sitting at the base of a mountain range where my directions to the farm ended - apparently there are no addresses in the mountain villages... it was a huge act of trust as I began my ascent of the mountain, asking people along the way "Suraya Permaculture Farm?" and their response, a gesture forwards. For hours I climbed dirt and gravel roads, the view of the lake below beautiful and serene, the quiet of the mountain villages such a blessing after the mania of the city. I met a family who were making their way home for the election and together we walked, helping the sick husband. Nepalese women are so gentle and kind - I thanked the woman for her companionship and for showing me the way "no problem", she said, "if I was not with you, God is with you". I felt such uncertainly in this environment, in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where I was walking, or what I was walking to. I had to remind myself to trust in myself, in the situation, that it would be okay. And, of course, it was. Eventually I arrived at the farm - a tiny brick and mud building with two buffalo tethered outside and as I walked in, the mother "amma" came out of her tiny blackened kitchen with the kindest smile on her face, her hands together in prayer position, her eyes twinkling as she said "Namaste, Sister" (Namaste means "I greet the divine in you"). Seeing her face and the gentleness in her voice, my fears were relieved and she showed me to the room I would sleep in, up a small wooden ladder in a mud walled space with flax mats and bags of grain and some wooden bed frames with blankets across them for mattresses (oh yes, am I glad to have brought that goose-down sleeping bag!!).
I sat outside in the small courtyard under coffee trees and as the sun began to set, the air was cool and the birds were singing and she offered me organic coffee from their farm - drank black and strong, with lots of sugar. I was glad to see two other "western" volunteers - a French man named Marco who has lived there for five months and will marry one of the women who works on the farm, and the other an American photographer, RC, on a project to make a photo documentary of rural Nepalese agriculture - both of whom can speak Nepali well and really helped me to settle in, explaining organic techniques and Nepali culture, and the farm dynamics - including the risk of tigers who live in the mountains and regularly attack small farm animals... (a comforting thought when your door consists of a curtain).
The election excitement was not lost in the mountains however, with the rural branches of the political parties also demonstrating and much talk of the coming peace after so much unrest and war. Election day in the mountains passed peacefully however, with people lining up from early in the morning to vote for the first time in their history, and the competing parties guarding each other outside the local school building as the ballot papers waited to be collected. When the news came that the Maoists had won, the dynamics changed slightly - loud marches began early in the morning as the young Maoists made sure everyone knew who is now in charge. Maoist flags suddenly sprang up everywhere, and the Maoist insignia was sprayed on any available surface. Little else than that changed to my novice perception though, and it seems that rather than the Nepalese people believing in a communist ideology, they elected the Maoists because they are tired of the wars where they have seen children taken as soldiers (on both sides) and lives lost and their economy destroyed. With the Maoists in power, there is a chance of peace. So now I write from a communist country and the King will be dethroned soon - perhaps things will change for the better? The Maoists at least recognise the suffering of the poor in Nepal, 85% of whom live on less than $2 a day, and women with an especially hard and bleak life. The condition of women in Nepal I have found especially difficult - marriages are arranged, women's rights are virtually non-existent, girl children are not educated and the majority of work is undertaken by women and girls - fetching water, firewood, tending animals, vegetable plots, cooking, cleaning, child-raising, washing... it is hard to witness. I guess the politics of eating sums it up quite well - women prepare, cook and serve the food and then do not eat themselves until after the men have finished all they want.
Life on the farm is hard, with no running water, and the nearest source a well about 10 minutes walk down hill, where water must be carried back up on a basket tied with rope around the forehead. The work is hard, and the day begins very early for the farm workers (western volunteers get a much easier deal) who are all women, their hands and feet cracked from years of daily labour, some of whom are as old as my grandmother and still work every day labouring for less than $1. But, this is life for rural Nepalese, and the conditions of the permaculture farm are better than most. Nothing is wasted. The rain water is captured and stored for washing dishes, any food scraps are fed to the buffalo whose manure and urine is used for the compost, leaves falling from trees are stored for use as mulch, ash from the cooking fire is used to wash the dishes (surprisingly efficient!), the bark from felled trees is used for the cooking fire. Everything is used, and re-used and maximum diversity of crops ensures food security and environmental sustainability. No field is monoculture - ginger is planted with corn and taro, to ensure that the slow growing ginger is provided with shade by the fast growing corn, and that one field provides many yields, and maximum insect and bug diversity in the soil to prevent any infestation. In permaculture, the answer to all problems is found within nature. It's quite wonderful, and while requires much more thought than standard contemporary agriculture, the beneficial results are so apparent - now Suraya is beginning to teach other farmers the principles, as they see the product of his theory in comparison to their standard monoculture planting. Crops are cross-bred to ensure their adaption to the conditions - especially coffee which is the only crop used for export - organic and delicious and perfect for the conditions of the mountains! But with such biodiversity comes all creatures, great and small, sweet and scary. My room is shared with many eight legged friends who look frightening, but I have slowly learnt to accept - spiders are an important part of ecology, as are the bees who live in the hives just outside my door, and the many small flying bugs that kamikaze themselves towards my head torch as I make the night journeys to the outside latrine... my first few days and nights were very jittery!
We eat twice a day on the farm - at 10am and 7pm - and in Nepali, there is no word for "meal", instead it translates as "rice eating", and that is exactly what it is. Rice eating. Mounds of white rice, with spicy lentil dhal (more like a soup) and curried vegetables. The same meal twice a day, every day. Salty and spicy and everything with chilli!! Sometimes a papaya will be cut from a tree and even this is eaten with chilli!! I realised what a plain food person I am in comparison. We eat together in a circle sitting on the flax mats in the kitchen where amma cooks over a fire - the volunteers with spoons and the Nepalese with their right hands - the volunteers cross legged and the Nepalese sitting on their haunches, and they can sit like this for hours!! Needless to say, I am glad of the touristy aspects of Pokhara for the diversity of food - and the first thing I ate when I arrived was muesli with fruit!! It's not so environmental to eat specially imported food, but for a day or two it's a luxury that I cannot resist!
It has taken me some time to adjust to the Nepalese lifestyle, the conditions of an undeveloped country again, the slower pace, the passivity of not being in control, of not understanding the language, the culture. It is good for me to learn to moderate myself, and I am beginning to find more peace within myself in this adjustment. To be in the moment, rather than to control the moment. Namaste.
