This American vision of a happy house move was in my head as the moving tractor pulled up in from of my now ex-house in Bagdol. But within minutes this U-Haul-inspired Norman Rockwell daydream was shattered as didi dropped a marble table topdown three flights of stairs.
The reality of making a move in Nepal is about as far from a Norman Rockwell scene as you can imagine, starting from the ground floor up. For example, I had no idea that flooring and light fixtures are moved along with the furniture, and that doors are not fitted for carpet - just chip marble - requiring extensive cutting to just open the front door. I also had no idea how difficult it is to make a new inverter work with only a few hours of city power per day.
If not having an earth ground in your wiring is bad enough, trying to get new lighting installed with no power to test the fixtures will just frustrate both you and the electrician. Likewise, trying to test to see if a tap leaks with only limited hours of city water is confounding as well.
I won’t even go into the problems of finding keys for your new abode’s doors (with a scarcity of locksmiths who can cut decent keys) or the problems associated with trash removal - where your empty boxes and now unneeded packing materials exceeds the entire capacity of the trash cart (as pulled by an ancient man on an even older bicycle).
And due to the state of Lalitpur’s back gullies, the moving tractor could not even reach the house, forcing six semi-burly mini-men to hump thousands of pounds of stuff at least a city block before reaching my new front door. If U-Haul were ever to come to Nepal, it would have to be renamed U-and-a-Small-Army-Haul.
But as not to sound kich kiche, let me say that Nepali day laborers are great at carrying heavy items without the use of trollies or back braces. For more professionally skilled folks, I am certain they have all left the country for work in Dubai.
But perhaps “No leaks” was lost in translation and the plumber thought that I was referring to Wikileaks, and when I said “no earth ground” the electrician just flat out thought that I was bhola.
The reality of making a move in Nepal is about as far from a Norman Rockwell scene as you can imagine.
But for whatever reason, there seems to be a lack of semi-professional skilled labor (as well as electricity) in the country at the moment, with even the inverter repair shop unable to fix my old inverter due to a lack of electricity. And no matter how much I respect World Link for being one of the first to provide decent Internet connections to the average KTM-ite, they really need to brush up on their Apple computer skills, as they looked at my MacBook like it was a wild animal when they came to hook me up. But again, testing the connection was impossible as load shedding kicked in just as the Wi-Fi was finally hooked up.
It does seem that the load shedding schedule and the entire Nepali workforce must now be coordinated with the water shedding schedule and the impending oil shedding schedule. Someone needs to develop a computer program that flashes available timeslots on the screen to alert all workers when a water pump can be installed. As it stands, it currently takes about 3 or 4 trips by any technician before a simple installation of any kind can be completed.
But now that I am somewhat settled into my new home, I am glad that I partook in this adventure in Nepali Moving. Just like everything else here, moving moves slower then expected (especially if you come from the West). Repairs are always bholi, bholi, and like with all other professional activity, there is a “lazy-faire” attitude of “It will get done when it’s done.”
But everything surrounding a home move manages to get done without a whole lotta bureaucracy and red tape; have you noticed? There is no trip to the cable TV office or the Department of Motor Vehicles to fill out reams of paperwork. For your HBO, a salesperson/technician shows up at your door, sells you some wire, and installs the new line. Done. Shifting charges for other utilities range in small rupees instead of hundreds of dollars. In short, as one American pal put it, “You just have more freedom here at less cost, in everything that needs doing.”
After hearing the new year’s news from my old hometown in California, a state where over 750 new laws went into effect on Jan 1, I have to agree with my good buddy: Despite the lack of fresh water, electricity, petro and clean air, you do have the basic freedom to do as you please. And for me, that negates all the other kvetches that I have about Nepal, real or imaginary.
Writer is quirky kinda expat happily living in the Kathmandu valley with Nepali family, friends and a very large dog – all now successfully shifted to a new home, but unable to find a can opener
herojig@gmail.com
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