The man with one eye: Nagdah
On our way from Charikot to Singati we travelled briefly down a material access road which joined up with the original trade route for the area. It was one of a proliferation of steep, haphazardly constructed routes to access raw materials from the river for the booming (particulalry post-earthquake) construction industry in the district. We came across a span of road which had been partially buried by a landslide. The roadway led straight down to the water, and no further, while the trade route was small and nearly invisible. While trying to find a way onto the path, we met with a man who had only one eye and battered feet. He was a resident of the area and was dressed in white linen tarnished with dust and mud. The man led us back onto the original trade route, where his farm was located. He spoke to Shyam about how the roadway had impacted his farming practice. He spoke of the seven donkeys that he had once owned to carry produce to along the Gumu Khola route, before the completion of the main road from Charikot to Singati. Now he had only the one donkey to carry goods to and from the market. He attributed his loss in business to the new road, with ever fewer people using the traditional trade route. Now, moreover, the material access roads being cut down to the river presented a further threa. The one that we had followed had been built three months previous, and was the cause of the neighbouring landslide. On brighter note, he responded with a smile to our curiosity about a pile of large green leaves on the terrace of his house, bounding over to lift them with a dramatic flourish to reveal large bunches of bananas left to ripen. At that, we bid farewell and headed off once more.
The aesthetics of a bag of cement: Singati
While sitting in the dark and dreary dining room inside of Hotel Doban, we were drawn to the warm light emitted from the colour tube television placed above the entryway of the hotel. The TV show content was that of drama, and easily forgotten. The commercials however, were what drew the most attention. Laced with advertisements for programs for international study (reflecting the aspirations of so many of the young people we met) and new phones (iiiits selfie time!), every third commercial or so was for concrete. I remember them mostly by their repetitive style. Most featured very aesthetically pleasing pictures of concrete bags, and some included abstract images of city landscapes under construction. The number of cement commercials far outweighed any other product, which made me wonder if all that Nepal manufactured was Cement. The advertizing share devoted to something so taken for granted in Canada was a reminder of the materiality of bikas, or ‘development’ in Nepal, and the key importance of concrete in all manner of development projects, from post-earthquake home reconstruction, to roads, to social services like hospitals or the school library we watched under construction in nearby Suspa.