"I"ll Call You in Kathmandu"-Elizabeth Hawley

Kosi Compound was built by Indians who resided there in the 'fifties while doing work on the Kosi River. It is located in Dilli Bazaar, not so far from Alice and Ed Perdon’s residence. There were a number of two-storey houses, the front large one became the Tax Office, while the one on the left as you come in through the gate with the brass plaque that reads “Himalayan Trust Fund” is Elizabeth Hawley’s residence on the upper floor, and the Fund’s rooms, residential and offices, on the ground floor. She was the person on the spot on behalf of Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust Fund.

A blue VW is usually parked next to the house, the trusty car of Ms Hawley. The grounds were always abuzz with sherpa baskets, construction material, cartons of medical supplies, and people coming and going, backpacks filled to the brim. We occupied the house just behind the Tax Office, and is named Shanti Niketan, “Peace House”, our residence for ten years in Kathmandu. We had the lower floor with two bedrooms, while VK Shrestha, RNAC pilot and his family, had the upper floor. The Bhandary brothers and their families, Prabhu and Rajan, our landlords, occupied the other two houses. Within the compound, a number of dogs could be seen scampering about at any time. However, the Hawley Lhasa Apso was always let out with a leash by its Ayah, always immaculately brushed.

The most celebrated mountaineer who was an occasional visitor was Sir Edmund Hillary, and could be seen supervising the porters or counting boxes or rolls of wire or bags of cement, for transport to the Trust-supported Khunjung School and Khunde Hospital at Namche Bazaar, or briefing medical volunteers from Australia or New Zealand who would spend time at the school or hospital. The nearest airport there would be at Lukla, where an RNAC pilot friend of ours had supplied us with pine to use as a Christmas tree one winter.

While we were in Seattle last summer, I stumbled across a reference to Elizabeth Hawley’s bio, called “I’ll Call You in Kathmandu”. We wasted no time to go to Barnes and Noble to obtain a copy but we were told it was out of print. A couple of days later I came across the address of its publisher in downtown Seattle which specializes in mountaineering topics, and they were able to mail us a copy.

Here are some excerpts of reviews:
One of the most important figures in Himalayan climbing may be someone who has never been to Everest Base Camp, and is not a climber. In 1960, a young American woman, Elizabeth Hawley, moved to Nepal as a reporter for Time, Inc. Initially sending home political dispatches from the kingdom, it wasn’t long before Hawley’s pen found its niche: mountaineering in the world’s highest places. She quickly became part of the Kathmandu scene, socializing regularly with an eclectic group of adventurers, climbers, royalty, politicians and entrepreneurs. Hawley is still in Kathmandu today and has been the unofficial chronicler of every detail of every expedition mounted from Nepal in the Himalaya from more than four decades.

She was born in 1923 in Chicago and has made her fame as the chronicle of Himalayan expeditions. She is respected by the international mountaineering community because of her complete and accurate records, despite their being unofficial.

What would motivate this single American woman, the product of a Midwest upbringing, to travel solo during this era to one of the most remote and enigmatic places on the globe? How did she command the respect of climbers from around the world (some of whom report fear of her sharp tongue and rigorous interview style)? How did she remain an authoritative figure for 40 years during the most intense climbing of this region—the “Golden Era of Himalayan Climbing”? What changes did she see take place in mountaineering and in the political landscape of this region?

Although the intensely private Ms. Hawley is an enigma even to those who know her well, I’ll Call you in Kathmandu reveals Hawley as a complex personality, with a rich personal life.
Climbers who want to be recognized for climbing Everest subject themselves to interviews with her. Her archives have been compiled into two reference works: The Himalayan Database and The Himalaya By the Numbers.

In 2008, a newly climbed peak was named after her. Peak Hawley (6,182m/20,282') in the Dhaulagiri Group by the French climber Francois Damilano.
( Photo found in: http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/newly_climbed_peak_named_for_elizabeth_hawley/)

Part II of Lhasa Apsos

When Paisa reached puberty, she was mated with a snow-white Lhasa belonging to a Tibetan chap who ran Himalayan Movers, a friend of Alice L. Paisa Rani was a gentle and good Mom. Mangal, Maheswori, Gyano, and the kids Gayatri and Madhav, and and the rest took turns feeding them with special food. We turned the tool shed into a "Doggie Hotel" and some of the furnishings, canine vitamins and special tins of doggie food came from Germany, courtesy of Brigitte-Memsaab of Neckermann Travel. There were four in the first litter: Rakshi and Phorba stayed with us while good homes were found for La Bamba (the Garcias of UNDP) and Donna. (Am writing this in Bangkok, most of the Lhasa puppy photos are in the Seattle bodega).

Then on one trip out at Boudanath, I found a shoe repairman who had a gorgeous Lhasa puppy wrapped in his leather apron: I offered the equivalent of ten dollars to buy him, and he bargained for twelve. So I came home with another Lhasa puppy, all white and streaks of tan. Gorkha was covered in fleas and ticks. Had to use a kerosene bath to get rid of them. And for days and days he smelled of leather and kerosene. A few weeks later, he contracted parvo virus before I could take him to the vet for his shots.

