Small Luxuries

Sometimes it's good to move out of your comfort zone. Sometimes it's incredibly hard to push yourself to even find the edge of said comfort zone. And then sometimes, you just need to be reminded of why you need to recognise what lies beyond your comfort zone.

Moving to Nepal was never a carefully thought out decision on my half, I'll admit it. It was a self-indulgent act of impulsion which I have no regrets about, but it was a hastily made, not very well thought out move non-the-less. Not many of my friends know that. It's only now as I sit in my apartment, trying to proof-read some documents on water sanitation that I've had a chance to reflect on the past four weeks of my stay here in Nepal properly.

Hearing your mother's voice break as she tells you she misses you, or reading an email from a friend telling you she is incredibly proud of you wakes up something inside of you. It reminds you that you can't just lie in bed when you're having a bad day and missing home, because you need to go to work, and have deadlines to meet. It reminds you that you're only one person, in the grand scheme of things such as the world, the universe, trying to make a difference to someone, (anyone's) life. Most of all, it reminds you that you're really nothing special, and hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people in the rest of the world are going through exactly the same motions.

As I write this, I'm reminding myself all of these things over and over in my head. It's a National Holiday, it's not stopped raining since last night, and I'm sat alone in my apartment thousands of miles away from everyone I love, and I'm almost ready to feel sorry for myself - but here there's a lot more to life than feeling sad. While I sit in my room, indulging in my emotions, many people here don't have the satisfaction. Here, if you have time to stop and review your day, it's considered a small luxury. Here, people don't pity themselves.

In a country where 90 percent of the population live in rural areas, roughly only half of that percentage has access to a clean water supply. Yes, I guess people here just have more to worry about. Sadly, Nepal also contribute to the 30,000 deaths worldwide of children under five who die from preventable diseases, and to the 6,000 who die due to contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.

Some other statistics;

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  1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea.
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  A further 1.6 million people die from other water related diseases.
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  Approximately 1.1 billion (nearly 20%) of the global population do not have access to standard water supply sources.
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  About 2.4 billion (41%) of people worldwide do not have access to basic sanitation facilities.
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  More than 125 million children under the age of five live in households without access to a clean water source and more than 280 million children lack adequate sanitation facilities.
  
  
  

I guess then, one could say I'm out of my comfort zone, along with maybe another 2.4 billion people in the world who never had the opportunity to escape back into a comfort zone in the first place. There's nothing brave or indeed exceptional about moving to Nepal, unless, perhaps you came here to become a doctor, a soldier or the Prime Minister of the country (which we actually currently are in need of). Most of the time, all I have is my pen and notebook, or when there's electricity, my laptop – hardly life-saving instruments or weapons of protection.

 

There is one thing I want from this experience though, and I think that judging from some of the responses I've had about my last post, I'm on the way to achieving, and that's awareness of Nepal. Someone said to me the other day, "Now why would anyone care about a little country like Nepal, so far from the West?"

 

Perhaps a cynic would say people should care because it has close relations with what will soon be one the greatest powers of the world and is one of the fastest-growing economies; India. Or maybe because it is a relatively violence-free country, despite its "Democratic Socialist" politics not quite achieving what it aims for. Personally though, I'd like people to learn about Nepal at the same rate I'm learning about it. Simply because it's a country rich in culture, steeped in history, and overflowing with kindness. Nepal doesn't need Western Sympathy, it needs Western Faith. If raising awareness of it by working at Dhulikhel Hospital turns just one head back home, then I've served the hospital. However, if my writing continually informs people back home of how "a little country like Nepal" can overcome poverty, ill health, and start enrolling all the children here in schools rather than in rice fields, then I've done more than just what I needed to do.

 

And all this would take is stepping outside of my comfort zone. Put into context, being outside of it, doesn't seem like such a bad place to be.