Summing up time

Okay, my last night in Nepal, so time to sum up and hit highlights. The best part of the trip for me was visiting four schools. Each was different in its own way, though three taught all their classes, except Nepali language, in English, a sign that Nepali education is aiming for the 21^st century and the global position of being relevant. Squeezed between two giants, India and China, Nepal is seeking to modernize and be able to connect with the world. With the three great isms of Nepal, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Tourism, 

Nepal seeks to be conversant with the world in the universal language spoken by the many tourists who come here, from American, Australia, UK, Europe, Japan, and increasingly from China. All speak English to some extent and in my experience most Nepalis speak at least some English, more than I encountered in China, where people study English but some don’t have the experience of speaking it so much. Also implied in this emphasis on English is the opportunities for students to go abroad. It seems to be every Nepali’s dream to live in the US someday, or the UK or Hong Kong or somewhere with more economic opportunity. 

Some villagers would befriend me, show me the way to my destination, and then beg me to help their sons go to the US. Even a very accomplished hotel manager who befriended me the last night confessed it was his greatest dream to someday travel to or live in America. It seemed like a kind of plea, but perhaps not; still I saw  it as a request for help. Bikas, who has a British passport because his father is a Gurkha in the British Army, is considered set up for life by all the villagers. He can go live and work there and even be supported by the government, if need be.

Conversations with the principal of the Gandaki Boarding School and the owner of the Café Mitra reveal that they both understand the costs of going away, that one has to labor more in foreign countries, often at menial jobs, that Nepalis often gain weight in America, with the radical change in diet, and that many Indians and Nepalis eventually return to their countries of origin, either because they realize that the cost of living overseas is higher, that having more material things is not satisfying, they find the social lifestyle more isolating, or they just want to end up in their own country. When they return they bring with them technology or technological know-how or they bring capital. Even if Nepalis wait till retirement age or even if only 10-20 per cent return, they still, it is said, have the potential to improve this country.

Next highlight of the trip has got to be the Nepali people, who are kind and friendly. Traveling alone in some countries I can feel more wary and isolated. The Nepali people as a whole are very open and approachable. This is a huge bonus of traveling here. Nepal is safe, except for buses going off windy roads and falling into rivers in ravines far below. (This happened several times while I was in the country.) Walking late at night I don’t fear for my wallet or my life. Even women travel alone comfortably in this country. This takes a lot of pressure off of a world traveler.

The Himalayas are spectacular and picturesque. Also, this is the place of my first greatest adventure, so the memories triggered are much more enriching than experiencing a country for the first time. The smell of wood smoke from a cooking fire triggers ancient memories, as did the Madeline dipped in lime tea for Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past. The taste of daal (lentils) is familiar, the sounds of roosters crowing before dawn. All the senses respond to triggers from time past and bring up memory impressions, long forgotten. I have described elsewhere the pleasure of rereading my journals prior to coming here which triggered so many memories as well that brought me back before I even was brought back. This was an extraordinary and unanticipated part of the whole experience that enriched the pleasure and multiplied the immersion in the direct experience. This, and so many facets of this journey back, I would never have been able to predict or anticipate. It’s almost as if I had the idea to come back and then all the reasons for coming were revealed to me over the course of my travels. This process of unfolding meaning is not always practiced in Western thinking; we often set goals, chart steps to take, and then get to a predetermined destination. But sometimes life is a little less direct. Sometimes having control is not the way of the world. Remembering this lesson has been part of this journey back, allowing the path to reveal itself to one.

About isolation: a number of people have been following my blog, which is gratifying, and makes me feel connected at such a great distance. On my travels I have met a handful of foreign travelers, who were so interesting to get to know, and as world travelers often do, we made little temporary travel alliances that built a sense of community, and then we disbanded, always exchanging email addresses, but rarely following up. This temporariness was also familiar to me from my world travels before in Asia. It is one of the benefits of  traveling solo that these alliances happen more easily, partly because a couple talking is harder to interrupt and interact with, and partly because I am more prone to make eye contact, say hello, strike up a conversation when alone. For ten days I was cared for and looked after by the original Nepali family that the Peace Corps had me board with so many years ago. Their constant attention and help gave me a sense of really being welcomed into the village community, not easy to achieve as an outsider, and their complete generosity made it clear that they wanted to share with me and wanted nothing in return.

But much of my time here has been isolating as well. This also is a familiar experience from the Peace Corps. Volunteers are trained in the language then put in villages far from other foreigners, sometimes several days walk separating them. This fosters extreme self reliance and turning to oneself for meeting all one’s needs. Eventually I learned to meet my social needs by integrating into the village, having conversations, at first halting, finally more fluent, and building a sense of community with those who I lived and worked with. But even then I was a clear outsider, more than half a foot taller than everyone (bumping my head daily on the low door jambs, never remembering), stared at while I washed my clothes or myself at the single village tap, followed around by young children who stared at me with wide eyes and open mouths, making me feel like I was an animal in a zoo. And in Nepal, I had lots of time to myself. I read so many classics, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse, on and on, and wrote extensive, real-time journals (as I am now!) and tried my hand at fiction. But I was in my own head so often for two years. This is not like solitary confinement nor is it like taking vows of silence in a monastery or ashram. It was just the ability to hear the chatter in my head all day long, day in and day out. That is an extraordinary and not unsettling experience. To tune out the inner dialogue, which can be tiresome, self-referential, solipsistic, the best method I know is television. They say the average American spends thirteen years of his or her life in front of the boob tube. Nepal did not receive television until the late 1980’s, but now it seems ubiquitous, even in small villages. There hundreds of channels, and the greatest blessing, for me at least, is the hours of power outages every day. It’s not that I despise television, though I have been a critic and an addict, often at the same time. It’s that it eases the sense of aloneness with one’s own thoughts and being, which are uncomfortable, admittedly, but perhaps part of the human experience until recently. But now I’ve begun my diatribe, not even intending to do so.

When I think of Los Angeles, I think of nonstop overstimulation and experience. Today’s youth, they say, have seven windows open simultaneously on their laptops, Facebook, twitter, text messaging, and so much more. Even older adults in Los Angeles commute, work long hours, have obligations, maintain a household, deal with many points of communications in a day, and many receive hundreds of emails every day, many actionable. This constant barrage of overstimulation is not conducive to what  I’ve described as the human experience of experiencing one’s thoughts, one’s internal aloneness. So while it hasn’t all been social for me, hasn’t been one great party, I have re-connected with something other than the roots of my teaching and the country I volunteered in, I have re-connected with my inner thoughts  and myself.