Renu and other conference participants look at a sign proclaiming that a well know environmental organization, a global non-profit, had create a literacy program at this village where we were visiting, but no such program existed.

During one of our long, precious conversations in which we compared her culture and mine, talking about the myriad details of our thoughts, and what we want to accomplish in the way of fostering sustainability Laljanri said, “All they do is talk. They just talk and talk and nothing gets done. Nothing changes.” She was referring to the men participating in the conference.

A few days before that we were on a field trip to a nearby village and heard a car coming up the path. It was a pristine white Land Rover. Seeing a vehicle of any kind at the village was rare and everyone came running. While they stared two Nepali men got out of the Rover, took out a shovel and pick, measured something, and then dug two holes about four feet apart. They dug down a few feet and took a sign out of the Rover and carried it and “planted” the sign posts in the two holes, tamped in some earth and made it level. Then another man, not a Nepali,got out of the Rover all dressed up in rugged outdoor clothing (brand new) and posed next to the sign while one of the Nepali snapped a few pictures. Then they removed the sign and put it back in the Rover, filled in the two holes they had dug, and drove away. The sign said that a certain (well known) agency had been working in this village teaching children how to read and write. The villagers laughed. No one from that agency, or any other, had been to the village to teach anyone, anything. It was merely a fund raising ploy.