The Rich (15 February 2010)

“I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich.”  -F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s well-worn cliché to talk about the generosity and openness of the honest, hardworking people of a countryside village, and although I have frequently been the beneficiary of those qualities, welcomed into home after home, people stumbling over themselves to help me, I would still hesitate to simplify the people I have met in only those terms.

Meng and Buwa are good people.  They treat me well and I’m not sure how they are compensated for giving me a room and serving me tea.  Once when I failed to announce that I would be leaving for a few hours, Buwa wandered through town asking if anyone had seen me.  I was frankly a little annoyed at his concern, telling Mem when he asked about it that I am, in fact, thirty-two years old and have not required supervision for some time now.  Mem told me that this was just the custom.  You always tell Mom and Dad where you’re going, even if you have to lie, even if you are an adult.  So I am cared for and looked after, which is undeniably a nice thing.  But there’s also a side to my interactions with these two that makes me slightly uneasy.  I am constantly, usually through a child interpreter, being asked how much my belongings cost.   I often hear them use the Nepali word “gora”, which is not a slur, but means white-guy and tends to make me cringe a bit.    They sometimes laugh loudly at me when I’m not doing much of anything, and even with interpreters I can’t get an answer as to why.  To be fair, I’m sure I’m quite an oddity to them and our cultures certainly have different standards of politeness, but sometimes I get the distinct impression, a slight scorn in the way a word like “poissah” (money) is spoken in my presence, a role of the eyes when I am clearly being discussed, that they, at least at particular moments, resent my Westernness, my easy life, my wealth, and they compensate just a little by laughing about my confusion and ignorance.

I’ve perceived just a touch of this resentment several times, in a couple of different places, since arriving in these hills and it has made me a little sad.  I want to explain to them that I know how easy I have it.  I know the small help that I can offer for this month won’t instantly change anything for them, but I’m still trying to help, and that must be worth something…right?  But at the same time, maybe I know how they feel.  Maybe it’s similar to the feeling of disgust that fills me when I see a shining Bentley being washed by a man who hasn’t showered in a month, who sleeps in a ten-person dorm in a work-house, who could live for 80 years on its price; when I feel for a minute like it’s probably my duty to come back at night and set the car on fire.   It offends my sense of fairness to see that type of excess sharing space with working poverty.  So maybe I can understand.  And maybe a little gentle teasing is a small price to pay in exchange for these good people sharing their home and lives with me.