Continuity

Twitter

2011-12-02T12:59:00.001-05:00

Hi all, I'm updating more on Twitter these days, writing about politics and development in India and Nepal, so be sure to check that out.

Another project in the works is a blog for NEFAD, the organization I was working with most recently in Nepal; still getting it off the ground but hopefully there will be regular updates soon.

Goat Bazaar

2011-10-07T08:08:00.001-04:00

It's Dasain time here in Nepal, the longest religious festival of the Nepalese calendar. Amidst the myriad of family gatherings and pujas, one particularly symbolic event takes place - the sacrifice of countless animals. For many Hindu families the animal of choice for sacrifice is a goat, and every year around this time, the Kathmandu Valley sees a strong upsurge in the demand for and price of goats. It's traditional for a goat to be brought into the home, kept and fed for a few days, and then slaughtered on the 8th day of the 15 day Dasain festival. The sacrifice of the goat is meant suggest the fortunes that will come in the following year. As the animal is sacrificed the head must be cut off in one motion or the coming year is likely not to be a good one.This tradition is changing however, with many families now opting to take the animal to the local butcher shop.

It was for the purpose of procuring a goat that I accompanied Ram's family to the goat bazaar three days ago. Located just inside the capital's ring road, Kashi Bazaar is a temporary installment of bamboo huts housing a countless number of goats as well as the people that have traveled long distances to sell, cut and prepare the animals for festival consumption.

The day we went it poured rain, turning the complex into a nearly impassable mud pit. Inclement weather didn't stop the activity though, with festival underway and those depending on goat sales for their livelihoods left with only a limited amount of time to make their profit. We weren't deterred either and returned home with a small but healthy goat (pictured in the final three images) that seemed to be all too aware of its impending fate. It spent the evening in the stairwell of the house not moving or making much noise and barely touching its allotted tray of snacks. The following morning it was led off to the butcher shop to fulfill its Dasain destiny.

Traffic

2011-09-13T08:52:00.000-04:00

The view from the back of a bus on a particularly rainy day here in Kathmandu.

Day of the Disappeared

2011-09-11T12:26:00.000-04:00

Each year, August 30th is recognized as the International Day of the Disappeared, when people gather to commemorate those who have fallen victim to enforced disappearance. This day holds special meaning in Nepal where more than 1,300 people remain missing from the country's 'People's War' that took place between 1996 and 2006. I was in attendance for this years events. On the final evening of programs a ceremony was held in Kathmandu's Durbar Square and a candle was lit for each person that disappeared during the conflict. The first picture below was published recently alongside an article about disappearances in the Nepali Times. The article can be seen here.

Rights of Life

2011-07-19T17:03:00.001-04:00

Swedish photographer Anders Ryman has an exhibit on the South Bank of the Thames just outside City Hall that runs until the 6th of September. The exhibit, entitled Rites of Life, consists of 66 photographs displayed on separate display boards that are lit up at night.

The exhibition seeks to depict "decisive moments as people pass from one stage of life to another" and includes images from across the globe. Anders was also recently featured on by The Travel Photographer. If you're in London and have the chance to check out the exhibit I would strongly recommend it.

Here are a few shots of the exhibition as seen at night.

NGN Annual Report

2011-05-14T05:50:00.001-04:00

This time last year my work with Next Generation Nepal was drawing to a close. The nation wide strikes that put Nepal in the international news had come to a close and I was preparing to fly back to the states. Since then a lot has happened with the organization including the recent rescue of 20 children from an illegal orphanage in Kathmandu.

NGN has and continues to do amazing work for the children of Nepal - I'm thrilled to share their 2010 annual report which includes 15 of my images from my time with them. These days with so many organizations and charities working all over the world its all but impossible to know which ones are doing good work and which ones aren't. Its with certainty that I say that NGN's work is second to none, I urge you all to check them out.

Next Generation Nepal 2010 Annual Report

New Article.

2011-05-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

I have a new article up at Freedom to Discuss on the subject of job creation (or lack thereof) in the US and the current deficit debacle that was practically the only subject on anyone's mind until the death of Osama bin Laden last week. You can read the article here:

Jobs, Deficits and the Power of Political Discourse

The piece was born out of personal frustration over the recent budget debates that have consumed Washington. The rhetoric of spending cuts has assumed a center stage position. The debate is no longer about whether or not to cut spending, but how much should be cut. All of this is taking place despite a public that has voiced their opinion quite distinctly placing priority on job creation as opposed to reducing budget deficits. The article considers the power that the political discourse has in shaping the perceived priorities of the USA and how they are increasingly divergent from the actual priorities of its citizens.

Changing of the Guard

2011-04-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

So, despite the fact that I've been in London since September, I just got around to seeing the changing of the guard last week. The images below are from the changing of the Queens Life Guards at the Horse Parade Grounds near 10 Downing Street. I also saw the changing that takes place at Buckingham Palace, which on the whole I found to be rather underwhelming. I think this is largely because I was standing in a really bad place, but from what others said it was just some guy with a flag walking back and forth a lot. Point being that if you come to London I would recommend the smaller, less crowded, Horse Parade Ground permutation of guard changing over the other one.

Hampton Court Gardens

2011-04-04T16:42:00.000-04:00

Easter break and a visit from my parents has found me doing quite a bit of sightseeing this past week. We spent a day at Hampton Court Palace, which was apparently the favorite home of King Henry VIII - one of dozens that he owned. Here are a couple images of the vast gardens.

I'm still here

2011-03-24T14:16:00.000-04:00

It's been longer than usual since I've posted, which might lead you to think that I have some new photos to share - I don't. I do however, have something else to share, which is an article that I wrote recently for a new website here at the LSE. Read the article here:

A New Labor Movement For The USA

For some reason, whenever I leave the states, I pay significantly more attention to American politics than I do while at home. What's more, even if I'm away I never pay attention to state level politics - I know, its bad, but I just don't for some reason. All of this changed over the past two months when I got completely caught up in everything that's been happening in Wisconsin. Most of my interest developed out of a severe disgust for the way events went down in regards to Governor Walker's proposed budget legislation. And while half of me was disgusted (and still am) the other half felt hugely inspired by the collective consciousness that was on display in Madison for all those weeks. Protests of that level are something you simply don't see in America these days - I can't remember the last time something caused this much stir. Fortunately as of last Friday the 18th, the bill has been suspended by a Wisconsin Judge due to its violation of the state's open meetings law. I view this as a temporary victory for state workers but continued pressure is definitely needed.

The Wisconsin legislation is not an isolated occurrence, with similar trends cropping up in many other states and at the national level.

As a final thought in regards to these issues at the national level, I'll leave you with Robert Reich's views on the subject:

The Republicans' Big Lies About Jobs (And Why Obama Must Repudiate Them)

Chinese New Year

2011-02-06T19:07:00.000-05:00

In a rare moment of not doing school work, or procrastinating doing school work, I made it out to London's Chinatown today to check out some of the ongoing New Years festivities. Sadly I arrived shortly after the large dragon made its appearance, or so I was told. So unfortunately no pictures of that, but I did manage to get a few nice shots. The camera hasn't been out since Venice - hugely necessary.

Venice redux

2011-01-22T08:10:00.001-05:00

This is hugely belated, however here are a few more images from my trip to Venice back in December.

Venice

2010-12-19T22:24:00.000-05:00

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit Venice for four days last week after the end of term in London. Despite being in London since September, this was my first trip outside of the UK and only my second trip outside of the 3 square miles between my flat and school. As I indicated previously, school has left me with sadly little time for photography so this trip was a welcome break. I got to catch up with an old friend, enjoy real Italian pizza and coffee and drift around in the famous Venetian canals. Here are a few shots from the trip, more to follow.

Stonehenge and Bath

2010-11-30T16:02:00.000-05:00

So as it would turn out, being a student again doesn't leave me with much time to keep up with my photography. Not really any time to be honest. Hence the dearth of posts here. Fortunately this past weekend I was able to get out with the camera on a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath with the LSE photography society. It was brutally cold, but it was nice to have a day away from books and the city. Didn't take a ton of shots, here are a few nice ones.

The South Bank

2010-10-17T09:32:00.000-04:00

Images from the south bank of the Thames.

St Paul's

2010-10-08T17:50:00.000-04:00

St Paul's Cathedral shot from the Millennium bridge and an old cathedral wall on Clink Street.

The Journey Home on Photophilanthropy

2010-09-29T05:05:00.000-04:00

I recently had a second photo essay accepted to the Photophilanthropy competition. This piece, entitled The Journey Home focuses on NGN's moving of 19 children to a new home in their home district of Humla which happened this past March and April. The images on Photophilanthropy are a subset of this piece that I put together for NGN over the summer.

Check out the presentation here or click the image below.

Establishing a workflow

2010-09-28T02:57:00.000-04:00

In a utopian photography world I would be able to take pictures and have them turn out perfect on the first try; and then, in an even more utopian world, I would load them on my computer and they would instantly be ready for printing. Sadly this is not the case and oftentimes post production takes just as much if not more time than actually taking the images did in the first place. This brings me to the topic of workflow, which has been a bit of a stumbling block for me every since I turned to digital photography, but much more so since my first trip to Nepal where I was responsible for turning out regular and consistent content. Nepal was the first time I had ever worked with image managing software - I use Aperture to store, catalogue and back up all my images - and also the first time I leaned heavily on Photoshop for formatting and editing. I had done all of these things in the past, just on a much smaller scale.

Ever since those first days in Nepal, I've been trying to figure out the best workflow for me, what would turn out the best images and also, of somewhat lesser importance, what would make the best use of my limited hard drive space. All my shooting is done in RAW on the Canon 5D, which turns out files that are about 12mb before any editing takes place, so hard drive space is definitely at a premium.

As anybody would, I've done my fair share of searching online, trying to learn from other photographers and to get ideas to improve the way I work. Two good examples were put together by Chase Jarvis and Tyler Stalman. Jarvis' workflow video is great, its extremely interesting to see the ins and outs of a professional photography group like that; however, for someone such as myself, who's operating on an infinitesimally smaller scale, it wasn't very helpful. Stalman's video was interesting in terms of working with image management software such as Aperture or Lightroom, but left me wanting more in terms of post Lightroom workflow.

Now that you've seen that end of the spectrum, I'll try to give an idea of my workflow, highlighting some issues along the way. I'll break it into 2 parts - first dealing with Aperture and then looking at my editing process outside of Aperture.

I) Aperture

After shooting, I import the RAW files to my Aperture library using a card reader and name them with the date and a short description of the location where they were shot. All the files hold the same name as the album plus a 4 digit counter to make each image distinct. I create a new library for each project or location that I shoot in (ie: Next Generation Nepal, Coalition Against Hunger and London would all be separate libraries, while different places in London would each have their own album in the London library) The setup looks something like this (libraries and albums listed on the left):

This system of organization within Aperture presents a whole host of issues, especially when it comes to hard drive space, but that's a matter that will have to be left for another post.

While importing the images I'll (ideally) apply metadata and keywords. I say ideally because more often than not I don't do this right away and end up having to go back and apply this information to tons of images only when I realize that I'm horrendously behind. It's something I hope to improve in the future, perhaps with some presets or other automation.

After all of this, I'll look through the album and choose the best images either for printing, posting on Continuity, or - if its something I really like - adding to my portfolio. I recently started using a rating system similar to the one Tyler Stalman described in his workflow video. I think it works nicely and allows for filtering of your images within the project gallery. A rated and sorted project gallery would look something like this (notice the same gallery is selected on the right but only 15 images appear instead of 180):

These images are then exported, usually as high resolution jpgs for editing. Recently I've been doing some reading regarding the benefits of exporting and editing in 16 bit TIFF format, then later converting to jpg, but I haven't totally converted to that practice yet, mostly because each TIFF file usually ends up being around 70 or 80mb and I have yet to notice a distinct difference in the final product. Ultimately something that needs to be investigated further.

