Unless I've been subtler than I think, anyone who has read this blog in the past month is probably aware that Kathmandu is not my favorite city.
However, there's one part I gravitate to repeatedly – this and the previous two times I've been here. Hanuman Dokha and Durbar Square always call my name. The whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and well it should be.
This maybe quarter of a square mile area is packed to the brim with temples, bathing wells, shrines and a palace that date back in many cases more than 600 years. I've actually accidentally stepped on a Buddhist shrine because some of them are embedded in the ground. Every which way you turn, someone's worshipping something. There are also people laying some instrument or another, lighting something on fire and carrying something twice their size.
Eight years ago, I found a large, decapitated water buffalo at the gate of the temple of the Hindu goddess of destruction. I walked around the area and when I looked back five minutes later, some guys came with a cart and hauled the carcass off. After all, the goddess had her kill, but there were people who needed their dinner.
In the four weeks we have been in Nepal, I hadn't had the opportunity to walk around Durbar Square in daylight. Malfunctioning and slow Internet made it so that my weekdays were full with trying to get what used to be a few hours a day of work done by 2 am. Mix in our social engagements and the past two weekends away, and I really haven't had any time to just spend freely.
So, when I commented that I still hadn't walked the area in daylight, Emily made sure I stopped working and and took a walk around my favorite part of town.
As I walked and marveled at the things I have seen and admired before, I wished that all of Kathmandu was like this – old buildings that reflect Nepali heritage, architecture and cultural contribution. I think the people living in some of those hundreds of years old buildings are better off than people in the cheap blocks of cement elsewhere in the city.
I'm not sure the people of Kathmandu would agree with me. The newer buildings have more conveniences, smell less (in most cases) and represent a modern outlook. In the established view of development, the new, taller rectangular buildings that cover most of Kathmandu represent a move forward. If they don't quite reach for the future, they at least touch the heels of the technological present.
But they are devoid of soul. They say nothing of interest about the people of the country other than "poor third-world".
In a strange juxtaposition, I – the westerner – want Kathmandu to look like its past while the city's residents want it to be more western.
It occurred to me that perhaps an American more than a European could especially crave a restoration of all the old buildings and a revival of Nepali and Newari style and architecture. After all, we started our country with a blank slate. On the West Coast, most of our cities as we know them are little more than 80 years-old. From the ground-up, our cities were built not just in modernity, but as testaments to modernity.
You know what? While we have our beauitful spots and exciting developments – our cities themselves are a little boring. They offer us little inherent connection to culture and even less link to our past – partly because we don't have that much past.
America remains – in the relative sense of things – a start-up nation. We have some of the most comfortable homes and neighborhoods in the world. Our quality of life is infinitely better than the people of Nepal. Most amazingly, we create our own meaning. We constantly shape, define and redefine our culture. In fact, I would say that adaptability and change are some of the strongest elements and values in American culture.
All of that said, compared to much of the world – our cities are a little snoozy on the culture front.
Here in Nepal, people want nothing more than to be us and have what we have. America is another god to put up on the hill and worship. Nepalis hope that perhaps one day, one of these gods and goddesses in one of these temples and shrines will grant them the riches of America and in so doing, take away their suffering. As far as most of them know, we all live enchanted lives without a care in the world.
"America! Rich country! You are rich!" numerous people have said to us after they find out where we're from.
"Look, life isn't that simple. At every stage of development, in every economic bracket, in every country in the world – people suffer. We have people that suffer too. There are problems of all kinds you don't know about that lie beyond the door. I've seen the spectrum – top to bottom – and I'm here to tell you, it's not all what you think it is," I want to tell them.
But it wouldn't make any sense at all – nor do I think it should.
I wish Nepalis had the means and the inclination to start a renaissance or revival of their greatest asset besides the Himalayas – their culture. I wish that every new building employed traditional architecture or at least elements of it. I wish they would restore the oldest buildings that are literally falling apart – because I know that the structure that follows will be as dull as a spoon. I wish that when a goat walks up to a 600 year-old temple next to a 400 year-old palace and starts eating wood fixtures, someone would at least stop it.
The irony of Nepal – along with so many third-world countries – is on the march of "progress" – on their march to be like us – they not only lose parts of who they are, but they wash away some of the things that would give them the greatest wealth. If more of Kathmandu looked like Durbar Square, people would flock to see the gorgeous capitol of Nepal.
If homes and shops all had character and at least the veneer of history and culture, tourism would gain momentum and develop new dimensions. Some of these shopkeepers who try to scrape by selling packages of crackers to people who have even less money than they do, might benefit.
Last night at dinner, our friend Yvette said that she marvels at Nepal and Kathmandu because unlike her travels in India, she finds the culture and mindset in Nepal "Medieval! It's marvelously Medieval! There's magic here. They truly believe in it. I'm absolutely convinced that there's a magic kingdom here still and I want to find it!"
We love her.
Perhaps Yvette has hit on something. Who doesn't want to find themselves in a magical kingdom? Isn't that what Disney sells? Only instead of pouring concrete castles and pulling costumed characters out of secret doors, Nepal has the real-deal already.
If instead of building blocks of cement and brick with tangles of electric and phone wires going every which way, Nepalis could restore the marvels they've had for centuries – they might just find they don't need to be us, and that the America of their imagination doesn't belong on the hill next to the Buddha.
In a city where prayer is as ubiquitous as polluted air and poverty, that is my prayer for them.
