If the world were divided into rich and poor, with a great ocean separating the two, Nepal would be on the furthest shore, amongst the poorest nations on the planet. Sandwiched between two emerging superpowers, China and India, it is a small and mostly forgotten nation that most of us know almost nothing about. Popular with adventure tourists, most travelers come to Nepal, if they come at all, in order to trek the Himalayas. Most probably, they spend a few days in Kathmandu’s popular Thamel district, passing through streets crowded with rickshaw drivers (bicycle taxis) and cows, shopping for prayer beads and Shiva statues, before hiring a Sherpa to guide them on their mountain journey.

But what do most tourists really learn about the life of Nepali people? As a foreigner, especially one from the West, travelers are given a great welcome– after all, the average Nepali survives on less than 2 dollars a day, and the dollars we spend can be the only means out of deep poverty that a family can have. But while Nepali people have a reputation for being friendly and happy, they are also very private and won’t easily show the truth about their lives, especially if the real story involves a lot of pain and suffering.

In July of 2008 I traveled to Nepal from the U.S. with the aim to spend three months there making a photojournalistic documentary about the effects of poverty on the lives of Nepali women and children, wanting to know more about reality of everyday life for Nepali people and what it means to try to survive in one of the world’s poorest countries. I had prepared myself beforehand with a mountain of academic research about Nepal and arrived
to Kathmandu on
July 15th with my camera and my very American enthusiasm (combined with the usual naiveté that we all seem to have!) to discover a completely different world from the one I was coming from.

Nepal is a country with its own distinct language, but it is quickly becoming a multi-lingual society, where English asserts itself as the all-important global language of opportunity and economic survival. Waiters, shopkeepers, taxi drivers and even beggars have a surprisingly sophisticated command of English, especially when you consider that Nepal has one of the worst rates of illiteracy in the world. With only a few Nepali words in my repertoire (‘namaste’ means ‘hello’) I experienced the privilege that being an English speaker affords me– I always found people that could communicate with me in my own language.

Because I was specifically interested in the effects of poverty on Nepali people, my journey often took me to some pretty difficult places. In Kathmandu, I spent time in a squatters camp– an illegal slum with houses built out of scraps of wood and cloth– along the Bagmati River, which is considered sacred to Hindus but is polluted with garbage and other toxins that make it a dangerous source of water for the residents there. About 100 families had built homes in the settlement. Most of them had come to the city from small villages, displaced by a 10-year war that ended in 2006 but which had torn apart the country, forcing many to flee their native lands. With them, they brought the traditions of village life, and many had planted vegetable gardens in front of their small shacks. I got to know some of the children in the community and was awed by the resiliency of their spirits. With an amazing grace, they maintained their innocence while also doing their part to help in their families’ everyday survival. An NGO (non-governmental organization) had built a one-room school in the camp– its cement walls sturdier than any house there– but there was no money to pay a teacher, so the school remained unused and the children had to walk long distances to go to other schools, if they went at all.

I saw many things in Nepal that I feel are difficult to describe with words– how can you explain the heartbreak of meeting communities that don’t even have a basic level of food, water, shelter and education that we so easily take for granted? How can one communicate the devastation that war and extreme poverty have inflicted on children? Some- times photography can fill the gap and help to tell the story. But sometimes, there are no words, no images. Just feelings.

* Sheila Johnson is from California and has been living in Pamplona since October, 2008. She is a photojournalist and a teacher of English.