That's about it for Aperture. I'll have another upcoming piece on what happens with my images after they're exported and what happens to them before you see them on the blog.

Tower Bridge

2010-09-24T10:39:00.000-04:00

Of London's countless tourist attractions, Tower Bridge is without a doubt one of the giants. Its twin towers and partial suspension build help it to stand out from all the other bridges crossing the Thames. The name comes from its close proximity to the Tower of London, the massive castle that sits on the river's north bank. Tower Bridge also happens to be about a two minute walk from my LSE student housing on the south bank of the river which makes it impossible to find an excuse to not be out taking pictures, especially at night.

The first and last images show an outdoor photo exhibit of images by Jiri Rezac called Tarnished Earth. The images are stunning and depict the hugely negative effects of unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands. The Building in the background of these two images is City Hall.

I have arrived

2010-09-20T19:00:00.000-04:00

I'll surely have a lot more to say in the coming days (in fact I already have a few posts in mind) but for the moment, I just wanted to quickly let everyone know that I made it safely to London and am settled into my room at Butler's Wharf. The trip couldn't have gone any smoother, 2 airports, 1 flight and no problems in between. In fact, the worst part of the whole thing was the travel between the airport and my new room. Anyways, more stories to come and of course photos. I haven't had a chance to do any shooting yet, so I'll leave you with this night shot from the last time I was here.

A Family Reunited on Photophilanthropy

2010-09-10T00:46:00.000-04:00

Photophilanthropy is a great site that works to promote social change through the power of photography. Each year they hold a competition open to professionals amateurs and students alike who have completed projects for non-profit organizations. The site also acts as a resource for organizations looking for photographers and photographers looking for organizations to pair with.

Last year I submitted an essay of my work from my first trip to Nepal which centered around Ram Bhandari and his work with the Committee for Social Justice and the disappeared citizens movement, all work supported by International Bridges to Justice.

This year I'm thrilled to have some of my work with Next Generation Nepal on the site. I'm planning to make 2 submissions, one from our February field trip and one from our Journey to Humla in March and April 2010. The first essay from the February trip is live on the Photophilanthropy site.

(click image for slideshow)

Sunset over the bay

2010-09-07T21:57:00.000-04:00

Caught this nice sunset over the Delaware Bay near Cape May, New Jersey this past weekend.

Buffalo

2010-08-31T21:45:00.000-04:00

I spent this past weekend visiting close friends near Buffalo, New York before I head off to London in a few weeks. We did some mountain biking, checked out Niagra Falls and took in what may or may not have been the last Brooks and Dunn concert ever... that's still a bit unclear. At any rate the weekend was great and I got some nice images. I felt that the paired photos didn't stand strong enough as single images, but set alongside something complementary the results are fairly interesting.

Film? What's film?

2010-08-24T23:24:00.001-04:00

Camera technology amazes me. More specifically, the exponential improvements amaze me, not to mention annoy me, especially when I spend money on some awesome piece of gear and three months later it's rendered completely useless by some new amazing gadget. Nowadays the pros are shooting 21 megapixel DSLR's, and those using medium format check in around 40 or so. Middle range consumer cameras weigh in around 12 megapixels, and the newest iPhone boasts a 5 mp camera - which by the way is only 1 tiny megapixel short of my current backup camera body.

That backup body - the Canon EOS 10D - was all the rage back around 10th or 11th grade, I can't really remember. This was the first truly affordable digital slr that everyone was drooling over. At that point I was still shooting film and so were a lot of other people. Since then however the digital snowball has continued to roll and film has pretty much become relegated to the fine art/alternative process crowd. Some companies have stopped production, phasing out products that are no longer in demand.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my digital cameras. They take amazing pictures, are super versatile and have done nothing but serve me well, especially over this past year. But I feel like there's still something to be said for film. I spent the past 2 days testing out two old cameras for light leaks. They hadn't been used in some time and I removed and replaced all the light seals. Originally the intention was to fix them to sell, but considering what I'd get for them, and how much I enjoyed shooting with them again, I'm reconsidering.

The Canon EF and AE-1, both full manual cameras - I shot a roll of black and white with the AE-1 and a roll of slide film with the EF. Having never replaced light seals before I was expecting to get two completely ruined rolls of film, but I ended up being generally pleased with the results.

The fourth image down seems to have some light leak on it and the exposure needs some tweaking across the board but I'd say for not shooting film for 6 years and working with cameras I fixed myself I can't complain too much.

A Note on Gear

2010-08-20T22:22:00.000-04:00

Specifically bags. It goes without saying that photographers spend alot of time thinking about gear. What gear we're currently using, what needs upgrading, what might be nice to have etc. A big piece of that equation is the bag used to haul it all around. What kind of bag works best for your particular shooting situation, what allows you to carry everything you need and access it easily and so on. Personally, I've been searching for what I would consider the perfect photography bag for quite some time, with each bag that I've owned having its own set of pros and cons. My first bag, way back in high school was a simple shoulder bag, big enough to hold my SLR film camera and two lenses and maybe a few extra rolls of film and a filter or two. Sadly it got lost somewhere between high school and now so I don't have a picture of it. I also quickly outgrew that bag when I started using a medium format camera and needing to carry around a few more lenses and a tripod. That's when I upgraded to this bag -

The Lowepro Mini Trekker AW which gave me alot more room than I had with the original bag. As shown here it can easily accommodate an SLR with lens attached, and some combination of other lenses, cameras etc, with plenty of room for film, filters, memory cards, caps whatever an it holds a tripod on the outside. I did a lot more landscape photography when I bought this and the bag was great for that since the pursuit of landscape photography generally allows you to set things down and get comfortable. What this bag is not good for however is being on the move as getting anything out or switching lenses requires setting the bag down and taking up a decent amount of space.

Before my first trip to Nepal I made the jump to my next bag, the Lowepro Compurover AW

While still a bit heavy and even a bit hard to handle, this bag offers one crucial feature that the first bag did not - a specific laptop storage compartment. When I had that first bag there was no computer in the equation, everything was shot on film. Heading to Nepal however I would be shooting completely digital and needed a way to carry and protect my computer. The bottom section of this bag holds the cameras and has enough room for a DSLR with a 24-70mm lens attached as well as several other lenses, or flash/extra body or whatever else you might need to carry. The top compartment is great for cords and chargers, memory cards and any notebooks you might have. As I said the bag is great for traveling, it allows me to keep all my gear with me and easily makes it onto an airplane. The main detractions here are the weight and the fact that you still need to set the bag down to do any significant switching of equipment. This brings me to my last and most recent purchase. As I'll be headed to London in the fall for grad school I've been looking for a photo bag that would allow me to easily keep my camera with me at all times even if I'm not out specifically to take pictures. I had, for a time been considering one of the Lowepro Slingshots or Tamrac Velocity bags but that still left me with the problem of carrying that in addition to a school bag. I was also looking for something that I could easily wear while riding a bicycle. After doing some searching and finding some alternative options that people have come up with, I decided to go with a bag that's not a photo bag at all -

The Timbuk2 Messenger bag. The padded camera insert that you see in the photo is the insert from my Compurover bag which, luckily for me, happens to fit perfectly. This will actually give me the best of both worlds, I can carry my camera when I want, but still fill the rest of the bag with books or I can completely load the bag down with all my camera gear if I'm headed off to do something photo specific. The messenger style will be perfect for using on a bike. Last but not least, the most important aspect of the bag is that it will allow me to access my camera without taking the bag off and setting it down which was the biggest detraction from the other two bags.

Ultimately I'm sure that the search for gear and bags will continue and somewhere down the road I'll find myself saying "oh I need a bag that will do this or that" but for now I think this should get the job done quite well.

Magnum Expressions Award

2010-08-19T08:12:00.001-04:00

Just finished a submission to the Magnum Expressions Award. Check out the images here - they're from the field trip with Next Generation Nepal in February 2010 to search for families of children living in Kathmandu. The shot below is another image from the same trip but wasn't included in my entry.

Website update

2010-08-15T19:21:00.000-04:00

I've finally finished updating my website and am quite happy with it for right now. All of the portfolio galleries have been updated with stand alone portfolios for both of my trips to Nepal. "Nepal's Lost Children" is my best material from the time spent with Next Generation Nepal and "Activism in Nepal" is dedicated to the four months I spent working with Ram Bhandari and International Bridges to Justice. I realized that both of these projects deserved more attention than being placed in the non-profit gallery, which still exists but is devoted to the work that I did for the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and Joy Foundation Nepal. I'm hoping to change around the "Faces in the crowd" section in the future as well as add more to it but for now it's staying as is. Thanks for checking in and would enjoy hearing any thoughts on the updated content.

In Harm's Way - War Photography

2010-08-12T20:14:00.000-04:00

I ran across an interesting episode of the television show "In Harm's Way" featuring war photographers Zoriah Miller and Alissa Everett today. The show takes the viewer through all aspects of the shoot from arrival and developing contacts to covering the conflict and selling the resulting images. I found it interesting to get an inside look on how the two work and how they approached these difficult situations. All five parts of the show are on youtube and definitely worth checking out.

Lost & Found

2010-08-03T22:50:00.000-04:00

A new slideshow of my work for Next Generation Nepal is up on Youtube. The show follows the NGN search team into the field while they look for families of children living in Kathmandu and bring news, updates, pictures and letters back and forth from the families to their children.

Poverty Beach

2010-07-28T18:56:00.000-04:00

A few nice shots from Poverty Beach in Cape May this past weekend.

The Extended Cut

2010-07-23T11:07:00.000-04:00

My most recent slideshow for Next Generation Nepal - "A Family Reunited" - went through numerous rounds of edits and adjustments to the text and images before it was finalized. When I originally put the piece together it had in excess of 25 images and was cut down to 14 images for the final piece in an effort to keep the presentation concise and not let the story wander. I'm thrilled with the final product - it tells a very compelling story about the young boy and his reunification with his family.

That said, I wanted to share some of the images that were cut from the final piece as they suddenly find themselves without much of a home.

A Family Reunited

2010-07-15T22:54:00.000-04:00

The final version of another one of my slideshows for Next Generation Nepal is online. The show tells the story of a boy who was brought to Kathmandu at the age of three. After spending 2 years living in the city Next Generation Nepal arranged for the boy's reunification with his family. The photographs were taken during a visit to the boy's house in late February to monitor the situation.

Overlooked

2010-07-02T22:15:00.011-04:00

Shortly before coming home in May I was wandering around Kathmandu one day doing some random shooting. The four images below are from that day and somehow they got lost in the shuffle of everything else I've been doing since then. It's always great rediscovering work that I've either forgotten or not considered closely enough the first time around.

The Journey Home

2010-07-01T13:08:00.001-04:00

After several weeks of hard work and numerous rounds of edits, my final slideshow for Next Generation Nepal is finally finished and online. I'm thrilled with how it turned out and feel that it represents some of my best work both from the trip and to this point in time. Enjoy!

Better late than never

2010-05-28T12:40:00.001-04:00

I wanted to take a quick moment and let everyone know I'm back in the states. I arrived last Thursday around noon and have been taking the past week to settle in. The travel was good and its good to be home.

The work for NGN is still going as I have several projects I need to wrap up. Aside from a few things, most of my work can be seen here and here.

To my friends in Nepal - my thoughts are with you during this tense political time. Hopefully everything will pan out and a solution will be found so that the country can move forward.

Lastly, adding to my list of pictures of myself that I don't hate is this one below taken in a village in Rasuwa back in February. Many thanks to Sundup Lama for this one.

I'm showing her this photograph -

The Situation in Nepal

2010-05-09T07:23:00.000-04:00

I'm sure some of you have seen Nepal in the news this past week - perhaps on the BBC, maybe somewhere else - due to the week long Maoist strike that we've been experiencing here. The strike is on hold for right now, fortunately, and life in the city has returned to some semblance of normal. I just wanted to take a second and let everyone know that I'm fine, I wasn't affected by the strike at all, other than having to lay low at the apartment that I'm living in. As I write this I'm working to change my flight arrangements so that I can leave Nepal on the 19th of May. The country is due to have a new constitution written by the 28th of May, and if it's not completed (which it won't be) the Maoists have threatened to return to the streets, so instead of going through all of this again, I'll be headed home during this small window of opportunity.

