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Nepal photograph notes
1. Kathmandu airport (the international side) looking from the runway towards the
small terminal building. There is also a domestic side to the airport. This is very
important to the country as, due to the geographical nature of the country, airtravel is the key means of communication for those who can afford it.
2. Views across Kathmandu. With the increase in communications, people from
rural areas are more aware of where the city is and what life is like there. Please
see one of the interviews with Bho Pradhan – in it he refers to 20 years ago when
people from Garma village called the city Nepal due to not understanding where
they lived or what the city was.
The city has a sporadic electricity supply. It begins at approximately 10am and
lasts for a number of hours, enabling small businesses to operate in the city during
late morning/early afternoon. It ‘cuts off’ at approximately 2pm. Hotels and larger
businesses have their own generators which supply sufficient power to meet basic
needs such as providing internal lighting at night. Adverse weather such as quite
spectacular thunder/lightning storms interrupt the electricity supply.
The streets are very busy, with some being only narrow enough to accommodate
single vehicles. Motorbikes are very popular, often with whole families riding on
one motorbike at a time. Businesses use them to deliver goods, piled high on the
back. Access to clean water is challenging in the city and bottled water is readily
available, as are very popular soft drinks.
3. Internal flight from Kathmandu to Phaplu, Yeti airlines. Small aircraft packed with
passengers. Some foreign visitors use route to get to Tibet (hence American person
in orange robe visiting her spiritual teacher ‘Dali’ in Tibet). Locals only pay
approximately half of the fare paid by foreign visitors. Internal flights can vary
greatly from their scheduled times as they are reliant upon the weather in
mountainous areas such as Garma. Locals are aware that if only a few tickets
have been sold for a particular flight, it may be cancelled at short notice.
4 Photos of walk to Garma from Phaplu (varies between 1hr for locals to 2 hrs for
visitors and dependent upon conditions. Road was being constructed although
only motorised transport was a tractor used by Police/military and Phaplu airstrip.
No bicycles evident at that stage although aim in long-term is to introduce
bicycles. Road links small airstrip to Saleri ans slightly beyond – it does not reach the
village of Garma.
Photos of Buddhist shrine (Jorbuddha) near Garma, thousands of years old. The
tablets are prayers and messages and very old holy writings carved in stone.
Photos of other travellers
5 Occasionally trekkers visit the area but as it is not the main area closest to the
Everest range foothills, then the locals struggle to make a living through tourism.
Only a small number of males from Garma are employed as trekking guides locally
and the work is very seasonal.
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6 Pupils dancing in a traditional Nepali costume. The region is influenced by Indian
and Chinese culture. Indian cultural influences are strongest due to religious
similarities. The boys are wearing a traditional Nepali hat.
7. There are 6 main ethnic groups living in the village, with their own language and
traditions. Nepali is the common language. If individuals meet and are from the
same ethnic group, they communicate using their native language e.g. Newari.
Nepali is however the language of business and is cross-cultural. This group of
women are of the Sherpa ethnic group and are dancing a traditional Sherpa
dance.
8 The Rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal and visitors to the school are
greeted by children with home-made garlands.
9 Garma school has an annual prize-giving day to reward those pupils who have
been very successful.
10 Sport is important to the young people in the area but is limited because of the
lack of flat spaces. Volleyball is most popular in the school. Our school
encouraged some Everton supporters to donate a new football kit for the school –
they have a Garma EFC team now!
11 There are no hotels or guest houses in the village, which is a scattering of
houses. Guests stay in peoples homes and live with the family. Houses are large but
are shared by many branches of the family. One house in the village had access
to low-power electricity at certain times of the day for a few hours. It had a large
crude satellite dish receiver which enabled the use of a satellite phone and small
television. This meant communications were becoming easier and that people
could be kept informed about national events. The satellite TV was mainly made
up of Indian/Pakistani channels, which will increase the influence of outside
cultures as it becomes more widely available across the wider country.
12 The room I stayed in, which had been the bedroom of the family’s two sons
(Subin and Nabin)
13 The houses and school have external toilets. The occupant squats over the
ceramic fitting. A jug of water is provided for cleaning oneself after toileting – you
use your left hand (which is not used for eating/shaking hands/etc). Toilet paper is
not used as it clogs the waste system.
14 All homes have to be as self-sufficient as possible. They generally have a small
plot of land attached and this is used to grow crops and vegetables or for grazing
animals if the family can afford them
Wheat, Barley and Potatoes are grown in the village.
Many families keep a cow. It is sacred and provides milk for the family.
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15 Views around the school. It is a u-shaped structure made up of clay/stonewalled buildings with tin roofs. There are shutters on the windows but no glass. In
the cold season these are very cold and in the hot season these are very hot and
dusty as the wind blows through the holes. Illnesses with pupils’ eyes is common
due to infection caused by dust and dirt entering children’s eyes.
