Kathmandu is not a peaceful city. It is loud and overcrowded. I am reminded of the old tale of a wise professor filling a large jar to the top with stones and asking his students if it was full. Of course they fall for it and most say yes, and then he pours in pebbles to fill all of the spaces, and asks again. About half still fall for it, and say the jar is full, and then he goes on to blow their minds by adding sand, and then finally brings it home by pouring in water.
His moral is that you can fit all kinds of things into your life, but you have to take care of the big things first because they won't fit if the little things are already in the way. All I think about when I hear this story now is the streets of Kathmandu.
Add just the cars and trucks, and Lazimpat road- the main road in my neighborhood- looks not too different from any road back home. Those are the big stones. Then you've got rickshaws, most of them motorized on this road, but sometimes rigged to bicycles. And speaking of bicycles, there are also the people who have strapped a massive bookshelf to their bicycle, and are slowly walking in down the street to some unapparent destination. Then, like the sand rushing in to fill all of the empty spaces, are the thousands of motorcycles, always weaving, cutting in, swerving, with two, three, and sometimes a family of four people riding on one bike.
Coming to the main road from my small street, I see the road as most of the students saw the jar of stones. My brain tells me that it is full. But then people push past me (politely - gotta love the Nepalese), and proceed to glide into empty spaces, timing their advances with the moving vehicles, crossing the street in a feat that looks like it belongs on some Japanese obstacle course reality show.
I'm still terrified enough of traffic that I wait for comically long periods of time to cross the street, but it is funny how my brain now sees that big jar full of stones, pebbles, sand, and water, and feels no shock. And sure enough, as I pass a goat tied to a telephone pole in this urban center, or a monkey traipsing along the electrical cables, I know that there must be some type of molecule that could be injected into that full jar to make it even fuller.
Latest news:
- I'm hiring staff for the Volunteer Nepal office..."How to conduct an interview" is now on my Favorites tab
- Steffen leaves Monday for New Zealand. He'll work for a few weeks, and then I'll fly over in March!
- Motorbike has happened. We took a road trip to Bhaktapur (UNESCO world heritage site, Newari village). We wore helmets!
- Kathmandu is in the middle of a gas, petrol, water, electricity, and cat food shortage. The power is out around 11-14 hours per day, and people sit in line all day to fill their gas tanks. The cats are in heaven because we're feeding them tuna, chicken, and the occastional Puppy Chow (which, oddly, is abundantly available).
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