Nepal | Caught in the Space Between

NEPAL caught in the space between

study abroad documentation

by Connor Janzen

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00 ENDEAVOR

| Context In the summer of 2015, I conducted a travel and study program of my own, based in the work of an organization I co-founded called the Open World Cause. Our mission surrounds connecting to communities around the world and creating meaningful exchanges of humanity and providing sustainability via domestic campaigns and fundraising.

As a portion of the non-profit work I have sustained throughout my time at the University of Kansas, and as an opportunity to push my understanding of the role of architecture further, myself along with other members of our organization’s team sought to experience a part of the world we had been connected to going on five years.

During this partnership, our efforts were centered on helping to fundraise for school construction, the supply of useful technologies and the overall localized sustenance of the community. While the trip served numerous purposes, my goal was to distill its experience as an endeavor not only for our work as an organization, but to bolster my personal understanding of design in an entirely unfamiliar part of the world.

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Along primary artery of transit, people move within the city at a remarkable pace.

01 EXPERIENCE

| Arrival The journey began at 6:30 PM on June 3rd. We arrived at Chicago O’Hare, said our goodbyes to family and friends, and proceeded with vigor, curiosity and a sense of unknowing.

After a 24-hour journey by plane, our team had arrived.

After landing, we met with our long-time contact and community leader, Govinda Panthy, at Tribhuvan International Airport at around noon in Kathmandu, Nepal, but our journey had not yet reached its destination.

We would continue by van, driving 12 hours cross-country until we arrived in Narayanpur, the location of Govinda’s home and school.

After experiencing the kind of exhaustion that can only be described by jet lag during the last leg of that trip, we were all thrilled and ultimately flattered by a very heartfelt welcome from Govinda’s family.

That night we didn’t sleep much, but we slept on a flat surface for the first time in two days. It was an incredible feeling, and also led to our first experience of a Nepali sunrise shining bright into our rooms by 5 AM on June 6th.

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"Good morning! Are you ready to go for a walk?"

Swachalika Panthy, before our first walk throughout the Tharu village near Narayanpur.

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01 EXPERIENCE

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Settling

We can’t believe how many stories and topics Govinda has to tell us about. We have already learned so much about Nepali politics, religious representation and traditions, cultural norms and customs and we also learned a bit about his childhood and how he came to be a school teacher. He is so eager to sit down with all of us and talk. I think that we are all feeling so lucky to be in the presence of not only Govinda, but all of his family, neighbors and other relatives who have come by the house.

What takes hold of me each day is the sheer amount of happiness that I am witnessing in the people here. From the colors of their clothing to the vibrancy of their voices and the Nepali language, I am quickly falling in love with Nepal’s people just as much as the beauty of the country and the intrigue of their culture.

Most of our afternoons and evenings have consisted of much conversation. We talk often about the future of Govinda’s school, the future of Open World and more simply about day-to-day life and how much we are enjoying our time together. On June 6th, we had an evening walk throughout the community and saw the abandoned home of Swachalika’s (Govinda’s daughter) mother. It was incredible to walk through that vessel of time; and further, to see more of this community and all of its people. The friendliness of everyone here is difficult to describe, but suffice it to say that we are all feeling very much at home right now.

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A primary market strip sells food, clothing and other wares to passersby.

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02 DISTILLATION

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Becoming Familiar

Part of the joy of traveling to a place that you’ve never been before is how vastly things might differ from your normal surroundings. What you process almost immediately is a sensory need to observe quickly. Things move fast, here. Be it the traffic, a bustling market area or the constant variation of geographical nuances, the viewer becomes immersed in a desire to understand as much as possible at an impossible rate. One becomes obsessed with knowing what cannot be known without spending a considerable amount of time in any of these passing regions; and so, each fleeting glance becomes a missed opportunity.

On long walks we venture away from the typical arrangement of open storefronts or living spaces that are crammed together in admirable solidarity. Beyond, roads lead to villages and outlying communities that are worlds unto themselves. With over 100 different ethnic groups and at least 90 variations of language, one does not venture far before experiencing different nuances of culture. Following side roads, these communities align themselves with the natural movement of people in and out of the region. Every moment of discovery bestows its own point of reflection; a persistent need to continuously remain aware.

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"Mero naam Connor ho."

We introduce ourselves to local students and join them in a ritual prayer for rain.

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"Today we’re taking a bus to the market city of this region."

