Organized Crime in Nepal

Lasho!

Hello all, I'm getting behind on blogging! I'll might even have to leave out our bike trip from Kathmandu to Namo Buddha. But enough moaning, it’s time for another unfocused, rambling and poorly written update of The Strangest Dream, otherwise known as my life :-). One of my favorite movies is “The Strangest Dream.” Actually it’s a true story about how a group of scientists bridge the iron curtain and work to prevent nuclear war during the Cold War. The theme song of the movie is the peace anthem, “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream”.

“Last Night I had the strangest dream
I’d ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

I dreamed I saw a mighty room
The room was filled with men
And the paper they were signing said
They’d never fight again
and when the papers all were signed
and a million copies made

They all joined hands and bowed their heads
and grateful prayers were prayed
and the people in the streets below
were dancing round and round
and guns and swords and uniforms were scattered
on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I’d ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
to put an end to war”

I love songs like this. Taking a line from it to describe my life is a bit of a leap of logic since the context doesn’t really fit but the first line of the song repeatedly occurs to me and seems like a good sub-title for my life :-).



I’m living in Nepal at the moment, at a sort of luxury resort (to the left is a photo of my cabin). They grow a lot of their own food so I am here to work on the farm. I want to do some experiments, work on the farm design which means some record keeping and planning and learn lots about the permaculture re-design process. There are lots of odd ideas floating around to explore like entirely new theories of medicine, questions about whether AIDS really does exist, and new, odd ways to make rain. Having been deported from India I have been induced to change focus from studying Gandhi to studying Permaculture as a way to live.

I'm going to skip most the routine crap about how I got here, how long I plan to stay and other boring introduction details. Let's go to some interesting conversation instead.

I’ve found that working in a place gives a very different viewpoint than being a tourist. It’s hard to realize what a rut the tourist track is, and the effect is probably especially pronounced in Nepal. It’s more of a trench than a rut actually; too big to properly see out of!

One day in particular stands out when Jack and I went to the welder to put together the seed ball rolling machine. Standing there gesturing and trying to explain our ideas to a guy who speaks only Hindi and watching him weld together our thing piece by piece was so strange. We were both struck by how our experience in India was so different compared to a normal tourist.

Or there was that time in Chama near the apple orchard when I was trying to buy a handle for a pickaxe. “These are tools for Indians” the shopkeeper told me :-). As if Europeans and Americans never use tools! It’s hard to imagine what Nepali or Indian people must think life is like in materially richer countries. The only people they ever see from these countries spend all their time just hanging around, eating, taking photos and traveling a bit. No wonder they view people from the West as having unlimited time and leisure. Not only does this leave them free to rip you off as much as possible because you obviously have unlimited money, but it fuels a huge desire to move to Canada, US, Germany or wherever to obtain this unlimited money and leisure time.

At Namo Buddha Resort (NBR) I’ve had an unusual look into the world of organized crime in Nepal. The usual tourist trench contains only relics of nice things; ooh, look at the nice Buddhist paintings. Beautiful mountains. The curious habit of eating dhal bhat every day three times a day. A civil war just ended in Nepal but you wouldn’t know it from trench side. A lot of people try to rip you off but it’s almost all low level street crime, no indication of anything larger is visible. And it makes sense for Nepal to show you the best of what they’ve got. But it’s a bit eerie also because you know that there must be more going on. Tourists get hints of this, for example when they try to take a photo of the soccer field that it turns out is a military base inside the city. The military doesn’t like photos :-).
NBR is located in Kavre which is actually one of the most crime ridden areas of Nepal. When I was at HACERA I didn’t notice this. But since I’ve started working here at NBR it has become an issue. There are stories flowing frequently about the local organized crime agents using violence and threats of violence to pressure the owners to purchase land at inflated prices, hire certain people especially for contract work (forcing NBR to use the incompetent local contractors instead of qualified ones from elsewhere), stealing vehicles, threatening workers to the point that they leave the resort and frequent assorted demands of the most unreasonable sort. At the moment they are trying to work their way into the company by pressuring one of the workers who used to be a manager. He appears to be working with them so it looks like he may be fired to protect from further infiltration. The organized crime folks want their man to be the guy in charge of bookkeeping, of all things!
Even the Lama from the nearby famous Buddhist Stupa dips into the pot. Actually his thing is being a money shark; charging 30% interest or more on cash loans.


