Nepal #3

Well, I never thought I was much for bartering, but today I did it for several hours and... well, I really enjoyed it! haha! (It must be my mid-eastern side coming out ;-)

Nobody likes to be taken advantage of right? Even if they still are taking advantage of me - a white skinned woman - it still feels so good to stick to your price and get a "deal"! woo-hoo!

I guess I loved it!

Natives.

Gotta love some of the Nepalese people too. Tried to explain to a shopkeeper today what "this 'dow' (tho) is?"

I could not come up with a good explanation!

He laughed and laughed and said he has asked many Americans and no one can give him an answer!

Then there are other experiences that were not so pleasant, but it was overall a lot of fun shopping for goodies!

Health.

In other news,

today was a bit odd because of Sarah's sickness. She has extreme food poisoning and had to have a home-visit doctor administer an IV of antibiotics last night, she is very, very weak.

Also, my teammate is trying to make the decision if she should stay or go home... she is concerned because she is pregnant and hasn't been able to consume her normal nutrition.

She really needs direction for which way to go.

Slavery.

We did have a talk today about Human trafficking with a woman who does research for the organization I am here with. She opened my eyes to seeing trafficking in a broader sense. I tend to think of trafficking as girls being trafficked to brothels, but the instances are far more broad.

There is no way to tell how many women are being trafficked yearly from Nepal to destination cities (India and the gulf - i.e. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait), some say 2500 some say 200,000. Many many women are going to other countries as undocumented workers.

Because they are going out of the country "under the radar", they have no rights or workers protection. No paperwork, sometimes even their passports are forged with false information. They get these "jobs" or fake paperwork from a local broker here in Nepal.

Once they are transported out of the country they are literally purchased by a family/individual.

Once they are someone else's property, they have no voice, no power, and no control over their lives nor the power to get any help out of the situation.

The women are 1. Slaves, because they are not being paid and are forced to work sometimes 100 hr weeks. And 2. they are very, very commonly sex slaves; abused by the men in the house or prostituted by their owner.

The answers are again hard ones, because most women are just so desperate to get away from their home lives here where they are inferior and in 70-80% of homes they experience domestic violence against due to male alcohol abuse. After all the abuse they go through, many say they would still go again. Wow. There has got to be such a despair and hopelessness that they live in order to feel that way...

When you learn how women are traditionally treated here in Nepal, it makes total sense.

While I was traveling here with Doug, who accompanied us, we talked about how most of the people fighting trafficking are women, which is great and understandable, however, this is really a MAN'S issue... and it is. That is so true, and it's sad that most men don't care enough to change, or to get on board. THEY are the ones who could stop this.

I never saw how "the love of money is the root of all evil" so clearly, until I looked at the disgustingly massive revenue brought in by the buying and selling of PEOPLE. And the enormous amount of money going through brothels every night, even tho girls are forced to serve 20+ or 30+ clients for chump change.

sigh.

I'm very glad the light is being shone more and more on this subject.

Music.

Well, hard to change from just a heavy subject, but right now, I'm sitting in our hotel room, listening to the crazy music of the Nepal night-life. Ha! It's quite an interesting mix of sounds.

At the album stores, they play Adele-even here in Nepal! Not sure if that's because they like it or they think the Westerners will like it so they play it in the tourist areas.

There is another song that is playing here EVERY DAY. It's some sort of chant song... I think it's some yoga mantra, I don't even really know the words, but the dumb thing gets stuck in my head all the time! "HUMMMBAADYBENDEBUMM,HUMMMBAADYBENDEBUMM!"

AHHH!

My roommates were teasing me that I will be the "next big thing" here in Nepal, with the singing of the "hummbaadybendeboom" and dancing. haha

and with that, I bid you a Goodnight/morning/afternoon,

-Anna :)

thanks again for the comments, love reading them

fyi - I had asked for prayer for our drive Sunday, we are supposed to fly now, not drive, so slight change there!