Aliciaの光

Corruption and the Hate

It’s now been over a week since I arrived in Chitwan, and the longer I’m here the more festered my anger becomes. It’s not just the Aussie anymore—apparently it is common place for them to come here and molest the children—it’s also that I paid out money to an agency to place me in an orphanage. I assumed that at least some of the money I paid would go to help the kids, but some of them don’t even have toothpaste.

Yesterday I took yet another girl to the hospital, and the 17 year old had one of her molars pulled. It could have easily been saved had she been taken to the dentist earlier. However, the head of the orphanage says there is not enough money to pay for medical care.

That would have been satisfactory, had his family not come. He has two daughters and one adopted son. The son is completely undisciplined. At times he pulls down his pants and just randomly pees on the floor or anyone standing in his way—namely, myself. The girls are slightly better, but they eat biscuits and milk in front of the other children and throw things when they don’t get their way. Spoiling children is one thing, but bringing their spoiled children to an orphanage on holiday to parade in front of those who have virtually nothing is another.

So apparently there is not enough money for medical care but there is enough to buy your own children milk and biscuits.

Yet another girl approached me about her teeth falling out, and another came to me asking her to buy her shoes. She shares a pair of sandals with the kitchen staff.

I would be perfectly happy purchasing tons of useful things for the children, but I forked over a chunk of change when I first arrived in Nepal to the agency.The agency then bought me one dal bhat dinner, a bus ticket to Chitwan and one night in a terrible hotel in Kathmandu. Here in Chitwan, I have a room to myself, which is more than the orphans have, and a bathroom. The bathroom has a toilet that doesn’t flush, so I take water that I’ve used to bathe and dump it in the toilet to do it.

The entire time I’ve been doing this, I can’t help but think—I wish I had modern conveniences. I wish I could turn on the lights when I pleased, or run the fan when I get hot. Or even shower when I pleased.

This experience is supposed to be more rewarding. But how can it be more rewarding when you haven’t done anything? How can you feel useful when you can see that the people aren’t getting things they need? Where does the corruption in this place end? WHEN does the corruption end?

Let’s move back to the topic of corruption. Yesterday I ‘helped’ with administrative affairs (meaning I typed some letters in proper English), and a man I had never seen before walked in. Ruplal, the director of the orphanage, called to Anil—one of the older boys we believe was raped by the Australian. Anil came in with something that they tried to hide from me. But both Ruplal and Sundar took a sniff from this bag. They gave it to the man in exchange for some money. As I was leaving, the man had left this bag on the table and I realized what I had just witnessed was an exchange of drugs, and they had involved one of the children in the run.

Some of the other volunteers are going to ask for their money back so that they can use it to take the kids to the hospital and buy them clothes, real food (we have been eating dal bhat and noticed our stomachs bloating up from the lack of nutrients and abundance of charbohydrates—and we notice the lack of growth in the kids), and anything else that will make them feel like kids whose lives matter. What more can I do?

Chitwan's Orphanage

The fact that I don’t particularly get on well with all the volunteers here doesn’t escape this: the children are going through a lot, whether they know it or not. I just learned an Aussie man came here to my orphanage and took 4 boys to his hotel. The orphanage director knew about this and gave him permission, but playing at a hotel with a random tourist doesn’t seem like a good idea. And it wasn’t. The man raped the 4 boys and took photos, then skirted off to his home as if nothing happened.

It came to be known after one of the boys confided in a volunteer they had become close to, and the volunteer phoned the Australian police immediately. The police flew in and interviewed them. Now the man is awaiting trial.

What happened to the man who runs the orphanage? Should he be held responsible for letting his kids leave with a stranger? None of the volunteers have background checks because of the costs, and he definitely knows nothing about how to spot an offender or an abused child. But the man still runs the orphanage and he still refuses to buy the kids toothpaste or take them to the doctor, even when they are dripping blood from their ears.

I’m too angry to really analyze this situation. The minute I heard it I ran back to the orphanage and bought them ice cream. It was small, but it brought smiles to their faces. That’s all I can do for now…

Chitwan, Nepal

It has been over a week since I last had a chance to post anything. Nepal is similar to Laos, in that internet connections are few and far between. I stayed a couple of days in Kathmandu, a city whose dirt roads and conglomeration of cars and construction make it the most polluted city I’ve ever visited. The small piles of rubble spread throughout the country make it appear as if there has recently been a war. And for some living in this country, it has.

The children in Kathmandu have been exposed to drugs and are weening from signs of abuse. It is unfortunate to see the kids (and when I say kids, I’m talking from 8 to 16 years old) with ballons filled with drugs. You can see it in their eyes: the reason they do it is to sheild themselves from the realities of what is going on in the city. At about noon on my 3rd day in Kathmandu, I happened across a woman who was lying on the side of the road. She was clean and her sari had not moved since she put it on. But she was surely dead. She was probably about 30. I also happened across a road that was filled with piles of old, dusty, used condoms. I realized at that moment that I was lost, and that the children are exposed to many different kinds of hardships.

I mentioned before that the city shows in the faces of the children. So the adults most certainly have been affected. One man at a hotel I was staying at looked about 35 years old, but he was a mere 22 years old—and looking to get married.

Another issue that has come into play is the relationship and the status of women and men. Women have far fewer social rights than men, and are generally less willing to open up to me than men have been. I was sitting at a table with a Danish woman, a French man, an Irish woman, and a Dutch man having a conversation about the status of women in general. We could not really come to a consensus about whether or not women should allow a man to be chivalrous (without acknowledging that the man is expecting something in return) and still maintain their equality in the relationship. But for me, this was beyond our brief, considering that Nepali women have no rights and polygamy is still practiced in some parts of the country. What can we do to help them have more prominence in this society? I think only then will Nepal begin to seriously thrive.

Getting back to Chitwan, the agency I came through sent me off to Chitwan, Nepal in between the mountains where there is a flat valley. Here, I’ve been helping out at the orphanage. I’m not so sure what kind of help I’ve been so far, other than to talk to the kids and teach them some Japanese and Korean words, and sharing videos and music. I think these are probably modern conveniences that a lot of Nepali people in this town are not able to afford. The man who gives elephant baths still lives in a small hut adjacent to his elephant where the walls are made of dried mud. I’d hate to think what might happen if it were to rain!

Nepal has started to pick up the Vietnamese trait of playing on tourists emotions, when they want you to purchase things. I think this goes back to what I said earlier about me being a terrible tourist. There are some men who dress up in costumes and you can take their picture for a fee. I didn’t realize it and took a photo of them—and in the picture you can see one of them gesturing for money. I, being a terrible tourist, just went on. I’ll post the photo later.

At the orphanage I’ve been eating dal bhat every day, three times a day. Dal bhat is pretty delicious—rice and curry. But there are very few vegetables and I barely get any fruit. Think about the kids who have been eating this for years: Some of their heights have actually been stunted because they aren’t getting the nutrients to help them grow. I don’t expect them to grow to Western heights, but one boy is only 4’10” and heading into college soon.

There is a girl here who has been in the town for 3 weeks and annoyingly acts as if she knows the entire town inside out. It may be the case, and I applaud her efforts to protect the environment, but I don’t enjoy her experiences being the only part of our conversation. I suddenly realized, even though she is Danish, that I will soon have to deal with people that are self-centered enough to rave about their own experiences without avail on a constant basis. It is not a good thing or a bad thing, as Westerners are taught to do this from the day they arrive into the world. But to be mentally prepared, that is something that can always be helpful.