Unfortunately due to everything that's been going on I haven't been able to post much of anything. I hope to get back to the commentary and image sharing soon.

Humla

2010-04-30T06:16:00.000-04:00

I'm sure to most of you its been largely unclear as to where I was for the past month and what I was doing for that matter, so I'll try to give a quick rundown here: where I was, how I got there, why I was there, what we were doing, how I got back etc.

So first, the background: the organization that I'm working with, Next Generation Nepal has been working for quite some time to move some of their children who were living here in Kathmandu back to their home district of Humla. The kids were brought by traffickers during the civil conflict who promised good living conditions and a good education for the kids. None of that ever materialized and the kids were rescued by NGN and have been living in Kathmandu ever since. Humla is one of Nepal's most remote districts, and can be reached only by plane or on foot. The travel is long and as you can imagine, hard to manage and organize for close to 20 children. The kids finished their school exams on March 23rd and we left Kathmandu on the afternoon of the 24th. Our route can be seen on this map:

The numbers are as follows:

1) Kathmandu

2) Nepalgunj

3) Surkhet (approximately)

4) Simikot

5) Martadi

For this first leg of the trip only numbers 1, 3, and 4 matter. We left from Kathmandu on the 24th around 3:30 headed for Surkhet. Surkhet and Nepalgunj are the two places from which its possible to fly into the high Himalaya of western Nepal. We chose to fly from Surkhet as it was better for cargo and all the things we needed to take for the new home. The bus ride from Kathmandu was around 17 or 18 hours. We arrived in Surkhet at about 10:30 or 11 the following morning. We stayed there for 2 days and waited for our plane which was scheduled to fly to Simikot on Saturday the 27th at 7am. All went smoothly with the plane and we arrived in Simikot as planned around 9:30 on Saturday morning.

For the next 2 and a half weeks I stayed in Simikot with the rest of the staff and the new house staff while everything was slowly put into place for the new house and the kids. The kids had one week holiday and then started school. Routines and menus were created, rules were made, trips were taken and new places were discovered and lots of wood was varnished.

As the two weeks drew to a close it was time to start looking ahead to the second part of the trip which was a field trip that would end ultimately with our picking up another NGN child who was spending time with his family in his village and take him to his new school in Martadi (#5 on the map). Since his family lives much closer to Martadi than Simikot it made more sense for him to go to school there as opposed to living in the new home with everyone else.

Here's a map of the trek part of the trip:

The numbers are as follows:

1) Simikot

2) Raya

3) Sarkeghad

4) Piplang

5) Jaira

6) Garbaghad

7) Buri

Each number represents one day of walking (ie: 1 day of walking from Simikot to Raya, etc). Most days were 7-8 hours through the high mountains, up and down up and down. After reaching Buri we had two more days, one to Kolti and the final to Martadi (not on the map). These two days were probably the hardest of all, ringing in at a whopping 12 hours each in the blazing sun. To be truthful the trip was probably one of the more difficult physical endeavors I've undertaken which is saying a lot considering all the crew throughout college.

After reaching Martadi (#5 on the first map) we stayed for two days while everything was taken care of at the school and he got settled. When it came time to return to Kathmandu we took two busses, one for 17 hours and the other for about 3 to reach Nepalgunj (#3 on the first map) and from there we took another bus another 13 hours back to Kathmandu.

This was a pretty quick rundown but gives a good idea of where I was and what I was doing. I'll be in Kathmandu for the rest of my stay editing my photos and finish up other projects that I've been working on. Check back for more images as I continue to work through stuff.

And We're Back

2010-04-26T05:27:00.000-04:00

After a month in Humla and out of any and all contact, I'm now back in Kathmandu. The trip was good and I'm fine. I'll post in greater detail about it later, I just wanted to give this small update for now. Here are a couple nice images from the trip as well.

Approaching two months

2010-03-22T04:40:00.000-04:00

It occurred to me earlier today that in a little over a week I'll have been in Nepal for two months. This realization was a bit startling for a couple reasons. First and slightly less significant is the fact that despite being here for two months I've managed a meager six blog posts. I had naught but the best intentions to do a lot of writing during this trip and unfortunately it hasn't worked out that way. The fact that I haven't been able to write much brings me to my second realization which is that despite having been here for two months it doesn't feel as though I've been here that long at all.

During my last trip to Nepal, by the time the two month marker rolled around I felt as though I had been here for ten months; the time was passing excruciatingly slowly and more days than not I struggled to fill the hours. It may sound like I'm trash talking the experience, and I should say upfront that in no way do I regret the trip or wish I hadn't done it. Ultimately it was an important learning and growing experience for me. The opportunity to work with an activist like Ram was an incredible one that has created many opportunities for me since. I also firmly believe that Ram will go on to change the fabric of Nepal's society giving voice to many people that have gone unheard for a long time. To have a connection to that world, however small, is to me an amazing thing. However, despite all these good things I spent a large portion of my previous trip idle. Events and work would come and go in flurries leaving large periods of time that were devoid of activity.

This time around is nearly the complete opposite; each day is filled to capacity with small jobs, errands to run and visits to the Children's Home. Everything that falls into the photography world is for the moment crammed in around the edges. Taking pictures happens at the spur of the moment and the majority of my editing takes place late at night or early in the morning stooped over a cup of coffee. The first month was filled with trips to Rasuwa and Dhading, the work that accompanied them, and generally settling in; the second month has been filled with preparing for the upcoming trip to Humla. On the whole I can say that I'm much more content this time around, less restless. I also feel as though my photography has evolved considerably since coming to Nepal the first time; a transition which is exciting to recognize and watch as it takes shape. More than anything right now, I'm anxious to see the imagery that results from the upcoming trip and how I'm able to assemble it to effectively tell the deeply complex and compelling story that surrounds me everyday.

We leave for Humla Wednesday evening and I'll be out of touch for about a month due to the district's remoteness, but expect some great imagery and stories upon my return. I'll close for now with a few images from a recent job that I did for JOY Foundation Nepal to support an upcoming exhibition about Sankhu, the oldest village in Kathmandu Valley.

New material

2010-03-12T04:37:00.000-05:00

This is a bit of a shameless plug, but I'm too proud of this stuff to not post it here.

I'm referring to some of my most recent work which is finally up on the Next Generation Nepal website. There's one gallery of images that can be viewed here. More galleries will be created and populated soon, and there will be a plethora of new material once I return from the big upcoming trip at the end of this month.

Not to downplay the galleries, but I'm much more excited to share these two slideshows which showcase the work of NGN in the field. I truly think this is some of my best work to date, so please enjoy.

You rode on what?

2010-02-23T05:44:00.000-05:00

That’s the reaction I’m expecting from most people when I tell this story, so I thought I would get it out of the way early. This morning I was reflecting on some of the things I’ve posted on this blog during my two stints in Nepal, and it occurred to me that a small plurality of my stories seem to revolve around frightening transportation incidents. This happens to be another one (again I’m fine, nothing went wrong etc etc). This past weekend we made a small trip to nearby Dhading district to visit one family. Its not so far from Kathmandu, so we were able to make the journey there and back and complete the job in two days which was nice.

Upon arrival in Dhading Besi, the main town, we were faced with the choice of walking five hours or riding on a jeep for one and a half and walking the same. The three of us weren’t feeling all that great, so the second option seemed the best, in order to limit the amount of physical exertion that we had to endure. In retrospect I would’ve rather walked the distance four times over than ride on that jeep ever again (yes I said "on" not "in"). As with most transportation in Nepal, whatever one might consider a vehicle’s capacity to be, rest assured that the driver and conductor will manage to cram at least five to ten more people in along with their baggage. This is how we found ourselves riding on the top of a jeep along with four other people and about 10 bags (the back of said jeep was already packed with at least 15 people - I didn't get a true headcount).

At first it didn’t seem so bad (when the jeep wasn’t moving) but as soon as we started crawling up the road and the vehicle started lurching from side to side it occurred to me that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. So that's how it went, for about one and a half hours, grinding up this dirt road teetering from side to side. Three times we had to get down from the top of the jeep due to large amounts of mud in the road. Then to top it all off, about a quarter mile from where we were to depart there was some horrific noise and the vehicle came to a stop. I heard mumblings that sounded something like broken axle and we decided to get off and walk from there. The jeep started again and sped past us, only to come to a grinding halt mere minutes later. Needless to say I was glad that the ride ended and even more glad when we didn't ride on a jeep during the return journey the next day. I got a couple pictures of said vehicle, although I'm not sure they do the experience the justice it deserves. Here it is anyway. The other images below are some more enjoyable photos from the trip to Rasuwa.

Into Rasuwa

2010-02-14T05:48:00.000-05:00

After spending 12.5 hours traveling in ways that most people would consider unconventional, I finally returned to Kathmandu from Syaphru Besi on Friday. We left on Monday February 1 and spent 11 days trekking through the villages of Rasuwa Nepal, famous as the home of Langtang National Park, one of Nepal’s most travelled to trekking destinations.

Langtang is famous for its beautiful scenery and traditional Tamang culture, which is more akin to that of Tibet than anything one might find in Kathmandu or Lamjung. Rasuwa’s close proximity to the Chinese border explains this influence. Everything about life in Rasuwa is different from the way people dress to the houses and the food.

I felt as though I was back in Dharamsala or Bhutan, being served endless cups of butter tea on a daily basis along with large amounts of local alcohol called Raksi, usually made from rice or wheat. With Losar approaching, Kapseg, a type of fried dough was also available in massive quantities.

Most days were filled with lots of walking and visiting with families followed by eating and drinking too much and then sleeping on the floor. I realize this might sound highly unappealing, but it was a truly once in a lifetime experience, especially in a place that is so dominated by hotels and guesthouses geared towards tourists.

The last day of the trip was capped off with an 8 hour walk downhill to return to the small town of Syaphru Besi where we had started. The following day, February 12^th was Shivayatri, the day we were to return to Kathmandu. No busses were running due to the holiday so we were forced to ride 8 hours in a soda truck followed by 4 hours on the roof of a bus. Despite all the hassle we finally returned to Kathmandu (safely I assure you) with tons of great memories.

I’m now wading through a bog of photographs. Here are a few images from the trip.

Ghana?

2010-01-31T05:03:00.000-05:00

Did you know where Ghana was when you were 10 years old? I certainly didn't. I met the children at NGN's Karnali home yesterday and several of them were more than eager to test my knowledge of soccer and cricket. I'm the first to admit that my working knowledge of both of these sports is quite subpar - especially when I'm being quizzed on various professional players and their respective teams. All the kids seem to know and love David Beckham, but they also mentioned a host of other players including some from France, Germany and Portugal. They were also talking about some soccer match between Ghana and another country that I now forget. Long story short, I was left in awe of how infinitely more worldly these kids are than I was at that age.

Familiar face

2010-01-31T04:54:00.000-05:00

Finding myself back in Kathmandu after only four months is a bit strange – largely because when I left in October I had no idea when I would be back; I had actually figured it would be years, not months. That said, not much has changed here – although I hadn’t really expected it to. Trash is piling up in the streets due to the latest collector’s strike; the government is still in upheaval and making questionable promises (i.e. – writing a constitution and integrating 5,000 army combatants simultaneously over a period of four months); traffic is still out of control, and people still want to sell me a vast array of hallucinogenic drugs.

