Happy New Year!
We’re into the second week of the year 2061 over here, and well, it pretty much just feels like April. Definitely not the “fresh start” feeling I get every January. We celebrated up at the school with the scouts…they had a three day campout with the last night being spent on New Year’s Eve.
So for the whole month of April we’ve been on a break. School ended at the end of March, and now the new year starts on Monday the 26th. The break went really fast, and like most vacations, I feel like I need another week before going back to work. None of us were really able to go anywhere this time because the “situation,” as every one refers to it now, continues to become more and more unstable outside of the valley. The month of February was such a crazy month…Almost every day was at least rumored to be a bandh. Some mornings we’d wake up, get ready for school, and right before leaving, we’d find out that there wasn’t any school. Or the opposite would happen, and we would believe what seemed to be a reliable rumor, and sleep in, only to be woken up 10 minutes before school began. It got really frustrating, and I think in total there were about 10-14 days of school lost. Our year was extended by two weeks because of this.
I think it was back in March when the Maoists called a complete road blockage in the west, for 15 days, which meant that any goods coming into the valley would be delayed, or nonexistent. People who were traveling on those roads ended up being stranded, buses were burnt…and what did the 15 day blockage mean for us? We learned the hard way about what it meant for a closure of this size to take place. We basically couldn’t eat in our house for about 3 days, because we neglected to refill our gas, which runs the stove. Nobody had it for sale, and in the rare chance that they did, they were all waiting until they could charge a premium for it. Supply and Demand. We were lucky enough that we had money to eat out for those nights, but it was the end of the month, so even our money was running out. I think Brother Hermon finally had to demand a tank from the school’s supplier or he threatened to cut off future business. It’s always weird for me to actually experience something like this as opposed to only reading it in a newspaper or hearing it on the news.
Anyways, although we never left the Kathmandu Valley, none of us were searching for things to do. We spent a lot of time here in Godavari or visiting student’s houses. I edited a School Orientation Video which I had been shooting for about 3 months. It was shown today at the Class 1 Parent’s Orientation. It came out well, but I’m glad it’s over. Now on to something else. And the rest of the time was just filled with other little things here, something there. Like I said though, we were never hurting for things to do.
Okay, so a little back-story. Back in October 2003, I think, the Parliament was sacked by the King, and replaced by a new one, appointed by him. Since then, the 5 major political parties had been trying to hold protests and rally’s in an effort to restore the people’s government. Nothing seemed to be working, so in early March they began planning a new “wave of anti-regression” programs,
to begin on April 1st. I went out to the downtown with my friend Santosh, and
we videotaped the first day of the peaceful protests, and they were incredible.
It was estimated that 50,000 people had congregated from all over the country,
in this small downtown area, to protest against the Monarchy and chant anti-King
slogans. They wanted to get to the Royal Palace, but the police had set up
barricades about 2 km before. Apparently the army is in charge of securing
the Palace, and protesting is prohibited outside, or anywhere near. The army
has the guns, many of which are now coming from America, and the police have
the lathi batons, so charging the Palace would inevitably end in blood shed.
All of the political parties had amassed such giant numbers, and it seemed
as if the sky had been replaced by red communist flags. The 5 party leaders
joined each other right in front of the barbed wire barricades (w
here on the
other side 20-30 police men and women waited in riot gear with lathi’s in hand) and sat in front of some universal flag. That’s pretty much all they did…sit there, while their followers yelled and hollered and jumped around. I was able to get up on a roof top, and the scene was impressive. The day ended peacefully, and the next day would be the same, but I told Santosh that I didn’t think they could stay peaceful for longjudging by the numbers of people and how I saw the energy and “group mentality” flare and rise at times.
