NEPAL

And by the way, how is your quality of life? Here in Nepal, in my medieval farm-house life-style, I estimate my fossil-fuel foot print at, at tops, 30 gallons (120 l) a year. I buy a few plastic household items, some industrial-transported foods, travel by foot or bus, and (luxury) drive a motorbike relatively short distances now and again. And my quality of life is at a high. Tension is at a low. I need such little money. Nobody about has much money, they’ve grown up embedded in a direct dependency upon hand to mouth farming, upon the surrounding natural… grown up in a simplicity of sharing, in extended families, in a self-sufficiency of traditional food growing and processing, and in tool-making. They walk to where they need to go… walk locally and take the well-used public buses for distances. Many farm houses now have "one-light-bulb" Chinese solar systems installed. And they are as happy as I’ve ever seen people. Mirth and empathy happen. The farm folk look you in the eye with enthusiasm. And so importantly, the place is not yet over-burdened with over-population (but close to it). Yea Nepal! Namaste.

Note: disclaimer: Nepal is a new democracy. Less than 25 years ago, it was under the rule of a King and the entitled. Such services as public sanitation systems, health care, public education are still minimal. The government’s infamous corrupt bureaucracies are still patronage based. Modern Nepal seems a vector hell-bent on Western-style development. Environmentalism, climate change, appropriate development are concepts only becoming familiar to most. The rural pour into the cities. Kathmandu is a dusty city clogged with vehicles polluting with petroleum. The Indian Subcontinent to me seems a train-wreck of over-population, pollution, poverty, psychosis (don’t believe the “new india” hype) aimed at hyper-consumerism. Nepal is a want-to-be carriage on that train. But for me, traditional, rural Nepal is a beauty, a treasure.