The Third Gender

So, I alluded to it in my last post.

The Third Gender.

Does anyone else think that thatmeans the aliens have landed?

According to an article I read in the paper a few days ago, in the 2011 census, the third gender are going to be acknowledged for the first time. People will be able to identify themselves as 'Third Gender'. There will be a 'Male' box, a 'Female' box and a 'Third Gender' box. This is a landslide, a victory in many ways.

According to a random fact Rory threw out earlier today, 15% of Nepali's classify as Third Gender. To me, this is a surprising high number, but perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. What is Third Gender.

From what I understand, Third Gender is a umbrella term to describe "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex" people. In my brief search I found that 2% of men and 1% of women in Australia identify as homosexual, I have no idea about the others. But at any rate this 15% number intrigues me.

The articles I have read suggest that the Nepali Supreme Court's decision to that the government repeal all discriminatory legislation against the Third Gender is a milestone for the community. I respect that. People have suggested, that even allowing people to identify as Third Gender in the census can help health policy as homosexuals are more at risk from HIV/AIDS etc.

I accept the value to human rights and anti-discrimination. But speaking as a data manager, (currently) a researcher and my general opinion, you can't just lump sexual preference in there with gender. They are two entirely seperate things. I think at the last hospital I worked at there were 5 options fo selecting gender and ZERO for selecting seual preference. Perhaps collection of that type of information would be incredibly useful. The privacy and sensibility of such a move would have to be debated and I have no intention of doing that here.

But as a data manager, the idea that 15% (if that is indeed an accurate number) of people will no longer be listed as male or female in the 2011 census is horrifying. I mean, what the hell will that do to the statistics, TO THE ANALYSIS???? ARGH! It blows my mind. OK, so you get a win in being abe to target health policies towards homosexual PEOPLE (not specifically men) or ttrans-gender or intersex, but you lose the ability to target health policies at do that same thing specifically at both women and men that have also ticked that box. Just because somebody has ticked the box to Third Gender because they are gay doesn't mean that they have changed body parts (they still have genitals). Women are one of the most underserved groups in Nepal (like most of the developing world) if the census (that a great many statistics are based on) don't accurately represent their number in any given population, they how good can any health policy or research be?

Yay to the Third Gender, but perhaps, a more practical implementation of it's meteoric rise?

Oh Banda My Banda

So I was sent home kind of early today, but it wasn't a celebration like one might often expect.  

Over the weekend things were kind fo crazy - a huge group of us went away to The Last Resort, a cool  little getaway near the Tibetan border for a weekend music festival.  As a festival it went off!  They have bungy and canyon swinging and high ropes courses and all kinds of adventure.  Or you can do what we did and just chill out for a brilliant evening of music.  

We spent Sunday lazing away in the sun enjoying some cards and poking fun at one another.  Three o'clock rolled up and it was time to leave  We spent about 20 minutes at the gate waiting to get across the suspension bridge due to some beurocratic issues, but eventually got on the bus and headed on our way.

Before too long we came to a bruidge upon which was a rather lazy looking group of smiling teenagers, who had just set fire to three or four tyres lying, rather unconveniently, in the middle of the road.  Quite pleased with themselves they were waving the flag of whatever political party they happen to be currently associated with, but generally standing around smiling at everyone.

As a general rule I object to bandhs, especially those where people are doing for the simple sake of setting something on fire or as an excuse to take the day off work.  This particular one (like many like it this Sunday just gone) were because the Prime Minister recently announced the sacking of the Chief of Army Staff of the Nepal Army.  This is big news.  Its hard to give the full story, because not only don't I know it, but it's intriguingly complicated and twisted.  

To summarise (badly) the Chief was responsible for the integration of the guerilla army into the regular army.  Which has to be about as much fun as integrating toothpicks to you behind.  Suffice to say, they have always hated each other and there's no love lost right now.  Apparently, the President disagrees with the reasons for the sacking and has announced that the PM's word doesn't count.  It's very difficult to really know who to listen to as Nepal is still without a constitution, so the powers held by certain positions are a little unclear.

The only thing that is certain is that you know you can rely on this story as I heard it from Liz who heard it from the guy on the bus who heard it from a reliable source that heard it from his cousin's husband's concubine's cat.  Who in turn heard it from the mouse he ate for breakfast.