Then Brigitte-Memsaab boarded her Khukri with us until he was ready to be shipped out to Munich, in two years. He was supposed to be pedigree but turned out to be a mutt: a snout longer than the others, shorter legs and coarser hair than the other Lhasas. And limpid eyes that looked at you as though he was reading your thoughts. But the group lived as a pack. They knew their limitations: they were not to play with Snowy, Elizabeth Hawley's white Lhasa who was kept on a leash close to the Himalayan Fund office in the compound, and who spent only a few minutes outdoors with his Ayah.

They were not allowed to go out the confines of Kosi Compound. I used a tailor just across the busy-traffic street: I witnessed a near-collision between a three wheeler and a pedestrian, when Phorba decided she wanted to come with me for a fitting at the tailor's: not even the chowkidar's chasing her away prevented her from crossing the street. And she had a habit of jumping and catching the pleats of saris of visitors in the compound. I had often offered to pay for the tooth-damaged saris but was always dismissed with a smile.

The times when Brigitte arrived with her travel group, Khukri would stay with her, often at one of the Bhandary apartments next to us. Khukri would be returned for his meals and playtime with us, and smelled richly of Nina Ricci.

Photo: Russell, our XXL Tibetan mastiff, and the backside of Phorba. Russ was a large beast: this breed is meant to be fierce guard dogs. He ate like a horse and there was no such thing as leftovers with the others. He had a lovely thick coat, all the more to be out there in the Himalayan snow. One day he bit David in the wrist: that was the end of him because there is no telling when the vicious genes would turn up. He ended up in Karma and Margot's farmhouse at the fringe of the King's Forest. Their property , formerly a rice field, was unfenced but had large tracts of space he could run around in, just doing his chowkidar duty.

Part 1: Lhasa Apsos in Our Lives

I guess each one of us have fallen for these critters. Alice L. had MisMis, named after the Arabic word for apricot. Indeed he had shaggy blond locks, with a dark mustache and a muzzle about the size of a large black strawberry. He was larger than his mate, Rani Lanaria, who had gone gray but was originally dark gray-black. What a lovable, huggable pair.

Because of the history of inbreeding as indoor sentinel dogs to guard the monasteries, their pups, particularly the eldest, had hips higher than the rest of its trunk and had an uneven gait. But even then this pup had deep brown eyes and I can tell you she looked straight into my soul. So when it was time for Alice to give up the litter of about 4 pups, Paisa Rani Domingo-Barker came to Shanti Niketan at Dilli Bazar, from Lazimpat. I could tell that Malla, Alice's helper, was sad to see the pups leave. I had to stop by UNDP to get my mail, and got admiring comments on Paisa, from several people at the mailbox area. She was a beaut: soft tawny double undercoat and with a gentle disposition.

She had a habit of shaking nervously when there were strangers and children around, and had a distinct upper and lower tone bark. Sort of HOO (high) hoo (low) in quick succession. But Gopal our Kosi Compound chowkidar, when he brought up the Rising Nepal in the mornings, had a gentle way with Paisa, soft words and patting would make them fast friends. We had concrete steps along a small pond to go up our residence. Paisa would navigate these steps with difficulty, often flopping and not making any progress from one step up to the next. And would try again. But when excitement overtook her, she could huff and puff and use those stairs quite normally.

Steve Glovinsky of UNDP house-sat the flat while I went on mission to Beijing, for six weeks. He and Paisa became friendly: she really was good company especially on those nippy cold evenings.

MORE PAISA STORIES SOON!! SEND IN YOUR LHASA STORIES, OR OTHER PET STORIES, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE!!

The Takahashis: Junji and Evelyn

Focus on Zambia

September 2006(excerpt from JICA website)

Villagers in the tiny hamlet of Mwalongo had reason to be well satisfied, at least for now. For centuries they and their ancestors have lived on the very edge of survival, growing meager crops of maize in the windswept landscape and always subject to the vagaries of a harsh climate, drought, pestilence, and famine.

But help has begun to arrive for the residents of Mwalongo, who are among the more than 70% of Zambia's population of around 11.5 million who live in isolated and arid or semi-arid regions. As JICA increases its developmental focus on the African continent, a major emphasis has been placed on projects designed to help the inhabitants in these areas to escape the poverty trap in which they have lived all of their lives.

Mwalongo is in Zambia's Chongwe District and, since 2002, Japanese experts and Zambian colleagues from the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives have been working there and in some 30 other nearby villages on a program called The Project for Participatory Village Development in Isolated Areas.

Mwalongo is reached along a rutted, twisting dirt track which becomes impassable during the rainy season, when the village is isolated from the outside world. There is constant dust or mud, low scrub and stumpy trees, but the region is luckier than other surrounding areas because two small rivers flow nearby. It is not even a village in the traditional sense, but a series of isolated, mud brick homes scattered across a huge area.

Asian-African Differences

For the first time, this village has been able to buy cows and other animals on a collective basis to boost their standard of living.

