Nepal - When I used to think of Nepal, I thought of the Himalayas and Mount Everest, Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet.
Mark Twain said: ”Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
Doing background interview with Animesh Singh in Kathmandu after portrait photos (the interview is videoed on iPhone so the editor has both the portraits and story for his articles) © 2012 Thorsten Overgaard
I suppose only 60 years ago, travel for leisure was a privilege only available to the wealthy and not as easy and fast as today, taking an aeroplane was a luxurious undertaking and before that, one had to travel by ship and train.
It wasn’t something one did to stay in a location for just a few days, like so often today.
People used to travel to exotic places, like the Sahara desert or Africa and it really was not a comfortable way to travel and took often weeks.
I recently travelled to Nepal on an assignment and even though today we take airplanes and cars to get from A to B, it is uncomfortable on dusty, uneven streets or landing in an airport that seems like it hasn’t been cleaned since 1968…
Time has stood still there and it is not because people aren’t trying to change it but because there is no functioning government and that’s an understatement, no one takes responsibility for their garbage, they just through it in the streets. Having just been in Singapore, with its impeccable clean, non - smoking space, it was a drastic contrast.
Even in England the roads need some doing but at least they have tar on most of them.
It made me realize that in places like Kathmandu problems like drugs, which aren’t considered illegal, kill people like flies. Parents don’t send their children to rehab as they try to cover it up that their kin are heroin addicts.
I interviewed several men and heard their stories on how they got into drugs and how they now, after the rehabilitation, feel they have their life back not actually have a life but also a purpose.
And that’s when I realized that I was lucky, I always had something in my life that drove me and I had family that supported my being an artist.
We went up to the mountain one day, it was a hard and strenuous drive by car and let me just remind you that in Nepal, indicating doesn’t seem to be the norm, all they use is the horn and they will overtake you anywhere on a serpentine, rocky road that you wouldn’t be faster if you walked by foot. The indicator is probably the only thing that still works on the cars simply because it just barely gets used at all.
After an hour we arrived at our destination and we could see the Himalayas, the air wasn’t polluted and we passed villagers, sitting outside their huts just as noisy as I looked at them, they looked at me, for they saw my blonde hair and blue eyes and I saw their colourful clothes and jewellery.
I saw how two children washing their hair outside, with a hose and a bar of soap and at the same time their parents using a mobile phone with bad signal.
People survive and if you don’t know anything else, you will be content, with what you have.
Different religions and governments will bring different traditions and laws whether they are for the greater good or not, is decided by the people and I hope for Nepal that they will become a fair and sane government, to built roads and bathrooms but because it would be an enhancement the people have reached for and not something someone thinks they need.
When I used to think of Nepal, I thought of the Himalayas and Mount Everest, Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet.
The question is should we legalize drugs? Think about it for a second before you think what you’ve been taught by our government, is it a new approach to the problem?
Would it work in every country or just some?
Is the answer to implement laws to make addiction a health rather than a criminal problem?
Does putting addicts into prison prevent them from taking drugs? Is it the addict who’s the criminal? Or the dealer? And who is really benefiting from it?
Portugal has immense success rates since they have legalized drugs. But would it work in other countries?
I saw the tail end of what seems to be a monopole.
I’ve known about it for a while now and I don’t need to write about this; you don’t need to read this; What does it have to do with us, right?
Well, WE are the future, WE are what will be, whether we like it or not.
It doesn’t matter where it happens, it is terrible when it does.
Singer/Writer/Model/Muse currently between London and the rest of the world… www.catherinekubillus.com
