Nepal update

There’s still ”load-shedding” around here (scheduled power-cuts) but it’s now down from some 40 hours a week to ”only” about 20 hours. The show must go on, so this is what I look like when I’m writing in the evenings.

Hi there, just felt it was time for a little rant about big and small things. Here goes.

This just in: Today the Chinese managed to scale Everest with the Olympic torch. (The summit of Everest is in Nepal, FYI.)

Great. How many torches do they have anyway. A week ago it was on the way up, then it was in Hong Kong and now it’s on top again. And it’s flying around, back and forth across the world. Defeats the whole idea, IMO. The only proper way to carry the torch is by hand, running from Athens to Beijing. And the whole Everest thing. Again, same feeling of couldn’t care less. It’s a freaking government / military operation or whatever. And they’re stopping everybody else from going there in the process. Then what’s the point. Their sorry little media stunt may impress some of their own people, but not me. Scaling Everest’s got to be done with the right spirit, and this is not it. Throwing everybody of the mountain and such, good old Charlie Haviland (my colleague from BBC) and that American guy who’s now expelled from Nepal.

How can the Nepalese government, even the Maoists, support China’s suppression of Tibetan demonstrations? Hell, even do the same thing themselves here in the streets of Kathmandu every day? It’s only 2 years ago that the Nepalese government and Maoists got to power on the basis of exact similar mass uprising by the people! And now you get expelled for peacefully supporting a similar cause. Well, it’s no secret that China is a strategically important partner for Nepal so they’ll apparently go along way to be the good little neighbor.


But enough of that. What’s it like here anyway?

During the last month it’s gotten a lot warmer around here, humidity is on the rise and we’ve started to get thunder and afternoon showers. Is it related to the Burma cyclone? Maybe a little spin-off of the same weather system. I’m not a religious man, but my prayers goes out to the people in Burma these days. Some of the nicest and most innocent people I’ve ever met. Firs the violent suppression of the monks protests and now this. And the whole military regime to begin with.

Election results are out now, Maoist didn’t get majority but they are comfortably the biggest party now. What a turn of events. So now we’re waiting for the first meeting in the new (care-taker) parliament, no date yet but can’t be long. And the de-throning, which they’ve said they’ll try and do peacefully.

And me, I’ve started writing again. Well, I never really stopped but I’m now starting to crank out more stories now. (Newest one here: Hinduism & Buddhism combined.) Putting the ‘J’ back in ‘PJ’ - Photo-Journalist.

And then I’ve also started teaching Danish language to a bunch of Nepali guys who’s going there later in the year. For now it’s just a 2 month gig but if it’s a success, I might continue longer. The institute that hired me already asked me to continue and the word got out -as it always does in Nepal- so another institute contacted me. So sure, there’s still enough work around here, at the same time insisting on having time for the little family and the usual round of domestic chores.

I think that’s about it. Thunder clouds are starting to roll in and the unreliable power is getting more and more unreliable, so I’ll switch of now. ‘Till next time...