Paddle Play

Maoist ex-combatants at Shaktikhor cantonment. Credit: Tom Van Cakenberghe

Date: July 14, 2009

We pulled up to the gate around noon, a dank hour on a day promising to be 35°C in the shade. The men keeping sentry at the bamboo and concertina wire post carried semiautomatic rifles, but kept a glazed look of humidity-induced tedium as we passed through in our small bus with the ‘Tourist Only’ tag adorning our rear window.

Arriving into the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cantonment of Shaktikhor in Nepal’s southern Terai region was something of an unanticipated surprise in this suspended conflict country. Shaktikhor, like the other six cantonments and 21 satellite camps across the country, was established two-and-a-half years ago when the Maoists joined the seven-party coalition and entered into the peace process. The fragility of the peace and the future of almost 20,000 disarmed Maoist combatants rest overwhelmingly on the integration of Maoists into the Nepali Army, and the PLA camps remain sensitively situated and not easily penetrated by outsiders.

Disembarking, we were met with the whirr of power tools and the nearby hammering of timber and tin buildings under construction or repair. Shaktikhor is a busy place. Young men and children walked and cycled through the dirt paths, curious but not lingering on the foreigners who were not everyday visitors. Barely stopping to watch the tok-tok-tok of an intense ping pong match, we were led to a small meeting hall where we were met by the benevolent gazes of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung on those comrades to be seated below them. Shelves filled with Marxist material and book-ended by battle instruction manuals ringed the room. Over the door where we’d entered, another banner espoused choice quotations from the Little Red Book.

We were introduced to Comrade Deepak, the deputy commander and secretary of the camp. Like many who joined the Maoists, he grew up poor in an impoverished village. Through translation, Comrade Deepak explained that limited educational opportunities coupled with deep-seated discrimination meant that when the Maoists engaged their insurgency (begun in 1996), they garnered his support and that of the marginalized, rural population in whose ostensible honour they were fighting. Many people thus became Maoists in hopes of liberating themselves from generations of oppression. Their revolution, Comrade Deepak espoused, was about ending injustice and instating equality; an aspiration for many in one of the world’s most deprived countries.

There are 4,000 soldiers and their wives stationed at Shaktikhor, and the average age is 25 years. The make-up of the ex-combatants, despite the ideological trumpet of equivalence, is diverse and includes members from Nepal’s various indigenous groups, low and high caste, and men and women. Wake-up call is at 5:30 AM with a head count followed by exercises. Breakfast is taken around mid-morning. Sometimes there is special military training, but most of the day, it seems, is spent killing time either watching television or playing sports (though despite the popularity of the ping pong tables, a volleyball net, swimming pool and a large soccer field were empty). The ex-combatants, like regular soldiers in barracks, are not allowed to leave the camp without permission. They cannot open businesses, and are sustained by a small stipend and supplies paid for by the government in cooperation with the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN).

In January 2008, Shaktikhor was the site of a controversial video of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (‘Prachanda’) giving a morale boost to the soldiers interned there. The video, released this past May after Prachanda resigned following a confrontation with the president over a controversial decision to fire the army chief, revealed the Maoist leader admitting that they had inflated the number of combatants. Though the PLA numbered only between 7-8,000 soldiers, its strength was given as 35,000 during a UN verification. He also said the decision to sign the peace pact and take part in the election was part of the “revolutionary counter-attack strategy” to capture state power, including winning votes by breaking limbs, diverting state funds to buy arms, and ideologically infiltrating the military.

I had imagined that those we would be speaking with were anxious to reveal a more intimate revelation of life inside the camps and what Maoists really thought behind the Communist principles they championed. Instead, we were given piecemeal answers to our questions on army integration and the role ideological indoctrination, and steered around potentially troublesome topics. When asked about the video and its consequences, Comrade Deepak answered quickly that it was misappropriated and used out of context. Queried about the best and worst case scenarios for the future of the ex-combatants, he simply remarked that with the Maoists rejoining the government, the peace process would be moving ahead and would successfully integrate the PLA into the Nepali Army. Again, when pressed about the possibility of continued discord between the two armies, there was an uncomfortable smile of ‘no comment.’

