As I walk the morning kora I marvel at the older women. I love their dignity: long hair in braids, often woven with brightly coloured thread, ‘uniform’ of long skirts with sneakers, multi coloured striped sashes as symbols of marriage, and the ubiquitous left hand swinging their mala beads as they chant ‘om mani padme hum’. They depict a life where walking is a ritual in every single day, from birth to death.

Walking is social too. Although its a fair distance to walk 3 times around the great stupa, each morning and night the sight of thousands of elderly women and men walking 3 times around brings a smile. A community event enacted twice a day. No need for elderly folks to be locked in their houses in isolation here. If one gets tired, simply sit on a bench with all the other oldies and chat. I vow if I am ever elderly and cast off by the west, I will live here, where elderly women have a place in the open.

Walking is life here, like breathing in a community. I wonder, “What is the real price we have paid for our cars?”

Along the kora there are various folks seeking alms. My favourite is an elderly nun (ani in Tibetan). She sits on the cold path and radiates warmth. She is always there. Every year. Sometimes I hand her a few rupees, 10 or 20 is the common rate, and she gives me a smile and a warm Namaste.

Today I only have a 50 rupee note, so I hand her this; it’s just 50 cents afterall. Her smile of delight is so beautiful it brings me to instant tears. I am taken aback at my response. Tears at her warmth and kindness toward me. A tiny gift on my part, and she returns a glow of kindness and compassion that reverberates still.

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• Discoverer, Noticer and Advisor are terms used in our new work. see Hayes, L. & Ciarrochi, J. The thriving adolescent. Or, www.thrivingadolescent.com
• To find out about Mindful Adventures, visit https://www.louisehayes.com.au/mindful-adventures/

 

My travelling writing sabbatical has been turned upside down and my brain often feels scattered. It has been a month since my last blog; that sounds like a confession. I could say I haven’t had time to write, but in truth it is because I have been avoiding writing about May 12^th, the second big quake. I felt I had overdone writing deep and meaningful blogs and I ‘ought’ to write something light hearted and funny. A friend reminded me of this the other day, commenting on my Facebook, “Louise I had forgotten how funny you can be.” But it just isn’t the time for writing something light hearted and funny. It is serious or nothing. Feel free to opt out now dear reader if funny is what you need; I want to write about fear and altruism.

**

Altruism helps humanity survive. I see this everywhere in Nepal. We humans have a strong fear response to cover and stay safe, but our need to help others pushes us through this. Altruistic behaviours may even be the key to our recovery from trauma.

First there comes fear. The Gorkha quake has shown me just how efficient we humans are at learning about danger. One trial learning. We just need one trauma to teach our mind and body to look out for similar danger.

My learning went like this: During the first quake I had stared with wonder as my tea spilled over the cup and across the table. I was thinking, “Why is the tea doing that?” For just a brief few seconds I was totally confused. I noticed the world moving. I noticed the loud sounds. But I had no experience of earthquakes and what this kind of shaking might mean. So I just sat there stunned.

As I work now, and talk to the volunteers I have been training in workshops, I have found many people share this experience. For a few brief seconds in the Gorkha quake they were not afraid, just confused, puzzled, and curious. Then the fear came.

I marvel now at how efficient we are once we know to be afraid. Immediately after the quake my body became tuned to every tiny vibration. I began to notice that my apartment shook when planes flew overhead, when trucks drove by, when the wind whipped up, and when someone walked heavily or slammed doors. In fact, I discovered that the whole world vibrates constantly. I just never had the reason to pay attention before. Now my body was on full alert, waiting, needing to be tuned in to these sensations. Each time an aftershock did come, I froze like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting, feeling the world. My mind also joined in the fun. My mind, my keep me alive machine, was constantly ready to interpret any sensations detected in my body. Sometimes my mind even made the earth feel like it was moving when it wasn’t; creating it’s own aftershocks. No wonder traumatized humans, such as abused children or war veterans, are always on the alert. They’ve had many learning trials with fear and are experts at fear detection.

Gradually however, as the aftershocks came and went with regularity, my newly learned fear changed to become calmer. First, my body notices vibration, then I pause, assess risk, and then most often, resume what I was doing. I slowly learned to get on with things and have the fear rise and fall. Other humans seemed to get on with living too.

Within a matter of hours after the big quake, humans began to help each other. As I train volunteers in psychological first aid in Nepal, a common theme emerges; a deep urge to help others. Everyone I talk to says this same thing; it was uncomfortable ‘not’ helping. It was frustrating. Within hours Kathmandu folks quickly began helping each other, pulling people from the rubble and clearing the roads. I was amazed at their resilience.

