Dad Blog #2: Held Hostage for 75 Cents

Day 2 started off innocently enough. We were invited to the rice harvest at a farm about 2 hours South of Kathmandu owned by the son of Lauren and Mer's landlord, Projjwal Khadka. I was looking forward to getting out into the pristine countryside after less than a day in Kathmandu. After being on an cramped airplane for 24 hours and then in Kathmandu (which I swear means "Klaustrophoia" in Nepali) I was ready for the wide open spaces of the green terraced hillside farmland I'd see in travel guides.



So after some embarrassing bargaining with a taxi driver (I felt like the fare we bargained for would probably mean one of his children would starve to death that night) we were off. It was a delightful day. Projjwall is a Che Guevera tee shirt wearing, four gold earring humanitarian farmer (and Kathmandu DJ). Here's Lauren and Proj inside Proj's families house where they're storing and drying the corn they harvested before the rice:



He is trying to introduce organic farming back into his region of Nepal. Through a combination of successful results and his low key charisma he is succeeding is changing decades of destructive farming practices by his fellow Nepalis. We watched the rice harvest where they used centuries old methods for gathering the rice, threshing it using a pedal driven device, and then seeing women carrying 100 pounds of rice up the hill for eventual transport to the mill. Hopefully this blog entry will be accompanied by at least one photo of this backbreaking task (which never seems to break their back and for which they are richly compensated, about $1.50 per day).

Threshing:


Carrying:


We had lunch with the rice field workers that was as good as any Indian (Nepali food and Indian food are indistinguishable for me) restaurant meal I've had. I was completely inspired by our day which felt like an Asian combination of Walden Pond, Johnny Appleseed and a Winslow Homer watercolor painting. I felt all warm-and-fuzzy and very "clean" as we got into the same taxi for our ride back to Klaustrophia.

After about an hour of bumping down pot hole ridden roads a young man suddenly stepped into the road in front of our taxi. I caught the look on the taxi drivers face which gave me a bad feeling, I didn't think the young fellow in the road needed a ride into town. No, he was a Maoist guerilla and he was demanding money. He didn't ask for our wallets, he didn't make us get out of the vehicle. He was extorting us for about 75 cents. I guess his mother taught him not to be greedy, but come on. . . what kind of self-respecting terrorist asks for 75 cents? And then he wrote us out a receipt which would allow us to get back any other Maoists we might encounter on the way home. I think I'll check the receipt for the guys address, I'd like to send him some more money. Feel free to send me any contributions you feel moved to donate. However, it occurred to me that maybe the taxi driver and the "Maoist" were in cahoots and they've developed a small business (shake down the tourist) with a microbanking loan courtesy of Muhammed Yunus ("Banker to the Poor").