When Junji Takahashi, the chief advisor to the project who supervises four other Japanese experts, arrived, that was the first thing he noticed. "In Asia, village houses are packed closely together," the Yokohama native said. "Here, houses can be kilometers from each other and ‘neighbors' may not even meet except at weddings and funerals." And, he added: "In Asia there is always rain, and always at least some food. Here, in the dry season, there is nothing. Nothing."

In Mwalongo, villagers have bought small numbers of pigs, goats, and cattle to help generate both food and cash. In the past villagers used to water small, individual plots with buckets of water hauled laboriously by hand from the nearby rivers. Now, simple pumps and pipes irrigate a growing area of old and newly introduced crops. A storage shed and brick water-storage tanks are being built.

In exchange for the infusion of some $16,000 dollars and the agricultural expertise, villagers are expected to do virtually all of the actual work themselves and on a communal rather than an individual basis.

The results thus far may appear laughably modest to more sophisticated town and city dwellers, but to villagers who have had almost nothing for their entire lives, a few animals or an extra crop can make a significant difference in their lives.

It is already planned that Phase II of the Chongwe project will begin in 2007, and a similar program is being launched this year in the northern part of the country covering an additional 15 villages and 10,000 people.

Junji Takahashi cautioned that such projects offer "no quick fix" to eradicate poverty. "There are no instant results. Community development is extremely difficult and slow."

Divali Greetings

Another Festival of Lights: 2009. Here's wishing everyone a Happy and Delightful Divali. The first October I spent in Kathmandu, I decided to spend a few of the holiday days in Pokhara, my travel there for the first time. Stayed at that famous hotel near the airstrip, Snowland (the one with a "past"). At its rooftop garden, the clay vessels with oil and cotton wicks were lit at sundown: it was quite a sight, and other places as far as the eye could see, also had those lovely flickering lights.

Kumari

How have the times changed the living goddess? The previous One likes bubble gum. While the Macchendranath chariot was being pulled through Durbar Marg, it is reported that she blew a bubble while the cheering crowds pressed forward for a blessing. She is still draped in red silk with the Third Eye on her forehead. At 4 years old, Priti Shakya, was subjected to the ancient rites of identifying the Kumari: horoscope, imperfections, spending the night in a room with 108 animal heads: she passed. Along with the 32 other Perfections. And went into isolation at Durbar Square. Until October 2008, when a new goddess, Matani Shakya, was named. Priti is adjusting to a life that - suddenly - is supposed to live a normal girl's life. This cycle has been repeated for about four centuries, holding out against modernity as Nepal slowly began to change.

Kumaris now have been sucked into the politial maelstrom, from Maoist militants to the Prime Minister. Public debate is taking place, on child's rights and a very ancient form of worship. The present nascent democratic government refused to allow King Gyanendra to receive the goddess' annual blessing - thought to be an important living deity of the king. When the king went without permission, the Nepalese government slashed the number of royal bodyguards.

Among the Shakyas, the caste that chooses the goddess from its daughters, it has become increasingly difficult to find families willing to send their girls away. For some people, all this is simply too much. Some politicians now focus on the kumaris for political gain: any criticism at all would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago, when Nepal was emerging from centuries of isolation. It was a nation bound by strong and feudal traditions, a country that handed out visitors' visas very reluctantly, and where few people could imagine a king without power.

While change did eventually come - foreigners began arriving regularly in the sixties, Kathmandu became notorious for its inbound Western vans, budget passengers and cheap drugs - it came slowly. For example, a law was passed five years back, so women can now have equal inheritance rights.

In 2008, the Nepalese Supreme Court has asked the government to guarantee basic child rights to the living goddesses, after a three-year debate on whether the practice of keeping a child secluded infringed on rights guaranteed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The court also ordered the government to ensure social security for the former goddesses.

Today, Nepal is a fragile democracy and change is coming even to the kumari. Television in available in her palace these days, giving access to everything from movies to the local news. She can probably watch Gossip Girl after her puja.

Kumari Ghar, Durbar Square.

VANITY FAIR Features Kathmandu

Sacred History Resonates in Kathmandu: Traditional building practices coexist with global trade in Nepal's capital

“All the scholarship in the world could not match the living heritage of people who know how to carve in this way—people, furthermore, who actually care which god goes where.” - Lucinda Lambton, Vanity Fair

Decades of restoration have kept up the medieval splendor of a region long hidden from the world: Kathmandu Valley. Started by Germany in the 1960s and later spearheaded by a Harvard professor, the repairs have maintained many of the area's stupas and pagodas, Lucinda Lambton writes for Vanity Fair—but one must visit to see how the architecture infuses the sacred in the everyday.

“And what a noise," Lambton writes. "With prayer bells ringing, carpenters chiseling, metalworkers hammering, horns tooting, loudspeakers blaring, people shrieking and chattering, food sizzling. What other great historic urban space is there in the world that has flung itself so wholeheartedly into modern life while retaining its spiritual soul and stately beauty?” Harry Kimball

You can find the Vanity Fair article in: (7 pages, with color photographs)

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/09/kathmandu200809

Photo: http://www.nepalpackagetour.com/kathmandu.htm