In Feb. 2013, I turned down a, international teaching job offer to follow through with my plans to return to Nepal for good, after more than two decades abroad. I had many reasons for doing so. One was to see if Nepal was still my home, and, if not, if I could make it my home.
Music stirs you, in ways and for reasons one might not even understand. It had been stirring me since my traumatic, despair-filled days in Doha jail, except I didn't know why. Thanks to a welcome address given by a musician, describing how and why music does stirs you deeply, I do now.
Since the beginning of July, after the lockdown was lifted, cases, mostly, have been on a downward trend and the Government of Nepal has been relaxing the prohibitions one after another. Of late, the prohibitions have been relaxed considerably. Even restaurants, bars, night clubs, movie theaters are now allowed to open. But, according to the Ministry of Health and Population, the third wave is projected to hit the country in October! So, what's going on? Who knows!
Four years into living and working in Kathmandu, a young female adult -- a conclusion based on her Twitter profile -- has decided that working her ass off in the city is not worth it, and that she was better off struggling abroad. The tweet appears to speak to many others -- they tweeted affirmatively in response.
After living and working in Nepal for most of the last 8 years, I also concur.
Breakdown of 419 applications for 14 positions at an NGO (non-profit) along gender, caste, qualification lines expose the structural issues inherent in the Brahmanical and highly patriarchal Nepali society.
If there is ONE hope in the fight against the unprecendented coronavirus pandemic in Nepal it's vaccines. The Government of Nepal has failed utterly and miserably at fighting the pandemic.Sadly though, even that ray of hope for many are turning out to be just that: just a ray of hope.When they couldn't implement an online registration for vaccines, initiated with help from UNDP Nepal and WHO Nepal, what hope is there of them doing anything about vaccination campaign right by the people?! What?! Really?!
When behavioral changes have taken place in an adult, we say that change has really taken place. When enough adults change their behavior, society changes.
Behavioral changes in adults, however, is a three step process and that's why it does NOT happen readily or easily or quickly. It start with awareness, which then leads to changes in attitude, which in turn leads, finally, to changes in behavior.
What’s interesting about children, however, is that they start with behavior, which adults can instill in them by modelling.
Oli-garchy utterly failed the people of Nepal during these unprecendented times of the Coronavirus pandemic. But Oli will rise again...if Nepali people have their way, just as Deuba has now risen...for the fifth time in just 30 years!
Reading the wanted advertisement Kathmandu University put out in early May 2021, you would think that nothing was amiss in the world...like there were no such thing as a pandemic raging!
I tear apart the advertisement in this blog post. It's like the decision makers at KU were a bunch of clueless individuals running a small family-owned and run business, NOT academics!
TW: Graphic and sustained description of physical violence and abuse against a child, and brief reference to sexual abuse.
Reproduction of a harrowing Facebook account of a Nepali classmate's childhood experiences of abuse suffered in his father's hands.