The school was built in 1963 using money sourced from the British Army welfare
fund by a number of retired Ghurkha soldiers who were returning to their home
village of Garma after many years of service. The original buildings were damaged
or destroyed in a large earthquake which hit Nepal in 2044. TheNepali calendar
the mid 1980s
The school teaches a group of deaf children – they learn to sign in Nepali with
some international sign-language being taught. The children live together in the
village in part of one of the larger houses, many miles from their own homes. They
are looked after by a carer who lives with them.
School does not open on Saturday as it is a rest/holy day. A German charity has
built the school new toilets.
The pupils walk for up to 90 minutes to get to the school. They are aged from 5 to
14 years and view education as a very important means of improving their lives. A
good education means you have a better chance of getting a job as an
engineer. Some boys try to join the army (either the British Army as a Ghurkha or
the Nepalese army) but this is difficult because so many want to join.
Girls in the village also receive an education but to find work is quite hard. Most of
the men of the village work overseas and send money home – they can be away
for years at a time. The women run the family and
16 A Sherpa Shrine
17 A donkey train. This is the main means of transporting heavier goods in this
upland region of Nepal. Up to 200 donkeys make the journey from one district to
another across the mountains. The journey takes approximately 12 hours. They
carry mainly rice and salt north into the area (not available in the district of
Solokumbu) and then return south with locally produced food (potatoes) back to
the neighbouring district. The ‘herders’ are very low-paid workers and do not own
the donkeys – they are employed by the owners. The journey takes the donkeys
over high-mountain passes every day, up to 14,000 feet. The donkeys are
decorated on the front and rear in traditional ‘costume’ and some donkeys wear
bells (which warn walkers that they are coming).
In the evening, the herders lie down to rest in the open fields with the donkeys. In
the early morning they begin the journey south again.
Porters also follow the same route, laden with produce on their basket.
The average age of the donkey-herders is between 15 and 20 years. Some are
younger and some older. The work is very demanding and the pay is very low.
Such work is taken as a last resort when families can find no better employment in
the village.
18 “Doko” – a traditional Nepali basket used for a variety of purposes but mainly to
carry or store items such as wood. It is made from fine bamboo which grows in the
area. Thicker bamboo will not grow in the region but grows lower down in Nepal.
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19 Houses vary in size. They are built from a wooden frame and then stone and
clay used to complete the walls. Some houses are made from thin wooden walls.
This room is where two teachers live in a shared house. During holidays, they travel
across the country back to their families. The teacher who is wearing a traditional
Nepali hat has two young children who he sees for a few weeks each year, the
remainder being spent teaching in Garma village. Average wage of a teacher is
£300 per year.
20 Cooking is done using clay ovens inside the kitchen. These do not have a
chimney so the inside of the house can become quite smoky. Metal pots and
pans are used. There are no taps; the water comes from a narrow pipe which runs
from much higher up the mountain. If the pipe splits, then the village has no water
until someone from the village fixes it.
21 Houses in the village contain some tables for food preparation. This chicken has
been chopped up on a section of tree-trunk in readiness for the meal. As meat is
extremely expensive (it is very scarce) in the village, most people live on a mainly
vegetarian diet with meat at festivals or when an animal dies naturally.
In the village it is customary to eat with one hand only (the other hand is seen as
unclean). Cutlery is offered to visitors to the village but locals eat in the traditional
way, using their fingers.
Buffalo are eaten by some religions at certain times although the meat is very
expensive
22 Television; with the coming of intermittent electricity and satellite
communications, there is a small TV in the village which takes its signal from a large
welded satellite dish. This also receives the signal for a satellite telephone. Such a
facility has cost a great deal and is funded by money sent back to the family by
relatives working in foreign countries, so that communication with the village could
be made easier.
The channels available on the satellite network are broadcast mostly from India
and other surrounding countries – this means that Nepal remains heavily
influenced by other cultures. The adverts and programme extracts shown here
demonstrate religious themes and growing western influences which run through
most programmes. Some Nepali channels are broadcast and this means villages in
remote areas such as Garma are more aware of national events.
23 Children in this house sleep in a basket at night next to the fire. The baskets are
similar to those used by pets in Wales but larger.
24 Children’s games; Volleyball remains a very popular sport in the village as it can
be played on uneven ground.
Other games take their influence from other countries – such as Kraam which is
played by flicking discs to knock opponents discs across the board (a cross
between snooker and tiddlywinks).
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A traditional game which is quite rough involves two teams dragging opposing
members across a line, out of the team territory. This eliminates the team-member
from the game, which continues until one team’s members have all been
removed – it is a tough physical game.
25. A selection of foods. Most ingredients are sourced locally. Rice is not grown in
the district but potatoes are readily available.
26. A typical shop in Saleri, one hour away from the village of Garma. It sells a wide
range of goods, very similar in nature to our corner-shops. There are no ‘supermarkets’in the mountain area, as locals rely on the Saleri weekly market to
purchase bulk foods from.
27. Guest house in Phaplu where visitors stay overnight while travelling to and from
region. It cost £4 per guest per night in 2008.
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