I haven’t talked to you yet about how dirty Kathmandu is…


There is no method of storing and recycling or making disappear all that fohor (nepali word ford dirty). People store some at home, and if you want you can pay someone who will come and take it somewhere for you. I was eager to know about our rubbish, and I discovered that they take it to a back street of the English embassy where street children and poor people come by sometimes to see if they find some useful and usable goods. From there, I don’t know where it goes, but watching the rivers, I can imagine where…. Just imagine it, with little islands formed with rubbish.

Another way of getting rid of all the waste is burning it. Sometimes in the morning, when I go out of my home, a fog surrounds the city, -but not everyday’s mountain fog-, these times, the smell of burning is strong. An in fact it is an everyday activity, and you can also see neighours gathering around a fire at dawn.

The funny story I had yesterday is that I was waiting for a friend on the street, and the man next to me, a street seller, was packing. His day was over. After putting all his items in a couple of huge bags, I was surprised when he started collecting the waste he had produced over the day on the street. It was the first time I saw something like that, and I was so astonished, I wanted to tell him how good job he was doing, but at that moment I didn’t find my nepali words to speak to him, so I just stared at him.

When he finished collecting all the remains, he just walked a little bit further on that street, where there was a big tree and dropped all he had in his hands! I just couldn’t believe what I was watching. But in fact, I feel sorry to say that this is Nepal’s natural order…