Garvesh

She speaks about the way the temperature decreases as the group gets closer to the summit. I try to imagine what it would be like, but I honestly have no idea. I’ve only seen snow once in my life and I’ve never even been on a hike. How could I even begin to fathom what it would be like to stand 29,000 feet above sea level on the highest mountain in the world? It makes me think about the prettiest days we have in Bhaktapur; the clouds part, the air pollution settles and I can see the infamous Mount Everest. “Garvesh,” she calls, and my attention is brought back to the classroom, “don’t forget to do the homework tonight.” My classmates start to pack up and I follow in sync. After saying goodbye to my teachers and friends, I begin walking back home on the cracked sidewalk. I hurry home because I know my mother worries and I’m excited to start the job that is waiting for me.

As I pass the busy side streets I see women carrying loads of bricks on their backs, the older boys practicing soccer, and the girls beginning to close their shops for the day. I politely decline offers from a vendor and remind myself to smile at the sanyāsī when I pass. My father owns a shop where we sell wooden furniture. His hands are always wrinkled and dark from the carving and my mother's voice always sounds worn from constant interaction with customers. Though, I know today will be different- be better.

Monsoon season came earlier than we were expecting and that means we are already planting rice with our neighbors. The second I get home I run to my room to put on shorts so I can join my family in the rice field. I love the feeling of the mud squishing between my toes when I step in, the cold ground cools my warm body, and I can’t help but smile at the sight of the perfectly parallel rows. My father is somewhat of a perfectionist and works hard to ensure the rows are straight and the seeds are placed with exactly enough space between each other. After a few hours in the field, the sun begins to set and my neighbors return home to wash themselves and prepare for dinner. My mother says we can stay a few minutes longer to finish the rows we began. My mother bends over to put another seed into the mud and her foot kicks up a splash that dirties my face. I playfully spray her back and the war begins. My father grabs fistfulls of thick mud and hucks them in my direction. I kick and throw as fast as I can and before I know it the whole family is wrestling and laughing together. When I stand up I am covered head to toe in layers of dark mud and I couldn’t be more grateful.

This was written from the perspective of a teenage boy in Bhaktapur Nepal. It is the account of a typical daily routine,  beginning with school and ending surrounded by family members working to grow rice in order to help support themselves. A great amount of the Nepalese culture can be understood through this boy’s story.

The boy started his day sitting in a classroom learning about Mt. Everest. This mountain impacts all of the Nepalese people, especially those that reside near it. Nepal is ranked one of the poorest countries in the world and so tourism plays a very important role in the country's economy.  Mount Everest climbers have been a dependable source of income , travelling to the country consistently for hundreds of years. In climbing season alone, from March to May, the population at the base of Mount Everest rises from around 40,000 to 700,000. A large portion of Nepalese people depend on this attraction to draw in tourists and give them jobs.

The boy walked home on a cracked sidewalk. This sidewalk was most likely broken in an earthquake in 2015. The earthquakes that struck near the city of Kathmandu in central Nepal killed about 9,000 people, injured over 20,000, and more than 600,000 structures in Kathmandu and other nearby towns were either damaged or destroyed.

The women carrying bricks on their backs in the boy’s story were representative of the Nepalese people’s persistence to recover from the devastating natural disaster. Even though the earthquake was a horrific and costly event, the people of Nepal remain strong in their fight to restore buildings, streets, and families.

The sanyāsī that the boy smiled at is a fairly common figure seen throughout Nepal. A sanyāsī is figure in the Hindu religion. Hinduism is the most common religion found throughout Nepal attracting about 80% of the total population. Hindus believe in a universal soul or God called Brahman. Brahman takes on many forms that some Hindus worship as gods or goddesses in their own way. Hindus believe that there is a part of Brahman in everyone and this is called the Atman. This is one possible explanation that the people of Nepal have such great respect for one another.

Being the son of a shop owner is a very common occurrence in present day Nepal. Nepal is the poorest country in South Asia and ranks as the twelfth poorest countries in the world. The citizens there are commonly working long hard hours in order to make just enough money to support their families. This is one of the reasons that many of the families also grow rice during the season it is possible. Planting rice is a good way for families to produce their own food and save money.

Although Nepal has faced some difficulties as a country, the future is looking positive. In the past 10 years, urban poverty declined from 22% to 10% and rural poverty declined from 43% to 35%. This is representative of developments being made to help the better the lives of the Nepalese people. I decided to begin the story with the boy in a school environment. This is because Nepal’s government is working to implement the extension of compulsory basic education to eight years of schooling. This would be beneficial to the development of the country as a whole because it would have a more informed population that can make better decisions and contribute more greatly to the economy. I can say the students I met in Nepal are ambitious and excited about their futures. This generation in Nepal will make beneficial changes in the country because they have set high goals and understand their potential to impact the government. For example, when I was leading a classroom discussion about corruption, the students revealed that they felt they knew more about the corruption happening in Nepal than their parents did because they had access to information form their schools and have fostered an interest in the subject. This sparked discussion about what the students could do to help make the government more just. I am confident that this generation of Nepalese people will help the country progress because they are informed and therefore inspired.