Some people in this photo are involved in organized crime. Can you tell who? Others are honest people running the nearby school.
All of this is in addition to the usual corruption in the government with bribes left, right and center.
I hesitate to call the local criminals Mafia because their style is very immature and stupid. They don’t have the idea of replacing the government or having any sort of justice or fair system. They are just out to grab whatever they can however they can. Yet at the same time they are different from the guys (yes it always seems to be guys) who show up at night with masks and sticks to demand 500 000 NPR (about $7 000). They are career criminals.
Perhaps the best hope is the Maoists. When they were in charge of the area apparently this organized crime stuff was very much less. The Maoists installed a court system that actually took cases to completion and did serious investigation. They reduced public drunkenness. They built roads. Actually it sounds like things were much more promising when the Maoists were in charge. They are inspiring for me because it seems like they set up a parallel system of government, circumventing the dysfunctional and corrupt version that exists now. Even still in Kathmandu you can observe that the Maoists have their own car license plates. This makes so much sense to me to simply side-step the government and start organizing on your own.
Another option, or rather something additional, is to give money to the schools, get involved in the festivals etc. In this way the community likes NBR and organized crime has a more difficult time making threats since they do not have community support.

Until next time,
James

Annapurna Base Camp

Namaste all!

Since my last post I have been hanging out at HACERA farm for a bit before heading out to trek around Nepal. Nepal is famous for the trails it has through mountains and forests. Not only do they go through the highest mountains in the world and some of the most diverse forests, there are also special trails called “teahouse treks”. Teahouse treks are trails which have small collections of hotels strung along the otherwise fairly untouched path. So, you can take only a light backpack and walk for literally weeks in the mountains, staying in lodges the entire way. No need to carry heavy tents or food!

I first decided to walk around the Langtang range but that didn’t really work out. There was lots of rain, and part of the trail was collapsed. Lots of rain also means no views of the mountains! I turned around and made my way to the Annapurna Range, which is a more popular tourist destination. It’s a little more developed and the weather was a little better. I met up with a Korean guy by accident and we decided to go together into the center of the national park. We decided to walk right up to the feet of the biggest mountain, into what is called “The Sanctuary”. It is so named because it is a basin surrounded by peaks, with only one entrance.

In total I took ten days inside the park, usually walking about 6 hours a day with my backpack. Without further delay, here are some photos :-).


Me looking ridiculous in front of a suspension bridge. There are many of these, and often ice cold glacial water is raging underneath. On a warm day it's not bad but when the weather is cold and cloudy you can imagine falling through the rickety boards and not making it out...


Sheep! Although this is a national park, there are quite a few people living inside making a living.


A picturesque little Nepali town in the morning. Most of the town's money probably comes from the tourist industry. In the morning it was amazing to see the sun come up over the mountains, then ten minutes later the entire place flooded with fog as the dew evaporates.


View of Annapurna South at night, with a full moon. I stayed two days at Annapurna Base camp; the foot of the tenth tallest mountain in the world, 8091m. The base came is about halfway up at 4031m.


After my hike I went back to HACERA neighborhood, did a quick course about Permaculture then headed up to Namo Buddha Resort, just a little broken hearted. I'm hanging out at NBR these days, ostensibly as the farm manager, or so I'm told. Sometimes I feel like the general in War and Peace who knows the best thing he can do is show approval when his lieutenants suggest something. But it's a great chance here to practice the cycle of permaculture redesign. So I'll be staying here at least 4 or 5 months, with a break to travel around with my Dad during the Christmas season. It should be interesting!

Hanging out with the Himalayan Magpies and wondering about the names of the common weeds of Nepal,
This has been a note from Yours Truly,
James

Bullshit, Cow Shit and Building Houses

Indian people in rural areas just love shit :-). It’s used in ceremonies, fermented to make biogas for cooking, put it in the garden. It’s dried out and used in the fireplace for cooking and to make the fireplace itself. They plaster their walls with it, and cover the floor with it too, both inside and outside. It’s even mixed with urine and used in some medicines! Yep, people love shit. A few Indians I met were pleased to proclaim that Indian cows make the best shit and urine in the world.