The big news is actually that at 3pm today, Monday 4 May, 2009, the PM addressed the public.  This is why many of us were sent home.  No one knew what was going to happen at this point.  No one knew what he was going to say, and no one knew how anyone else was going to react.  As far as security goes, that's a good enough call for me to go home and shut the door.  It turns out that he resigned.  I heard this from the same source.  I really won't know what has actually happened, or what it means until I get to work tomorrow. BUT resigned!  It's BIG!  I mean, what the hell happens now?  For a long time he and the finance minister have threatened to take up their guins again.  Against whom, we weren't really certain.  A coup (or perhaps anti-coup, I'm not really sure how you can overthrow the government when you are the PM) has been suggested.

I think we just have to wait and see.  

[I'm trying to look unimpressed, unfortunately, due to my unfortunate pick of clothes that day,

 it seems to appear like I just lit the fire]

Gutful, an Absolute Gutful

For those of you expecting me to deliver another dreary, nasty and negative post about Nepal's political situation, you are half right.  This might be dreary nasty and negative, but its certainly not about Nepal.  Not this time.  Hey, my last post was more upbeat, and I don't think there were any references to Human Rights abuses at all!

This post is targeted at those ingrate tweens, twenty-somethings and even possibly thirty somethings (as I get closer I begin to realise that I need to be more inclusive).  The ones that have stupid political comments on their facebook, myspace, twitter and Hi5 profiles such as "I don't care", "politicians are all lying idiots anyway" or "meh".

To understand that simply having the freedom to make a comment like that should be enough to encourage you never to do so.  If you are even able to read this post then you are better off that a great number of people in the world.  You can read it (or I'm assuming that you can) because you got to go to a school.  A school that had a curriculum, put together by some kind of government agency or organisation.  If you are Australian, then you probably enjoy the benefits of Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme, Centrelink, having a road to drive to work on and you probably know people that got to have a high quality free university education.  You are protected from thousands of the world's diseases by the sometimes "over-protective" Australian Customs, and even if they did open all of my Christmas mail home, I understand why.  You are living in a society with an incredibly low unemployment rate.  It's pretty amazing when you can be in a country where people start getting worried when the unemployment rate starts to get above 5%.  You have power, because the electricity company has the infrastructure and appropriate political environment to actually carry out its job.

Do you people understand how lucky you are that you can not give two flips about what the politicians are up to on a day-to-day basis?  Can you not understand that you can only not care because at the heart of it you can decently expect those same lying cheating mongrels not to take your apathy, run a million miles with it before using it for their own financial advantage, twisting it, crunching it and manipulating it before wiping themselves off with it and flinging it off the end of the earth.  

You don't need to live in fear that Kevin Rudd will physically threaten Malcolm Turnbull and end up taking Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan on the war path to solidify their positions of power.

Please, wake up to how lucky you are and at least be interested in the action of your elected representatives.  In the processes of government that allow you to assume the garbage will be collected next week.  That you will have power when you flick the light switch, that members of your family won't go missing.  That your taxes are being spent on what people say they are spending them on.  Enjoy the freedom you have to politician bash, but do it for a reason, not because you are apathetic.

OK, so it turned out that it was about Nepal.  Only indirectly though.  I'm just sick of people being so blind to what is happening aroudn them when I can see the consequences of it.  A few images to get your head in the right place:

The Six Month Report

Today I received an email from my manager asking me to complete my six month report. It contains such questions as "what do you feel you have acheived so far?" and "Do you feel supported in your project?" and "Where to next?"

Facing a complete inability to answer these questions for myself, I started looking around me for something to distract me from the inevitable task of answering these impossibly difficult questions. My eyes fell on a group that might be asking themselves the same things. Or at least should be. Where to next? What have we actually achieved? Has anyone noticed that we aren't all that sure what needs to happen next? Harsh words to apply to a new government, but I am becoming increasingly perplexed and the political climate in Nepal.

In a place where the leaders are more capital city centric in their thinking than Queensland, I have already unloaded about the difficulties faced by load shedding - we may have 16 hours per day without power but there are some remote villages with NO POWER. We can't lay all the blame of that on the Maoists, obviously. Nepal has been in a situation of government instability for decades. Foreign aid was diverted from the projects it was intended for by the very people responsible for distributing it. Parts of the country thrive on insane levels of bureaucracy seen before probably only in Douglas Adams books. The need for more power plants was obviously recognised, but somehow, no one ever got to doing very much about it. However, the Maoists have made some horribly poor promises that people want to hold them to for good reason and they shouldn't have done that. They have a terrible shortcoming in looking no further than next week's crisis. There are so many pending crises (some they created and others they haven't) that if they keep this up, the 2 years allowed for the development of this constitution will be up before anyone has blinked an eye. They need to stop creating crises for themselves that not only prevent them from getting on and managing the country, but undermine their credibility as the group that intends to abolish castes and treat all people equally.