So what did I do to help after the Gorkha quake of April 25^th? I left for Tibet on a holiday. Ouch. I flew out on a trip that I had purchased months before. Tibet was beautiful, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. I was edgy and shadowed by guilt. It was the wrong time to be on a holiday. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was only my luck to be a Westerner that I could just up and leave Nepal. The contrast to Nepali people, living on a few dollars a day and having no means of escape, was stark. They must stay and mop up. I was able to run from it. I felt bad.

It came as a weird relief to fly back into Kathmandu. Landing in the city and heading out onto the crazy ring road I held my breath wondering what I would see. I expected calamity. To my surprise it looked normal for Kathmandu. As the taxi wound through the traffic I marveled again at the resilience of humans. In everyday life we worry about things going wrong — a lost job, an ended relationship, our children struggling — yet here, in the midst of a gigantic catastrophe, I saw a profound coping.

We underestimate our capacity.

**

May 12^th rolled around. I noticed just that morning that there had been no big aftershocks for a few days, so I decided it was time to be in my own head alone for a few hours and do some writing. It was my first time alone in Kathmandu without having a neighbor within shouting distance. The apartment block was empty. I sat on the edge of the bed, MacBook open, feeling content to be back to normal. Work is so comforting. It was a very hot day; the pre-monsoon tension was heavy in the air. I sheltered inside and hoped the afternoon would bring a little rain to settle the dust and clear air pressure. My peace was short-lived however, less than one hour alone.

The now familiar sensation of quake came. I paused, no confusion this time, I know to fear this now, this crescendo of moving earth. I crawled five meters out the open door and onto the marble rooftop. The ground seemed to be roaring with the noise of everything shaking. I knew the safe thing to do was to stay here until the shaking stopped. Nearby on the roof were two water tanks up on metal stands shaking like trees, 2000 kilos of water. It shook like a sapling in a storm. I could not take my eyes off the bent leg on the tank-stand as it ground into the roof gouging out the marble. I made it my ‘job’ to stare at it, telling myself if it fell I would scramble in the opposite direction to the tanks. Silly really. I’m sure if 2000 kilos of water gave way I wouldn’t have time to escape.

I had no idea how big this quake was, but I knew it was big and long. It seemed to go on forever. Suddenly a loud crashing told me buildings close by were falling down. “Oh jeez” I thought, “not again.” The noise was deafening. The noise is the most frightening of all; our primitive fear detector goes crazy.

Once the ground stopped shaking I grabbed my keys and my pre-packed backpack and headed for the stairs. I was shaking like jelly. I made my way down the marble staircase and came to the stairway’s steel mesh gate. It was closed. I looked and saw the padlock on the gate was locked. I yelled to no one, “Fuck they’ve locked me in.” I wondered if the neighbors were mad. Who locks the door during this earthquake prone time? A vision flashed of the building collapsing while I was locked in the stairwell. I had the key in my hand but I was shaking so much I couldn’t get the key in the keyhole. It was like trying to thread a needle while sitting on a jackhammer. Eventually I got it unlocked, slammed the gate across and ran down the stairs two at a time. I joined all the locals standing out on the road by the river.

In a disaster situation, humans stand together and they quickly become a group. I am foreign to these locals, but they included me as part of their refugee group that day – I was ‘in.’ The women pointed and told me with sign language about the four apartments that had all crashed down. The kids who are learning English translated. Women pointed at my roof top room and asked if I was alone. They shook their heads and said; ‘Don’t go back up there, too dangerous.’ We all just stood and waited. We shrugged. How long do we stand out in the blistering hot sun? All the while we kept staring over to the new space in the sky where the apartment buildings had disappeared.

Eventually I returned to the apartment, there was nothing else to do. I lay down on the floor of the kitchen and sobbed. I had been so scared. I later found out the stairway gate had not been locked at all, it was merely jammed tight from the house shaking but with my fear and flight response I mistook it as locked. This second quake brought up a much stronger fear response. I now know the dangers of earthquakes and the damage that they bring to life and property.

The mood in Kathmandu after May 12^th was dark for days. It seemed sadder than after the Gorkha quake. People hid in their shelters, tents, or apartments. The streets were abandoned. All their gung-ho had gone. In its place was a sad resignation. People said, “The experts are wrong, another big one can happen at anytime.” They hid. They left the city. Learned fear and helplessness hung over Kathmandu. As I speak to people in my training workshops, many people say they were more scared in this second quake. I think we knew what to fear.

Yet, the human spirit is unstoppable. We don’t stay down for long. Slowly, slowly each day people ventured out from their tents to return to their apartments. People came back to the roads to get about their business. Although it seemed to take longer this time, they still returned to living. People went out to discover what they could do for others. Me too. Many people report strong urges to help – to do something. As I go about workshops on psychological first aid, participants talk of an overwhelming self-sacrifice. We felt better as soon as we could help. We hated the feeling of being helpless, we felt guilty, frustrated, and irritable. We needed to help.

