March 25, 2016
Hear this tale of adversity and adventure to…develop curriculum for sexual and reproductive health and rights at BP Koirala Institute of the Health Sciences (BPKIHS) in Nepal. Yes, the two halves of that sentence do belong together.
Assistant Professor Shyam Sundar Budhathoki (“Sam”), a young faculty member at the nascent and growing BPKIHS School of Public Health, studied for his MPH at the Royal Tropical Institute in the Netherlands. Since returning last year, Sam has made good use of his connections. It was natural, then, for him to organize a course for the Nepali faculty with four senior Dutch academics, who could help develop the local curriculum.
Not so natural was an unofficial blockade, which began in early fall 2015, preventing Indian goods from reaching Nepal by road. The most critical commodity was fuel, most of which comes by road from India to landlocked and rail-less Nepal. By November—when the course was scheduled—the situation was dire. You probably didn’t hear about it because the blockade, which came just months after Nepal’s devastating earthquake, barely registered on the Richter scale of U.S. news.
Things were worse than Sam realized. Just hours before the long-traveling academics were to touch down in Biratnagar, an hour by road from BPKIHS, he found out that there was no fuel for the Institute car to get to and from the airport. Sam mobilized his social network to see if he could find a liter here and a liter there. But even at extortionist prices, not enough fuel could be found.
What about the hospital ambulance, which often was pressed into service to deliver doctors to their posts during strikes when regular traffic was blocked? Even the ambulance fuel gauge read “empty.” The issue became moot when on that day a political strike banned all four-wheelers from the road. So Sam and his friends revved up their “two-wheelers”—aka motorcycles—and sped to the airport. The Dutch visitors lived up to their stalwart national reputation and, with suitcases balanced on their laps, rode to BPKIHS in Dharan with the wind in their hair.
It didn’t end there. The blockade also meant no cooking fuel, and BPKIHS was not immune. For the three weeks of the course, Sam had to arrange meals for the assembly of 30—to the delight of a caterer with a black market supply, who doubled and tripled prices.
But did they achieve their goal—to develop new curriculum? Yes! And the Dutch professors are not averse returning for a repeat performance, minus the added drama. In the next round, Sam intends to participate more in the discussion and less as chief cook and bottle washer.
This light-hearted account aside, the blockade caused tremendous hardship for all the Nepali people, with a special sting for public health. Even medicines and vaccines already in the country could not be moved for lack of fuel for vehicles. What food there was could not be cooked. Milk was unavailable for children. The blockade is over, more or less, but landlocked Nepal is perpetually on notice of its vulnerability—including the health of its populace—to the political winds of its powerful neighbor.
Hellen Gelband is CDDEP’s Associate Director for Policy.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