When Vandana Shiva was given the Bullshit Award she was happy to receive it. Actually it’s a great, funny example of the difference between the organic mindset and the mindset of the World Bank guy who gave it to her. He didn’t mean it in a nice way, but unknowingly she took it as a complement! It depends on how much you value shit from cows and bulls :-).

People only do these things with animal dung of course. I’ll be polite and not talk about the human waste disposal issues. Cow dung, as far as I can tell isn’t used for anything irreplaceable but it sure is an omnipresent material in rural India. It turns out it’s the same in rural Nepal.

Today we spent part of our day flinging shit at the walls and smearing it around :-). We plastered the outside of a building with a mix of cow dung, rice husks and silt/clay. This is the normal plastering material for houses in rural Nepal, as in India. In India the material is being replaced by cement and some sort of low quality paint that has to be frequently re-applied. The cow dung looks much better, and the well maintained houses in this area of Nepal look quite smart with their smooth beige walls and thick strip of red paint around the bottom.

The inside of the walls in this area are often made of mud and stone, two age-old and time tested materials for building houses out of. In my travels I’ve seen a mixture of composition ranging from almost entirely stacked stone in Almora to pure mud in Bengal.




Rural Canadians are not such lovers of cow dung and I haven’t ever seen it used in this way there. I have seen a couple of people using a mud and chopped straw mix though. People call this cob, and if made and used correctly it can be quite a useful building material.

I think my favorite houses are made entirely of bamboo, thatch and coconut husk. It is possible to make the entire house (in a warm climate) out of these two materials! This is done in parts of Laos. The walls are woven bamboo strips, the floor split bamboo, and the roof is thatch although I suppose it could be bamboo shingles. Bamboo can be used to make the gutters, and used as piping and electrical conduit also. Rope made from coconut husk is used to bind it all together. This rope is soaked in water then tied. It shrinks when dry, making a solid joint. These houses are so simple they can be made by children, as shown in the photo below :-).



Good Night and Good Luck my friends!

Welcome to Nepal!

Hello all! Unlike most of my other blog posts I haven’t been inspired to write this one about something specific. I just have some spare time :-). Internet access is good in Kathmandu and I’ve decided to spend a few days in the city just hanging out, meeting some people, trading books, getting a haircut etc. before going to the farm I’ve chosen.

I will be going to HASERA farm 40 km to the east of Kathmandu. It’s a permaculture farm run by someone who seems to really know what he’s doing. I went to the Nepal Permaculture Group office and he was there so I met him and we talked about the farm. Unlike a typical WWOOF situation where you trade labour for room and board at HASERA you pay for room and board and there is more focused learning which may or may not include the usual farm work. I like situations like this because I feel more free, even though they are quite a bit more expensive than WWOOFing. HASERA is charging 450 Rs per day which is about $6.50.

Two days ago I learned about something which may disrupt my pleasant farm stays and romps through the Nepali Himalayas. A Latvian woman is being held incommunicado and without due process as a prisoner in a Nepali jail. She has been held there about 5 months after what seems to essentially have been what Amnesty International would call an “enforced disappearance”. Nepal is known to have a problem with enforced disappearances, as reported in the AI 2008 Annual Report. We only learned about her existence through informal channels. She was apparently arrested for being in a national park without a permit. Because she doesn’t speak English she cannot speak to her jailers and it seems they have decided to simply keep her in jail because of it. Obviously I want to learn more about what’s going on and see what I can do, including contacting Amnesty International. The Russian Embassy has known about her for two weeks or so, and has not freed her. There is no Latvian embassy in Nepal so this is another problem for her. Her family has sent the Russian Embassy money to buy her a ticket home and help with getting her out, but the Embassy apparently has just kept the money. Yesterday I was supposed to have had a meeting with a Russian/English speaking tourist who has spoken to her but it didn’t happen. I hope I don’t have to stay in Kathmandu any longer than I already have because I am getting anxious to go to a farm after almost 20 days in cities and travelling. But I can’t just leave her to the mercy of the nation states who would apparently just as soon let her rot in jail than go home. If I don’t hear from the person who has spoken to her by tomorrow I will go to the farm and be in touch as much as possible from there. When I remember what the Canadian state does, torturing people in specially built torture prisons in Syria apparently for kicks or electrocuting Polish people at the airport because they don’t speak English I am concerned about this person who has wandered into the grip of an irrational, powerful, brutal and uncaring organization.

