Nepali Chronicles – A unique 2080 Country where it rained Rocks on Melamchi River
My work for and with children has taken places! When a Manager from APDK reached out to me to join him for a cross country exchange on parental care and establishing of a child protection network in Nepal, I didn’t know what to expect. Nepal is in the first month of 2080! I had no idea that I was going to the oldest kingdom in Asia – Gorkha Kingdom! I had no idea that I will witness with my own eyes the effect of climate change – monsoon rains of 2020 whose water moved rocks and boulders from the Himalayan Mountains displacing 350,000 people, crushing down 25 bridges of Melamchi River! I had no idea that I would set feet at the foot of Helambu Rural Municipality – a four and half hour’s road trip only suitable for 4-wheeled vehicles, that brings your heart to your mouth as you climb up and roll down on hills that you can’t keep count. I had no idea that one day I will see with my own eyes the Himalayan Mountains that borders Nepal and Tibet! I had no idea that I would celebrate Boudha’s birthday at Boudha Stupa! I had no idea that I would visit a Tibetan Doctor whose stethoscope is his hands! I had no idea I would see the future – 2080: 57 years ahead. Listening to Rita – an Irish very knowledgeable lady gives the history of Nepal, makes one shudder at this “chicken neck-like” country sandwiched between India and China. The kingdom reign ended in 2006 when war broke out in the family of the King whose son killed his entire family. For ten years, the country was at war. Peace was only restored when a constitution was put in place six years ago. What sticks out in this Gorkha Kingdom, is the caste system that is alive and real! Shiva says – “It is in the bone”. Marrying across the castes is frowned at. The Brahmins (Priests), Kshartriya/Chhetri (Kings), Vaishya (merchants, land owners), Sudra (commoners, peasants, servants), Dalits -Untouchables, outcasts (street sweepers, latrine cleaners). Armed with information, we test the waters during a workshop at Just Nepal Foundation! We meet a jovial lady who tells us how she was vegetarian for 20 years but has now started eating meat and her daughter loves meat! I ask what happened? She says she got married in a family that was not vegetarian so it was difficult when she was in family functions where they always ate meat. I tease her, “You are a Brahmin” She smiles and agrees, “Yes, but I don’t like talking about it”. End of the story – she does not want to talk about it. Later that day at dinner, she opens up about challenges of marrying across castes. She tells us what befell a friend of hers from higher caste who defied her parents and got married in a lower caste: Her father never talked to her for 8 years!!! Rita makes it even more dramatic! If a girl got married in a lower caste, the parents went to police to report that their daughter has been kidnapped and demand arrest of the boy (husband). But if a girl from a lower caste got married in a higher caste, they will talk in low tones that she has gotten good life! We later learn that all the persons we met at the two workshops at CWISH and JNF were all Brahmins save for one person! Issues of castes affect children in deeper ways! We went to Nepal to learn how to prevent children from being separated from their families! So how does the caste system affect children? We get to know that many Nepali who are trained as teachers are from the Brahmin caste! So many were trained as teachers and posted to the hilly areas of Nepal occupied by lower caste! The teachers saw this as a punishment! Due to caste system, they cannot interact with the children they are teaching. They can’t touch what the lower caste persons have touched. So how did they mark books of children from the lower caste? The children put the books at an agreed place, then teachers take them, mark and return there!!! Wonders never cease. Many children have been taken to boarding schools! It is fashionable but an old practice that has been modified! Especially in religious sense! Traditionally, the Buddhist used to dedicate their children the Monastery! Every second son was sent to the Monastery while one out of 3 girls was sent to a Nunnery! Nepal has Monasteries everywhere! Tokyi Guest House, where we lived was surrounded by monasteries! We passed through one and I saw very small children some as young as seven year! My child instinct could not keep me calm, so I asked why are these children here? I was told that it is a big thing to get children from Tibet into the Monasteries, from there, they find their citizenship to America! So, what’s happening? Many Nepali children are flogging into Monasteries in the name of them being from Tibet! So boarding schools are a passport to a good life! And here we are on a cross-country exchange learning how keep children away from separation with their families!!! The show stopper was walking on the rocks of the river bed of Melamchi River as we watched the tractors open up the river for the expected Monsoon rains. As we stood at what used to be JNF office, Gopal narrates what happened in 2022. A radio presenter for a local station in Helambu was busy doing what he was trained to do, entertaining the masses in the locality when his phone rang severally but since has was on air he ignored the call which was from his boss! When he caught some breathe, he called back his boss who told him to alert the people to move to higher ground! Disaster! Disaster! Destruction! Destruction! was coming down from
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