Well, the next day I was definitely correct. Santosh was sick so I went out there by myself, and immediately found a photographer named Nick who I had met the day before. We had taken turns helping each other stand when the crowd felt like a swaying mosh pit. I found him squatting near a wall, taking a breather, so I joined him and caught up with him. The 5 leaders were again, sitting in front of their flag, in front of the barbed wire, and their followers on this day were much more organized. After getting to know Nick a little better, I told him I wanted to go back up on the roof to take new pictures of the crowds. About 5 minutes after I got up there, way on the other side of the park area, the police started chasing out the protesters, pushing them towards the building that I was on top of. Through my video camera I noticed smoke starting to form on the streets, and it wasn’t until my eyes started burning and throat dried out that I realized it was tear gas. I’ve never felt that before, but I guess some of the other Nepali’s had, because they all helped me flush my eyes out with water and they gave me towels. One guy even gave me an onion to rub in my eyes, and I seriously questioned that logic for a moment, but then thought what the hell. Might as well trust him.
So after taking a few more shots and some footage from above, I went back down, and basically the entire downtown area was sectioned off by the police, and there were all theses little quarrels at every intersection. 
For about the next 4 hours, brick would be hurled from the protesters, to the police, and then back to the protesters by the police. I thought it was weird that the police would be throwing bricks back…I thought there job was to disperse the crowds, which they did a horrible job of. It was all pretty crazy, and things kept escalating. At one point the crowds got a 10,000 litre water tank from somewhere and rolled it down the streets and set it on fire. The fire definitely added a more serious touch to the situation. Bricks kept flying, and this one Canadian guy and I joked that we were glad they didn’t play baseball, and only cricket. I think all in all we were tear gassed 10 times. The crowd grew wise of the police’s tear gas guns, and by the end of the night they were picking up the smoking canisters and throwing them back. My friend Ajay happened to be working at another one of the intersections that was going crazy, and he said that the police forgot to take into consideration the direction of the wind, and ended up running away from their own tear gas. And at another point, these two cows, the holies animal in Nepal and amongst all Hindus, strolled in-between the police lines and the crowds, and according to Ajay, everyone literally stopped throwing everything. Not a brick or stone was hurled while these bovines were crossing the street. I got a pretty good laugh out of that. Maybe the police should start riding in on cows instead of horses!
Later on in the evening, I found Nick again and we checked in with each other. He’s been here for 7 years, and he said he had never seen anything like it in Nepal. With the fire’s and the whizzing of the tear gas canisters and the bricks and, in my opinion, the complete incompetence of the police department (at one point they got the fire hose out, but had to put it away because they couldn’t control it….I was above on a bridge watching as two firemen were whipped back and forth), the situation continued to go from ‘this is major and is going to get out of control’ to ‘this is all pretty comical.’ I was happy I was there though to capture it all. At one point I went over to shoot on the side of the protesters, and right when I got there, this man came over and yelled at me, “You are safe here, you are Ok! This is not about you, we are not angry with you.” It was pretty incredible to hear that. I don’t really know why, but it was. I interviewed a few people on camera, and asked if they had been throwing stones and bricks, and when they 
said yes, I asked them why, since all of these protests were supposed to be peaceful. They were all angry that the police initiated it all. If you remember my last email, about the student protests, the same thing happened. The police just started charging the crowds as the walked.
I haven’t been out there since the 2nd because things got really busy with the school video, but the reports in the papers got crazier and crazier each day. Every day increased in violence, from the police’s side. People were getting their heads bashed in, tear gas and lathi charges were being done inside hospitals and hospital grounds. The papers, day after day, had montages of police brutality. The government ended up slapping a complete ban on the protesting and assembling, which angered the parties, which increased the action on the streets. Last week giant trucks would come in at the start, and arrest loads of people before they were even given a chance to chant. And a few days ago journalists were actually arrested. I don’t know how that play’s into the constitution’s free press, but now the Nepali Journalists is on the streets protesting as well, and threatening not to print any government related stories.
So it’s pretty nuts, but like I said, the same event can seem comical and serious at the same time. I was as surprised at the blood as I was at the amount of ice-cream vendors that came out for the “festivities.” The numbers seem impressive and aggressive, but then you learn that many of them are actually being paid food and housing plus a daily stipend to be there. The protests continue to go on every day, but now they’re just the norm, and life here seems to be bending around them.
