Nepal never fails to amaze me. Resilience through and through. I first arrived in Nepal fifteen years ago. The royal family had just been assassinated. The country was in complete turmoil. Curfews every night, strikes throughout the
day, and in the midst of a Maoist uprising which continued for a decade from
1996 until 2006. And then of course the
earthquake that shook the very core of the kingdom in April 2015. Scientists
concur that tension is still building under the tectonic plates where just a
slight shift, a movement for a minute or less could easily throw the country
back up and land it in rubble. India
then enforced a fuel embargo on the recovering nation, which left massive cues
of vehicles waiting (for days) outside gas stations and a bitter winter where
people just trying to survive cut down whatever trees they could find to heat
their homes and cook their food. Now
even though the embargo has been lifted the fuel shortage is still dire. The poor quality black market fuel has also
left many people in the city sick with chest infections respiratory
problems. Nepal now ranks 177 out of 178
countries for air quality.
Likewise, even though buildings have began to be
reconstructed, thousands of families still live under plastic tarpaulins, just
a stones throw away from where I am sitting. And I am sitting directly in front of Boudhanath
stupa. Declared a UNESCO heritage site
in 1979, and constructed somewhere
around the 4th or the 5th century. Boudhanath even pre-dates Kathmandu as a pivotal pit stop on the trade
route from Tibet to India. However, the largest
stupa in the world also faltered under the tremor of the earthquake. It is now topless. Right now hundreds of
Tibetan and Nepali Buddhists are circumnavigating the fallen stupa. It is sunset and time for a dedicated daily
ritual. Reconstruction began with the ritual placement of a new central pole or
"life tree" for the stupa at the top of the dome. Piles of bricks are situated ramshackle all
around it, along with wooden scaffolding where teams of men and women have been
working on its reconstruction. In
contrast to many of the other national heritage sites in Kathmandu affected by
the earthquake, Boudhanath was the first to be reconstructed. The Nepali government refused help from
international archaeologists for the reconstruction of its ancient sites, and apart
from the self-funded and motivated Tibetan community at Boudha, little work has
been done on the other affected sites.
Politics, money and corruption merge, and people complain daily that if
only a small percentage of the money that flowed into Nepal after the
earthquake had gone to rebuilding infrastructure the country would be as good
as new. That isn’t the case, and the
thoughts of the powerful monsoon rain hold a more immediate threat than another
quake.
In the background stands Kopan monastery – the working
monastery founded to share Tibetan Buddhism with seekers from the West. Which brings in the other reminder – of the
fusion of Kingdoms which Nepal now represents, with a huge population of first
to fourth generation Tibetan refugees.
Yet what is missing right now is one of Nepal’s major sources of income
– tourism. The manager of the cafĂ© I am
in joked that “they are on their way – as we speak – thousands of people
travelling to Nepal”. I’m sitting on an
empty rooftop with spectacular views.
Including so much of that which is unseen.
My last visit to Nepal was three years ago. It is shocking to see what has fallen to the
ground. Yet what has risen (yet again)
is a collective movement towards rebuilding life. When I was in Kolkata just a few weeks ago,
it word had it that the earthquake had rapidly increased the number of trafficked
children and women to India. Massive
numbers of displaced families meant it was even easier for traffickers to
trick, lure or steal girls to sell into bonded slavery and prostitution. An unofficial estimate of an NGO in Kathmandu
says that, at any point of time, brothels in India house around 150,000 to 400,000
girls from the Himalayan country.
Just as the rest of my trip has been guided by spontaneity,
the same applies to landing here in Nepal.
It was unexpected and primarily to renew my Indian visa. Yet this is my sixth visit to Nepal and on
many occasions I have had the opportunity of being able to work here. One of the projects I worked on was a study
of the effects of the conflict on children and in particular in regards to infectious
diseases. The research revealed that
many children moved to the streets either to earn money or because the men of
the family had left to work in India or the Middle East (Nepal still has a huge
migrant workforce). Likewise many girls
and young women began to work in bars – small establishments which go hand in
hand with lap dancing and prostitution.
As a result there had been a rapid increase in HIV/AIDS.
I have been fortunate enough to connect with some wonderful
organizations working to rehabilitate survivors of trafficking and provide
skills to girls and women who wanted to move out of a profession they had never
intended to be in. Today I ran a
workshop for women who were now reintegrated back into their family life. My intention was simply to provide some
relief through movement. Yet my workshop
was perfectly timed to end after a session by a psychotherapist on feeling ,
recognizing and integrating emotions.
After just one hour of “play” we had covered a great deal of
material. The same themes appeared as in
Kolkata: The women are so busy taking
care of others that the very idea of even “feeling” the body was a totally new
concept. Basic movements were a
struggle, and this shocked them. Very
quickly they said they felt “relaxed”. I
asked them to share about their experiences and after ever answer from the
sixteen women I realized that I continue to underestimate the effect of sharing
this practice with survivors. As a
result, the team asked me to go back tomorrow and run a workshop with their
staff. The aim is to provide them with
tools to allow the women and children they work with to physically embody the
concepts they are teaching. Amazed at
how my work keeps going deeper, how it is able to be guided by the
participants, and due to its very simplicity, how it can have profound effects
in a very short time.