Portrait of a City
KATHMANDU
MAY 15 – 7:44pm
It’s been over a month since I’ve turned an ignition key, written up a shoot proposal, hit the gym, or cooked myself dinner that didn’t involve more than pouring melted snow into a foil bag. In a country like Nepal, one step outside the airport and it is quite obvious that a lot of the familiar is long gone.
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English here is a recessive language, and along with that comes the comfort of letting the din go free into the diesel-soaked airwaves above. I find a certain comfort in being awash in other languages: the melodic sine waves of East and Southeast Asia, the fevered crescendo shared by Eastern Europeans and South Americans, and one of my favorites, the hypnotic and patient lull of East Africa. Makes hearing English all the time seem rather pallid, especially when this colorful blend of tones comes together weaving in and out with tablas and sitars on these local streets.
Here in an itinerant city like Kathmandu, foreign tongues lick at the ears like flames. Of course Nepali dominates, rushed but not tempered, and often direct. But walk through the streets of the Thamel district (main tourist hotel area), and the aural sense is treated to a diversity that must resemble the Spice Road thousands of years ago. Language students are given ample opportunity to practice in this crossroads of East and West: French, Russian, Arabic, English (courtesy of Brits, American, and Aussies), Hindi, German and Korean can all be heard along the length of a single avenue.
The freedom comes as part of surrendering to the local culture. My Nepali is limited to about 9 phrases, and that includes climbing jargon. The local written language makes about as much sense to me as it would to a second grader in Seattle, and only a small percentage of signs are also in English. Sometimes in European cities you can figure out what the signs say – a few years of high school Spanish or French and you have a chance with a Germanic language – but short of a Sherpa heritage there’s no prayer of reasoning the flourishing scripts.
So, along with being 6-foot tall and white, the language thing pretty much discounts me from fitting in. I can’t blend, so best I can do is my best not to stick out further. Throw in a camera costing more than a year’s income for most on the streets, and my chances are even more diminished.
However while the camera draws attention, it also helps paint me a professional, which seems to get some respect here. Just like them, I’m conceivably working their streets, and the vendors and beggars give me a little more distance than most. I appear focused on shooting, and most don’t want to bother the guy who’s obviously not interested in their 3-dollar trinkets.
This hasn’t been the case in other countries – particularly China, Mexico and Kenya – where being a foreign journalist lands you scrutiny (often with rifles), taxes (aka bribes), and constant hassling. It’s best to identify with the tourist set there and hope you’re not caught onto. Which is way easier in the digital age – I always struggled to explain why a tourist needs 200 rolls of film for a 2-week trip.
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As with total lingual transparency, also suspended in this bustling city is any notion of traffic control. And up till today when I picked up a newspaper revealing more than a few traffic deaths yesterday, I felt local drivers had the greatest example of organized chaos I’d seen. Apparently not the case.
Over a month in the country, travelling hundreds of miles by car, I counted exactly one traffic signal. A masked officer stood beneath it’s humiliated flashing lights; apparently a gift from Japan I was informed it functioned for a few weeks from it’s installation.
There are no lane lines or stop signs, and it’s really hard to say what side of the road people drive on over here. Seems they favor the left, but at any given moment it’s subject to change.
With petrol lines putting the 70s US crisis to shame, the preferred mode of transport is motorcycle, which are seemingly subject to less rules than their 2-axle brethren. Sidewalks are fair game, and I lost count of the motorcycles with children passengers, never with helmets, and always between the rider and handlebars. They are used as cargo transport with homemade saddlebags and baskets – just today I saw a rider and passenger separated by a stack of beer cases taller than the passenger, fighting its way up the dusty streets.
It’s not far from the city center that the mix gets thicker – I’ve seen countless 400-lb cows wandering the streets (Kathmandu is predominantly Hindu), some of which end up between lanes of traffic. At least they are more predictable than the motorcycles.
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Capturing a portrait of a moving target like Kathmandu is no easy task – especially when the locals themselves are foggy – not a single person I asked had any idea how many were within the city limits.
With over a week spent within its borders dealing with briefings, planning, and official business I still find it hard to qualify entirely. A city of simultaneous crumbling and rebuilding, a ballet of chaos and warm faces.
They say when you go to the Himalaya to climb its not the climbing that leaves the strongest impression – I’m likely to agree.