The biggest surprise so far has been the number of people that have remembered me and welcomed me back as if I were returning home after a short trip. The first shock was when Santosh, a tour guide I met but a few times, saw me at the airport and came up to say hello. After 43 hours of all but sleepless travel I was feeling pretty delirious and it took me a moment to register who it was in the sea of people asking if I was looking for a company or a hotel, but it was a truly nice surprise. He wasn’t the last to greet me – the guest house owner, the rickshaw driver, the lady at the money exchange and the guy at the internet café, even the guy that sells his wares on the street near my old guesthouse they all remembered me and welcomed me back with big smiles. I’m shocked really – given the large number of tourists and foreigners that pass through Thamel, I guess I had figured I would be but another face in the crowd. Life always manages to surprise me when I least expect it.

Musings from the road

2010-01-29T05:19:00.000-05:00

43 hours. 5 airports. 4 planes. 8 meals. 6.5 movies. 6 hours of sleep. Countless security checks, screenings, questions, bag checks and pat downs. Finally in Nepal.

Here are some of my random thoughts from the journey.

1/25

Nerves. It’s all about nerves with me – the buildup – the anticipation – the checking and rechecking of luggage, obsessively (only to later realize you’ve forgotten a towel). The drive to the airport is bad, checking in and standing around even worse. Then comes security check and the lifting weight but descending aloneness – walking towards a plane with a bunch of camera stuff and less clothing than I would use in one week at home.

Who travels like this? Not many people – or at least that’s what I’m lead to believe from the reactions I get from family and friends.

So if the nerves are bad, and the loneliness is rough, what drives me? What lead me back to South Asia the first time and now again, not 4 months after coming home? It’s hard to say really; maybe I’m trying to prove something – most likely to myself more than anyone else; maybe to prove that I can hack it and succeed. Although in essence I’ve already done that, so it has to be something else. Or maybe I just like the change – the shifting – the uncertainty that all this brings.

Whatever it might be, here I sit – gate 47 the furthest reaches of Terminal 8 at Kennedy airport waiting to board, waiting to fly off into the uncertainty once again.

1/26

More than 24 hours of travel finds me momentarily stranded at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati International Airport (1am), unable to sleep or get comfortable at the ‘Celebrations’ Restaurant (the current irony of this name is not lost on anyone). Thanks to Delhi being mired in some sort of climate change induced fog, (thing ‘Day after tomorrow’) the airport is closed and they routed all the flights here to Mumbai. Departure has already been pushed from 8 to 9 in the morning and could possibly go further. We’ve been told that no flights are departing Delhi so the current question is whether my connection to Kathmandu will simply be delayed numerous hours or canceled completely in which case I would probably be stuck in Delhi for another 18 or so hours bringing the grand total of travel time up to about 50 hours for what was supposed to be 30. I haven’t had a single flight problem in the past so I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.

**Note - the flight wasn't canceled but I did miss it - the friendly Jet Airways staff got me on another one that departed but a few minutes later and I made it to Nepal about 7 hours later than I was supposed to.

Feeling established (somewhat)

2010-01-22T19:07:00.002-05:00

After a typical amount of hemming and hawing, thinking, rethinking and internal debate, I've finally taken an extremely important step for my photography - one that I'm more than thrilled to tell you all about - I've established my own website to house my various portfolios. After shopping around and reading quite a few reviews, I decided to go with Portfoliositez.com; they offer a great variety templates and the customer service is great.

Currently I have several galleries from Nepal (including my work with IBJ/CSJ) as well as images from my trips to India and Bhutan and my most recent project with the Coalition Against Hunger in Philadelphia. The site will be getting occasional updates as I complete more projects that I want to showcase.

Check out the site here - Erik B. Wilson Photography

I'm still making small adjustments and would really appreciate any and all feedback.

Changes

2010-01-16T22:06:00.002-05:00

Despite all the good intentions behind my new years resolution to post more regularly here, it would seem that I've all but dropped the ball in that arena. However, I do have what I think is an acceptable - and exciting - excuse. Back in early December I found a job listing on Idealist for a "Nepal Based Correspondent" with an NGO called Next Generation Nepal. Given that it was essentially the exact same job that I had been doing in Nepal last summer, and the fact that I was, at the time, applying to anything and everything in sight, I submitted an application for it, having no idea what to expect. After a couple interviews and meetings I was offered the position on January 5th which instantly threw my everyday hum drum existence into a bit of an uproar. The turnaround for departure is quite quick and I'm slated to fly on January 25th for a 5 month stint in Nepal - I'll be returning on June 20th.

During my stay I'll be traveling and working for the NGN in-country staff photographing and writing about their organization and work. My main responsibility will be developing images and stories for the organizations monthly newsletter. I'm thrilled to be returning to Nepal and to have the continued opportunity to develop myself as a photojournalist.

Needless to say I've been crazy busy ever since the 5th trying to pull everything together for the rather rapid departure and have been unable to post. However, I'm anticipating that posting will resume at more regular intervals - perhaps not this week, but definitely once I get to Nepal and can start fueling the blog with regular travel content again.

Two last pieces of exciting news; first, I'm in the process of getting my website up and running and will hopefully be able to announce that before I leave. Second is that The Coalition Against Hunger will be launching their new website at the beginning of February and it will feature some of the work that I did for them in December and January. Stay posted for those things and more news on my travels.

2010

2010-01-02T00:17:00.001-05:00

I'd like to start this off by wishing everyone a happy new year. Usually the new year comes and goes and I don't pay it a whole lot of attention, but for some reason this year has seemed a bit different to me. Perhaps its simply because we're starting a new decade, and there's a part of me that feels like it was turning 2000 just yesterday and we were all sitting around wondering if the world's computers were going to crash at the stroke of midnight. Despite that, a lot has happened over the past 10 years, from graduating high school and then college, to traveling to India, Bhutan and most recently Nepal. I feel like I have a more solid direction in my life now, or at least a more solid concept of what I want out of life and I can only hope that the coming years will bring success in those areas for me.

As for the more immediate present I've made a commitment to myself to start posting to this blog more regularly. I'm going to shoot for two posts a week, but it might turn into more depending on how it goes.

Given the amount of photo editing that I've been doing lately, both in regards to the project I'm working on for the Coalition Against Hunger in Philadelphia as well as my own personal projects, I've noticed that a lot of my pieces are interesting in a before and after sense. I've always enjoyed looking at shots in magazines and online, trying to imagine what the original image looked like straight off the camera. On a very basic level it's incredible to see the amount of work that goes into images before they get published, bringing them up to a sort of unworldly, unrealistic level of perfection; which in turn gives an interesting window into our culture and how we want to view things. Therefore, every now and again I'll be posting two images, one before, one after and you'll be able to see my thought progressions and how I moved from the original image to the shot that I envisioned.

The first example is one of my night shots from Kathmandu. I decided to move past basic editing and segmented the picture and added some text as well. I'm hoping to print the final piece on three panels to hang.

Longwood Gardens

2009-12-30T09:33:00.000-05:00

What can I say about Longwood Gardens? Located in Kennett Square PA, the former Du Pont mansion and gardens are now a massive tourist attraction that draws huge crowds every season of the year from countries all over the world. This hold true especially at Christmas when the Gardens get decked from head to toe in outdoor Christmas lights.

I hate to admit it, but having grown up in the area, Longwood was never anything really amazing, it was always just sort of there. It was the place that you got drug to with your family on warm spring days or in the winter around the holidays. Everyone experiences this with something; the fact that it's so close makes it normal and therefore quite boring.

The past few years we've made a holiday hajj to Longwood taking in the sights and enjoying a day out with family. I've often found myself walking around with my camera, looking at tons of things that would make great photos and having no desire to take a single picture. This year started out the same; I think this problem stems from the intense number of people one encounters at Longwood. I lose my concentration and can't focus long enough to extract the interesting shots from the pictures that everybody and their mother takes.

Looking past all the holiday hub bub I was able to get a few interesting shots of some of the diverse plant life that Longwood is known for. Overall, the day was fun and the shots ended up being pretty refreshing. I will add that I tend to be somewhat outspoken about photographs of what I consider to be cliche objects - first and foremost, flowers. But as they say, when in Rome...

Happy Holidays

2009-12-25T14:33:00.000-05:00

Wherever you are and whatever you're doing I wish you all the happiest of holidays!

Skiing

2009-12-23T22:58:00.001-05:00

The recent deluge of snow has afforded me a rare and precious opportunity, especially this early in the winter here in Downingtown - cross country skiing. The way the weather usually works around here, we'll get some snow, and then it'll turn to rain, or freezing rain or some other sort of gross unfortunate combination of precipitation that will completely cancel out all possibility of enjoying the snow in a proper wintery fashion. This storm however left not only pure fluffy snow, but enough of it to cover everything with an acceptable amount to cross country ski on, including the trails at Marsh Creek, which are very rocky and muddy in their normal state. I've been able to get out three times this week, which I consider to be pretty amazing for Southeastern PA in December. Hopefully this is but a prelude to the rest of the winter.

Snow?

2009-12-20T14:13:00.000-05:00

For those of you at all familiar with Chester County or Downingtown you know that snow tends to be a bit of a rarity around here. Not that we don't get any, but usually when we do we get far less than the weather people predict and then a day later its all melted and gone. Every once in a while we end up with a big storm - the last one I really remember was back in 1996 when we had about two and a half feet of snow and they closed school for an entire week. It took about 13 years, but we finally got another big one - yesterday. Not only is this unusual, but getting a big storm like this in December is even more unheard of - white Christmases are few and far between in these parts. Anyways, it snowed all day long yesterday piling up about 2 feet of the white stuff. I put in about 2 hours on the cross country skis yesterday and spent the morning today taking pictures - trying to figure out a decent place to shoot the sunset now, more on that later.

Macro to micro

2009-12-06T17:34:00.000-05:00

The majority of my work in Nepal focused on big things: places, people, ideas. I lived and worked in the macro photographing places and events, interactions between individuals and groups of people. While I'm sure that I knew this in the back of my head, I only fully realized it for the first time today when I found myself at Marsh Creek. I wandered over there today intent on getting some shots of the season's first snowfall. I wasn't overly enthused about anything I was seeing, especially in terms of landscape, or macro shots if you will. After much wandering and growing frustration I finally started to notice the smaller things: contrasting colors, textures and light hitting certain plants in just the right way. I wouldn't go as far as to claim that any of these shots are great, but I found them interesting largely because of the process and realization that I went through to get them.

Something new

2009-12-01T00:22:00.001-05:00

I've been cooking a lot since I came home and have come to enjoy the creative photography that you often see of food online. I thought I'd branch out a bit and give it a shot, so here's a composite image of the meal I made this evening. Homemade pizza with a Long Trail Hibernator.

The Old Lady at Swayambhu

2009-11-15T20:39:00.000-05:00

Each visit to Swayambhunath in Kathmandu found me working my way through another sea. Another sea of tourists milling around excitedly pointing and taking photographs; another sea of monkeys hoping for the occasional dropped piece of coconut or banana; a vast sea of merchants selling everything from shoes to religious trinkets and of course the endless sea of needy looking for alms. Despite this constant intensity - an energy so strong that could be felt flowing through the air - Swayambhu also became a place of refuge for me. A place to go and sit, to walk and think, to clear my head when things seemed frustrating and unmanageable. Despite the constantly shifting ocean of people, during each visit I would inevitably see one familiar face, an elderly woman who (at least to me it seemed) sat in the same spot, all day, everyday. She was never doing anything, only sitting, her gaze cast downward, her face creased with age. People like this fascinate me, what's her story? How did she get there? And why does she sit in the same spot day after day? Perhaps I'll find out someday, but for now I'll have to leave it at that, along with this photograph.

Also as a small sidebar, people have been telling me for awhile now that despite innumerable attempts they have been unable to post comments here. I was finally able to fix this so the blog will now accept comments from anyone and everyone.

Last but not least, I'll leave you with the exciting news that I sold my first photograph yesterday at the Chester County Art Association Photography Competition! The competition is a great showcase of local artists, and was judged by David Eastburn, a local photographer who has worked in the area for many years. It'll be up through December 18th and is free so check it out if you have a chance.

