Transformation Travel
  • Home
  • Books
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Walking Women 50plus
  • Coaching
  • About
  • Home
  • Books
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Walking Women 50plus
  • Coaching
  • About
Join the Slow Journalism  movement. See the world from a 2 mile/hour perspective . 
STORIES  are everywhere

When The Facade of Affluence hides Cast Discrimination

11/6/2019

0 Comments

 
by Dami Roelse
Picture

​What if you were born to be poor? Your status in life was predetermined by cast?
I've just left Ladakh, a predominant Buddhist part of India, where there are many poor people. My trekking guide came from such a poor family. He was handed over to a monastery at age eight so he'd get fed and educated. He left the monastery at age 34, married and developed a business. He's no longer poor; his children have a university education, his wife has a steady job at a hospital. In Ladakh you can work your way out of poverty - religion and societal status don't keep you poor.
In Nepal I'm staying at a B&B in a small merchant town, populated by Newaris. The Newaris are traders from way back, the little town was a trading center on the route from India to Kathmandu. As the Prithvi highway eliminated their trading monopoly, the Newaris turned from goods to tourists and created an old-world ambiance with modern amenities to attract their clientele. The Newaris do well for themselves; it's obvious in the wellfed happy children walking to school and the chubby men and women running their small businesses.

But there is another side to this story: the B&B has partnered with a Scottish Rotary club and uses the profits of the business to help children of a nearby village to get an education. The Bhujel who live here are of a lower cast, most likely Dalit, untouchables. The men drink, the women make bamboo products for sale; not enough to make a living. Living in a fertile, land rich area the Bhujels miss the skills to be farmers and most likely were never allowed to own land. They live in predetermined poverty.
Our young guide Roshan tells us that at the end of the civil war in 2005 between rebel Maoists and Nepali royalists, the cast system was abolished as a condition for a constitutional Nepali government. "Everyone now has the same opportunities, we can marry across cast", he says, confident that the change is real. When a group of Nepali tourists introduce themselves to me that night as Brahmin (the superior cast), I'm not so sure I can share his optimism. Just as with the abolishment of slavery in the US, the attitudes and prejudice do not get stamped out with the passing of a law.

The Newaris in Bandipur exude confidence; they know they can avoid poverty if they work hard. The Brahmins draw their confidence from privilege; what we call 'white privilege' in the US.
Roshan worked in Qatar for a few years. The money sent home from Qatar is 20% of Nepal's GDP. Many of the Nepali migrant workers are the new slaves of the modern world as they work in construction for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. They are indentured servants; often don't get paid for months and owe a debilitating recruitment sum. Roshan was lucky, he's not a Dalit; he could get back to the shelter of family with improved English language skills and have a new start in the tourism industry.

Will western thinking and secularisation change the cycle of poverty? Probably, slowly, it will. Maybe, just maybe, my travel and presence here shifts the balance a bit more to opportunity for all. I tell a young Newari woman, named Jun-ko after the first Japanese woman to summit Mt Everest, to go climb a mountain. I tell her that I'm going to Mt Everest next. She looks at me and asks my age. I tell her, "I'm 72". I can see the glimmer of possibility in her eye. She thinks, if you can, I can too! Dream Jun-ko, you live in a country of magical mountains. Go make 'em your own.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Dami

    is an intrepid, energetic transformation traveler. Follow her blogs to see how she does it.​

    Picture
    Picture

    ​thetrek.co

    ​
    For hiking specific blogs check my contributions to TREK magazine via link above

    Categories

    All
    Home Garden
    Mindfulness
    Nature's Lessons
    Pandemic
    Slow Living

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    RSS Feed

Transformation-Travel
From the Middle of Nowhere, Southern Oregon, USA

About

Contact Us