On top of the Maoist problem crippling the country, and the student protests disrupting the major cities, now there’s this, and a resolution seems nowhere in site. The King promises elections next year, but no one really believes that they can happen fairly and justly. The Maoists control so many areas now that it would almost only be Kathmandu voting.
Well, on to other things. Remember Ave, (actually spelled Abhaya, as I learned later) the student who came to our house on Christmas Eve on drugs? A really, really, really long story short, but he actually tried to commit suicide back in the middle of March. He came on campus in the morning, before school, and ingested fly poison. He was rushed to the hospital by Brother Hermon and Father Peter, and the doctors were able to take care of him. We visited him in the hospital a few days later, and his nose still had crusted black foam on it, probably from the bubbling of the poison. He couldn’t talk very well either, because the liquid had burnt his esophagus. Both times going there to visit him, I would think to myself during the bus ride to the hospital how absolutely crazy it was that this was real. That he had actually attempted suicide. It’s so intense, so surreal. He left last week for Rehab, and now his schooling and everything is all jacked up, but he’s where he needs to be for the time being.
I all of us JV’s were surprised at the reaction that many of the Nepali’s had to this event. Someone at school actually said to me, “Well, this is Asia, this is what happens. This is what happens to poor people.” It’s not an accepted practice, but when it happens, it’s as if people make room for it. Since coming here 8 months ago, a man hung himself on the tree in the park behind our house, and an 8th grader also ended his life. It seems as if it’s everywhere.
Now, to totally contradict the entire tone of this email so far, which has been mostly about my witnessing of brutality, of anger, of death, of loss of hope…For the past two days, we’ve had staff seminar up at school, and during one workshop, Fr. Peter spoke about how easy it is to get wrapped up in all of the negatives surrounding this country, especially in the present. If looked at in the right light, it can seem as if the country is falling apart at the seems, or like it’s imploding. I really took to heart what Peter said, because I feel that lately I have been wrapped up in it. There’s times when it makes you feel like crap for all the horrible things that are happening. There are times when I feel angry, when I myself feel hopelessness for this nation and it’s people, and when I forget about all of the goodness that seems to be in so many of the people here. It’s easy to let the stories of the Maoists overshadow the language lessons I have with Limbu Sir, where we might deviate and talk about his passion for butterfly’s or his old stories of his days at St. Xavier’s. Newspaper pictures of the bashed heads sometimes block out the mental pictures of countless mother’s playing or washing their babies on the roadside, or sitting with their children, enjoying the sun in the middle of the day. The “protest fever,” as one paper called it, is really just that. It doesn’t speak for the rest of the country, it doesn’t even speak for most of Kathmandu. I think the saddest thing about being here so far is that everything making the international news these days, everything making the front page of The Himalayan Times, is not the real Nepal. The majority of the people don’t agree with anything going on. They’re not Maoists, they’re not part of these agitating political parties. They just want to go back to the way things were. The problem is though, that everyone has lost faith in everybody. Democracy failed because the pockets of every political leader kept getting fatter, and now people’s trust has grown thinner. Most of our friends, the people we hang out with, see no possible solution in the actions that are taking place. People are protesting, but it’s not getting anyone anywhere, except further behind.
I was really thankful for Fr.’s little insight, because I think I need to continue to challenge myself to see the good in this country and it’s people, even when so many things are pulling at you to think otherwise. Right when Peter said that, a million examples of how he was right came flying thought my head, and I was surprised at how much I have been overlooking. The people, the families, that I have been fortunate enough to meet here so far are genuinely good and kind, and want nothing but the best for the country that they call “Our Nepal.” Well, I should start looking at my books for Monday. I’m the class teacher for 4B, and I’ll be teaching them English, and 4A/4B computers, 2A art, and 7,8,9 A/B Populations and Environment.
Again, happy new year, or just happy April!
Type to you later,
Kevin