While working on the Clean Hands Project, I blogged for the Advocacy Project, Jagaran Media Center, and the International Dalit Solidarity Network. These writings were published and shared across many networks to raise awareness of the Clean Hands Project. The following posts were written and sent during that project.
Overstimulation: the overload of sensory perception. It’s exhausting, yet it’s what I love about being in a different and new place – the complete unfamiliarity of it all. It’s like being 2 years old again – the world is so amazing, so incredible. When we are introduced to new environments, we become aware to a greater degree because it is different and new. Read more …
Today I went down to the holy Bagmati River to take some photographs. I find serenity by bodies of water. The river is a five-minute stroll from my room in Thapathali. Once I cross the brown clumpy waters of the Dhobi Khola canal, I am in Buddhanagar, although I can’t be sure of this. Read more …
This morning I woke to the sound of a man violently hacking up flem in the alley next to our flat. My windows face all four cardinal directions and although I’m on the third floor, even soft sounds will reach my room. It would be uncomfortably hot to shut the windows, so I have become attuned, almost familiar with the daily sounds of the neighborhood. Read more …
I’m looking out over Phewa Tal. A boy, maybe 14, asks if I’d like a boat ride. I would love one, I think, but I can’t stay by the water. At this hour the lake is peaceful and inviting, but I’m meeting Prem Nepali in a few minutes at Serenity Hotel. Prem is a freelance reporter who is tied with JMC’s network of Dalit journalists. He is the first of 16 Dalit journalists I will be visiting. Read more …
There is one way down into the Dalit settlement. The sun bites the back of my neck and the sweat crawling down my forearm almost causes the camera in my hand to slip. I am nervous; I feel like a trespasser, an outsider who has come to gawk. I descend the rock staircase as two old women with bags strapped across their head pass me going up. Read more …
I sit on a plastic chair outside the Pokhara bus port and sip black tea. I’ve been here for more than two hours, just waiting. I’ve watched the sun burn off the morning clouds. I’ve watched the vegetable sellers wheel their carts full of eggplant, cucumbers and potatoes down the hill towards the bazaar. I’ve watched children, dressed in school uniforms, sidestep the puddles from last night’s rains on the broken sidewalks. Read more …
I’m in a microbus with windows that slide open and my head is out in the cool air like a dog. The early evening sky is clear and the pictures I’m taking of the snowcapped Himalayas would look a lot better if our driver didn’t swerve so much. The road’s not paved and boulders the size of full grown cows (as well as full grown cows) often materialize in our path. Read more …
There aren’t any seats left on the bus to the Hetauda settlement, so Prakash and I sit in the aisle on bags of rice. This is a new experience not only for me, but for my fellow travelers who stare in unabashed curiosity. An old man comments I’m a real Nepali as he steps around me to get to his seat. A father who sits with his young son, offers me space. I smile and say “tikcha”, which means I’m fine. Read more …
Bhola and Dipendra, two Dalit journalists who I’ve traveled 10 hours to visit, share mangoes with me this morning. I am told I will never eat a mango like the mangoes I will eat in Saptari. Two kilos sell for 50 rupees from piles stacked higher than the children who sell them. I eat mine like an apple before I board a bus to a Dalit settlement 10 kilometers away. Read more …
The burning ghats along the Bagmati River are no more than elevated stone tables. Today is Saturday, a holy day for Hindus, and there is a waiting line to burn the dead. JB and I stand 20 meters away on the other side of the river, but I can still inhale the smoke, although I try not to think about it. Read more …
It’s overcast and grey this morning, but so far no rain. Shiba, the manager of Radio Jagaran, tells me with a smile that it has not stopped raining for five days, so we must have brought the nice weather with us from Kathmandu. I look up at the clouds and smile. Read more …
I’m in a pharmacy just north of Nepalgunj in a dusty travelers’ town named Kohulpur. Bhim Nepali, the journalist we have come to visit, brought us here an hour ago for Phoebe and now I am back to pick up the medicine and pay the bill. Phoebe’s stomach hasn’t digest food for five days and she spent yesterday lying in bed. Read more …
I stand on the shores of the Seti River in Doti. A woman passes me by with a sandbag balanced by a strap across her head. She wears a red sari and gold jewelry in her nose and ears. She looks familiar, I know I’ve seen her face before. Prakash turns to me and asks, do you recognize her? Read more …
It’s difficult to write anything definitive about this country on a postcard. It’s beautiful, but terribly polluted; it’s friendly, but distrustful; the food’s delicious, but repetitive. I’ve had a life take shape here, and made some amazing friends, but I leave all that in six days, after almost three months of building it. I wonder what parts of this life I will take back with me to DC. I wonder how I will remember this years from now. Read more …
I leave Kathmandu in one week, but nostalgia has already set in. For three months, I walked from my room in Thapathali, across the Dhobi Khola, through Buddhanagar to the blue gate of the Jagaran Media Center. I’ve grown familiar with this commute: I know where last night’s rains will puddle, I recognize the calls of the vegetable sellers, I know by sight the dogs that hang around the butcher shop. Read More …