Back from three months in Nepal. Did anything happen while I was gone?

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Saturday August 13, 2016 · 11:01 PM PDT

2016/08/13 · 23:01

Paschimanchal Hospital in Pokhara, Nepal. The Himalaya in the background. It was breathtaking. Shortly after this a small plane was spotted, on a tourist flight. It looked impossibly small. This is a great shot of Paschimanchal, but behind the photographer is an urban neighborhood near the bus park, not remotely as scenic!

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Regular readers will know that I teach critical care skills to nurses and doctors in Nepal in summer since 2007. I left USA May 18th. The internet was spotty and I’m trying to catch up on the news now that I’m back.

so — anything happen that I should know about?

I’m kidding, of course. But I could not resist.

I am with Hilary, of course. If President Obama could run again, I’d vote for him. Hell, why doesn’t Mrs. Obama run for something?

“They go low, we go high.” Seriously, if that’s going to be the attitude, deal me in!

Nepal

this was my ninth trip to Nepal, and as in past trips I teach critical care skills to nurses and doctors while there. Click here to read the report of sessions, locations and participants.

Nepal’s Political situation

I wrote a long series of diaries about Nepal’s petrol crisis last fall and winter, right here on DailyKOS. The opposition to the government of KP Sharma Oli was bitter and made excellent use of social media. In late winter, Nepal deported a Canadian guy named Rob Penner based on his tweets. He was an advocate of the protesters in Terai region, and to be honest I myself thought he was too aggressive and impolite, pushing his criticisms into the personal realm. Along with his deportation, the government seems to have made it more difficult for newspapers in Nepal to tweet their coverage. I don’t have hard evidence of this but there seems to be fewer tweets. If I were to continue to relay the important stories like I did last year, it would be more difficult.

Be that as it may, I decided to refrain from relaying the Nepal news while I was in the country. I decided not to get distracted from the education focus. Various people assured me that I was not on the government’s radar anyway, but I still kept away. And in truth, the internet was not good.

The political drama of the summer in Nepal was the parliamentary re-alignment that took KP Sharma Oli out of the Prime Minister’s residence. The new Prime Minister is Pushpa K Dahal, the former Maoist rebel commander known as “Prachanda.”

The New York Times ran a piece about this last week.

Anyway, a big thanks to all those on DailyKOS for their excellent coverage of the news.

Poll
29 votes Show Results
"did anything happen while I was away?"

nope. same ol' same ol'

nope, we thought terrible things were happening, then we woke up and realized it was all a bad dream

yes, but the forces of good are defeating the forces of evil the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towward justice

whoa - are you telling us you were away?

other ( see below)

29 votes Vote Now!
"did anything happen while I was away?"

nope. same ol' same ol'

7 votes

nope, we thought terrible things were happening, then we woke up and realized it was all a bad dream

7%

2 votes

yes, but the forces of good are defeating the forces of evil the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towward justice

17 votes

whoa - are you telling us you were away?

7%

2 votes

other ( see below)

3%

1 vote

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