To The Country!!

In posts across previous weeks I have made tentative references to my impending trip to the countryside to visit K. speakers living in the area that they come from. It has taken me til now, two weeks before my field trip comes to an end, to finally make my way out there.

This has not been due to any unwillingness, or laziness, on my behalf, but due to political instability in Nepal. The opposition party in the National Parliament were preventing anything from happening, and decided to attempt the population to rise up in the name of 'Civilian Supremacy'. During the weeks of political unrest we never did quite find out what that rhetoric meant.

I haven't bothered writing about it until now for a few reasons. Firstly, I didn't want to to concern anyone unnecessarily, which kind of flows on to point two, which is that it felt so surreal and never really affected our daily lives. This was rather hard for me to deal with, as - on one hand - the whole thing was majorly messing up my plans to get out of Ktm, and - on the other hand - my life kept ticking along like nothing was the problem. The 'bandah' days, where everything shuts down as a sing of solidarity, didn't really touch my little area, and the larger protests happened on the southern end of the city.

But, as mysteriously as the whole drama arose, it has dissipated again, and I'm now taking a trip out of the valley. It is shorter than I would have liked, and it's coming so late in things that I won't really get a chance to process or confirm any data that I get, but it is certainly better than not going at all.

So, if I can't find an webbage in my journeys for the next week I'm afraid the anecdotes will have to wait until I return home on Friday.