Karnali Province: Nothing new in the West...

After the far East a few weeks ago (Ilam), this time we are heading West. Karnali Province, one of the poorest in the country, due to its isolation. Part of the territory is in fact made up of very high valleys (Dolpo, Humla) cut off from the rest of the country, where populations are often of Tibetan origin, at altitudes of more than 3000 or 4000m, on the foothills of the Tibetan plateau.

We will not go that far this time because access requires several days of walking and we are only leaving for 4 days. We will return to these highlands another time, at our own leisure.

As Her Excellency has an official visit planned to Surkhet, the capital of the province, I am joining her to discover this part of the country.

An hour's flight from Kathmandu along the entire Annapurna massif rising above the clouds finally gives us a view of the heights of the Himalayas, and allows us to arrive safely in this big city. Oh, I forgot, transportation here is never easy: we still had to wait two hours at the airport for the Prime Minister's official plane to take off to take him on an official visit to Beijing, because this requires freeing up the airport's only runway so that he, at least, can take off on time. Our plane, and all the others, can wait.

Surkhet, ...what can I say. Another Nepalese city, in line with local standards. Backed by the first hills rising from the Terai plains, its small airport, its gridded streets because the city is quite recent, its large dusty central artery with its verges cluttered with various construction clutter, its multiple small shops overlooking the street, its trucks crossing the city in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes, its modern hotel (and comfortable, one must say) where all the somewhat wealthy tourists (including us) stay. Oh, yes of course, I forgot its bitumen factory right in the middle of the city drowning the entire center under a thick cloud of ink-black smoke not necessarily in line with international standards...

Officially 150,000 inhabitants, but local authorities believe that migration from the surrounding countryside and mountains, either seasonal (villages in the high valleys empty in winter) or now permanent, brings the population closer to 500,000. Difficult to complain about the lack of infrastructure when such uncertainties hamper urban planning.

This week, Surkhet is hosting several provincial seminars on violence against women and several other development themes. We are therefore witnessing (and contributing to) the deployment in our hotel and in the city of the entire immense industry of international organizations, NGOs, multiple UN agencies and other local development aid associations, each with its cause, all intertwined in long chains of subcontracting where the layman sometimes struggles to understand who does what. A young student living in Surkhet explains with a touch of irony and self-mockery that every building in the city houses an NGO office. A real industry, for sure !

It is not very politically correct, but it is a fact: Nepal has been living under international assistance for ages, and it is most certainly the most structured and developed industry here. The majority of young educated Nepalese who do not think (or have given up) on emigrating, dream of joining one of these multiple organizations that pay above average salaries, offer advantages and a certain job security. One of the many perverse effects is that the best students leave university to join these organizations, thus drying up the talent pool that the Nepalese senior administration would really need (thereby justifying the assistance of international organizations….etc…).

The first meetings and conclaves concluded, we finally leave for the field, taking the road to Jajarkot, located to the North East of Surkhet, at the end of a large valley. This district was the site of the last earthquake, exactly a year ago. 154 dead (relatively few, considering the destruction), but mostly, around 50,000 people having lost their homes. The European Union had then mobilized its emergency aid capacities (one full time person in charge of this at the embassy, as the country is exposed to multiple natural disasters) in particular by deploying 800 winter tents (insulated, with small built-in wood stoves) for emergency accommodation.

The road leading to this isolated district is surprisingly smooth and in good condition. We follow projecta wide river, a tributary of the Ganges, and gradually climb into the hills.

We pass the huge construction site of a river diversion project to irrigate the southern plains. One of those mega projects that dot the country and seem to be under permanent construction.

The countryside we are traveling through seems much less densely populated than the other regions we have already visited. The traditional habitat, small houses with mud walls and slate roofs still prevails, not having yet been replaced by the concrete cubes and painted tin roofs that mar the landscape elsewhere. We pass two funeral processions, taking the body to the river bank. Is it cremation season?

A short stop to break up the long five-hour journey provide the opportunity to observe an open-air school along the valley.

The river takes on a beautiful turquoise hue as it stretches into the valley, which narrows as we gain altitude. Farm life here seems modest: a thin strip of land around the river, and terraces clinging improbably to the mountainside make up the meager arable land.

Arrived in Jajarkot, the district capital, perched on top of a peak, overlooking two valleys. With some imagination, it could be a Cathar fortress in Southern France.

First meeting with the district chief, in his recently rebuilt offices because the original building collapsed during the earthquake. He is a young chap, recently transferred here, who seems a little lost in his new duties and clings to the directives sent by Kathmandu like a castaway to his buoy. The frequent turn-over of civil servants is one of the problems plaguing the Nepalese administration, which requires perpetual cycles of relearning, in addition to all the inefficiencies characterising the country. He does what he can, but is squeezed between the federal level to which he reports (the ministry in Kathmandu) and the provincial level (Surkhet) which is supposed, since the last constitutional reform of 2015, to hold most of the powers. The only problem is that the laws officially devolving the said powers and especially the associated budgets have never been passed…

He explains that a first tranche of emergency financial aid to displaced victims of the earthquake was indeed allocated quickly after the disaster, but that the second is the subject of endless arguments between the different levels of power, to ensure that the payment will be made to real victims, and not to potential fraudsters. The all-powerful Nepalese administration, from its offices in Kathmandu, is therefore asking for complete files, with photos of the destroyed houses to support them, to be sure not to spend the next tranche for nothing. We are talking about 180€ per household… translating to a total cost potentially distributed “in excess” for the possible potential fraudsters (in fact, probably not fraudsters, but families who lived together for several generations in the same house, and who are now rehoused in emergency housing in separate houses)estimated at 10.000 households, of 1.8 million Euros for the Nepalese budget (do we really need to recall the local level of ambient corruption ?)… a pittance. In the meantime, these people, already poor, sleep in uninsulated corrugated iron huts as winter approaches. Around thirty of them died of cold or illness last year. Should we laugh or cry?