Some examples you say? The YCL (the youth arm of the Maoists [commonly referred to as Maoist cadres]) stormed the printing office of NepalMedia, assualted the journalists they found there and attempted arson to prevent further negative talk of the Maoist affiliated trade unions. Following the attack, a Maoist minister claimed that it never happened before taking it back and saying 'it wasn't that bad, at least nobody was murdered' before then accusing the journalists of attacking the YCL boys they then turned in two culprits whose fate I haven't yet ascertained. The event displayed the party's terrible lack of unification and a horrifying penchant for violence when things don't go their way. Oh yeah, as well as a lack of respect for a free press.

Recently, as I believe I have mentioned, some Indian preists were assisted in their 'resignation' from the holy Hindu temple Pashupati. What I don't think I mentioned was that they were replaced by Nepali priests appointed by the government. A stay-order laid down by the Supreme Court was ignored by a minister and the YCL (again) who broke down the gates and escorted the Nepali priests in to give worship. When some priests got together a press conference to voice their concerns they were attacked by the YCL and many tyres were burnt (disrupting my trip home, incidentally) and making a rather unpleasant smell float through the air. Incidentally, the urge to get the Nepali priests in there at all costs obviously dissipated as they reversed the decision with the whole event ending up being a waste of government and commuter time while admittedly making some interesting water cooler talk.

The Nepal Army started recruiting for vacant positions, that one can only assume developed through natural attrition as well as vacancies that may have been left over as a result of war. The Maoists objected to this and stated that if the Nepal Army began re-recruiting then they would too (obviously fearing some kind of coup). Hardly a situation that instills a sense of confidence in the people that you are done with your violent past. There is a perfectly valid argument for not recruiting and that is the strain on the economy that an inflated army creates, but they didn't go for that, they went for a game of cowboys and indians 'well, if you do that I will too! So there!'

Every time the Prime Minister comes under fire, his response seems to be 'fine then, I'll just quit!' Sorry, that's all I've got to say on that one.

There is another item, but I don't think it really has anything to do with the government, I just want to complain about it. The garbage hasn't been collected in more than a week. I put it down to load-shedding related strikes but there was a rumour that one of the landfills is locked, to which I say "where's the bloody key?" This might not be a problem you think, hey, the garbage men only come once a week in Australia... Well here's the thing. I'm not just talking about my area, I'm talking city-wide. We don't have wheelie bins, we don't have industrial bins and giant trash compacting trucks that lumber down the street. Our garbage piles up in certain allocated (or less allocated) areas on the street where is it available for dogs, monkeys and various scavengers to sort through for treasure. In fact, I actually saw one scavenging dog that had become an item of the garbage - such a shame. The pile was so bad down near New Road yesterday that the traffic could only go one-way!

I really worry about what is going to happen next. What will happen if they don't get re-elected? They have already displayed a lack of respect for the things that many countries hold dear. Want to stop corruption and imbezzlement within the richest temple in the country? Then stop the corruption, enforce some sort of regulation, don't just appoint your own lackeys. For this country to have a chance of future success the government needs to take a long-term view, stop creating issues for itself, get their violent youth under control by giving them something constructive to do and stop ingnoring the essence of democracy that they supposedly stand for, and allow a free press and respect the order of the courts!

The Indian Tourist

The other day as we drank tea outside the kitchen at work, we watched in fascination as 3 busloads of Indians emerged from 2 buses parked in our hospital car park.  They began washing their saris and then spreading out across the carpark and 'field' of dirt (that many Nepali's use for learning to drive / ride a motorbike) to stand patiently holding out their clothes to dry in the sun.

The entire experience was quite extraordinary as all the doctors, admin and ophathalmic assistant staff watched on.  I found myself gazing, mouth open, like so many of the Nepalis do to me as I ride down the street or do my shopping.  Nhukesh explained to me that they were here to visit Pashupatinath, the local temple that is kind of like a Hindu Mecca. People come from all across the Hindu world to worship there. 

Recently it’s been a hive of controversy when three Indian priests (historically the ONLY priests allowed to work there) 'resigned'.  The issue surrounded not only the history, but the supposed government involvement in the 'resignations' and appointment of two new Nepali priests.  There are two interesting sides to the argument, one suggesting that the temple makes a metric f-tonne of money from worshippers, and that the Indian priests might be either pocketing it, or magicing it away to

The other argument essentially revolves around the objection to change (from Indian priests to Nepalis) and to the government involvement in religion, which isn't suppsed to happen anymore.