Excusing himself then, Comrade Deepak went to find a woman to speak with us about the gender dimension. During the People’s War (as the decade-long insurgency is popularly referred to), the Maoists boasted that their army consisted of equal numbers of men and women who shared both the duties and the fighting equally. Women are almost a fifth of the population at Shaktikhor today, and are housed in separate quarters. Some, like 21-year old Comrade Kavita, are married and live with their husbands in the camp. A second generation Maoist who joined the party when she was 15, Comrade Kavita visibly displayed her youth and shyness in her hands, as she folded and clasped them in front of her while she related the common misperception that women, when given a gun, don’t know how to use it. In fact, she laughed, there were some notable battles fought with Maoist men ready to surrender, yet persevered through the determination of their female counterparts.

Our limit on time meant we were not allowed to look around the camp nor speak with anyone who wasn’t cleared. So after talking with Comrades Deepak and Kavita, we were escorted from the meeting hall to stand near the UNMIN area of the camp where the decommissioned weapons are stored and where, once a week, the Maoists are allowed to clean the guns. Established in August 2006 by the UN Security Council, the UNMIN is a special political mission designed to support of the peace process. Initially mandated for one year, UNMIN has already been given three extensions of six months each. Its current term expires July 23, but the Nepali government has said that UNMIN would remain in Nepal until the task of integrating and rehabilitating the Maoist combatants and managing their arms are completed. How soon that will be is anyone’s guess, and though the Maoists have recommitted themselves to the peace process, the question of army integration remains contentious due to a decade of fierce fighting and deep mistrust.

Nepal’s political stability remains a worry, but nevertheless the Maoist ex-combatants at Shaktikhor remain optimistic and faithful that their contribution has changed the face of modern Nepal. In the meantime they pass the time playing ping pong, and given the torpor induced by a warm monsoon season, the wait patiently for their and their country’s future to be determined.

(For more images of life in Nepal's Maoist cantonments, please see Tom Van Cakenberghe's photo essay "Army Without Arms": http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/slideshow/19451.)

Mysteries of the Universe

Solargraph. Credit: Gregg Kemp

Date: June 23rd, 2009

A recent evening of star-gazing met inevitably with that age-old adage, “Do you believe in God?” This universal but slightly wearisome spiritual inquisition is usually countered through flippant admission to being a recovering Catholic. This time, posed by my Nepali host father, I tried to breach the language and cultural barrier by explaining my equally non-committal philosophy of God as a concept to explain the mysterious operations of energy forces in the universe. I imagine my buwaa was expecting more a simple “yes” or “no” answer. Afterwards, it left me to wonder if I’d have answered yes, would this automatically accompany membership of a faith? If I replied no, am I to be pigeonholed as a dogged atheist? Either way, faced with the vast night sky with its shouts of sheet lightening raging across it, I mysteriously didn’t have the energy to explain my belief in God.

When I was little my neighbor had this Irish blessing on the back of their front door:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be forever at your back.
May the sun shine warm across your face, and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

The simple prayer presented sensual thoughts of travel as a sentient thing; a route that represents and rallies for your safe passage while both protecting and preserving you. This God, once holding a little person (me) over the Earth in His oversized hands I now interpret as a narration, the fortunes or karma, and the intuitive energies we have carried in our cells from the beginning of the universe by virtue of us being here and alive to experience the present and carry it forward. We are created by who knows what? Give it a random name and call it God. How do we find ourselves in any moment we remember to stop and wonder thus? The anonymity of time remains mute. We all like to think ourselves important players in the personal histories we create; we are by virtue of their self-realization. Yet we fling ourselves along, barely conscious of the mysteries unfolding beneath our base perceptions. What tends to be ignored is our participation, known and unknown, in the wider connectivity of all things. I and all those I meet are but a blink of humanity. The animals from which we evolved and the myriad species that existed long before even them are all just a twinkle of a star in the infinity of the universe. Travel brings a closer vantage of these mysteries by constantly reminding me of being part of a bigger picture – if you want, give it a random name and call it history – unfolding.