We will hear this story and others similar ones throughout the journey. My Excellency must remain diplomatic to the end and avoid intrusive interferences, but it would be tempting to have a "honest" conversation with some of these public servants locked in their offices in Kathmandu...

Back on the ground the next day in a small village higher up in the valley. We now travel through hamlets where everything has been razed to the ground, entirely rebuilt as temporary housing made up of small corrugated iron huts(to the credit of the Nepalese state: this was done very quickly after the earthquake. Some lessons from the much more serious one in 2015 have thankfully been learned) .

Traditional houses here were often built in round-shaped river rocks, which rolled over each other during the tremors, leading to the complete desctruction of most of the houses. Very young women, pregnant at the time of the disaster, or with very young children, were chosen as a priority to benefit from the European tents, large, more comfortable and better insulated yurts than the corrugated iron huts. A few blue China-donated tents also dot the landscape here and there. They were supposed to be used for emergencies, one winter at most, but it is obvious that temporary accommodation is here to stay. No reconstruction has started, no funds from the Nepalese state have yet been released. Many of these young women explain that their husbands have left, either to India or the Gulf countries, to pay for a possible reconstruction of their house. Migration, previously seasonal (men left to India once the harvests were finished in Nepal), is becoming more permanent. Already 30% of households in the province are run by single women, but in the earthquake zones, this proportion is obvioulsy increasing significantly. Last winter, diseases spread, pneumonia, typhoid, encouraged by the lack of hygiene and the disappearance of the little drinking water infrastructure that existed. Here too, aid from the European Union has made it possible to install emergency toilets, water tanks: aid that helps deal with the most urgent needs.

An NGO explained to us that they are also making an inventory of landslide risks. This is another major scourge in Nepal: roads are regularly washed away by huge subsidences or mudslides during the monsoon. The cause is the particularly complex topology of the terrain, linked to unfavorable geology. All these pre-Himalayan areas are in fact enormous piles of sedimentary rocks (pebbles, sand, loosely agglomerated friable rocks), very young on a geological scale and still in stabilization phase. Frequent earthquakes create fault lines that can be easily destabilized. Add to this the influence of human infrastructure, particularly roads, built without taking these risks into account and without standards, and one better understands the countless accidents seen all over the country. A landslide last August swept away two buses and 70 people in one go. A count showed that these landslides have nearly doubled since 2015 (the last major earthquake), along with the number of victims.

We visit another small village, perched on the side of a steep hillside. The local population prefers to ignore it, but it is obvious that this hamlet is doomed. Landslides almost surround it. These people will have to be relocated further down the plain…or will eventually migrate.

Another stop at the district hospital completes this not so optimistic picture of this trip. The old one having been completely razed by the earthquake, it was replaced in an emergency by WHO tents which still house all of its wards, all run by two doctors who do the best they can with what they have. Ironically, the whole camp is overlooked by a half-finished 3-storey concrete building which perfectly withstood the earthquake. This is the future new hospital, which was already under construction when the disaster struck. All that was left to do was to finish it as quickly as possible! But the works have been stopped for inexplicable reasons: a year later, patients are still in tents under the construction site. A Nepalese assures us that it will be finished in 6 months. No chance! Absolute scandal.

Earthquakes, landslides, floods linked to increasingly extreme monsoons alternating with periods of drought. This country and its population face considerable natural risks (Nepal is considered the 4th most exposed country climate change-induced risks, in addition to the seismic risk: it is not only the Maldives!) which keep the poorest in dangerous precariousness and push them to migration.

International aid is taking care of the most urgent problems (with the perverse effects mentioned above), but the slowness of the Nepalese authorities and the institutional complexity that the country chose for itself during the 2015 federal constitution do not plead for optimism. The mountain to climb is very high, as Nepalese mountaineers would know !

The five-hour drive back along the same path allows us to admire this valley from another angle. Still quite untouched, this is a postcard mid-mountain Nepal. But nature here is schizophrenic, both magnificent and carrying invisible dangers. As if to echo this, this time we come across several wedding parties, after the cremations on the way there: it is an auspicious day!

Last day in Surkhet where we visit a boarding school established by a leader of the Badi caste: the lowest stratum of the untouchables (that's saying something...). Even though Nepal has officially banned the caste system, they are completely marginalized, often relegated to prostitution. Drinking from the same fountain as them or letting them into your house is considered impure, and no one would rent them accommodation. This young man set up this boarding school alone, welcoming 120 children sent here by their families to be schooled, fed and educated in better conditions than what their remote village can offer them. He runs this center solely on the basis of a few donations and the goodwill he has managed to gather.

This time, it is the contacts and institutional support of the European Union delegation that can help, to allow these children to continue their curriculum once they leave the boarding school, and to try and provide recurrent income for the institution to allow it to continue its mission. For the moment, the director himself admits that many of these young people return to their village, marry very young, and aspire to migrate as soon as they can. But even for that, they do not have the networks allowing them to do so in decent conditions.

Nepalese state institutions are often overwhelmed and struggle to provide bare minimum service despite the help they receive. But these meetings on the ground offer flashes of hope through the individual initiatives they allow us to discover and support, come what may.

Like these multiple streams that flow down from its hills and form these crystalline rivers that run through the province of Karnali, it is these multiple individuals, their energy and their will that will perhaps succeed in creating the river that makes Nepal flow towards its future more serenely.