As I ride to walk, this posse of Indian pilgrims trek in the opposite direction towards the temple.  They've pretty much taken over this section of town as each day a new bus can be found.  Nhukesh said that they come in their buses, bring all the food they will need for a month on the road, including stoves and washing tubs so as to avoid spending any money while here, and they sleep in the bus so don't need to pay for accomodation (as long as they can find somewhere to park it).  While probably frustrating for the local sahuji's, this lack of discretionary spending by the Indian tourist could be a sign of the financial economical downturn.  Or it could simply be the fact that they are incredibly poor people trying to get by in the world.

Yesterday afternoon I saw a group of 20 Indian ladies hanging out on the street corner at Gaushalachowk shooting the breeze like a gang of youths on a Friday afternoon at McDonald's.  The  contrast with their Nepali brethren was actually quite strong and surprising. 

I am still yet to visit Pashupatinath, I think it might happn when Mum and Dad get here in two weeks...yay!

Incendiary Devices and Emails

Two bombs were set off about two days ago.  At the moment I know very little about it, other than "stay away from garbage piles (impossible BTW, they're everywhere) in the early morning" and "large crowds" (ummmmm....is anyone else a little sick of the government rhetoric for Australians in ANY foreign country?).

What I do know is that one was set off at the gate to the airport, responsibility claimed by a gropup from the Terai - sort of making it unrelated to the political argument mentioned in the last post, and another near the oldest high school in town - unsure whether related or not.  I think one person was injured.  The following is an email trail from today, where I tried to unravel more of the mystery.  [It should be noted, that while I sit back enjoying 24/7 power like a king, my fellow travellers are suffering through 13 hours per day of load shedding/sharing (as announced today)].

Rob: Do you guys know more about the explosions from the other day?  I haven’t got a paper yet.  Apparently the one near the airport was claimed by a group from the Terai.
Avi:  I havent' heard anythign and to be honest, am more interested in the new load shedding schedule...is that terrible of me?
Rob: It strikes me as weird.  But then, I don’t think about the load shedding schedule, so maybe I’m the terrible one.

[added 1/1/2009] Avi: it's all about the hot showers rob. where to find one, how to make sure it lasts long enough so you actually get clean. Separatist nationalist movements pale in comparison to this.

PS. I'm fine, statistics show I'll be fine*.  Foreigners were not targeted during the revolution**. I'm smiling still, so you should too...well - a prayer or two would be nice if you are religious.

*....probably
**....mostly

Laziness, Gastro and a sole Christmas

When one gets sick, one tends to get lazy.  Simply leaving the house poses a challenge too uninviting to bother contemplating.  Our first Christmas gathering - yes, the fateful night that involved Swifty's recent troubles - left me recarving the line in the carpet from my bedroom to the bathroom.  At a pinch, the ground can be covered in less that 5 seconds, but various household furniture and / or items will be left rolling in my wake.

Yes, I missed a day of work to sickness, it would have been more, but conveniently, I already had the time off for Christmas.  Unfortunately for me, it meant that I missed my friend's Christmas party.  Something I had been looking forward to for about 2 months.  There was a great deal of hype about this party, with Jess even promising to bring back a leg of ham from Australia for the occaision.  At one time there was a rival Christmas party which left her thinking no one was going to show.  As a result she invited the crew from her work.  The other party fell through making Jess the star attraction with a party of more than 40 people.  I sadly spent most of Christmas day in bed feeling sorry for myself or sleeping, in-between attempts to watch some Jackie Chan movie.

That was two days ago however and yesterday I felt up to attempting solid food.  Lacking the strength to bother cooking for myself, I headed out to a trustworthy cafe nearby and picked up the Friday weekly paper - the Nepali Times,  I have never read it before, but it was recommended to me.  

Just a short aside:  I read something the other day that suggested there are two types of bloggers.  Reporters and Examiners.  Obviously, one reports on events, what I did / ate / defaecated etc.  The other actually discusses things, talking about their reactions to certain situations, they report, but they also analyse.  I am starting to get the feeling that I am only really reporting on this blog, which makes me a little sad, because I have more to offer than that.  I guess I have been a little careful, as I don't want to insult or defame the programme I am on, or the people of Nepal.  But sometimes you can be too careful, and I don't want to do that at the sacrifice of sharing my opinion and experiences.  OK, thanks for bearing with me on that, end aside..