Bhutan

2009-11-12T12:15:00.001-05:00

Similar to the last post, here are some old photographs from my time in Bhutan that I'm considering for portfolio purposes.

Also, the two photographs below (both from Nepal) have been accepted to a juried photography competition at the Chester County Art Association. The opening of the show is Saturday 11-14 from 1-4 in the afternoon and is free and open to the public. Check it out if you're in the area!

Revisiting my past

2009-10-29T23:32:00.010-04:00

One of my self imposed projects now that I'm home is to put together a website of my work - portfolios etc to be used hopefully to promote myself and move forward with this whole photography thing. In sticking to that goal, I've been going over alot of my old photographs - specifically ones from India and Bhutan, pulling together the best ones to be used for portfolios. Here are some of my favorites from India.

Home, Transitions

2009-10-14T13:41:00.002-04:00

I'd like to start this entry first by saying that it's good to be home. It's good to catch up with family and see friends and also enjoy autumn which happens to be my favorite time of year. Also I'd like to say thank you to all of you that followed this blog while I was away and took the time to write and keep in touch. I definitely had my moments of loneliness in Nepal and hearing from all of you was great. That said, over the past several years I've become acutely aware of the fact that I tend to miss wherever it is that I am not. During breaks from college I would miss school, when I'm away from home I would miss home and now that I'm back home I find myself missing Nepal for various reasons. This is just the way I am and I've learned to accept it. It can be frustrating at times, but it also helps me realize what's important in life and what I care about and hope to pursue.

Also, now that I'm home, the obvious question comes to bare as to what's going to happen to this blog. I've thought about it and I intend to keep posting. I'd like to be able to say that I'll post this many days or that many days, or once every x period of time, but it'll probably end up being more along the lines of when inspiration strikes. I'm also planning to put together a website to showcase some of my photography work both from Nepal and previously so stay tuned for news on that.

And through it all my work and connection to Nepal appears to be continuing which I am very happy about. Some of you know of the Lamjung Development Initiative project that I'm attempting to start in coordination with Ram. For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about you'll know soon enough. In an ideal world the project will take off and prosper, but only time will tell and right now I can only offer my strong belief that it's a good idea, and will work. The one thing I can say for certain is that I've finally found something I'm passionate about, something very meaningful, and for those of you that know me well, you know I've been searching for quite some time.

London

2009-10-03T13:51:00.012-04:00

As many of you know, I'm in the middle of a brief 7 day stop-over in London on my way home from Nepal to check out the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies in preparation for graduate school applications. The city has been interesting so far and I've seen quite a few of the touristy spots, here are some of the best images.

Drifting

2009-09-29T07:12:00.002-04:00

Several people have asked if I plan to write a final blog entry regarding my experience in Nepal. Since I’m leaving tomorrow (the 30th) I feel inclined to write a few words to accompany the impending transition. As to whether I really regard this as a “final” blog entry concerning Nepal I would have to say no - for several reasons. First and foremost, I have yet to complete my work for IBJ. There are still photographs to process, presentations to be made and material to submit. Also, I’m hoping to use this body of work that I’ve established here as a stepping-stone to other photographic pursuits. Lastly though, there is a part of me that knows I will return someday, whether it be in a photographic capacity or not, there are many things left to explore and understand, and much to learn. And yet, despite this feeling I know that returning home right now is the right and necessary step to take for several reasons (not least of which are my dwindling monetary funds). Also, I recognize that my interests and aspirations are raw and require a return to school; something that I know will become more difficult the more I put it off. I also miss my family and friends, relationships not built lightly, some of which that have received too little attention for too long. The part of me that’s uncertain about leaving Nepal is the part that recognizes the fluidity of life here; the possibilities that lay unconstrained by our traditional western outlook on things like jobs and money (and other necessities like insurance – sigh).

It was with these conflicted feelings that I found myself approaching the Swayambhunath stupa this morning, again looking for some sense of tranquility in the ever bustling world around me – looking perhaps for a feeling of peace before the upcoming uncertainty. I walked the Kora and stopped briefly to light three butter lamps purchased from an elderly Nepali lady along the path. I did my best to explain to her in my broken Nepali that I was leaving tomorrow and that I wanted to light three lamps; one for myself and one for each of my parents. She rambled on excitedly and I was only able to grasp parts of her story. I bid her Namaste and farewell, taking one last look at the lamps burning brightly before continuing on my way. I stopped again at the entrance to Swayambhunath, looking out at the ring road, where I knew in a couple hours Ram would pass with his wife and son on their way to visit relatives in Pokhara. In typical fashion, the goodbyes that we exchanged yesterday were short - more in the manner of “travel safely and I will see you again” as opposed to a true goodbye, which I like. And yet, I felt that there were some things left unsaid, things that I didn’t truly know how to express, and wasn’t sure if they would be understood in the manner in which I would have intended. So instead I thought of them, concentrated on them and pushed them mentally into the road to perhaps be intercepted by his passing vehicle when the time was right.

“Over the last three and a half months, I’ve learned more and been more inspired than I have in quite some time. My initial questions and doubts were challenged time and again until ultimately they were completely washed away. Most importantly, you’ve given me a sense of hope that there are people in this world that live according to their values and principles and pursue tasks and goals not for the level of personal gain they do or don’t represent, but for the benefit that such pursuits can reap for other people – a truly rare characteristic in our fast paced and material world. The simple ideas that you presented me with are real and plausible; not because of what they entail, but because of your unwavering belief that if we work hard we can achieve anything. This is what I will miss most about you (aside from of course your jokes); and it is for this reason that I intend to return someday.”

I finished the Kora and returned to Thamel lost somewhere in the melancholy of something good coming to a close but also buoyed by the hope and inspiration brought about by future possibilities.

It’s with these thoughts that I close the current Nepal chapter of my life, but as I said I imagine that there will be others to come.

Blogs

2009-09-29T01:03:00.004-04:00

My time in Nepal, as well as my work with IBJ for this summer is drawing to a rapid close. I have some more personal thoughts about the experience and my time here that I'm sorting through and plan to share later, but for right now here are links to my final posts on the IBJ blog.

Essay Competition

Transitional Justice

I've never been too good at the whole self reflection thing, but looking back I think that there has been a definite evolution in my photographs over the course of the summer which I attribute largely to simply spending more time behind the lens.

Essay Competition

2009-09-21T08:10:00.008-04:00

Last Friday, the 18th, I accompanied Ram to Chandisthan VDC, about an hour walk outside of Besishahar Lamjung to conduct an essay competition at the Ganga Milan secondary school. Students wishing to compete were to prepare essays in advance about "The Role of Youth Students in Controlling Social Crimes" and then present in front of their peers. 11 students read essays and overall I think it was a success. I got some nice photos including the candid shots I'm posting here. I'll be posting the shots more related to the competition itself on the IBJ blog. enjoy.

Maoist Rally

2009-09-12T03:53:00.007-04:00

Yesterday there was a huge Maoist Rally in one of the large parks in the middle of Kathmandu. Its been scheduled for awhile and has to do with the constant strife that's going on with the government. I went with Ram and he managed to get me into the press area somehow. Here are the best shots from the day. The first two shots are of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda. He's the chairman of the UCPNM - Unified Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist.

Orientation

2009-08-23T08:58:00.002-04:00

I realize that this post may be a little late, but I’m in a better, more knowledgeable position to write about these things now than I was when I first got here. Below is a map of the city of Kathmandu. I’ve placed red numbers on the map that correspond with the places that I talk about the most in my various blog posts to give you all an idea for the lay of the land. The city itself is surprisingly small and compact, although due to traffic its not uncommon to take 45 minute or an hour in a bus or micro getting from one place to another.

Legend

1) Thamel – this is the area where I spend most of my time. Below the word “Thamel” on the map, you’ll also see the word “Chhetrapati”. Chhetrapati is the area where my guest house is located. Despite being a completely different area from Thamel the two are literally steps apart. Thamel is also the touristy, trekker area of Kathmandu. All of the quintessential souvenir shops can be found here along with a nice variety of restaurants that cater to just about any type of food you’re looking for.

2) Swayambhunath – I’ve written about this place several times, and photographed it quite a few as well. The area is a place of pilgrimage for both Buddhists and Hindus and the complex is home to many monasteries and Buddhist schools.

3) Bodhnath – The largest stupa in Nepal and one of the largest in the world, the Bodhnath stupa is an important pilgrimage site for Tibetans and Buddhists. This town of Bouddha itself is home to a large community of Tibetans

4) Pashupatinath – I’ve written about and photographed this place several times as well. Pashupatinath is a very important pilgrimage site for Hindus.

5) Patan Durbar Square – Patan, or Lalitpur is one of the three original cities in the Valley (Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur). The town is known for crafts and the durbar square area is home to many temples.

6) Road to Bhaktapur – Unfortunately this map doesn’t include Bhaktapur, but the road, indicated by the number 6 is the road you take to get to Bhaktapur

7) Naya Baneshwor – Naya Baneshwor is where the PSCI conference was held that I participated in

8) Kathmandu Durbar Square – I’ve written about this place several times and photographed it quite a bit. Generally considered the heart of old Kathmandu, this square is another world heritage site (along with Pahupatinath, Bodhnath, Swayambhunath, and Patan Durbar Square). The square has a high concentration of old temples and buildings including Kasthamandap and Hanuman Dhoka. Kasthamandap is the temple that supposedly gave Kathmandu its name; its said that the structure is made of the wood of a single tree. Hanuman Dhoka is the original Royal Palace of Kathmandu.

Serenity amidst the chaos

2009-08-22T09:13:00.000-04:00

With the sun shining and the day having just begun I set out this morning to make another visit to the Swayambhunath stupa on the western edge of Kathmandu just inside the ring road. I attended a photo exhibition yesterday put on by a local aspiring photographer that concentrated on the Swayambhunath and Bodhnath stupas. The exhibition on the whole was wonderful and gave me a different view on both locations despite having been to both several times.

When I set out I had it in my mind that I was going to go to different parts of the complex that I had not been in an attempt to see new things and rejuvenate my interest in photographing these amazing temples. Having been here for a little over two months and having taken countless pictures of stupas and temples it was getting to the point where I was missing interesting shots because these amazing places didn’t hold the same excitement as they did during my first visits.

Ultimately I think I succeeded in my goal, walking slow, sitting down every so often just to observe. More importantly however, I only ended up taking 4 photographs over the 2 hours I spent there this morning. Instead I found that more than anything I was simply enjoying taking in the sights at that precise moment as opposed to concentrating on capturing them on film for later. Every now and then its nice to step back and view the world with your eyes as opposed to through the lens of a camera.

The experience transported me back to Dharamsala, to my first encounters with Buddhist temples and the memories of walking Kora rounds with my home stay father in the late afternoons. As with the temple in Dharamsala, Swayambhunath - or at least the Kora loop which surrounds Swayambhunath - is like a small island of serenity in an otherwise chaotic, noisy, congested and polluted ocean that is Kathmandu. Unlike the main stupa that sits perched atop the hill overlooking the valley, the Kora is a walking path that surrounds the entire complex. Sometimes it follows the road, other times it weaves into wooded areas (which themselves are rare in the city), but in general the path is quiet and affords you the unique opportunity to be alone with your thoughts and enjoy your surroundings, which is an opportunity I’m beginning to realize that I have not had enough of. I’m glad I took the chance to have the experience without my camera always at my eye.

There is one photo that I must share from the day though (one of the four). As a disclaimer, all the rights and credit for this photograph belong to Pasang Sherpa who displayed the same photograph at her exhibition that I mentioned earlier. I was so captivated by its simplicity that I couldn’t resist seeking out the spot to recreate the shot. Thank you Pasang.

Gai Jatra – 8.6.09

2009-08-22T09:10:00.007-04:00

I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some time now and for no reason in particular keep putting it off. Gai Jatra is a big festival in Nepal that takes place during the eighth month every year; I went to the town of Bhaktapur, one of the three original main epicenters of Kathmandu to take in the festivities with a friend.