On the bright side Kathmandu is much nicer than Delhi. The streets are more thoroughly paved which cuts down the choking, eye itching dust. There is a level less honking although it’s still annoying. The streets tend to be smaller and more pedestrian friendly, at least in the Thamel neighborhood where I’m staying. The food is less greasy and less spicy (spicy food makes me sick, I've discovered). Accommodation is a bit cheaper. It’s just generally smaller, quieter and more functional. Although taxi transportation is a lot more expensive you can generally walk where you want to go. This is the relatively nice area.

When I’m in some of the bad areas of the city I begin to compose poems in my head about the bad things and the insanity of city life, the rotting rats on the street, the masks people wear to escape the pollution and the con artists who will take advantage of your vulnerable and confused state to steal whatever they can.

Like most asian cities I’ve been to, locals in the tourist areas love to play Harass The Tourist. The goal of the game is twofold: make tourists dislike being in the tourist area, and get money from the tourists. Players are stationed every 10 to 5 meters and their goal is to thoroughly badger any foreigner to buy a tibetan violin type instrument, umbrellas, hash, hire a rickshaw or any number of other things which they probably have no interest in. I’ve realized that communication with such players or “touts” is not on a conscious level. If you look at them in the face and say “I’m not interested in buying what you’re selling” then this will actually encourage them, even though they understand English perfectly well. Paying attention to them at all is taken as a signal to become more persistent. This is really unfortunate because it shuts down rational language-based communication. I can dream up a number of humorous counter-games to play with the touts because their behavior is so predictable but I try not to be a jerk like that :-).

If you score well in the Harass The Tourist Game then you can play the Rip Off The Foreigner Game. Fewer players get to this level but it is also a popular national past-time. Rickshaws take you to (closer) places you didn’t pay them to take you to, and people are constantly trying to charge inflated prices or lying about various things, coming up with various schemes. The goal is to try to get as much money as possible for as little effort, of course. I come across this sort of thing at least twice a day. No wonder I don’t like cities. I think these negative social behaviors which appear in the city are symptoms of something really wrong with this way of organizing a society. Of course people who follow Buddhism don't do these things and I've met some great people in Kathmandu. Approximately 11% of the population identifies as Buddhist.

Note: When I speak about “India” or any other country name in the following writing, I mean the government of the state, which I don’t assume even represents the interest of the majority of citizens.

Through the Couch Surfing network I’ve been able to meet some interesting people, including some Nepalis who know a bit about the political situation here and a French person working on political documentaries about the country. The recent political situation in the country is very unstable. It seems that India wants to control Nepal so they have killed the royal family in an attempt to set up a puppet government, (in concert with the US; India and the US seem to work together). It is in India’s interest to keep Nepal politically unstable with a crippled economy and therefore a dependent trade partner. China and Russia are concerned about the threat of a strong US (Indian) presence right next to them so they have started meddling in Nepali politics as well.

India is a controlling power in Bhutan as well. I had an image of Bhutan as rather picturesque, with a benevolent King interested in “Gross National Happiness” rather than GNP. But I’m told that Bhutan’s Finance and Defense departments are almost completely controlled by India. The Royal Family has a deal where they can have their family, wealth and image of control as long as India can control these two key departments. In the early 1990s many people were ejected from Bhutan because they did not support the King; India was a major force behind this ejection because India to a large extent controls the King.

Someone I met yesterday shed some light on the Tibetan situation. He said that the main reason China invaded Tibet was to prevent it from being controlled by the US. So the idea of a Free Tibet, is more complicated than simply ejecting the Chinese. Any sovereign Tibet would have to defend itself constantly from incursions both by the two giants US and China.

