Rice and Annapurna; The Full Circle That Sustainability Relies On

I've used this photo a couple of times in the blog, I think, but I love the picture. I worked a long side of this woman planting rice for a number of days and had a chance to listen to the story of her life in that time. She was amazing and brilliant like many of the other women I met and her story was similar to many I had heard in how she had almost been sold when she was in her early teens but had married instead. I told her my story and in the process mentioned Annapurna a few times. She had noticed that I looked up sometimes, towards the north, when I stood up to stretch after planting rice for long periods. She and others asked me what I expected to see and I said I wanted to see Annapurna and they reminded me I wouldn't be able to see it even if it was clear because it was far away and hidden behind other mountains. They were right but it didn't stop me from looking. Then, one day, this woman explained that she, too, wanted to see Annapurna. Annapurna to us means "full of food" she said. I was used to the usual translation of the name as "Goddess of the Crops" or variations of that. I like the "full of food" interpretation better. Then she told me that every morning when she gets up she goes out and looks for a flower blosson, basil is one she likes to use, and she puts it in a tiny, stainless steel vase she has, the size of a thimble, and places it on an alter in her home. The flower is for Annapurna, she said, and it brought tears instantly to my eyes. That's thinking sustainably.

XIII: Renu Sharma Upreti

I met Renu the first evening I arrived in Nepal on a street corner in Kathmandu. I was with a group of men walking to a restaurant when I saw a woman who was living on the street near a small park and I stopped and tried to talk to her through an interpreter. The conversation with the woman was confusing and my interpreter was anxious to get to the restaurant. We began walking away and then I turned to go back and try once more with the woman and that's when I noticed Renu who had been standing close by all along. She said, "he didn't translate one of the questions you asked her and he didn't tell you one thing that she said to you." I asked her if she would meet me at that spot the next morning and she said she would. The next morning she was there with a group of women including several in the photo above. These were women who had been sold by their parents when they were 14 or 15 years old andthen sold into prostitution in India. Meeting Renu at that time in my trip to Nepal was more than fortuitious. It transformed by sojurn in Nepal into an astonishing adventure.

Renu encouraged Laljahri to attend the conference which was transformative for Laljahri and for everyone at the conference. Laljahri, as you have already read, was an amazing voice and force within the conference. Laljahri was a student in a literacy project started by Renu in which Nepali women were taught to read and write and highly proficient levels including being able to read and write legal documents and prepare documents to be used in the courts. Renu's deep commitment to women's rights and women's equality within the law and in education is transforming Nepal.

These are some of the conference members playing outside during a break in the proceedings.
From right to left: Anil Bhattarai, Surya Adhikari, Laljahri Mahji, Renu Sharma, and Suvenda. Renu and Anil had been friends and colleagues long before the conference. I only mention Anil a few times in the text which is an oversight because he was so supportive of my curiosity and making sure I got to see all different aspects of Nepal, and he helped me understand many things I would not have otherwise. He opened a lot of doors for me and together with Renu I valued his friendship and collaboration enormously.

This is my favorite photo of Renu. We were driving around on her small scooter one afternoon after the conference ended and we came upon this scene near a temple in the middle of Kathmandu. Several women were protesting the absence of women's rights and there was a group of policemen about to arrest them. Renu screeched to a halt and ran to the women with her motorcycle helmet still on and began taking notes as fast as she could. She wrote the women's names and addresses so they couldn't just disappear into the prison system and she interviewed each of the women. This confused the police. In addition I began taking pictures as if I was a journalist and the police backed off and left the scene at least for the time we were there. This action was typical of Renu. I admired her courage and bravado but it's the level at which she cares, her commitment to everyone, that makes her so unique. Renju sent the next five photographs to me via the internet. I do not know who the photographer was I regret to say but will give credit to Renu.

Photo provided by Renu Sharma

These next three photos were taken around Kathmandu in April 2006 during a short "revolution" in Nepal during which the king abdicated and left the door open for the country to elect a prime minister and a parliment. I was in constant contact with Renu during this period and helping her manuver around the city by using email and cell phones to relay messages particularly about where the fighting was heaviest and where there were injured people. Renu and several others from the Women's Foundation took it upon themselves to take care of the injured on both sides of the fighting including a police officer in one of the next photos.


Photo provided by Renu Sharma

According to Renu this young man was thrown from the roof of a building by Nepali police and fractured his skull. He was lucky to have survived. Renu administered first aid and took the man to the hospital.

Photo provided by Renu Sharma

This Nepali soldier was shot in the hand and asked Renu and Tara for assistance. Renu observed several times when I was talking to her via cell phone that she could hear and feel bullets passing just over her head on several occasions.

Photo provided by Renu Sharma

On April 16, 2009 the Women's Foundation and the Coalition of Women's and Children's Rights (CWCR) of Nepal, of which Renu is president and coordinator of respectively, held a conference in Kathmandu that was attended by Prime Minister Pupsa Kamal (above) who advocated for the end of violence towards women and children and for all political parties to work together to accomplish this end. Kamal stepped down from the PM position in early May and at the time I am writing this in mid-May 2009 there is political upheaval again in Nepal.

Renu's message in the conference was clear. She and 13 other people spoke about the urgency of re-writing a Nepali constitution that will guarantee "that men and women in Nepal have the same rights in law, in education, and in leadership."

Renu stressed that he leadership of Nepal, members of the government must set an example for the country by not perpetrating violence towards women and she cited a recent case where several members of parliment inlcuding ministers were caught by police having illegal sex in a house in Kathmandu. The ministers and parlimentarians were released but the women they were having sex with were all put in jail. Renu urged that police officers who engage in rape, government officials who torture women or who have more than one wife should be taken to task and "their positions of responsibility should be taken from them."

Photo provided by Renu Sharma

Women at the conference, members of the CWCR and the National Women's Commission of Nepal, wrote and signed a petition advocating for political change for women.

Ms Lila Pathak from the National Human Rights Commission said Nepal must create a nation where "children are protected and guaranteed a good education, health support and security." Pradeep Pokhrel, past president of Amnesty International of Nepal, join Pathak by saying that "basic health, education, safety should be fundamental human rights."

Photo provided by Renu Sharm

Other speakers at the conference included this member of one of the Nepali communist parties who urged member of parliment to work together. He said it was challenging to write a consititution when all of the parties are fighting each other. He said "all social, economical, gender and cast inequality should end in the new constitution.

XIV: Men and Change. What Will it Take For Men To Change?

We can elect intelligent, compentent, progressive leaders like US President Barrack Obama who are committed to change towards within a working, pragmatic vision of a more sustainable society, and who want this change in the same areas that most of those who elected him. In other words there's concensus on what the change will entail in concrete terms because we can talk about change endlessly, but it comes down to the people, you and I, men and women, what actually will change. If we're all not involved, or partially involved, then the change won't be sustainable. It is essential that men and women learn to do this together, to develop a vision, respect each other’s ideas and methods for accomplishing the vision, and then collaborate at a high level. The rest is easy. For the moment looking at Nepal through Laljahri’s observation that “the men only talk”, and a few years after the 2006 April Revolution in which the Monarchy in Nepal capitulated and a new government took over, I want to explore what we men need to do, need to learn and to believe (because what we believe is intrinsic to what we do and how we act), about our lives and our destinies. What is it about men that needs to change?

The Lives of Men in Nepal