Normally I wouldn’t quote the Lonely Planet guidebook, but I think that it does a better job explaining the significance of Gai Jatra than I can so I’m going to put the little blurb in here just for some background:

“Gai Jatra – this ‘Cow Festival’ takes place immediately after Janai Purnima on the day after the Saaun (eighth Nepali month) full moon, and is dedicated to those who died during the preceding year. Newars believe that after death cows will guide them to Yama, the god of the underworld, and finding your way on this important journey will be much easier if by chance you should be holding onto a cow’s tail at the moment of death. On this day cows are led through the streets of the valley’s towns or, if a cow is not available, small boys dress up as cows. The festival is celebrated with maximum energy on the streets of Bhaktapur.”

The book doesn’t mention this, but Bhaktapur has always been and still remains a predominantly Newar area, the Newars being one of Nepal’s ethnic groups.

It was special to be in Bhaktapur at this time, the streets were packed with people singing, dancing and parading through the streets with towers decorated and adorned with photographs of their loved ones that had passed away during the past year. We arrived around noon and it was obvious that the celebrations had already been going for sometime; we left around 5 and they were still going strong, despite seemingly endless rains.

The pictures below give an idea of the sheer numbers of people that packed the streets during Gai Jatra. Some of the best photos that I took during the festivities are the ones that I’ve edited and placed in the post “faces in the crowd” below.

PSCI Nepal

2009-08-14T08:51:00.011-04:00

I spent this past Tuesday and Wednesday covering an event for some friends. The event – “The First Consultation of People With Spinal Cord Injuries – Nepal” – has been in the works for several months and came together quite flawlessly during these two days. About 60 or 70 people were in attendance including 25-30 people that are affected by various types of spinal chord injuries. Overall, I think that the event came together wonderfully, combining speeches from many different people including doctors, patients and government officials. The event was also covered in local newspapers and television, bringing some much-needed attention to the difficulties that these people deal with on a daily basis. I am able to say, quite confidently, that no matter how bad conditions might be for people in wheelchairs in the states, (although it's much better now with wheelchair accessible buildings, transportation etc) words cannot adequately describe how poor conditions are for people in wheelchairs here in Kathmandu, not to even mention the rest of Nepal. Sidewalks are horrendous, elevators are few and far between, roads are riddled with potholes, and public transportation is no way wheelchair friendly. I’ve spent my fair share of time helping people get around, both for this event and at other times as well, and there is definitely no shortage of challenges, whether it's simply safely navigating the streets, or getting into a restaurant. I think that the event this week was a good first step in bringing attention to these issues, and hopefully there will be some headway and improvements made. In terms of my personal experience, it was nice having the freedom to move around and get the shots I wanted. I haven’t covered a lot of formal events up to this point, and it was both new and rewarding. Here are some interesting pictures from the event including a rare shot of me.

Faces in the crowd

2009-08-10T09:17:00.013-04:00

I’ve amassed a lot of photographs that, for one reason or another, are not terribly exciting. Some might suffer from poor composition; others might suffer from poor exposure or something completely out of my control like a wayward umbrella that decided to fly into the frame at the last second as I took the shot. Now despite the entire shot being a bit uninteresting, there tend to be portions of these photographs that are worthy of note such one particular person, facial expression, or action. Enter some creative cropping and formatting and I’ve managed to produce what I think are several interesting shots. To that end I’m attempting to put together a series of photographs that draw attention to interesting people and details in the otherwise unrelenting insanity that exists on the streets of Kathmandu. Here are the first few.

People, Motion, Light

2009-08-01T10:21:00.011-04:00

I think the post name speaks for itself on this one, enjoy.

Night

2009-07-26T09:06:00.012-04:00

Keeping with my fascination with light in images (specifically moving light), and photographs of Nepal at night, here are some more shots. Take note, in the first shot, of the large burning pile of garbage that relates to my previous post regarding the trash collection bandh that has been plaguing the city for the last 3 days.

Nepal’s bandh culture

2009-07-26T08:50:00.000-04:00

Bandhs, or strikes, are seemingly all the rage right now in Nepal, although from what I understand the bandh culture is nothing new here. Dislike something? Throw a bandh. Mad about something? Throw a bandh. Protesting something? Throw a bandh. Have an itch? Throw a bandh. Bad security? Bad wages? Bad hair day? Lack of landfill sites? Microbuses getting torched? Food prices too high? All of these things are acceptable reasons for strikes here in Nepal. So much so that bandhs are seemingly more common than mosquitoes after a nice summer rain. Take this past Friday for instance. Saturday’s newspaper reported 8 different bandhs across the country, two of them right here in Kathmandu. Earlier in the week, some upset students torched a microbus, so the Transportation Entrepreneur Union called a strike demanding better security for their drivers and increased vigilance dealing with acts of vandalism. The strike took place yesterday and continued into today leaving many people without ways to get around town. Now granted both of the demands being made are reasonable, important issues, that by all means need to be addressed. However, it would seem that there’s a logjam in the works somewhere as I doubt that this will solve the problem and instead has just caused 2 days of havoc for people trying to get around the city. The sidewalks at the local bus parks have been piled 6 deep with people waiting for the few vehicles that are actually still running. The one fortunate thing is that today is Saturday so most people are off from work anyway.

The next bandh that affected the city yesterday and today was a strike by the trash collectors due to a dispute over landfill space. Apparently all of the valley’s garbage is deposited in one place and people in that area are getting a bit upset about it (understandably). They’ve closed the area which has put a halt to trash collection in the valley leaving large stinking piles of garbage on the streets – not to mention leaving the government scrambling trying to find a new place for all the trash. Walking around yesterday I didn’t realize that a strike was on and just figured that they were a bit behind in pickup…wrong; how naïve of me. In addition to these two bandhs, there were 6 more around the country, bringing different aspects of daily life to a screeching halt. Now granted, a transportation bandh, or a garbage bandh are not quite as bad as the occasional city wide bandhs put on by the Maoists where literally everything gets shut down, but they’re still bad enough.

This brings me to the title of this post, “Nepal’s bandh culture”. Now I’m all for workers rights and unions and speaking out for what you believe in and all of that great stuff that usually keeps power in check and gives the little guys a voice. However, I have to call all of this into question here, because it seems to happen so often (for instance, according to the Himalayan newspaper, trash collection has been suspended on 53 separate occasions in the valley since 2005 causing there to be 207 days where trash could not be collected) that it has become ineffective. I’m not really sure what to suggest that would get things rolling, but I would like to suggest that the bandh is no longer the best approach.

**As a small amendment, I wrote this post and then went for a walk around the city to do some photographing. The trash situation is actually much worse than I had initially realized and if it continues into tomorrow and the next day I think some roads will start to be blocked by large heaps of trash.

Around Kathmandu

2009-07-25T11:21:00.009-04:00

I spent numerous hours wandering around the small streets of Kathmandu’s markets several days ago and these are the best shots that came out of that experience.

Pashupatinath revisted

2009-07-25T11:02:00.010-04:00

It would seem that I’ve been on bit of an impromptu hiatus this past week. I’ve only had my camera out a couple times since returning from Lamjung. However, I do have some new images to share with all of you, so here we go. Earlier this week I decided to make a second visit to Pashupatinath, the big Hindu temple on the eastern edge of Kathmandu. I had been told, and read as well, that the best time to visit Pashupati is early in the morning, between 7 and 10. Supposedly this is when most people visit to pray and it’s not uncommon to see the ascetic religious guys practicing yoga and chanting and whatnot. As it turns out, the day I chose wasn’t excessively busy nor were there any exceptional acts of religious piety taking place. I was a bit disappointed, but ended up with some decent shots anyway. I doubt I’ll visit Pashupati again due to the excessive entry fee (500 NRs per day). I’ve heard from numerous people that the money doesn’t even return to the area to keep it clean and well kept, but rather just disappears into someone’s deep pockets somewhere, which is frustrating. The other thing about Pashupati is that as a foreigner it’s a rather overwhelming place. The number of tour guides there seems to be more so than anywhere else I’ve been so far, and you have to be persistent with them to get them to go away. Also, there are a large number of homeless, beggars, and religious men looking for alms. There tend to be a larger congregation of these people around exceptionally religious places, and as I’ve discussed before when you’re whiter than white and taller than most you're an easy mark. At any rate, here are the photos, enjoy.

Portraits

2009-07-16T07:00:00.013-04:00

I was going through my photos the other day, and I noticed that I’ve accumulated quite a few very nice informal portraits and wanted to share them with you all.

Travel

2009-07-16T06:59:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately I don’t have any photographs to accompany this post, so my narrative description and your imaginations will have to suffice. I returned to Kathmandu on July 14th after spending a week in Chitwan and Lamjung attending various meetings and visiting friends with Ram. I discussed the trip between Kathmandu and Lamjung previously, I think in the Besishahar post, so you already have a fairly good idea what its like. However this trip back was truly absurd, and not in a good way. I’ll start by saying that nothing happened to the micro that I was in, so that’s good, but we got stuck in about 4 traffic jams due to what should have been proclaimed national “let’s not watch where we’re driving day”.

First off, its key to understand that getting to and from Kathmandu, no matter where you’re going involves traveling on one single solitary road. This one road leads in and out of the valley and extends to a town called Maugling, which is about 4 hours west of Kathmandu. From there, the road splits depending on where you’re going. That means that even if you want to travel somewhere east of Kathmandu, if you intend to travel by bus or micro, you have to first travel 4 hours west of the city, and then return in the other direction. Now, the next point is that this road, the one that goes in and out of the valley, as well as all of the other roads in the country are by no means a 2 lane highways. To most of us from the states it would probably resemble more of a one-way road with room for parallel parking on one side. The road lies along the contours of the land and dips in and out of valleys and around corners and is rarely straight.

Alright, now for a recount of the accidents:

1) Apparently a truck and bus decided to collide on a small bridge going around a hairpin turn completely blocking off the entire road in both directions. We were backed up in traffic for several miles and probably close to an hour before we were able to get through. Now of course, being backed up in traffic in Nepal is nothing like being backed up in traffic in the states. Forget about lanes and lines and patiently waiting your turn to go. Traffic was stacked three cars across (yes that’s right three cars across on a 1.5 lane highway – don’t ask me how this is possible) with every driver jockeying for position and taking any opportunity to speed around or ahead of other vehicles in line, passing on the left, passing on the right, anything goes. All of the bus passengers from the accident were stranded on the side of the road, some took to walking and others were just jumping in any car that came along with extra room.

2) We passed a truck that was pulled off to the side of the road with its entire front smashed in. Not sure what happened, but it didn’t look good.

3) After the first two accidents we came around a corner to see a crane that had been brought in and positioned on the side of the road to pull a bus out of a trench. The bus apparently ran off the road and was so far down that I couldn’t see any part of it.

4) Last one. Just when I thought we were in the clear and there weren’t going to be any more problems we passed another truck that was transporting huge trees into the Valley. From the way it looked, the truck tried to pass another vehicle and didn’t have enough clearance on the right side of the road. The right rear wheel had slipped off the road into the drainage trench that’s built into the road to control water runoff and the truck was tipped over on its side leaning against the closest mountain.

Like I said – truly, truly absurd.

This is Nepal

2009-07-16T06:52:00.013-04:00

On my first visit to one of the villages in Lamjung about three weeks ago I was walking through the fields with Ram and we stopped at a spot that overlooked a lot of small village houses and rice fields; Ram turned to me and said simply “This is Nepal”. I knew what he was getting at, but it’s taken me another few weeks to really appreciate it. To him, and as I’m starting to understand, to a lot of other people as well, the real Nepal doesn’t lie in Kathmandu, Pokhara, or any of the popular tourist destinations; the real Nepal is to be found in the small villages where people work hard year round cultivating the land and living a generally subsistence lifestyle. In contrast, Kathmandu is a bustling metropolis of a city where traffic and pollution rule, and while the valley has seen a sharp and continuing influx of people since about 1990, the majority of people (about 80%) still live in the villages of Nepal working the land much as people have for countless generations. That said, the country is not the untouched traditional society that many might make it out to be; most village homes have electricity and television now, and the cell phone is just as prevalent here as it is in the states. The photos below are part of my ongoing attempt to capture a bit of the essence of village life.