On the relatively bright side if people in Tibet can manage to escape into Nepal - although many of them get injured very badly crossing the mountains - then they are generally given sanctuary here. Also they can freely enter India, going to Dharamsala or a different place. Recently the Chinese has put pressure on Nepal to send Tibetan people back for imprisonment/torture etc. but the Nepali people have protested and so far have sent nobody back.

I’m getting to try some Tibetan food which has been interesting. Momos are like a thin walled perogie. Thukpa (pronounced more like tukpa) is a noodle soup with lots of garlic, and Thenthuka (pronounced more like tentukpa) is another kind of soup with flat, square noodles, sliced potato, greens, onions and grated carrots. Momos are generally steamed and often not very spicy.

The number one thing to do in Kathmandu as far as I’m concern is to go to the Garden of Dreams. It’s a fairly small walled-in garden which you have to pay to enter and it is beautiful. There are so many little beautifully designed areas, with waterfalls, stepping stones leading through ponds, huge trees, and beautiful flowers. It reminds me of the scene in Lost in Translation when Scarlett Johansson walks through a beautiful park in Tokyo. The whole garden is has Wi-Fi access.

Deported!

So I got kicked out of India. And so did my German friend Jens. For him his visa was up and extension refused. For me it was a bureaucratic error.

To make a long story short, people with visas over 6 months are supposed to register with the government within 14 days of entering India. Registration is supposed to be done with a major office specializing in registration, or with local police in the area you're staying in. The police in Chhatarpur, M.P. are incompetent and didn't know how to register me. They refused to do so when I asked them to, actually. The Indian government has decided I am responsible for their incompetence and is deporting me for not registering. I did everything I was asked to do and could do but apparently that's not enough. It took them 9 days and 4 office visits in Delhi to decide this.

I'm sad that I won't be able to visit my friends in India as planned. But, as Vinod Bhave said, It is good to flow like water and not get stuck in one place.

Last night I took a 15 hour train to Gorakhpur and will take the bus to the Nepal border tomorrow. I hope to become involved with WWOOF Nepal and do some trekking to experience some of the "wisdom of the mountains" (as John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, would say). I will likely have to take some down time in Kathmandu which is fine. It will take me time to decide which trek to go on or to obtain a WWOOF host. Maybe I can try my hand at couchsurfing.

It's a big decision for me in the next few months which direction to go in after Nepal; to New Zealand and Australia for a taste of home and some serious farm studying from people who know their stuff or to Isreal/Palestine area to get involved in a different kind of non-violent activism?

Any suggestions dear readers?

Stolen!

The lock on my door
Faith in the people around me
My peace of mind
Broken, Stolen

How does honesty bless one mind and not another?
Why, fair honesty, do you leave a brother
Abandoned in the darkness
Of the soul.

When I came back from the University my lock was broken open and people had gone through my things. They stole only money. The lock was broken open with a rock, delicate little thing that it was. At least they didn't take my passport or bank card.

My first reaction was just to leave early. I just didn't want to be here any more. I can my things right quickly enough and be gone on the bus in the morning.

But I stayed to finish my work. Today is my last day, and I'll take the bus tomorrow morning down to Dehradun, stay there for a night and head off to horrible, big, dishonest, polluted Delhi. As you can tell I'm not looking forward to it. I hope I can stay in the Buddhist quarter but the two hotels I would stay at I can't phone properly because the phones don't work well enough.

I long for the apparent honestly of the Malay people, or the Thai. And their competence in organizing systems too, like phone, bus, etc. And their general cleanliness. But I'll stay here for three more months, perhaps my next destination will refresh me.

I am going next to Kota to visit my friend Ram which I hope will be very nice.

Fruit and Thieves

These have been the dominant themes of my life, as of late.

I found some great books at D.B. Pantnagar University. I confess I had kind of low hopes because I have come across some pretty shitty writing in this country from people who supposedly have higher degrees. But I found a book that has extensive details about apple trees and apple growing (pomology) in general. Oddly enough the ideological influence is heavy from the World Bank and cronies. Obviously the book is a relic of their push to have apple production in this area.