It seems clear we humans are deeply altruistic. It is embedded in our psyche. We need to do something, to help others to get through. The days of waiting were over. We were now off and running, discovering how to help, people helping any way they could. The spirit returned.

A teacher said to me, ”Nepali people are tough, they are resilient and they will get better.” Yes, I said, they are indeed a resilient people.

We humans are resilient. Fear does not stop us. We get together, we become altruistic, we help each other, and we get on with living. So there will be no more sad blogs, we are healing now.

We face a trauma and we heal together.

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It’s a quiet Friday spent reading in a coffee shop, chatting on the advantages and disadvantages Nepal faces after 30 years of international aid. The topic turns to the regular disasters Nepal faces: landslides, avalanches, monsoon, and–you guessed it–earthquakes. I say, “In an earthquake you climb under a table.” However in Nepal there is rarely a heavy table to climb under. My friend says,  “Stand in a doorframe, you don’t climb under weak furniture, and you don’t run out while it’s shaking. It’s incredible to me now, just twenty-four hours later I would need to use this information.

Saturday rolled around just like any lazy Australian weekend. A slow breakfast first, plans to make a trip across Kathmandu for a coffee meeting, and then come home to get some serious writing of a new newsletter for clinicians.

We arrive at Bikash and Mishra’s apartment. Over Nepali style sweet milked coffee Shelly tells of her recent Sanjiwani Public Health Mission week long dental camp. Suddenly, Kathmandu releases a deafening roar. The coffee splashes out of the cups and across the table. Water in the fish tank gushes over the sides and the floor is suddenly swimming. I sit frozen; puzzled for what seems like a long time but was probably microseconds. I have no idea what is happening. Mingma jumps and heads for the doorframe, “quickly, quickly” he says to us. I crawl on my knees to the door. We hold on to each other under the doorframe while the world roars in our ears. It is only now, when I am under the doorframe, that I realize this is an earthquake. It seems to go on for a long time.

When it stops. Bikash and Mishra appear with their one-year-old baby and two teenage sisters. Mishra is crying loudly. We all stare at each other stunned, and then the silence is broken. Suddenly everyone is moving, “Hurry, hurry, get out, get out, get out!”. We race down the stairs and out into the narrow street.

Once out of Bikash’s apartment we head down the narrow street looking up at the sky trying to find the clearest place to stand. Anywhere where there is not a tall building hanging over us. Everyone in the street clings together in a spot of street where a high fence hides a vacant block of land. We look up, no high buildings to fall on us in here, but the gate to the vacant lot is locked. The neighbours begin shouting, men grab rocks and break the fence down. People pile into the vacant lot. Just two houses away is a 7 story skinny apartment block, swaying with the land. We all look at it terrified.

Women cling to each other crying. A man is wearing just a towel. A woman has her hair in plastic bag covering hair dye. Mishra cry and shakes. She sits down and people rub her feet, she looks as if she is having a panic attack. She vomits. People pray loudly together. Some little girls come up to me to say hello and practice their English. A man who’d spent the morning knocking down a brick wall decides to continue his work and we laugh; he has extra help from the earthquake today.

And we wait.

And wait.

Shocks come every 10 or 15 minutes. No one know how long to wait for. How long do we stand here in the vacant lot amongst the piles of bricks?

I check the news on my phone to see if we can work out what is happening. Google tells me the Australian ABC news have reported the quake, 7.7 on the scale, with the epicentre 80 kilometres outside of Kathmandu. I realise my family might hear this news, so I quickly text. Simple messages: “I am ok. Whatever you hear on the news don’t worry. I am fine.”

We wait a few hours amongst the piles of bricks in the vacant lot.

Eventually we decide there is no option but to walk the two hours back to the apartment. We head out, picking the safest looking streets. This valley city is haphazard, with narrow streets and even narrower brick apartment buildings. They’re mostly 4 or 5 stories high, with several small apartments on each floor. We choose streets that are not too narrow, with not too many high houses.

Along the way we see groups of people everywhere. Sitting in small parks, vacant lots, in the sanctuary of small farm plots. All of them sitting, talking, and waiting.  All afraid.

We see injured and dead people too.

Cars and busses are at a standstill all along the highway. Ambulances scream past, as do trucks loaded with police. The air is thick with dust. We see fallen houses. Row after row of collapsed brick fences, are plopped over still in their fence shape, they look like they’re just lying down waiting to be propped back up again. There are wide cracks in the road. Walking carefully down the centre of the road, we see buildings collapsed all along it. A bright yellow four story apartment block is half gone, it’s interior exposed. An ancient looking brick house reveals large pottery water jugs and deep inside a person already sorting through the rubble. Everywhere is littered with bricks and debris.

I think, “This must be what an apocalypse will be like.” I had no idea what had really happened to Kathmandu.

