Working in Nepal

As you might expect there are a great many people here who just eke out a living selling things from tiny kiosks, or acting as servant, porters, etc. Educated people though have occupations in the civil service, and private sector companies doing IT or engineering, or accounting, or law etc etc.
The work day starts at 10, and ends at 4. We work 6 days a week, taking Saturday off. They used to have a 5 day work week, but changed it a year ago or so. Nobody seemed to mind. The exterior of the building we work in looks quite dilapidated, but inside it is acceptable. The interior is clean, the ceilings are high, and there is adequate space for he people who work there. Lots of cubicles, with some offices on the outside walls. We occupy one of those.

Men do most of the administrative work. If a woman is there it is either to clean and serve tea, or as a senior professional. The ladies cleaning and serving tea do not have a taxing day. They sweep and dust around, and then twice a day bring tea and return to get the cups. In most offices it is men who do this work. Often very old men.

We have power most of the time in the office. There is a local area network that provides slow speed internet, but I am not hooked up to the LAN, and most of the time do not need internet.

You see all types of workers heading to work on motorbikes. Lots of people in suits with helmets. Several families with the babies in the front, no helmets. Women mostly wear saris or kurtas (a pants and mid thigh pants to match). Sometimes you see them in jeans or a western pant suit, but not often.

Today we went to one of the registry offices. It was remarkable that the deeds registry system works at all after seeing this office. The workflow has developed over years and has a lot of steps that could probably be done away with. The records are practically all paper, and a business has grown up of lekhandas – people who know how to write and how to move paper through the system. Around the office we visited were perhaps 40 offices of these lekhandas. Years ago we used to make copies of maps through a process of exposing the original on a large flat machine with a bright light and then putting the paper through an ammonia machine, but this as years and years ago. The Nepalis have this system too, except instead of exposing the paper on a large machine with a bright light, they expose it to the sun on the roof top. It was fascinating to see.

Tomorrow we are off to Simara. I might not be able to post from there

Eating in Kathmandu

Well up until now all our meals have been at restaurants – The Big Belly in Thamel, Mikes breakfast across the street, a little Chilean place near the apartment, Chinese food on the main drag, etc. Last night we got groceries at a modern kind of shopping center. It looked so familiar to me that it seemed I had been there before. Groceries on the bottom, escalator going to the next level, and then escalators to a third level as well. The upper levels had gifts and clothes I think. There were two things that struck me about the grocery store. First – what an extensive supply of chocolate they had. Second - how many different kinds of lentils there really are. The groceries were not particularly cheap. I suppose most of them had to be imported. We got some fruit and veggies and lentils and juice and milk and some meat. The veggies will have to be soaked in a solution to get rid of nasty little intestinal bugs. But this morning I had oatmeal and juice for breakfast – a little different from the 2 egg breakfasts I have been eating since arrival.

Those Buddhist kids next door must have slept in this morning. I did not hear the chanting till 6 a.m. Lazy little devils.

Kathmandu is really dusty. Not all the time though. In the rainy season it is really muddy. The nice lady that brings me tea has a first-thing-in-the-morning job to wipe off all the desks.

The people I work with are particularly nice. RK is the office administrator. He looks after arranging meetings, fixing computer problems, printing docs etc. He is early 20’s, and as nice and kind a person as I’ve ever met. There are a couple of consultants who are equally pleasant, and helpful. You have to develop an ear for the way they speak English, but they go out of their way to make you feel welcome and important.

We had a meeting today at the offices of the Asia Development Bank person in charge of this contract. He is a particularly accommodating guy, smart, pleasant, and as efficient as one can be given that you are working in a big bureaucracy.

Since we were near the Annapurna Hotel, we went to have a look at some jewellery stores there, and what did we come upon but Yasmine’s. The last time we were here I had had some clothes made by this store and I really loved them. So we went in and I was getting measured for a nice vest thing, when we realized that Yasmine is also our landlady. Yasmine and her husband own the huge apartment building we are in.

