The Real Kathmandu?

I often work on my travel blog when I am excited, amazed and downright gobsmacked by something. It's hard to write when you are feeling confused and overwhelmed by your surroundings. When those feelings are filled with frustration, pain and even anger, it's hard to understand why those feelings are there and how to handle them, let alone write about them. So I shall just try to describe my day to you and hopefully it might help me understand a few things myself.

I woke with a terrible headache this morning and while showering I started to wonder whether we have carbon monoxide leaking, given that the boiler is not on an outside wall and there is no vent. There's a fan that work's intermittently, much like most things in Kathmandu. Today the fan is not working and the more I start thinking about it, the more sick I feel. Perhaps it serves us right for living it up (comparatively) in Lazimpat with our hot water showers, electric oven and big screen TV. We get far more electricity around here than appears to be the case in other areas. But then we have the Danish and Canadian embassies for neighbours. Don't get me wrong, it still has dusty decaying roads with crazy traffic, dotted with mangy limping dogs and festering piles of rubbish. But the apartments are bigger and better kept. There are also well kept gardens and allotments.

I spent the morning reading some of my new book, hoping to absorb some further teachings of the dharma.

This afternoon, we had arranged to meet Pasang Sherpa to go to his home in Swayambhu to meet his family. Like Lazimpat (the area where we are staying), we're now far enough from tourist central that is Thamel, that we can observe the more everyday life of people who live here going about their business. No more 'scuse me 'scuse me, you buy, you come inside or destitute cripples or scrawny children begging while you're trying to dodge swerving motorbikes and incessantly honking cars in narrow dusty lanes.

Pasang lives with his wife and two children in a one room apartment smaller than any room in our terraced house at home. There are two beds, one double and one single pushed against each wall. There is a small window in one corner past the foot of the bed, where the adjoining wall houses a small kitchenette with a propane stove and a few shelves. The room is so dark that the light streaming through the window has a rather blinding reflective effect, until our eyes begin to adjust.

The wall running between the heads of the two beds is crowded with bedding and shelves filled with all their worldly goods. A picture of the Dalai Lama (the same one as the photograph on our own fireplace at home) hangs in the centre. Above the double bed is a thankha depicting a tibetan god (but not a buddha incarnation, but I forgot the name). Hanging in the doorway there is an embroidered sheet depicting the endless knot. This can seen in many doorways across Kathmandu and Pasang tells me all sherpas will hang this in their doorway (as will Tibetans). Who knew I was tattooed with the mark of a sherpa – shame I'm not as fit and strong.

His children are bright and confident. His son, Tshering impresses us greatly with his reading from the books we have given him, which are a gift from my colleague Betty. His daughter's eyes light up when she sees the bead making set.

It costs 3000 rupees (£30ish) a month for his children to go to school. It will be higher when they start high school. University is not really an option. Tshering tells us he wants to be a sherpa like his papa. His daughter, Sharom, wants to be a teacher.

I ask Pasang about the 120^th Labour Day demonstration yesterday. It was a march through the centre of KTM involving variety of unions, many carrying the maoist flags. He says he doesn't like to have anything to do with politics here. He just wants to make good work and have a healthy happy family life, doing the best for his children.

They have no running water here. No fresh drinking water either. They have no electricity from 12pm until 8pm on most days. We drink chang, a kind of fermented potato rice brew while chatting about trekking and school and family life.

As we leave the building, several drug addled young men say namaste. I turn and greet them with a smile and tell them we are visiting Pasang. They laugh and stumble back into their dark dank room on the ground floor.

Pasang walks us back to Thamel, and Sharom gets upset when she is told she must stay at home. We suggest she too accompanies us, and she grasps Roisin's hand and sets off up the hill.

The kids put on their masks as we start to enter the maze of smoggy dusty Thamel streets. Pasang bids us goodbye when he is sure we know where we are and can find our way.

After a quick stop for sizzling brownies at The Roadhouse (where the kids now constantly nag us to go for lunch) we bump into our Californian friends we met in Langtang. A rather amazing 75 yr old psychotherapist and his buddhist wife Ali who have been on an adventure to Tibet. Turns out it was a somewhat conflicting experience, while admiring the beautifully restored Potala Palace and a cleaned up Lhasa, all the time wondering where the monks have gone (oh yeah and you're not allowed to talk to Tibetans). Ali comments that while it is incredibly sad that Tibetan culture is being wiped out in Tibet, a result of this conflict has brought Tibetan Buddhism to the rest of the world. It has made us mindful of their culture and the insights that can be learned. Gram said it felt stifled and tension there is running very high. They say they are enjoying the freedom of Nepal, as we avoid being run over and start to get hassled by some street kids.

The children range between 6 and 15 years old. The older ones aggressively push the younger ones around. It's like lord of the flies meets street children, except this is not a film. This is real. Skin covered skeletons with drawn faces and sunken dark eyes. Translucent skin despite it's dark weathered texture. I meet the eldest boys eyes and I can see how glazed and lost he looks. Any money I give him will only be spent on more glue. He pulls the plastic bag from his pocket and breathes deeply. He looks disappointed as it's clear this hit is finished. When I come out the shop, he makes another pleading attempt to get money from us. I watch the policeman carry on walking by. The shopkeepers look the other way. The tourists look but then turn away. Some of them have learned to say 'begging is bad' in Nepali.

I asked Bijay and Parina about the street kids. They say that it's difficult for the projects to engage them. Most have run away from families (usually where the mother has left and/or the father is an alcoholic) or orphanages (who's care you wouldn't subject an animal to). They don't want to study which they would be forced to do and they certainly don't want to live by any institutions rules any more. They are lost, I observed today. There is no way back for him now. The younger ones only to follow down that same path since no-one intervenes, or there is no way for them to intervene. But then I experience that turmoil of trying to understand how compassion and non attachment work, when the compassion I feel, feels blocked and fruitless. And if my feelings and thoughts, that provoke my compassion, are attachments, how can I be unattached? What is compassion in action here? What can it be? When I tell Parina about how I feel, she gives me a knowing smile. She copes with this everyday in her job. She says the world needs people like us to stand up and speak out about injustice.

Sometimes observing the poverty here starts to suffocate and drown you in emotion. It likes a crushing pain of guilt and sensory overload. You can hardly believe what you are seeing.

I often give money to people I see who are crippled or infirm, begging because I know they is no system that takes care of them here. It is up to everyone to share the burden and I have seen locals and lamas alike giving a few coins to those who are clearly in need and helpless. But how are the street children not helpless?

I need to meditate. My mind is crashing about like the river over the rocks. It's time to just sit. I'm really glad we're getting out of Kathmandu for a few days.