Remittance

The mountains stand as ivory sentinels over Kathmandu today.  It feels obscene that something could be that big.  They stretch the mind to an unknown distance.  I understand why the Himalayas are a mountaineer’s prize.  To conquer these behemoths is to understand a distance greater than the imagination.

Today is a clear day – an unusual treat for this season.  A slow breeze has pushed the smog from the valley granting us a perfect vista.  My roof serves as a vantage point to both the ordinary and the extreme.  The giant icy glaciers loom on the horizon but just below my feet I can spy through my terrace bars at the neighbors below.  Their average lives are a mix of century old traditions and mobile phone carrying advances.

Kathmandu is groaning from growing pains.  Half finished high rises stand like erect skeletons in every direction.  In the valley behind my house a foundation the size of a football field has been poured with re-bar protruding out of the smooth gray surface.  It lays fallow unable to produce the promised children’s hospital due to lack of funding.

Nepali homes express defiant hope.  Each three level house has the beginnings of a fourth level left unfinished.  This section will be completed when the family has extra money, perhaps ten years in the future.  The fourth floor supporting columns stand erect.  The family is prepared to build the moment funds come in.

There is a word in Nepali that means “She is a person whose spouse works abroad.”  Every corner advertises remittance transfer.    You meet ordinary people on every street who have lived in Turkey, Dubai or Qatar earning money to complete a fourth floor dream.  In the distance I hear the steady thud of a hammer against metal.   Bricks are stacked and iced together with cement.  Plaster is smoothed to perfection.  Hope has come to fruition.