We drive southeast from Trisuli Bazar on a paved road to Kumaltar, a military checkpost, and then on a dirt road along the curved banks of the Tadi Khola (river). Despite its crude condition, the road is plied by
a regular stream of trucks and buses overflowing with people and goods. Passing other vehicles along Nepal’s one-lane roads always boils down to a game of chicken, with each driver yelling at the other to yield, and usually ending with the smaller vehicle giving way and driving backwards to the nearest shoulder.We also experience, in each direction, several other distinctly Third World forms of road delay:
- At many inside turns, water cascading down the hillside creates a rocky stream or a muddy pool across the road. A bus becomes mired in the mud, after which the passengers clamber off the roof and out of the bus, stand about and freely offer advice to the driver and one or two volunteers attempting to dig the vehicle out of the muck (45 min delay).
- A truck breaks down in the middle of the road after dark, blocking traffic in both directions. A mechanic is fetched who works by torchlight under the front axle (1 hr delay).
- At the end of the dirt road, a truck deposits a plain coffin containing a deceased head of family (who had been electrocuted) to be carried back to the village for burial. Hysterical wife and family members wail around the coffin, clawing to remove its top, and preventing the truck, which is ahead of our vehicle, from turning around (20 min delay).
The Tadi Kohla Express Bus:
The dirt road ends at Samundratar, where the Chake Khola joins the Tadi Khola, and we walk across the blue towered foot bridge to this little hamlet for lunch. While we wait for our dal-bhat to be cooked (about an hour, starting with bringing in firewood), we c
heck out the village’s sole land-line phone and internet station. The phone line transmission is so slow that we fail to access the web for e-mail.
We trek northwards all afternoon along the picturesque Tadi canyon. The porter whom we hired back in the hamlet carries our two full-size packs (lashed together, about 70 pounds total) in the traditional way, on his back with a rope attached to a sash across his forehead. His legs are little more than sticks and I estimate his weight at 115 pounds; he looks about 55 years old but at our first rest stop we learn that he’s 40. We pass eight Tamang hamlets and walk over several footbridges, flanked by steep forested hills and cascading waterfalls, and reach our destination, Ghyangphedi village, at dusk.
As we walk under a hand-lettered “Welcome” sign, we are met by the village’s LNPBZ representative. On the back porch of his house, the villagers gather and we conduct an unstructured fact-finding query into their living circumstances. The most common response to our questions is “chai-na”. meaning “no,” “none,” or “nothing,” attesting to their deprived conditions. For example:
- Although only 40 km from Kathmandu as the crow flies, the the village is isolated by the very steep surrounding terrain. We are the first foreign visitors in 10 years.
- Rice, the most widely eaten and valuable grain in Nepal, is not grown here (whether from the altitude or ignorance of adaptable strains is not clear). Their crops are limited to millet (used to make rakshi), maize, and potatoes.
- 80% of families experience hunger for at least two months of the year
- No one in this village of 28 households has a toilet, except for one family that has a pit outhouse.
- The nearest clinic is one and a half hours away. Two babies died last year during or following delivery.
- No one here has more than a primary school education. The closest primary school is an hour away, and it has no permanent teachers. The Village Development Council for the 9 Tamang hamlets must spend a large portion of its annual government handout to pay for temporary teachers to come from outside the district.
- The village was electrified two years ago, but the power is unreliable. Despite the waterfalls that surround us, no one has installed a mini-hydroelectric generator, which could produce the 3 to 5 megawatts that would be adequate to light every household.
- The women here are noticeably more reticent than those in Jibjib. The mother’s group, whose treasury was lost during the Maoist insurrection, has not been functioning.
The first and only question from the audience comes from a woman who asks, “What are you going to give us?” We think to ourselves, where to start? Lighting and health care are the least of their issues. The villagers cite toilets as their greatest want, and so the WWF takes this feedback under their hat.
We have a late dinner of dal-baht (the national staple dish of rice, lentils, and fried potatoes). Our group sleeps laid out like sardines along the veranda, under dried maize hanging from the rafter, with me at the end next to the goat platform.
heck out the village’s sole land-line phone and internet station. The phone line transmission is so slow that we fail to access the web for e-mail.
We trek northwards all afternoon along the picturesque Tadi canyon. The porter whom we hired back in the hamlet carries our two full-size packs (lashed together, about 70 pounds total) in the traditional way, on his back with a rope attached to a sash across his forehead. His legs are little more than sticks and I estimate his weight at 115 pounds; he looks about 55 years old but at our first rest stop we learn that he’s 40. We pass eight Tamang hamlets and walk over several footbridges, flanked by steep forested hills and cascading waterfalls, and reach our destination, Ghyangphedi village, at dusk.
As we walk under a hand-lettered “Welcome” sign, we are met by the village’s LNPBZ representative. On the back porch of his house, the villagers gather and we conduct an unstructured fact-finding query into their living circumstances. The most common response to our questions is “chai-na”. meaning “no,” “none,” or “nothing,” attesting to their deprived conditions. For example:
- Although only 40 km from Kathmandu as the crow flies, the the village is isolated by the very steep surrounding terrain. We are the first foreign visitors in 10 years.
- Rice, the most widely eaten and valuable grain in Nepal, is not grown here (whether from the altitude or ignorance of adaptable strains is not clear). Their crops are limited to millet (used to make rakshi), maize, and potatoes.
- 80% of families experience hunger for at least two months of the year
- No one in this village of 28 households has a toilet, except for one family that has a pit outhouse.
- The nearest clinic is one and a half hours away. Two babies died last year during or following delivery.
- No one here has more than a primary school education. The closest primary school is an hour away, and it has no permanent teachers. The Village Development Council for the 9 Tamang hamlets must spend a large portion of its annual government handout to pay for temporary teachers to come from outside the district.
- The village was electrified two years ago, but the power is unreliable. Despite the waterfalls that surround us, no one has installed a mini-hydroelectric generator, which could produce the 3 to 5 megawatts that would be adequate to light every household.
- The women here are noticeably more reticent than those in Jibjib. The mother’s group, whose treasury was lost during the Maoist insurrection, has not been functioning.
The first and only question from the audience comes from a woman who asks, “What are you going to give us?” We think to ourselves, where to start? Lighting and health care are the least of their issues. The villagers cite toilets as their greatest want, and so the WWF takes this feedback under their hat.
We have a late dinner of dal-baht (the national staple dish of rice, lentils, and fried potatoes). Our group sleeps laid out like sardines along the veranda, under dried maize hanging from the rafter, with me at the end next to the goat platform.
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