Part IV: The Nepal Conference Begins

The road west from Kathmandu to Mugli and Pokhara threads along the left hand (south) wall of the Trishuli River gorge. It is a magnetic, majestic and enticing place that exudes a powerful wildness and beauty. It's not unrealistic to fear that someday there will be a large hydroelectric scheme constructed here to power neon signs at hotels in various parts of Nepal.


This is the road to Naryanghar. The Trishuli starts high in the Himalya close to the border with Tibet and at a point a few miles downstream from where this picture was taken it joins and becomes the Naryani River that flows on to the Ganges and the Bay of Bengal. The Trishuli is a gorgeous river that's already known world-wide as a formidable "rafting" and kayaking river and seems to fit into the present scheme of maximally developing tourism in Nepal.

We held the conference at the CDO, or Community Development Organization, in Naryanghar. The box-shaped yellow building houses the main office, a small class room, and some sleeping quarters. The wide cement sill at the bottom of the wall was a favorite place for people to sit and hang out during the conference. It provided an important "get-away" where a lot of the work of the conference was done by people talking informally and spontaneously.

This is the large building, the "long house", that housed the women's dormitory, the large conference hall, dining room, and kitchen. It was all very compact and efficient. The CDO was remarkably self-contained and self-sufficient including the food we ate which was grown on site.

On the opening day of the conference we were all subdued, anxious, and rigid, or maybe shy is a better description. The "academics" had no trouble talking and felt very comfortable holding the floor and were obviously good at it. It was predictable, too, that the conference would begin on a heavy intellectual note which was intimidating to members who were largely uneducated.

Those who felt uncomfortable talking, like Suvenda, tried to be serious by listening intently and taking notes. At the end of the first day everyone had begun to warm up and a camaraderie was beginning to form. The second day I was amazed how easily everyone slipped into the heady talk about globalization and sustainability as if the conversations had been going on for years. I saw how useful the conference was for creating a long absent forum in Nepal for people to talk about what they were experiencing in their communities, even those members from the most remote villages, and how alarmed they were at what was happening in Nepal.

Conferences have many uses in addition to the dissemination of information and ideas. The buzz words these days used by grant writers who are looking for money to put on conferences commonly state how their conference will "build capacity" and "develop leadership". At well-run conferences that's true.

A key purpose of any conference is to "enrich knowledge" which can be seen as part of building capacity and developing leadership, but it is even more intrinsic then that, more subtle, in that much of what happens at conferences is unspoken, it's absorbed almost through the skin. When we are in groups of people who are energetically focusing on a grouped set of issues our brains go off in myriad directions, synapse after synapse, little firings of intellectual and sensory exchanges in which we process what we know, rebuild it, strengthen it, test it, reprocess it, and then put it up for awhile and revisit it at another day. You can call it creativity at work, insight development, or learning. It's powerful, though.

Some other things conferences are good for: incubators for new ideas, resolving conflicts, building coalitions, learning more about the "who, where, how" of central issues, provide connections between people, and provide a place to practice expressing our ideas and then getting the all-important feedback from other members. Finally, what members take from a conference is a growing sense of his or her "authority" which I'll describe as the "permission to do work". This doesn't mean there's a diploma or certificate, but through connections, the practice and sharpening of ideas there is a sense of "joining around a task" within the conference community. This "joining" process brings with it responsibility, credibility and a plan of action, a task, and it is within that joining that authority is given and taken.

Surya (in the photo above he has his hand up) who came to the conference almost by accident was a good example of the leadership development piece. He's a member of the Brahmin caste and he is also what I call a practitioner. That's my word for someone, not necessarily outside of academic circles, but one who has extensive hands-on experience and understands the practical aspects of the work, or in this case, Surya has a working knowledge of how to implement sustainable ideas and sustainable design and is familiar with the complexities involved. In his case he is a farmer interested in creating a "permaculture" and other sustainable forms of agriculture and sustainable ways of living. Surya is remarkable man, a remarkable human being. He's knowledgable and helpful and has a great sense of humor which he always uses to get his points across. He was an outspoken member of the conference because of his knowlege and because he's a Brahmin (I have added a whole section on Surya below).

The women at the conference were mostly silent the first day, or so. It was evident that Nepali men and women do not interact very much. It was not really shyness, but the few women who there were reticent in the face of the terse academic polemics. They did not seem to have the same volition the men did to condemn globalization per se. They were clear what they saw as the negative impacts that concern them the most as Nepali women, but they were articulate in saying they saw specific benefits for Nepali women in the thrust towards modernity as Nepal was being pushed towards the 21st century. Two of their stated concerns were: 1.) the continuing sale of young Nepali women by their parents to contractors that then sold them in India to brothels where they were forced into prostitution. They saw this as a global issue because they pointed out that it takes place around the globe. (There is a section below that goes into this practice in Nepal in more depth.) and 2.) The growing presence of pornography (films, videos, magazines, etc.) that's imported into Nepal from around the globe. The women are concerned because of the implications for Nepali women and all women living in impoverished countries because women are drawn in to participate in the production of pornography to make money to survive.