Comings and goings

Boudha, where I live, is to the Tribuwan Airport, as South Boston is to Logan; I can hear every plane coming and going. Which means my neighbors, Nepalis with fewer means than I and probably no passports, can also hear every plane coming and going. It’s not so many planes, but still I wonder how they feel about living so close to something so unattainable? Then again, my neighbors may not have access to running water in their homes, a hot shower (although for me that’s a luxury, too), or adequate nutrition, which is all available to me through the clinic. So, the neighbor Nepalis live near much they don’t have themselves.

Here, yes, I am the ‘upper class’, but that cannot be said about me everywhere I go. And even as I start to write the things I live near or see in my daily travels in America that I cannot have, I realize that none of it is so important. None of it is having cooking fuel so I can make dinner for my family. None of it is having water that is safe to drink flow from the tap (or having a tap in the house to being with!). And this is a good lesson to remember.

But before us Westerners go on a binge of verbal self-flagellation for the things we take for granted, I will remind us that there is a ‘spoiled’ upper class here, too. One that shops at the local grocery store where there are twenty varieties of rice cookers for sale. One that keeps the knock-off North Face market alive. One that buys those sweat pants with the words written across the a$$. Are they as well off as the privileged in America? No. They still don’t have clean water flowing from their faucets. And they face the same petrol shortages as the poorer folks. But, when you have pants that broadcast your feelings to the world, sitting in a car would be a shame!