Getting to the end of an article in Nepali paper tends to give me mixed emotions.  Usually shock.  You see, although they publish it in English as well as Devanagari, most of the dailies are so poorly translated (or perhaps written in the first place) that it can be a shock to even get to the end without having given up.  When you do make it to the end, you often have to go back and read it all again because it either contradicted itself or made no sense in the first place.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself reading the Nepali Times cover to cover.  The latest in the schoolyard of political turmoil that is Nepal has developed over the last week.  Last Friday, the Nepali Times apparently reported rather negatively on the trade unions antics, or its associations with the Maoist party (effectively those in power - although its supposedly a coalition government).   Seeing this as a slight on their party (which in all seriousness it probably was), certain members took it upon themselves to storm Himalmedia's office, physically "intimidate" the journalists there, and light fire to certain parts of their equipment and/or office - sorry, I'm a little confused about the actual details.  Their office in one district is actually still under siege, and they haven't been able to print any of their dailies all week.

This week's edition was reporting on the obvious attack this is on the free press - well-perceived as a truly democratic thing.  It also highlighted the disunity that exists amongst the Maoist party - with the leadership agreeing on the poor nature of the attacks, but not really promising to put a stop to them.  We are seeing a split developing amongst the party that is supposedly trying to unify Nepal.

This is where the examination comes in.  Although I actually enjoyed reading the Nepali Times, it was hard not to see it as just the "Opinion" section of any paper.  I have not read it each week certainly, so this could be an exception, but as far as newspapers go it appeared at no point to be objective and report the facts.  The Maoists/trade union seem to be claiming that they were actually reacting to physical abuse from Himalmedia's managers on several staff they had let go, but as they have only really reported one side of the story I am left a little confused.

Its all well and good to promote a free press, as it is to villify these attacks.  However that free press must also report both sides of the news.  I fear in this case, the journalists are too close and personally involved in the attacks that it is difficult for them to report objectively, further alienating the Maoists who want their side of it reported too.  

Coming from a country with relatively no violent political action I really hate to see people that think violence is the only way of expressing their political opinon.  I find it worse that they can get away with it because the police don't have the sophistication (or perhaps the fortitude) to do anything but stand on the corner holding a stick or occaisionally walk down the street with an assault rifle or shotgun.  At any rate, the developments following these incidents and the future of this more violent arm of the Maoist party will definitely impact on the future political landscape of the country.  I watch in avid fascination.

In This Country

There are two important happenings that I want to talk about. Each significant in its own right. So I will keep them seperate.

Firstly, on Friday, I was fortunate enough to catch up online with my South African friend Sheena. She did a 20 Q interview with me regarding my experiences so far, my mental state and explaining just why there are so many men around touching each other. You can read the interview here* (of course, I must stipulate at this point that any swearing contained therein was her creative input, and not mine..;))

It was strangely ironic that, in the evening of Friday I went to the Lazimpat Gallery Cafe to watch one of their weekly movies. The movie was called "In My Country", and was about the South African Aparteid and all the trials that took place. Knowing very little about the entire subject (it pains me to admit), I was very moved by this movie. It goes through some of the stories of victims of the racist regime and how they confronted their attackers. Amnesty would be granted to abusers (often white police) as long as they made a full confession, were confronted by their accusers and prove that they were under orders [anyone feel free to clarify my brief version of history]. The purpose of this amnesty was to allow the country to move on through their terrible past and start over.

The reason this was important to me is not just the movie itself (although I found it very informative and emotive), but what happened afterwards. Raj (the very friendly guy that seems to work at LGC 24/7 and now knows us quite well) asked if I had liked it. He said it was a very good movie and very significant to Nepal. I have found it all to easy to miss the fact that Nepal has been engrossed in a messy civil war for the last 12 years. In fact, it was only months before my arrival that the king was kicked out of office, and since my arrival that we had the "election" of the President, Vice-President and Prime Minister.

Raj said he saw the significance of the reconciliation and said that he thought it could easily work here. There were many human rights crimes committed by both the government/police/army and the Maoists as they battled for control of the country. He told of a story of a family in the village where he grew up "very far from 'ere". This is my understanding:

"A man and a woman had gone out to speak to the Maoists about the seizing of their land. The police arrived at their house and found their 7 year old child there. The child, completely unaware of the politics told them that the parents were speaking with the Maoists. The police shot the child and threw the body into the river. They believed that the parents were Maoists, and in that case that the child would grow up to be Maoist."

Raj believes that if there could be a confrontation and a complete and honest admission of guilt, then Nepal will be able to get on with getting on, and fix this country up some. If only things could be so simple.

It was a horrible reminder to me that this country is struggling with some terribly deep running scars, and that they are desperately recent.

*Not available yet