The secrets of existence, neatly wrapped up in one succinct paragraph. Only problem is, how to translate this into Nepali?

First Impressions

Tibetan stupa in the old part of KTM

Date: June 19th, 2009

I have been in Kathmandu now for just over two weeks, which feels like a lifetime. A disclaimer here on my choice of phrasing: It is usual when one refers to a relatively short period spent somewhere as an era in and of itself that it denotes a negative experience. It is not the case here; merely I feel more has been crammed into this fortnight spent in the cradle of the Himalayas than I realized time passed. In its signification as my first travels to the Asian continent, coming to Nepal has been an awakening, though one more akin to a hazy, groggy, too-early-in-the-morning-bereft-of-coffee sort. In other words, the wealth of new encounters is still tempered by discombobulation.

Last week I was wracked with ‘Kathmandu belly,’ and spent two days sprinting between bed and bathroom, wracked with nausea of the head and queasiness of the bowels; a generic ‘rights of passage’ (no pun intended) for being in Nepal. The rest of the students had by that time arrived, and the week was spent coming to terms with our new situation as adoptees in Nepali families, and adjusting to the pace at which things happen (or don’t) in this country. We have all had to readjust where and with whom we will be interning, due to misunderstandings on both sides. Similar to the attitude found in Caribbean climes, punctuality and a strive to conduct business in a timely manner are scarce in Nepal. “Boli, boli,” they say, meaning “Tomorrow, tomorrow.” So I return to my home stay, where I am living with a mellow older couple (and my host father’s older sister) who occupy the top 2 floors of a house in a central neighborhood of the city. Fed breakfast and dinner, I am fortunately left to my own devices at other times; a blessing compared to some of my fellow New School classmates who are woken up at dawn, and forced to iterate all the movements to their host mothers, many with grown children and deep ennui who relish having something to do and someone to take care of. I am left to sit on the roof garden and gaze at the distant hills, watch old reruns of television shows on my laptop, read and nap.

I find it difficult to spend time wandering about the city, much to the dismay of my New York-er restless feet. However, the heat coupled with belching black exhaust from so many vehicles alongside the complete disregard for the environment means being outside for any extended period of time can be unbearable. To cope I wear a blue bandana around my face, resembling a robust, white, female version of Subcomandante Marcos.

Desperate to escape the cloying confines of the city, last Saturday I joined our group coordinator and all around awesome person Anshu on a motorcycle trip to the hills north of Kathmandu. A devotee of Osho (a philosophical/spiritual leader who was apparently one of the most photographed faces of the 20th century), Anshu travels weekly to a yoga and meditation retreat center about 15 miles from the city, but a million more in terms of the peace and tranquility of the environs. Saturdays at Osho Tapoban Center are open to the public, so I was welcomed to join in on their morning ‘dynamic meditation.’ Curious to participate in any form of Eastern practice, I donned my maroon pashmina, and stood with about 25 others in a wide open hall, and danced to what I am limited to describe as South Asian club music. During dynamic meditation, one is meant to let go of self-conscious behavior and dance to your heart’s content. There were people whooping and yelling and running jumping boogy-ing all over the place, oblivious to their fellow ‘meditators’ and lost in the beat. During the middle of the song, then, the music stops; you are meant to freeze in position and be conscious of your body, your thoughts and your feelings. As you can imagine, this entails the being aware of the strangeness of one’s dance moves, the sweat running down your back, the euphoria of dance in and of itself, and the random thoughts that drift through the mind. This continues for an hour, and upon completion I lay down and conked out. The rest of the day was spent wandering through the grounds, and relishing being able to take a deep breath and smell trees, not trash. I’ve decided that my sanity will be saved by getting out of Kathmandu at least once a week.

