A Story From a Fellow — Alex Winant
Alex Winant volunteered as Oda Foundation’s Business Strategy Fellow from August 2023 to April 2024. He worked in the Karnali Ratna enterprise supporting the foundation’s marketing, business strategy, and accounting. In this blog post Alex reflects on experiences that were formative to his perspective of the world and understanding of Oda’s mission.
Alex Winant
Reflective Blog Post
January 2, 2024
Self-Reliance
For the last 6 months, I have lived in Oda as the foundation’s Business Strategy Fellow. Living in rural Nepal and engaging in Oda Foundation’s work has been constantly changing and given me a myriad of thoughts and emotions. Each morning I take a walk through the village to clear my mind and observe the everyday experience so that I can think about ways to support life in the village. Usually I walk alone, but one day in October our resident doctor Nabin came with me. We did a full loop and strolled past each cohort of homes cradled in the mountainside. Doctor Nabin pointed out to me where people of each caste level live, starting with the Brahaman quarters and ending with the Dalit (untouchable caste) zones. I noticed that homes in the lowest caste were significantly smaller and housed far more people than the higher caste homes. Nabin and I walked past a younger woman who cheerfully greeted us and extended an invitation to enjoy some tea in her home.
As we continued our walk afterwards, Doctor Nabin told me that this young woman was recently treated at the Oda medical clinic. She had to be rushed to a nearby hospital because she was suffering from an urgent heart complication but made a quick and full recovery. I said that it is fortunate that we were able to get her the help she needed, and asked why the condition was so urgent. Nabin met my eyes and explained that this woman is one of seven daughters so it was difficult to persuade her father to seek treatment. I was confused why being one of seven daughters was relevant to the story. “Her father told the medical staff that the price of paying for the transport and treatment of his daughter is not worth it if he has six others.”
Later that day I watched doctor Nabin lecture another woman from the village about the danger she put herself in by performing an abortion without medical supervision. Even without understanding her words I could see the mortification and shame coloring her face. She was devastated by the morbid decision she was forced to make because of her financial constraints. At that moment I realized that medical situations like these two happen here all the time. Beyond that I recognized that this sort of situation is confronted everyday by people in poor places all over the world. I had learned about the harsh decisions women disproportionately face for medical care but I had never witnessed dilemmas like these in my life so it was difficult to understand them as frequent problems. Ruminating on this made me feel sorrow, confusion, remorse and other amorphous emotions. I began to wonder if moral judgment is a luxury of modern societies, and how often people have to deal with the same dark decisions throughout the world and throughout human history. Is morality more relative than I like to believe? Is my reaction to this situation a privileged one? What is true self-reliance? What would I do?
In time, my understanding of these topics and my biases have expanded. I became aware of the fact that I could not relate to the context of these decisions and that my limited perspective could never be an arbiter of blame. As the months have past, I have become more familiar with the challenges of living in rural Nepal, and the context of these painful realities have begun to make more sense. It is a blessing that Oda Foundation can take these heart-breaking decisions out of the hands of the people who must confront them. This story is one dim pixel in the broader image I have of my experience in Kalikot so far. Most of what I see here is bright and inspiring. Children are raised by the help of friends and family instead of a babysitter. When a parent gets old, they are taken care of by their children instead of a nursing home. People prioritize laughing and enjoying milk tea with loved ones instead of a work schedule.
Sometimes I’ve had the strange feeling that traveling alone to this completely unfamiliar place has splintered off another vein of my life that is separate from what I have lived before. The relationships I’ve made and places I’ve explored are special because they too live in this offshoot of my experience. Every circumstance of living is different here so in some sense it is a principally different life. Being absorbed in this different life has brought me up close and immersed me in the conditions of this part of the world. Through this process I was able to understand Oda Foundation’s objectives more clearly. After nearly six months of listening and learning, I am in awe of the Oda Foundation’s ability to provide affordable and nurturing solutions to sometimes dire situations. I would characterize the spirit of Oda Foundation’s mission as being a facilitator of flourishing in a place where life is hard.
Because life is and always has been difficult in rural Nepal, self-reliance is a quintessential characteristic of the people in Oda. So much virtue, wisdom and resolve is instilled in the people who are raised here. The grit needed to grow up in Kalikot demands strong character. Many times I've seen small children carrying loads of rice bigger than their own bodies so that their friends and family can eat. So often I see women climbing trees or maneuvering steep cliffs so their crops are maintained. I watch hoards of young men and women lugging building materials up sharp hills so their houses will stay insulated during the winter. I feel humbled when I see a group of children walk for three hours to arrive at school on time. These arduous feats of self-reliance are not celebrated because they are mandatory for survival.
Rural Nepal is a set of communities that operate in isolation because most of their day-to-day responsibilities are not connected to a wider economy. Provisions from organizations become an afterthought when all the primary needs of life must be curated independently. The landscape makes it so public amenities are dispersed and energy must be dedicated to self-subsistence. Massive difficulty in managing the basic logistics for a safe and forward-looking life is baked into the reality of living here. Oda Foundation cannot change the solitude of Kalikot or fight against the challenging terrain of this region. Instead, we can make public amenities available, dependable, and sustainable. Rural Nepal will continue to grow on its own and become better connected to hubs of development and municipal services. I am optimistic about the future of our region because I know that as life begins to become easier, the core attribute of self-reliance will not fade from within its people. The people of rural Nepal will grow and thrive with the changing tides of time because they are able to flourish when life is hard.