Democratic processes

This is it, the election is tomorrow. The country is slowly shutting down. Those who had to go home to their villages to vote left yesterday. Government offices have been closed all week. Alcohol sales have been baned in the country this week. Today was a half day at work, and we are now off until after the weekend. Tomorrow no vehicles will be allowed on the roads. It's a big deal – this is the first election in almost 10 years, and my language teacher, who is my age, has only voted once before in her life.

I've been impressed by people's eagerness to vote, and willingness to go to great effort and cost to do so. Unless you have formally changed your place of residence, you must vote in the place you grew up. It seems almost biblical, “all went to their home towns to be registered”, or in this case, vote. But heading home can be quite a procedure, if you live a many hour bus ride away, and then perhaps as many hours on foot after that. Everyone who can is planning to vote.

Of course it is also serious business to campaign and run for office. Several candidates have been killed, and there have been rallies and demonstrations that turned violent with people being hurt or killed either by other political groups, or police trying to control the situation. But so far, these incidents have been fairly isolated, and most people are feeling cautiously optimistic that the election will go relatively smoothly. What will happen when the election results are announced next week is another question, and we will just have to wait and see.

One of the patients at the hospital wanted to have a mock election amongst the patients. He had even gone so far as to make ballots (which, like the official ones, have no words, but only the picture that symbolizes each party). The doctors quickly discouraged this – when politics can be a volatile as they are here in Nepal, they really need to be left at the door of the hospital. We were joking about wheelchair blockades set up in the corridors of the hospital, but the conflicts could be much more serious than that, and we just don't need that.

Co-incidentally, this week in language class I've been learning words about government and politics. Good timing. I've had to describe the basics of how Canada's government works, and how elections happen there. I was ashamed to tell my language teacher how little importance many people place on voting in the west, when people are fighting for these rights in places like Nepal. It really puts things into perspective. Yes, we have protests, yes we have problems with our government, but in Canada, people don't die over them.

The seriousness of it all was brought home to me even more, because last Friday I put together a wheelchair for a 17 year old boy, who had both legs amputated after an explosion two years ago. He and some friends had been playing with some explosives that were being stored in someone's house. A match got in the full lot, and he was one of the lucky ones, because he is still alive. He had been fitted with prosthetic limbs, but needed crutches still to walk, and could not travel distances with them. As a conflict victim, the International Committee for the Red Cross will pay for his rehab, and so we were also giving him a wheelchair. He was keen to help build it, and was quite handy. He also had some English, which helped me explain things too.



Another thing of note that happened in the past week was that Sunday I went on a 3 hour mountain bike ride in the rain and mud with Dr. Iain. It was a wonderful temperature for cycling, and once you were muddy, it was fun to go charging through the puddles. We came down a very muddy road that a whole bunch of buses were stuck going up, trying to pick people up for an election rally. We thought perhaps it was not such a bad thing the weather was wet...