Monday I ate two bags of potato chips washed down with a warm Pepsi. This poor diet (sorry Mom) was a necessity caused by the closure of all businesses (bar tiny neighborhood shops) due to a valley-wide bandh; one of frequent strikes called by various factions to ostensibly garner political attention to a cause. I say ostensibly, because it seems that every other day a bandh is called somewhere in Nepal, and little really comes from it other than the debilitation of the daily lives of ordinary Nepali citizens. Nothing moves, no businesses are open, all cars and motorcycles are banned, and thus people cannot work or conduct their day with any sort of normality. Such events assault the appetite if one does not plan for it, but there is one respite, however: in a city teeming with scores of vehicles, it is wonderfully refreshing to be outside and breathe the air without the harassment wrought by the constant traffic.

I joined the throngs on foot and made my way to Jagaran Media Center (JMC), where I will be working for the duration of my time here. JMC, founded in 2000, initiates awareness campaigns regarding Dalit (“untouchable”) issues through the use of different means of media for the promotion and protection of their basic human rights. Dalits, for those unfamiliar with the term, refers to those in the lowest varna or caste in the Hindu hierarchical system. Historically discriminated against, Dalits have been systemically exploited in many forms, including labor, education, religion, land-ownership and political participation. JMC is involved primarily in a Dalit journalist training program to document and disseminate human rights abuses. They run a radio station with correspondents based in almost every district of the country. They also produce the immensely popular television soap opera “Dalan” following three generations of a Dalit family. JMC also serves as a resource center for a variety of books, articles, and research associated with the Dalit movement in Nepal. Given my background in media and my interest in Dalit issues, JMC served as a better fit than where I first believed I would be working (the indigenous human rights lawyers’ NGO named in my last posting).

The Rooftop of the World

Kathmandu from Swayambhunath

Date: June 4th, 2009

Today I feel like I am actually here in Nepal, despite it being day three since my arrival after a 36-hour, surprisingly smooth journey via Doha and Delhi to Kathmandu. Jetlag and a piecemeal sleeping pattern have meant I have had the tranquility borne from waking up to witness sunrise over the Himalayan foothills, coupled with an anxious rabbit-like awareness of dodging 4-, 3- and 2-wheeled traffic. It is no wonder a coherent sense of being has been so elusive until now!

To describe my discombobulation would offer nothing other than a Westerner’s indubitably naïve interpretation of a city and a culture further removed from any place hereforeto traveled. With that in mind, understand I have gladly forsaken logical analysis and wander the streets in childlike abandonment. The Buddhist stupas with their prayer wheels spinning clockwise and the multi-colored prayer flags hung from the center, reaching out and with every breath of wind flipping hopes and desires up to the heavens. The mini Hindu temples on every street corner, ringed by deities including Shiva and Ganesha, their stone figures worn almost away by the constant anointing with vermillion, a tradition limited not only to statues, but even dogs, too, bear the red dot on their furry foreheads. Children stare up at me, a tall white girl with funny clothes. The brave ones catch my eye and say “Hello! How are you?”; basic English that can only be returned with the question itself and a smile. The shy ones stare, but quickly lose interest in this foreigner who probably won’t give them money.

The aural penetration of bells ringing, children yelling, music blaring, craft-sellers hawking their wares, acknowledging you with a “Namaste. Where are you from?” so they can negotiate prices in the appropriate tongue, motorcycles and taxis meep-meeping to let you know they are either coming in front of you, behind you, about to make a turn, or most likely that you are in their way and better scoot or risk a side-swipe. Though warned about such disturbances, I find the crows that wake me in the morning to be the most disconcerting, probably because they land right by my window and nag one another until I awake and shoo them away to the closest rooftop.

