On November 30, I had an interaction with about thirty 16-19 year-olds. My audience were grades 11 and 12 students at DigiSchool attending extra classes in preparation for aptitude tests needed to gain admission to universities and colleges in the USA, Australia, etc.
The following is an audio recording of the interaction.
Reproduction of a performance at UWC-USA early this century by a friend and colleague, and I, two teachers at the school. Written by us two, it looks at social realities of the world today through the eyes of two teachers from vastly different cultures. It reflects and exposes the stark inequalities and incredible diversity prevalent in the world today.
Nepal is a highly unjust and inequitable society. The Coronavirus pandemic and the country's response to it has dramatically demonstrated that again for all to see.
One set of data which has done that is the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines by Province.
Province 2 got shafted...for obvious reasons...as far as I am concerned!
Studying, living, working abroad, unconstrained by closed and inward-looking Nepali culture, society, and people, I questioned a lot of what I had been taught in Nepal.
One was the Hindu-mythology-based beliefs, practices, and values.
One lesson was taught through the story of Eklavya and Dronarcharya. We were taught that the story was about model discipleship. But after deeper questioning I have come to the conclusion that its more of caste supremacy than model discipleship.
During my first professional career as an international teacher, for about two decades I worked in ten countries around the world spread over five continents. Also during that time, I wrote innumerable job applications for positions all over the world from Latin America in the south to Scandinavia in the North; from The United States of America in the West to Japan in the East, and many more positions in countries in between.
What I have reproduced in this blog post, however, is my first international job application during these times of the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, it's a little different from all those that came before.
Nepali media is atrocious. Far from it being the fourth pillar of democracy, it panders to the those who are responsible for making the country a failed State. And that's only ONE of the many issues with them.
There's a very good reason for that. No different from those that make up the other three pillars of democracy and pretty much every other structure of any import, Nepali media is of, for, and by Khas-arya men. And that conclusion is based on data.
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.