Patan – Durbar Square

2009-07-05T08:40:00.006-04:00

Two days ago I made a visit to Patan, an area to the south of center city Kathmandu across the Bagmati River. Numerous centuries ago (I’m not sure of the exact time period), Kathmandu consisted of three separate cities or Kingdoms: Kathmandu, Patan (also known as Lalitpur) and Bhaktapur. Each place has its own Durbar Square (Durbar means palace) where the royal palace for that area is situated. The main street of Durbar Square in Patan is home to many interesting temples and whatnot. Some of the best shots from the day are below. Patan is also known as the city of handicrafts and the streets are overrun with craft shops selling just about everything including thankas (buddhist deity paintings), metal works, pottery, masks, jewelry etc. My trip to Patan was also my first successful to and from journey using public transportation which can be tricky to figure out here so that was nice.

Nepal at night

2009-07-05T08:36:00.007-04:00

I’ve been trying for several weeks to get some decent shots of some of the areas around Nepal at night. After being rained on several times I finally got what I was looking for a few nights ago. These were taken around the Durbar Square area in central Kathmandu, the same Durbar Square from my earlier post. I think they do a good job of showing the hustle and bustle of Nepal, especially in the evening hours.

In Nepal, “Hello” is never just “Hello”…

2009-07-05T08:31:00.000-04:00

(I wrote this last week when I was extremely frustrated and for no specific reason held off on posting it until now. I think it needed to sit for a couple days – but here it is, unedited).

…and no one ever talks to you just because. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t say “no one” but rather I should say the majority of people never talk to you just because. People always want something. To sell you something, to ask you for something, to give you a ride in their taxi or rickshaw or sell you drugs or god knows what else on the side of the street. If you’re white you stand out. You represent something else, a completely different world; you represent money, even if that world and money are the farthest thing from an adequate description of you as a person, at face value that’s what you are. You’re a mark. I’ve gotten good at ignoring it, or at least letting it pass me by without letting it bother me too much. But every now and then something happens that really hits home. Yesterday for instance, I had just arrived at the Bodhnath Stupa and was walking around when a middle-aged man wearing a face mask approached me. It started innocently enough, the standard questions: “where are you from”, “how long have you been in Nepal”, “how long will you stay”, “what are you doing here”, “what’s your name” blah blah blah. Feigning interest, sizing you up to determine whether you’re worth the effort to continue to talk to. Then comes the next phase, separation. I walked away, not out of rudeness, but there was nothing else to say. Then he found me again, handed me a white blessing scarf or Katha as he said “for luck”. Then came the play. He began explaining to me his very difficult situation, saying that he has TB telling me that he’s coughing up blood and that he has no money for medicine asking me if I will give him X number of US dollars so he can purchase his pills. These situations are so impossible. First of all, 10 or 20 bucks in the grand scheme of things isn’t that much money. And in a perfect world where I could be assured that he was telling the truth maybe I would have given it to him. But on general principal I don’t give to people like that just because you have no idea if they’re actually in need or if they’re just playing you. The last thing I want to do is give some guy 20 bucks that he’s not going to spend on medicine at all but is just going to spend on booze and smokes. I didn’t give him anything and he demanded his scarf back telling me I’m a very bad man, making one last guilt play before storming off.

Then tonight, just 2 hours ago, I was walking along, minding my own business heading down the street to get some dinner when a young boy approached me. This one was a little different. Same standard opening questions, but followed by a game of “ask me any country and I’ll tell you the capital”. I was impressed for a little while because he knew a bunch, but then he tried to convince me that the capital of Pakistan was Sri Lanka. I was initially skeptical of the kid, waiting for him to ask me if I wanted to by hash or marijuana or something. But he didn’t, and for a foolish second I thought he just wanted to talk. Then I told him I was leaving and he asked for money to buy food. Again, what are you supposed to do in a situation like this? I wasn’t about to just hand him money and it took me awhile to get rid of him, and I finally had to just walk away down the street and ignore him.

I’ve had to deal with this before, both here and in India and it never gets any easier. On the whole it’s easier to ignore and easier to pretend that people aren’t there when they’re pestering you. But then every once in awhile something like these two experiences will happen and will just knock you right back to square one.

Bodhnath

2009-07-01T03:51:00.008-04:00

Monday morning I made a trip to the eastern limits of Kathmandu to the town called Boudha to see the famous Bodhnath Stupa (pronounced Boe-da-nath). The sun was out for the first time in two days and I figured that I would be foolish to not take advantage. The stupa is of similar construction to Swayambhunath from my previous posts, but it is much larger. A guidebook I was reading says that Bodhnath is the largest stupa in Nepal and one of the largest in the world. The area is known for its large population of Tibetans, and shops selling Tibetan and Buddhist paraphernalia that surround the stupa. There are also a bunch of restaurants in the area that offer wonderful rooftop views of the stupa. I took advantage and had some great momos (dumplings) while taking in the view of the Bodhnath. Here are the best images from the day.

The NGO Culture of Nepal

2009-06-29T11:34:00.001-04:00

The number of Non Governmental Organizations that are based and operate in Nepal is incredible. I have a small tourist map of Kathmandu, which actually designates a separate legend symbol for NGOs in the area, and at quick glance there are more than 160 different organizations listed on the map. I know of at least two that aren’t listed, so there’s no telling how many more unlisted organizations there are.* My interest is not so much in the fact that so many organizations exist here, but rather in the outlook and awareness I’ve noticed that many people have towards NGOs, social work, humanitarian work and volunteering here. All of these concepts appear to be common topics of conversation not only among activists, but everyday people as well - the manager of my guesthouse for instance, taxi drivers, people that you meet on the street, its endless. I mentioned this to a friend the other night over dinner and he pointed out that in developing countries these types of organizations are bound to hold greater awareness in the public consciousness. More than once at home when I explained to people that I was going to Nepal to work for an NGO, or that I worked for the Clinton Foundation, an NGO, I received a response of “NG-What?” There’s certainly no shortage of NGOs and non-profit organizations in the states either, but it seems that they don’t grab public attention as they do here.

I would also be interested in knowing the actual impact that such organizations have in Nepal. The country obviously still has problems from overpopulation and pollution to political corruption, all obstacles that NGOs and nonprofits typically try to overcome. So would these problems be even worse in the absence of NGOs? Or has Nepal become a sort of NGO experiment?

*I began writing this post about a week ago, and didn’t feel it was complete so am only posting it now. Since making note of the more than 160 organizations on my Kathmandu map, someone that has worked here for more than 20 years told me the other night that there is in the neighborhood of 30,000 different NGOs and INGOs that operate throughout Nepal. I’m not sure how reliable this number is, but if its even in the ballpark, that’s a staggering volume. In conjunction with my point above about the actual impact that these organizations have, if there are in fact 30,000 different groups working here, I would think that they would be able to do away with things like this:

Swayambhunath

2009-06-27T05:06:00.002-04:00

The skies were clear last night and I decided it would be a good idea to walk over to the Swayambhunath temple again to catch some shots of the stupa at night when its all lit up. I set out a little after 7 o’clock . Unfortunately what I didn’t know is that they turn the lights off at 8. I got to the stupa a few minutes before 8 and took a couple shots just in time for the lights to go off and have to walk back in the dark. The few pictures I got came out nicely though.

In Nepal, “No” does not mean “No”

2009-06-26T06:52:00.008-04:00

I was tired last night, but I wanted to get out and do something as opposed to just lying around reading. I decided to take a short walk down to Durbar Square, about 10 minutes away from my guesthouse by foot. Durbar Square is essentially the heart of old Kathmandu. It contains numerous temples and shrines including the Hanuman Dhoka, the old royal palace as well as the temple from which Kathmandu gets its name, the Kasthamandap (a large structure supposedly constructed from the wood of one single tree). Another temple of note, Maju Deval, or more colloquially “The Hippy Temple” is the large sort of centerpiece of the square. Apparently this was the popular hippy hangout in the 60’s as it’s very close to Freak Street where all of the hash dens and whatnot are located.

Upon arriving in the square I was immediately approached by a local tour guide wanting to show me around and tell me about all the buildings and whatnot – for a small fee of course. I listened to his spiel and told him I wasn’t interested and moved on. Generally I don’t go for the whole tour guide thing, preferring to explore the areas myself and just wander and take photos. On top of that, I was tired and wasn’t really in the mood to be dealing with people trying to sell me stuff. I thought I was in the clear and was standing admiring the Hippy Temple when another man, Rama, approached me. Again, I listened to his speech, looked at his little notebook with testimonials from all the people he’s shown around and politely tried to shoo him away assuring him that it wasn’t the price, that I just wasn’t interested. His initial price was 400 rupees, or about 5 bucks. As I said, it wasn’t the price; I just didn’t feel like being led around by anyone. After trying to convince him I wasn’t interested 4 times, he had dropped his price to 150 rupees, or 2 dollars. I tried twice more to get rid of him and by that point he told me that he would show me around, no price, and if I was satisfied at the end of the tour I could give him whatever I felt was appropriate. Now at this point, the only reason I was still entertaining this guy and not walking away without saying anything was that he was pretty funny, good demeanor, and made me laugh quite a bit. I finally caved and let him drag me around the square for 45 minutes showing me different things, explaining all the temples and pointing out stuff that I probably would have missed had I just gone around on my own. After he finished his tour we sat and chatted for a while about his history and work as a tour guide. In the end I’m glad that I let myself have that experience. I find that I’m so conditioned to be skeptical of strangers on the street here that not being closed off can be difficult, but this time it turned out really well.

The pictures below show some of the sights in Durbar Square, temples and the hustle and bustle of the evening vegetable market. The Hippy Temple can be seen in the 6th photo down. My tour guide Rama is the guy in the 7th photo. I included the last photo because I know I've mentioned to some people the crazy extent of physical labour in this part of the world, but this really puts it into perspective. I think these guys are carrying large bundles of foam pads, but still.

Internet and Power

2009-06-25T02:58:00.003-04:00

Pete posted a comment on one of my posts asking how I get internet access here and what the power situation is like, so I thought I would answer so all those interested can know. The internet situation in Kathmandu is actually pretty good. I've found an internet cafe with a reasonably fast connection, fast enough to post pictures to this blog even. It has at least 10 or 12 computers and is really reasonably priced. Plus the guy that owns the place is friends with the people I'm working with so I get a bit of a price cut. The power situation here is also fine now, the power gets cut for maybe 3 or 4 hours a day in one hour blocks, usually one in the morning, one at night and then I think during the wee hours of the morning as well. Most of Nepal's power comes from Hydroelectric which is a problem in the winter when the water levels are low. However, since its the rainy season the power situation is much better now. I was told that during this past winter Kathmandu only had power for about 4 hours a day.

As I mentioned in a previous post I'll be splitting my time this summer between Kathmandu and Lamjung. The internet situation in Lamjung is pretty terrible. There are two places in the main town that have computers, each has 5. The internet connection is excruciatingly slow and unreliable. I'm able to check my Gmail there, but it takes me a good 15 minutes to log in and a few times I've logged in and started typing something only to have the power go out or the internet connection die which is highly frustrating. Therefore I'm only able to post to this blog while in Kathmandu. I've been writing posts on my laptop and saving them to be posted upon return, but if there's a big time lapse in posting that's most likely the reason. The power situation there is just as good as it is in Kathmandu surprisingly so its easy to use my laptop and edit photos and charge camera batteries.