In between naps I walk and walk, devouring my map and guidebook before I emerge out into the streets that have no names. I memorize where I am going as everyone here does; the recognition of intersections (chowks) or temples or buildings; an innate sense of direction, too, has bode me well. Roads are narrow and unbelievably fit taxis, bikes and people going in either direction. There are no buildings, other than certain temples, taller than, say, 10 stories. The distinctive wooden edifices are Newari style, the original inhabitants of the valley who have their own religion, language and traditions in addition to Nepal’s. I find the craftsmanship of these doorways and windows intoxicating, and will often stop and gape before the inevitable meep meep reminds me I have a life to live and I’d better get out of the road.

The smell of this city, too, is unique in and of itself: incense is burned and candles made of fat drip in their metallic holders around all the temples and stupas. Tiny storefronts with a small gas cookers fry up pakoras and samosas and sal (rice doughnuts), the cyclists with massive baskets of mangos strapped puzzlingly secure on the back of their bicycles, the sack and sacks of spices and sandalwood snaking their wonderful scents up my nasal passages. The sweetly sick smell of freshly butchered goats; the trash that accumulates on streets corners and in back alleyways, denied pickup by the city and smoldering in acrid half-attempt at being burned. I’ve never experienced such a confusing assault on my senses as I have here.

Yesterday I walked to the UNESCO-designated World Heritage sight Durbar Square; the site of the oldest temples in the Kathmandu. One of the more interesting traditions housed here is that of the goddess Kumari, a young Newari girl of a certain caste who, born under auspicious signs, serves as a kind of oracle or protector of the country until the day she reaches puberty, whereupon she is replaced by a new Kumari. As Durbar Sq. is perhaps the main tourist attraction in Kathmandu, I was snagged by a tout who refused to leave me alone, insisting on explaining the different building and traditions of Hindus and Buddhists through I told him “No Thanks” about 10 times. Though after 20 minutes my refusal of his services went unheeded, I still gave him 250 rupees (almost 3 dollars, well generous) to which he grew upset and alluded to the bad karma I would be served.

This afternoon I put back on my dusty walking shoes and headed west of the city to the famous Swayambhunath, dubbed by the hippies in the 1970s the Monkey Temple. On my way there, a dog approached my with a stumpy hairless tail and a quizzical look on is face; on a street full of strangers I was most definitely the odd one out. As I keep walking, I felt his eyes still on me. Turning for a backward glance, he caught my eye and started howling. I picked up the pace and kept on, but the howling grew louder. Suddenly, all the mutts that had been conked out in the alleys and doorways came to life. Like furry four-legged zombies they staggered out into the streets, and with the information howled to them by their bald butt-ed friend, started barking and trotting after me, much to my concern and the amusement of those watching from the sides. Thanks be to Buddha I was eventually left alone at the temple gate, though I hurried up the steep stone steps with nary another look behind me.

Swayambhunath is one of the most important Buddhist sites in Nepal and a stone inscription dates construction on the site to the 5th century. A once, twice clockwise walk around the stupa adds to the dizzying effect of the sweaty and steep climb, but it is worth it for the breathtaking views of the valley. I watched the storm clouds move over the city, and when they drew near, hurried down the steps on the heels of the infamous (mangy, trash-eating) monkeys and got a short cab-ride back to the hotel just in time for the deluge.

Tomorrow I am going to meet my host organizations where I will be working. For those who are confused to why I am even here in Nepal, in brief I will be joined by 7 others from my school for a 2-month field program. We will be working on various issues, from water rights to the country’s Truth and Reconciliation tribunals (to be determined). Personally interested in issues of identity in the democratic process, I was initially placed with a indigenous peoples' human rights group, but this may be altered in time depending on my own research. For now I am quite happy to go with the flow and develop my dharma.

Thanks for reading and namaste.