New Zealand - The youngest country

By: junktrailer

When God was making the world, I think he just saved this part for the end and made is as nice as he possibly could. From snow capped peaks to amazing beaches, all within a 100 kilometer drive, coupled with lush green pastures, calm rivers and huge farms- NZ’s an amazingly photogenic country. You click your camera at random, and you get postcards.

It’s been four months since I have been here. I am presently pursuing my Post Grad in Media Arts, after having received a scholarship from the institute here, for which I consider myself very fortunate, because education for international students is pretty expensive here. Unlike Australia, we don’t have many Nepalese- it’s just a few of us and we get together on occasions and have a nice time.

A lot of people know about Nepal, thanks to Sir Hillary. Moreover, it’s filled with warm people who smile and wish you while you walk the streets. Life is chilled out, traffic is smooth and scarce and everything is so organized.

What I basically wanted to share was the way we all feel about our country. In and around Hamilton, where I live, we have quite a few Nepalese families and then there’s us – the ones on student visas. Many of the families are now settled here, having gained Permanent Residence and citizenships, as is probably the case with our Nepali folks in most countries.

We all long to go back, homeland – we have discussions, we have after-dinner talks and we have random conversations in the cars. We have intense discussions especially when we have nice little booze sessions before dinner. When we should go back is what we argue about.

I always stand by the fact that if I don’t go and work in my field of work in my country when I am at the prime of youth, there is no point. I won’t be this efficient, this creative and this energetic when I am fifty. A few other friends see no point in going back without finishing their masters. Surprisingly, none of us have the tendency to try and save money and send it home. Primarily because we can’t- we would get into trouble with the immigration if we worked more than 20 hours. Another of my friends tells me point blank that my entire talk of “I’ll go and work in Nepal” is plain hypocrisy. “Everyone wants a nice, peaceful secure life in a developed country”, he tells me. I beg to differ. Since he is older, and given the domain of relationships in our society, I don’t argue.

But my basic point is this. There are so many of us abroad- intellectuals in our own right, scholars, social workers, some of us even professors. Some Nepalese have started working in farms here in New Zealand and are utmost efficient. And mind you, the dairy industry here is ultra developed. Three people tend to a thousand cows over huge farms. My friend says even the cows are so disciplined, they actually walk and wait in lines.

This amount of expertise, this amount of knowledge is being spent on building the economies of other countries – that’s why they get so developed. There is no doubt that we have studied and gained this knowledge in these countries, enjoyed the securities (and the entertainment) they provide and even raked in a fair share of dollars. But then, wouldn’t it be right for us to actually go to Nepal and use our expertise there? For the development of our people and our nation?

Agreed there are few jobs, there is little security and the traffic in KTM is horrible. But isn’t that because we do not have a strong government or administration? And how can we have good governance when all capable and efficient people are living outside the country? We can surely do more than send money home and build fancy houses?

It is nice to meet and hear from Nepalese in so many countries. Between us, we have the experience of the world. We have seen developed nations, we have earned in countries with high per Capitas, we have studied in premier institutes of the world, and yet, we are waiting for a reason to go back.

Nobody will lay a red carpet for us and welcome us to Nepal. It is pretty obvious that we won’t have good leaders for at least another twenty years, unless some of us do something about it. Worst of all, the present generation of school children have never seen peace. They have been brought up seeing Bandhs as a way of life, seeing chaos as routine. Imagine this- we actually used to have questions in our General Knowledge books that said “Who is the Prime Minister of Nepal?”. That is not even possible for the children today. If they answer the question in their GK exam, the government will have changed by the time the teacher corrects the paper. I know it’s a silly hypothesis, but sadly, it’s true. What are they to learn?

Those that are in school today are waiting to finish their 12th, so that they can rush off to Australia and USA. And I can’t blame them, because I left the country myself because I knew studying there would be no good. Isn’t it ironic that we are leaving the land of the Buddha in search of learning?

I like to believe there is still hope. We are better off today than most Latin American countries were twenty years ago, better off than Europe was after the Second World War, better off than present day Iraq, better off than Somalia. We can rebuild ourselves and I see this belief in everyone around me.

Sites like these are a great way of coming together and sharing and building this belief. We have an advantage- whichever part of the world we are in, we are all connected. We don’t know each other, and yet we share common platforms. And I know very soon, we are all going to come together and do something that will change a lot of things in a lot of ways.

Jai Nepal.

(p.s Sorry I started off with talking about New Zealand and ended up talking about something totally different. NZ’s a great country to visit. Come over and we can catch up. Coffee’s on me ;))