Walking in Katmandu
Children in Kathmandu.
A hair cut on the side of the street.
Cooking dinner in Kathmandu.
Painters at an Italian restaurant, giving it a new look. (no safety regulations for workers in Nepal).
This man tried to cheat me. He wanted to charge me 3 times the local rate. Then he pulled out a bag concealed behind his basket, and put one small branch of grapes in it. He annonced he had a kilo. I said wait a minute. I pulled out the small bunch of grapes, and below was a bag of rotten ones he had cut off the stems all day. I saw he had 5 other similiar bags ready to cheat someone. I said to let me take his picture so I can put him on the internet as a cheater, and he posed, (not this picture). I passed him yesterday, once again I saw the bags of rotten grapes hidden to pass on to a buyer.
The mentally ill are allowed to live their lives free in Nepal, not confined and drugged as in the western countries. This man has no record of voilence, and some suggest he is not even ill, but fakes it for revenge on his ex wife. She signed his name to papers it is said, then claimed all his valuable property. He has a phd, taught at a university, speaks perfect English, and many other languages. He disappeared for seven years in India. He spends his days now, delivering lectures in the street, paper for notes,in hand, or wandering. This shot is when he has reached his end of patience, and is smashing a huge rock into the street. He is complaining all the while in English, that the courts are not correct, and she will not even give him a cup of tea. He lives under a (half caved in) roof, with a low wall under it, outside, no windows, dirt floor, completly exposed to all weather.
Local shops are tiny, yet support whole families.
The court yard where she sat, was filled with activity. At a small Hindu temple, Hindus were peforming pujas to the Gods. A buddhist shaman sat on a mat, doing a puja for a group of Buddhists. Hundreds of pigeons rested contently on Gods in all sizes and shapes. They would raise in a fluttering mass every time someone bought food from the hawkers for them. A raised platform held hundreds of lit candles to offer the Gods. There, behind the platform, out of sight of everyone, sat this sad little woman, all alone.