Part 2 coming soon…

Yet another Kathmandu rookie error. In the shower combined toilet, I drop my expensive bon voyage gift of hand made soap on the floor, it shimmies across the floor and scoots down the toilet hole faster than a goal shooter’s hockey puk. I can’t grab it while holding the water jug, and shampoo, and keep my balance on the slippery floor; and there is no way I am putting my hand in the hole for it’s retrieval. Sure it is just soap, I shrug, but I find myself staring down the now soapy hole feeling a twinge of loss.

Later I tell my Nepali friend what happened, and I get a big laugh and told the ‘obvious way’ as if I was a 5 years old, “Why aren’t you putting your sandal over the hole?”

Uhm? Because I never thought of repurposing my sandals as a toilet plug, that’s why.

These are stories of old clinging and new discoveries. My soap is not just for washing here, it functions as a memory of home, hot showers, and my dear friend; it disappearing feels like I have lost them all. And my use of sandals is limited to functioning strictly as footwear, not toilet plugs. Both these events highlight my contextual history.

As a functional contextualist we talk of context all of the time, one might think of it as little pieces of our lives that evoke responses; context includes our personal history, time, interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, and of course the physical environment. Our contexts evoke responses, pieces of what we know from the past influence how we respond in the present. Often we are not fully aware.

Life in Kathmandu, is an experiment of dramatically changing ones context and watching what happens with one’s history.

We have 8 hours of electricity a day, now that isn’t 8 hours straight in civilised time like 9am to 5pm. No. It is usually two blocks of 4 hours at any random time in the day, so one might have electricity between say 2am and 6am, but one might not have it, and never know why. Then there is the water problem, at times the entire apartment block runs out of water, and I seem to be the only one really bothered by it. When there is water it is strictly cold, no hot water here, unless you boil it. There are squat toilets, no heating, no television (which I love), and definitely no dishwasher, washing machine or air-conditioning. Oh and there’s no refrigerator in the apartment either, not much point when the electricity rarely works. It is a challenge to be here and not think I am totally crazy, not be an impatient demanding westerner, and not want to flee home.

Let me tell you about the middle of the night pee run. My bedroom is gloriously on the rooftop, and it overlooks the 2000 metre forest covered ‘hill’ of Nargajin (I say hill because it’s not called a mountain here unless its 6000 metres). To go to the bathroom I have to go outside in the night air or rain, cross the slippery marble tiles of the roof, down an outdoors marble staircase and into the unlit dark toilet/shower room. It does make me long for home and the adjacent ensuite bathroom with hot water a flushing toilet and electric lights – remember that tonight wont you.

Each day the west feels further away. Sometimes it even feels like it has disappeared altogether, like a lost time. Everything here is so new, everything so unfamiliar that when old pieces of context comes up it looks, well, weird. I can see it. I miss home and realize how attached I am to my family or friends, and that makes sense. But attached to soap? Or toast? Or red wine in a wine glass? I did try buying red wine but I couldn’t find a wine glass and without the glass it totally missed the mark. You see context (our learning history) is everything.

Here, there is a dramatic change to home, I can see how much context is a part of being human. There is me here now and me back home. I can see how I am long for home or how I cling to it. Removing oneself from the familiar is illuminating and liberating.

Take the illuminating part. On a trek in the mountains, we are sitting eating mandarins during our break, lying in the sun, on the grass, I throw one to a friend and accidentally hit him in the head. My heart stops for a second as I wait, like a rabbit in the headlights, I feel a microsecond of panic. I say, ‘Oh sorry, sorry” as quickly as I can. My friend just laughs and says, ‘no problem’. My behaviour was from the past, like lightening I had a flashback to past times when a similar accident on my part led to a very different outcome. It’s almost like a reflex, I was instantly on alert, waiting to run for cover. When nothing happened but laughter I was dramatically aware of my old context clashing up against this new one. Like thunder that follows the lightening — I have a space to see two contexts clashing together.

Then there are the liberating experiences I have never had before that allow me to look at everything with fresh eyes. To see this world as wonderful. Take this morning, we are walking through the forest, the snowy mountains are in view, and the forest is lush green and quiet. We’ve been walking for ages and all getting hungry, when my Sherpa guide stops, plucks a big red rhododendron flower from the tree and begins to shake the raindrops into his mouth. I do it too and discover the drops taste like honey! As we walk we eat the rhododendron flowers too. I’m told to eat only the red flowers, because the pink are bitter, and the white are poisonous. In this new context I am discovering peace and nature and joy. It is delightful.

Maybe we should all spend time in different spaces so we can see our old learning and experience new. This is the advantage I see of dramatically pulling myself away from a place like my western home and planting myself in the Nepal Himalaya. I get to see how I use context. I’d like to think I could let the past be, but as a human we need the past. Perhaps it is enough just to see the past and how I use it.

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