One photo a week

No posts here for a month and a half now. Sorry about that, I’ll try to post more often from now on. Even during the dry periods where nothing much apparently happens. But there’s always things happening inside my head. Well, maybe not this week, since I’ve been down with the flu. But my brain is now back on 90% power. One entry per week here should provide a more continuous feel for the local situation, I think. Often, it’s the little things that gives the best understanding, isn’t it?

Climate change on the horizon. This man in Nepalganj is using a more sustainable form of transport than us photographers, journalists and all the experts attending conferences in Bali and Hawaii.

© Morten Svenningsen

So, last week I was a few days in Nepalganj (a small town in the flatlands of Nepal, if you aren’t familiar with the local geography) doing a reportage for Save the Children. It was about the annual flooding and how it affects the local people there. This year it affected 336.534 people, according to some statistics the client brought. Man, where do they come up with those exact numbers?

Well, it’s a lot of people and it’ll probably just get worse over the years with the continuing population boom, global warming and all that. Of course, we’re now in the middle of the dry season here, so all I could do was to go around and take some photos of people showing how high the water was half a year ago. Damn! But, well, the client was happy...

But I’ve just been thinking about this climate change thing and what UN and all the other NGO’s are doing about it. Of course, we flew in from Kathmandu. Some of us from Europe. Meanwhile in Bali, thousands of delegates have been flying in to that big conference and next month they’ll all fly to Hawaii. That’s a lot of jet fuel burned straight into our atmosphere. Not to mention all the heated offices and 4WD vehicles they utilize here in Nepal. And what are they accomplishing? Here in Nepal, they do provide some relief, tents and rice and such, but more long-term improvements are happening really really slow. And with all their traveling around to meetings, their office generators and so on, I’ve got a feeling that the NGO’s are actually contributing more to the problem here than they’re mitigating it. Let’s at least say that one UN-staffer contributes about as much to the problem as a couple of typical Nepalese villages. That can’t be too far off!

I hope I’m wrong, God I do, but...

It wouldn’t be fair to publish the Nepalganj photos here yet, since the client hasn’t had a chance to run the story yet. So you’re just gonna have to make do with the one at the top of this entry. I don’t think they’ll use it.