The book has lots of great information about orcharding. One of the more remarkable things was the descriptions on how to perform surgery on a tree to repair damage to the bark.

But it is also quite humorous in some ways. On the section on what to do with your orchard after it gets old, and they recommend using trees that last about 30 years, they basically throw up their hands. The text admits quite readily that using the chemical methods recommended the soil will be destroyed and will likely have microorganisms in it that prevent the re-planting of any apple trees. They give the suggestion of importing new soil (!) or fumigating the soil by injecting an extremely toxic chemical not available in India (chloropictin) or methyl bromide, (which is available but not as effective) covering the soil with a big tarp and leaving it. This destroys most microorganisms in the soil, including those that prevent new apple trees from establishing. Of course it does nothing for the pH, compaction, arsenic/mercury content, or organic content. So much for sustainability. They just don’t seem to acknowledge the idea that in in all likelyhood the Himalaya will still be here in 30 years, and people will still need to make a living. It’s a very short term book, just like capitalism and the entire ideology surrounding the World Bank.

When I got back to the orchard yesterday there were people stealing the fruit! The guy who owns the orchard, and I dare say has first dibs on the fruit, asked me to pick the fruit on Friday. Here we were Thursday, the people keeping a lookout had left in the morning and in the afternoon there were already people stealing all the fruit! The frustrating part was when I asked them to leave and got a Hindi speaking person on the phone, so the message was obviously clear, they still wouldn’t go. They just kept on picking. It was a real showdown to get them to clear off, and they took the fruit (asian pears mostly) with them. Then more came a few minutes later! The things people say are absurd. This new group had a person who spoke a bit of English. So he came up to me and insisted “We are not thieves, he is a teacher” pointing to the guy taking the fruit. What’s that supposed to mean, they’re not professional thieves? If you’re stealing fruit then that means you’re a thief, as I understand it. By the end of the day there was no more fruit and there was nothing I could do about it. Friday morning I hunted the grounds and harvested a grand total of 36 small apples. They are just tapping into the peaches now as they become ripe, we’ll see... I was hoping to be alone here for 3 weeks but it seems that’s not on.

In fact what really is sad is that they were stealing the grass as well. The area is overgrazed and infertile because it does not have a chance to get back on it’s feet by growing some plants and having them decompose. The idea that people will steal the very grass at your feet, meant for the worms, is so tragic to me. I’ve noticed people’s persistence is remarkable too. They just don’t seem to throw in the towel when they’re busted.

Previously my experiences with people stealing stuff in India have primarily been children. My harmonica, flashlight, camera, cellphone. But this time it was the whole family coming out for a gathering!

The economics section of the apples book shows predictable labour costs. 30% goes to hiring a guard to prevent people from stealing the apples. I think I’ve already mentioned that people need to hire guards to watch their wheat and irrigation pipes. There are people constantly guarding the mango orchards as well of course. This whole situation is pretty expensive for farmers to have to deal with.

Some kids, skipping school came and wanted some drinking water, which I was ok with giving them but they didn’t want to drink my boiled, warm, water. So I made them some mint tea instead. Then they started asking me to give them food. What? I should clarify that to all outward appearances these were not poor children, sporting as much clean clothes, leather shoes, jewelry and cellphones as the next person.

Some other kids came and stood outside my window demanding some potatoes. Obviously I didn’t have any. I told them to go to the market. In the city I get treated like a walking cashbox, and in the country it seems people treat you like a free marketplace. I suppose that’s better. Mind you, people ask me for money here too.

So now they’re after me potatoes, me water, me grass and me peaches :-). I don’t know if I can hold out much hope for my carrots, radishes, peas, corn and biomass crops that I’ve planted. I just hope I can keep an eye on my passport, and wallet. No wonder all the windows in India have bars on them.

For laughs, here’s the photo of the mother of the child who stole my camera. She swore she didn’t know anything about a camera... This person continues to show up every once in a while and ask for a job at the soap factory, which she was fired from for stealing.