We cooked supper at the apartment tonite. Rice, dahl (every Nepali meal should include dahl) and chicken. Very satisfying.

Sunday is for shopping

Well what an interesting day I had in Kathmandu. I slept well considering the time change, and the fact that there was singing all night. It was kind of a Hindu equivalent of the Gregorian chant, with bells and a sort of drum. I think there is a holiday here right now, because there are lots of people milling about, and quite a few gathered in a park downtown. Next door is a Buddhist monastery or school or shrine or something, because very early in the morning there was the sound of lots of young voices chanting, and answering in chant. If it happens tomorrow I will try to get up and dressed in time to get in on camera.

I walked to Thamel today. That is the really toursity area of Kathmandu. The trekkers get their hotels there, and there are internet cafes and phone shops etc, which I was very keen to get to. Thamel is about 30 minutes from the apartment. I tried one internet café for 30 minutes but could not send anything, so went to a telephone shop and got through to Bob. Once Gabriel gets here I presume I will have internet at the apartment. I had breakfast in a little courtyard café called the big belly. 2 poached eggs with thick slices of toast and butter that was so hard I did not even try to spread it. The other clientele were tourists, mostly French speaking. They looked fit and were wearing good quality trekking gear. I presume they were headed out or just came back from a trek .

There are many shops in Thamel and many many hawkers. They all know some English, but do not seem to understand no thank you. There were lovely pashminas, some very nice purses, and some beautiful jewellery. I bought only postcards and a calendar, because I had not changed much money at the airport, and it was getting quite difficult to find an ATM that worked for me.

It was fun to compare Kathmandu from what I remembered of our visit in 1992. I think there is less pollution, and certainly I saw fewer of those tata trucks that were so offensive the last time. But there certainly was some pollution, and quite a few people wore masks, especially those driving motorbike. It is just as noisy as I remembered it. And what I had forgotten, but was reminded of, was how it is socially acceptable to clear your nostrils and sinus passages loudly in public, and then discharge on the street. I have not seen any cows wandering around, and no pigs either. I must ask someone what happened to them. There are lots of feral dogs however. My objective after lunch is to find a place that will give me some cash, and then go to Durbar Square. I roamed the streets of Thamel, chasing the elusive working ATM, and finally decided I’d have to go to a bank on the main drag. So stopped for lunch at another courtyard in thamel, with a different collection of French and other trekkers, and had a beer and a sandwich.

A sherpa that had chatted me up while I was shopping sat down at my table. He works for a trekking company and I guess was trying to get me to book a trek with his company. He said he was from the mountains and his wife and kids were there. He stayed in Kathmandu for 6 months every year during the trekking season, and then went back to the mountains when it was over.

After lunch I tried 3 bank machines and finally got my money. That was a big relief. I did not want to have to miss supper. I headed for Durbar Square, and I think I was close to it, but you can’t really tell, the streets are very which way, and not signed very well, and so your map doesn’t do you much good. I had to resort to seeing where the sun was, and figuring out the direction to walk from that. Although I did not make it to Durbar Square, I did happen on the bead bazaar, and was delighted to find it again. The shopkeepers were much younger than the crowd that worked that bazaar in 92. By then I had some cash, so bought a few necklaces. Caught a cab home for 200 rupees ( $4.00) and will rest for a while.

Saturday night in Kathmandu

Well here I am in Kathmandu. Some unexpected hitches in travel logistics, but finally made it to the apartment that will be home for the next month.

It is quite spacious, the staff here is as helpful as they can be given that I speak English and they speak Nepalese. There is a bar near the hotel with some singing Nepalese music. Not sure how late it will go on, but it is not too offensive.

Unfortunately I cannot get on the internet yet. I suspect I have to set up an account. So I cannot skype anyone right now to say I have arrived. And there is no reception for my cell phone.