It started early last week. The project I'm currently working on is in a remote part of India. So far, its been one challenge after the next. Scheduling anything with the rural health workers has been near impossible, who all have a busy schedule and often overwhelming responsibilities. All week, we attempted to plan for an all day training session on our mobile phone software for them as a job aid. Due to a Polio vaccination campaign that lasts for a week every month - which was changed at the last minute - our only choice was last Friday.
By late Tuesday, it appeared that we were successful in scheduling Friday with all the government players. By Thursday, we discovered that Friday morning had been rescheduled for a common immunization day, and we would have to settle for Friday afternoon. Friday morning, we discovered the immunization day was canceled, and the whole day was ours if we had planned ahead for it. We arrive in the village at noon. Since the immunization day was canceled, our workers are spread throughout the village, and it takes a coordinated effort of calls to track them down and encourage them to come for the training. We start by 1245 - and things proceed smoothly. Just after 2pm, however, we get a call from the health ministry instructing us to release half of the women from the training so that they can open bank accounts, the newest, highest priority of the day. Such is life in India.
During the afternoon, as my colleagues salvaged the training with the remaining rural health workers, I stepped outside to do a little bit of work. The limits of my Hindi were limiting how much I could actually contribute to the training. Our driver came and sat next to me, cranking away on my laptop, watching my fingers dance away on the keyboard. He asked for my passport picture. People here are always asking for my picture, but I didn't have one on me. Instead, I reminded him that his phone had a camera on it, and to use that instead. He did, but clearly wanted a hard copy. I thought nothing of it, as I then was encouraged to pose with the driver from our partner organization for another set of pictures.
After a long week, the team decided to head to Nepal for the day, with the hope of seeing a different land and perhaps a few mountains. We arranged for the same driver we had been using all week for early Saturday morning, and headed north for Nepal. After a quick 2-3 hour drive through a mix of scenic farmland and bustling towns, both with enough people, rickshaws, and cows on or along the 1.5 lane road to draw constant honking from the driver. (to warn them of our approach, around blind corners, to pass, to scare them out of the middle of the street - the horn here is annoyingly useful.)
At the border, we got out of the car and had a quick exchange with the border guards in Hindi. We didn't catch all of it, but were able to proceed without further delay - no visa, or a stamp in the passport.
The first thing that became obvious in Nepal, was the lack of our car horn. As I looked around, the serene farmscape remained, but the plethora of people, animals, and things was reduced. It was calming and peaceful. We soon arrived at a large damn, where snow melt from the Himalaya is controlled for the farmland across the border in India. Every few years, it floods and kills a number of people. At this time, the water was extremely low, and we walked alongside on an elevated dike, into the misty morning, away from the road, and along the streambed. Peaceful. The dramatic drop in population density was overwelming.
After about 45 minutes, we got back in the car to continue our adventure into Nepal. This is where the story gets interesting, as our driver turns back towards India and crosses over the border. We start asking what is going on, if there is a problem, and he mysteriously says no, that he is taking us to a market in Nepal where we have to go around in India for a bit, and that the car doesn't have the proper registration to go further into Nepal, hence the quick and painless border incident.
Here is where the lack of Hindi is frustrating. Our driver probably understands more English than he conveys, but doesn't speak it. One coworker is an American of Indian descent and speaks Gujarati - a dialect from further South - and is our Hindi speaker. Her Hindi is good, but not perfect. The other coworker and myself are working on our language skills, but we are at about the level of a 3 year old.
Soon enough the car pauses and parks. The driver says that the market is just on the other side of the border, and that we should walk. Here again, we cross the border with no issues, and proceed to a run-down border town with a few shops. Clearly no tourists come here. Especially American ones.
We press the driver for more information, as the day is still early and our agenda of things to do in Nepal is still full, it is increasingly apparent that his own, separate agenda, is just about complete. A crowd gathers as we (our female Indian colleague) talk to him about our options. Crowds usually gather around us when we stand still for too long in this part of India, so we are unphased. The driver, however, starts walking to ditch the crowd, and tells us that he doesn't have a driver's license, and that is why we can't go further into Nepal.
Right. No driver's license. From our hired driver.
Granted, he looks a little young, and is not the most professional, but does a good job driving. As the larger picture starts to come together, we walk back to the car and discuss our options. Clearly our intended foray into Nepal is not going to happen. The driver shows us his driver's license. It was printed in 1989, is tattered and torn, and has a picture in it that is clearly not him. The birthday printed on the license is 1978. The driver is 19. He pulls out his passport picture and places it over the other picture. He explains that even though he could change the picture, he won't be able to change the birthday, or enough other information to make the fake legit. If I give him my passport picture, however, we could quickly make a fake, and then switch spots for the brief instant across the border.
Uhuh. Our hired driver wants my passport picture to make a fake driver's license of me so that we can cross into Nepal.
After brief consideration - we decide better. We head back south to the town we are working in, deflated and frustrated. Clearly this is why he asked for my passport picture yesterday, as we had inquired about the possibility of driving to Nepal over the weekend.
So I've been to Nepal. It was peaceful and calming. It was a fantastic 45 minutes.
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