Our Former Exchange Students
Currently, Ana works at a store on Whyte Avenue called Polly Magoo's. She was lucky to be invited by the store owner to travel to Nepal as a buyer for the store. Here is her description of the trip:
The airplane skidded on the concrete runway. As it slowed and turned towards the primitive airport, I saw the vast frontier of mountains and lowlands. It smelled of dried shrimp.
I must be in Nepal.
I waited a moment in silence before trying to move out of my seat. The other passengers were getting restless as there were no instructions or contact being made to instruct us how to get off the small cramped humid airplane. Successive burst of static came through the intercom against a background of deep, low-pitched murmuring, "Sorry for the delay. There is a cow in the runway. It will only take a few moments. Please be patient."
Huh. I looked out the small window to see airport officials in full uniforms waving their arms about, trying to scare the apathetic heifer to move away from the entrance door.
I must be in Nepal.
***
I went to Nepal as a buyer for the store, Polly Magoo's. I was to be gone for 16 days; half of the time was to be spent in Thailand, the other half in Nepal. After browsing through guidebooks, I was convinced that Nepal was more or less a "Little India": I expected wild arrays of colours, flowy dresses, saris, and aromas of spices wafting from windows and from cute little concrete restaurants and cafes. Instead, I got an eyeful of how poor one of the world's poorest countries is like.
We stepped out and instantly we were bombarded with taxi drivers and other citizens with almost illegible scrawlings of "TAXI" written on cardboard signs sitting on the dashboard of their vehicles, coaxing us that "we are indeed safe to come with them". Right, sure I am.
I looked at my watch to fix the date and time. It was January 3rd, 2006. As I picked up the nearest English newspaper, I noticed two things:
1) the newspaper headline read, "Maoist ceased ceasefire. Country in official civil war." and,
2) Gherkas, the Nepalese national army, were standing here and there with AK-47s strapped across their back. Interesting.
Here I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, a country in civil war, and I was to be here until Saturday. Great, just peachy. My boss and I sat inside a taxi and I looked out to see the decrepit squalor of the alleged birthplace of Buddha. The whole city was in various shades of grey and brown. Most of the streets we drove down were hardly wide enough to let two men walk comfortably side by side. Pools of oily liquids spread out beneath metal drums; a nauseating smell hung in the air; footprints, in a series of glutinous smears went off in all directions. Most of them were the size of children's feet. Here and there were patches of colors and silks, a memory of a long-ago distant hope of prosperity. Instead, most of the remnants of Nepali culture were hidden underneath signs of "DSL SHIPPING", "SUPERMARKET, FREE INTERNET", placards of "SALE: NEW NEPALI YAK WOOL!" and "LES YEUX RESTAURANT: WE HAVE HOOKAS!".