Garbage

It turns out that I was wrong about the garbage situation: the garbage collectors were not protesting the load shedding. According to the Himalayan Times, there were a bunch of people striking in an effort to get some Maoists brought to justice following the murder of a journalist. (Such things are quite common in a country where you elect a bunch of terrorists to run the country.) The picket line was cutting off access to the landfill site where Kathmandu’s garbage goes. They obviously had to stop collecting the garbage as there was nowhere to take it. Kathmandu produces 10 tons of garbage a day so things were getting pretty rank after 25 days of this. The good news is that garbage collection has resumed and they are gradually working their way through the city cleaning things up. Garbage collection here is done with shovels and pickup trucks – it’s got to be the most horrible job in the world especially 25 days into the composting process. Of course it’s a long process and there are still some nasty messes, but it’s getting better. Strangely (or not), the reason for resumption of the service stated in the Himalayan Times had nothing to do with a strike or access to the landfill. Frankly, I have no idea what the heck was going on so I’ll just stop trying to explain it. (The English language newspapers here are so poorly written and riddled with undecipherable acronyms that they often leave you less informed than you were before you read them.)

In other good news, I think that I may have new living arrangements in a month or so. Nothing has been confirmed yet so I won’t go into detail but I’m really hoping it works out. Keep your fingers crossed for me.