III.II.III – The Great Divide
III.II.III
THE GREAT DIVIDE
Over the first week in Nepal, we were kept busy with the orientation program. We were taught some basic Nepali, informed about their customs and told what we were to do. We parted ways with the rest of the group who’d be participating in other programs; mainly construction, female empowerment and teaching, and, as the only medical volunteering group, we stayed in Kathmandu.
Our residence was nearby the Thamel neighbourhood; a thriving tourist centre riddled with all kinds of shops and restaurants and bars and hotels and everything you can imagine. From spices and crystals to souvenirs and trekking gear, one can find anything their heart desires. We’d get lost in the narrow, colourful roads of Thamel without a care in the world, buying all kinds of weird stuff and eating even weirder food. I’m not gonna go so far as to say it felt like home, because really, I never had to use a mask to avoid choking on dust back in my country, but still, as strange and outlandish as that place seemed to be at the very beginning, it ended up feeling as familiar as, well, perhaps a second home would. I’m slightly hungover so please do forgive my lack of wittiness at present. But let’s not allow my feeble and debilitated condition to get in the way of what would otherwise be a florid account of my adventures in Kathmandu.
From Thamel to Pashupatinath; a Hindu temple complex dedicated to Lord Shiva where cremations are performed, and Boudhanath Stupa; a huge white dome representing a beacon of faith to Buddhists, our expectations were definitely met. It felt so good to be in such an exotic country doing whatever the hell we wanted, going around and absorbing as much of the culture as possible.
Only that wasn’t why we were there. During all those months of planning and research, I was solely focused on all the country had to offer; the mountains, the jungles, the cities, the food, the clothes and everything else Trip Advisor promised.
And you know what Nepal’s notorious for? Trekking; lots and lots of trekking. Home to the Himalayas; the highest mountain range in the world, millions of amateur and expert trekkers alike make their way to Nepal every year to witness the most stunning and beautiful views one would be lucky to encounter at least once in their lifetime. And I’d get to be there! “I’ll finally get to do some trekking out in the wild again! I could very well be on my way up Mount friggin’ Everest in a few months’ time!” I’d tell myself over and over, Eye of the Tiger playing loudly in the back of my mind.
But again, that wasn’t why we were going there. We were going there as aspiring Mother Theresas, to help those in need, to give something back, to save the dying – to be their knights in shining armour, or rather, medics in shining scrubs. And let me tell you, that was such a load of crap to me. You see, in medicine we’re taught to treat the disease, not the symptoms; the cause, not the consequence. All the adversities we hear about but choose to ignore on a daily basis? Poverty and hunger, wars and displacement, climate change and lack of resources – all of those are just symptoms of a diseased society.
I don’t mean to go on about how unfair it all is, about how inequity has no place in a society as supposedly advanced as ours, about how we have the audacity to sit idly by as we twiddle our thumbs while some of us don’t even have access to the most basic of health services. There are way too many people who are much better suited to rant about that – say Michael Marmot who wrote ‘The Health Gap’ (definitely a must read). Now they can shed some light on the above-mentioned issues and how far back we still are from reaching what one might call adequate standards.
But on the grand scheme of things, does knowing about a seemingly unsolvable problem make a difference? They say that knowledge is power and that recognizing that there is in fact a problem is the first step to solve it. As much as I value knowledge, I don’t think that’s enough. I think knowledge pales in comparison to action in this case. Philosophers spend their entire lives thinking and over-thinking, trying to identify a problem and then solving it. Some manage, many go crazy (in the literal sense). In a way I used to be like that, always on the side-lines, observing, thinking… But the helplessness, the feeling of ineffectuality… I just couldn’t take it. In the face of such injustices, knowledge on its own cowers in fear and is but a hindrance. Knowing is not enough; being aware of the problem and actually doing something about it is a whole other thing.
And to do something about it… what does that actually entail? Donating money? Shipping food overseas? Upending your entire life on a delusional whim that you might be the change, the solution, the answer to the world’s problems? Is that it? Is having a Messiah complex the way to go? I certainly doubt it. So how could a stupid idiot like me ever do anything about it? And how would a couple of weeks of volunteering ever make a difference? These things were just half-measures, temporary fixes, tape and glue, not the solution. Much like I had been taught, I was only interested in treating the disease not the symptoms, and that felt like something that was completely out of my hands.
That was my reasoning. And so, I wasn’t thinking about the poor, the needy, the famished and the sick. All I could think about was time lost. Time I could have spent trekking or rafting or doing whatever. This wasn’t going to be anything like Colombia after all. It wasn’t going to be just a holiday. We’d have time to go around, sure, but all those outdoorsy adventures I was dying for? Poof! Gone. Such a big sacrifice for something I didn’t even believe in. And so, my expectations weren’t all that grand.