We spent a day touring a larger city in the very rural Terai region of Nepal, known as Ghorahi.

Home typologies, sense of community and exposure to different forms of architecture leave me astonished.

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02 DISTILLATION

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Understanding

What each large city, small town, village and isolated community brings are those prolonged opportunities to stand and observe moments that will never exist again.

Back home, these things feel monotonous and plain.

Here, quality of life stems from the traditions of family and community that hold each human hub together.

While neighbors in the United States bicker about whose tree branches are hanging into the other’s yards, citizens here gather both inside and out in regular and genuine humanity; homes represent collective existence.

The places we’ve visited and lived within over the last two weeks remind us that there are perspectives worth harnessing and holding onto forever.

The people in these locations have taught me more about happiness than I’ve ever learned from the ideals of “success” we strive for at home. Even our meals are reminders of beautiful simplicity, yet surprising dynamism and comfort - reflective of so many other notions absorbed here.

So much can be extracted from exposure to new things in a very short period of time when you attempt to understand the experience being offered.

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03 CULMINATION

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Transitioning

As our trip continued, we made our way out of the rural Terai and back into the more populated areas of the country. We traveled along the East-West highway that spans so much of its terrain, flowing through historic sites and cities such as Dharapani, Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha), Chitwan, Bharatpur, Kathmandu and finally, Bhaktapur. During this trip back towards Nepal’s capital region the sights we more digestable than on our initial outing. This time, taking in the urban fabrics and sensibilities of Nepal, in addition to damage done by the significant earthquake in April, we all enjoyed our final and fourth week in the country.

With new environments before us, I took in an incredible array of patterns observable in passing.

In many neighborhoods, houses use gates to divide public from private. Friendly visitors arrive without warning and are invited inside with no hesitation, but intruders beware Inside the gates, one may notice that the surrounding walls have been secured with a brutal security scheme as the pointed ends of nails protrude from cemented bricktops.

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03 CULMINATION

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Observing

The streets themselves move back and forth between notions of sidewalk, driveway and drainage systems – notions that are, at times, loosely defined. Large holes often appear to test the vigilance of a foreign face.

Children run and play outside of shops, mothers sit on porches keeping watch or chatting with neighbors.

Community is real. It’s palpable and indivisible. These cities breed spirit, sometimes in the face of despair.

People wait for buses, socialize, move amongst one another. Alleyways feel eerily familiar while the buildings that rise around them are entirely alien. Rebar sticks out from unfinished structures, leaving opportunity to add whenever someone deems it appropriate. Some facades reflect the vibrant colors we have already encountered in the culture here, while others employ artificial glazing or plain grey tones.

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"Today, we will walk up the mountain to view the valley and eat in Nagarkot."

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04 CONCLUSIONS

| Reflection I look back on many of the writings, notes and individual thought patterns I experience while on this trip as moments in time attuned specifically to offering me new perspectives and appreciation for life as a whole.

By documenting both my thoughts and emotions, I consider their profound impact on my view of design and architecture as a whole.

When emotions infiltrate our desires to understand complex issues, we become sentimental and even those heartfelt moments of contemplation and consideration for the experience itself can feel undermined. However, the value of these imparted notions cannot and should not be forgotten. This idea reflects my own position about the placement of our being in unfamiliar spaces.

While high design and specialized architecture play an important role in how one understands the development of form and the public service that is spacemaking, our knowledge of underserved communities and their infrastructural systems still require more exploration and gap-mending. It is my hope that this compulsion to further understand the limitations of design will help us realize its placement and potential in places like Nepal, where a structure so simple as a school is far from facilitating the needs of its students.

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04 CONCLUSIONS

| Reflection The less architecture and, therefore, all built solutions attempt to restructure the values of the connected social spaces they shape, the more a framework for common successes in addressing poverty, educational access, and vital healthcare facilities can be generated as part of the culturally diverse notions expressed here. This investment in average public opinion, no matter the region, holds more worth than any architect alone can achieve – an important lesson which may be currently underrepresented in the field.

These are just a few of the things I have learned in the process of dissecting my experiences in a place so foreign to my normal surroundings. It is my desire to further understand the space between what our educational endeavors can offer us and the execution of better social equity in architecture. Further thoughts on this issue will be used to set the stage for my theoretical writings to follow, especially those that explore the involvement of professionals in the field to these communities that offer new outlooks on design and its interface with a community as a whole.

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NEPAL caught in the space between

study abroad documentation

by Connor Janzen

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