Swayambhunath

2009-06-25T02:46:00.008-04:00

Yesterday morning I set out on my first small excursion into the city of Kathmandu. My destination: one of the most photographed and widely recognized symbols of Kathmandu and Nepal, the Swayambhunath temple. The area of Swayambhu lies west of center city Kathmandu but within the city limits of the ring road and is, conveniently for me, just a short walk from the Chetrapati intersection, just mere feet from my guesthouse.

Swayambhunath is also known as the monkey temple due to the large number of monkeys that frequent the complex – incidentally when I was there it seemed that the temple should have instead been named the pigeon temple. Since I approached from the east as opposed to the west I saw the main stupa before the rest of the complex, which didn’t have any monkeys around it at all. After exploring the rest of the area I did find the monkeys as mentioned. There was a lot to see around the area including numerous monasteries and stupas in addition to the main one, hopefully the pictures below will give you a nice feel for the place. Sadly it was overcast when I went, I’m return at some point when the skies are clear and I can get the stupa set against a nice blue sky. The first three shots below are of the main stupa and the rest are sights around the Swayambhunath complex.

Besishahar (written 6.19.09)

2009-06-24T05:50:00.002-04:00

After three days in Kathmandu, Ram and I left yesterday morning (Thursday) to travel to Besisahar, which is the district headquarters of Lamjung, Ram’s home district. The ride was long – about 5 hours – although according to Ram we made good time. We traveled by microbus, which is essentially a jalopy of a minivan with 4 rows of bench seats that let the driver and co-driver cram as many people as humanly possible into one tiny car. I’m fairly certain that this practice would be against some code or safety regulation in the states, but that’s the way travel is here and in India as well for that matter.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of a co-driver, most vehicles in South Asia (or at least Nepal, India and Bhutan) have 2 people operating them. The main driver simply drives the vehicle, in this case the microbus. The co-driver (I made up this term) is sort of an assistant who opens and shuts the door to let people in, loads and unloads luggage, collects money, and directs the driver with a series of taps against the side of the car to indicate that they need to stop or that the driver has enough clearance when passing another vehicle. The co-driver also spends much of the trip with his head hanging out the window shouting the destination of the microbus and doing his best to solicit as many fares as possible. Oftentimes I would look over only to discover that he had hopped out and was running alongside telling people where we were going or exchanging cassette tapes for the radio with people he knew and then hopping back into the quickly moving bus without it so much as slowing down – in general all practices that would be considered highly unsafe anywhere else.

After the long ride in squelching heat, we arrived at Besishahar and checked into the guest house where we’ll be staying for the next days. The place is quite nice; our room sits alongside a terrace on the third floor that gives a nice look out onto the main street and also a great view of the mountains. The town reminds me a lot of Dharamsala, small town set into the mountains, although definitely less populated. I asked Ram if many foreigners come here and he said that some do, but they largely pass through on their way to some nearby trekking routes. After the noise and pollution of Kathmandu, Besishahar is a welcome change and a breath of fresh air. The photos below are a couple shots out the back of our hotel, the main street is in the other direction.

Kathmandu (Written 6.17.09)

2009-06-24T05:39:00.004-04:00

Kathmandu is quite possibly one of the most crowded, polluted places that I have ever been. At first glance, it reminded me a lot of India. Crowded streets, motorcycles, big trucks choking exhaust all over the place, and people everywhere, moving in every direction. I had forgotten how overwhelming this kind of environment could be, although not in the same way that it was the first time. I know how to deal with people now, beggars, people trying to sell you stuff – I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been walking the streets of Thamel only to hear a soft whisper in my ear of some guy saying “Hello, my friend, you like smoke? Hash? Marajuana?” I suppose that it’s more the constant overstimulation, auditory, visual whatever that makes it so overwhelming. All of this has caused me to seek the refuge of my room by about 9 every night, not to mention that with all of the time zones I’ve been through jet lag is still a factor. Every night I’m in bed by 11 and I can’t seem to sleep past 5:30 or so, very frustrating.

I’ve met a lot of Ram’s friends over the past few days, fellow activists and people that live in Kathmandu. Its been interesting and everyone is very happy to meet me, although the number of times I’ve been stuck with three people speaking nothing but Nepali and obviously not being able to understand a single word is approaching innumerable. I’m able to pick up the general nature of the conversation from the occasional English word that’s tossed in, but on the whole I’m pretty much in the dark until Ram gives me a brief explanation. Hopefully I’ll pick up some Nepali along the way.

Here are a couple shots of the main intersection near the guest house I'm staying in, just so you can see exactly how busy it is.

The Flight (Written 6.17.09)

2009-06-24T05:37:00.001-04:00

It’s difficult to find the right words that would best describe my travels from Seoul to Kathmandu. I think if forced to choose I would have to settle on stressful. Let me start at the beginning. My cousin put me on a bus Monday morning from City Hall in Seoul to the Incheon airport. The bus ride was fine, comfortable and right on time. I got to the airport around 11:30, in plenty of time to check in for my 2:15 flight to China. The first thing I discovered upon entering the airport was that my flight had been delayed until 3:00. I’m not sure of the exact reason, but my best guess is that the plane arrived late, similar to my flight to Tokyo. After waiting at the check in counter, and explaining to the guy from China Southern that Kathmandu is in Nepal, I was asked to sit while they phoned the airport in Guangzhou China to find out if I would arrive in enough time to make my next flight, which was scheduled to start boarding at 6:25 (the flight from Seoul was 3 hours and change – this is when I started to get concerned). The guy at the counter informed me that it would be fine so I took his word for it and headed to my gate. When I got to my gate (3 hours early) and looked at my boarding passes again, I noticed that I was supposed to claim my baggage in China and then recheck it for my next flight. Obviously there wasn’t enough time for that, in fact there would be barely enough time to get to the gate at all. I asked the lady at the counter and she made some phone calls and got the tags switched on my bag so that it would be checked straight through to Kathmandu. I felt pretty relieved after that and thought that I was in the clear. Not quite.

The flight itself from Seoul to China was fine, a little turbulence but nothing too bad. When we boarded the airplane they checked our temperatures at the door (thank you WHO for issuing that Swine Flu pandemic alert). I figured that since they checked our temps once, we would be fine once we got to China, at this point I was already figuring on having to sprint to the next gate. However, when we landed, the stewardess got on the loudspeaker to inform us that everyone needed to remain in their seats as quarantine people would be coming on the plane to check us each individually. Several minutes later, four guys boarded on the plane completely decked out in biohazard gear (you think I’m joking but I’m not), head to toe white suits, booties, gloves, face masks and goggles – I wanted to get a picture of it, but I couldn’t get my camera out, and I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t have approved. The men worked their way through the plane checking everyone’s temps and papers about where they had been in the last days. I must have been sweating from worrying about making my next flight because the guy had to take my temp three times before he moved on. That would’ve been great, stuck in quarantine in China. Once in the airport we had to go through quarantine again, then immigration. A lady was waiting at the top of the stairs with a sign with my name on it and the names of two other travelers with tight connecting flights. They rushed us through quarantine, immigration and customs, having us skip ahead in line and then took us straight to our next gate (after another security check of course). All of this, from the quarantine guys getting on the plane to getting to my next gate happened between 6:00 and 6:20, pretty amazing. They hadn’t even started boarding the plane to Kathmandu when I got to the gate.

The flight to Kathmandu was fine, again some slight turbulence and we passed by a couple of thunderstorms. The flight was 5 hours and we touched down in Kathmandu safely. My bag even made it fine, I was having visions of it being misplaced on the tarmac at Guangzhou and lost forever somewhere in China but fortunately not. Ram picked me up at the airport and we got a cab to Thamel – the trekking district of Kathmandu. It also turned out that I flew in on the night of a citywide strike so everything was closed, all the shops and restaurants, which was very strange. I’m not sure how, but in the end, all the stars aligned and I made it fine, it just took them a little longer to align than I would have liked.

Down time.

2009-06-14T23:35:00.013-04:00

I'm at the Incheon Airport in Seoul right now waiting for my flight to Guangzhou China and have a bit of time to wait until boarding so I thought I would write about the past few days. Also, to my surprise WiFi is free here at the airport which is quite nice. Once in Guangzhou I have to transfer to another plane for the last leg of my journey which will take me to Kathmandu.

The past few days in Korea were quite nice. On Saturday I went with my cousin to a town in the south of the country called Guangjo to visit several friends of his. One of his friends is a German who has spent alot of time in Korea as a professor and has in the past couple years become a bit of a local celebrity and quite the notable painter. They were having a party/small exhibition of his work which included numerous cultural performances: dancing, music etc. We spent the day with them on Saturday as well as Sunday morning and returned to Seoul in time for a nice dinner last night.

Seeing the countryside was great as it gave a much different view of Korea than I got from the city. The towns are smaller, nestled into the mountains and surrounded by rice fields. There are even some traditional Korean style houses that still exist in this part of the country (similar in design to the palace pictured in my last post). The photos I'm including below are all from the party/exhibition.

giving blessing to the land on the site

of a new house (time exposure)

releasing a sort of hot

air balloon (time exposure)

One of the Artist's paintings on display

dancers at the party

Seoul - Arrival and First Impressions

2009-06-11T09:58:00.014-04:00

Last night I walked out of the Incheon International airport at about 9:00pm after 18 solid hours of traveling. Everything went smoothly, transferring in Tokyo went like clockwork.

After sleeping off some of my jet lag and enjoying a nice breakfast I spent a couple hours this morning walking around some of the streets of Seoul. Exploring such a different place took me back to my first days in Delhi, not having any idea what I was looking at or where anything was. However, as I kept walking, I began to realize that the two experiences were in fact extremely dichotomous.

This area of Seoul is definitely busy; plenty of traffic and people on the move, but absolutely nothing like the deafening overbearing masses that crowd most Indian streets. I had also become accustomed to having people stare at me, which I’ve noticed rarely happens here. If anything people look away. During the walk, I happened upon a nice stream stretching through the city, accompanied by a walking path, frequented by many people. It reminded me a bit of Memorial Drive in Boston or the path along the Schuylkill in Philadelphia.

I also took the first pictures of my trip, nothing spectacular but the images below should give a tiny window on what I saw today.

Motorcycles are common here, especially as delivery vehicles

Common Street Scene

I was testing camera settings and ended up with this shot,

with the contrast on the umbrella blown out.

I didn't like it at first, but its growing on me

Mexican Donuts?

A traditional palace we visited this afternoon

The Next Step

2009-06-05T21:21:00.004-04:00

After spending the past 9 months living in Boston and working for the William J. Clinton Foundation I decided that it was time to move on. To that end, I packed my things, moved out of my apartment and am making my final preparations for what promises to be a very exciting, although rather uncertain summer.

On Tuesday, June 9th at 1:20 in the afternoon I leave JFK International Airport, destined first for South Korea and then Ultimately Nepal. I'll be spending 5 days in Korea, visiting my father's second cousin who spends the spring of each year teaching Korean History at a University in Seoul. I'll arrive in Seoul on Wednesday evening and depart for Nepal the following Monday, June 15th.

I'll be spending the summer in Lamjung, Nepal working as a documentary intern for International Bridges to Justice. Through their JusticeMakers Fellowship, IBJ is funding the work of numerous legal activists in countries around the world including Ram Kumar Bhandari who I'll be working with for the summer. I'll be spending the summer learning more about the political situation in Lamjung, and Ram's project to raise awareness in his community. Through photographs and writing I'll hopefully be able to help get the word out about Ram's project and goals in his community.

About the blog name: For anyone that doesn't know, the symbol at the top of the blog is known as the Endless Knot, or Dpal Be'u in Tibetan. The knot is an auspicious symbol in Tibetan Buddhism and is representative of the interconnected nature of people and life, as it has no beginning and no end. I chose the symbol and the name "Continuity" because they reflect my feeling that everything happens for a reason, whether we understand it now or 10 years from now. "Continuity" also reflects my own personal search for meaning and greater purpose in life, and striving to understand how the things I pursue and feel passionate about are connected to one another.