Category Archives: Birganj

Located on the border between Nepal and India, Birganj (also Birgunj) is the quintessential Terai town

Last words from Birganj

It’s early still but the warmth of my bedroom wakes me once the sun has risen. I roll out of bed and walk into my kitchen, begin making coffee.
I turn on my shortwave and listen to the BBC and listen as I pour my coffee, stopping to rub the sleep out of my eyes.
As I [...]

Finishing touches

During training, one of the hardest and seemingly most necessary things I wanted to communicate to my host family was that I missed home. I missed home. I missed my friends. I missed pizza and beer as dark as the nights in my new, lightless neighborhood.
But the best that I could do after two months [...]

Haiku composed upon recent developments

This morning as I left my flat to head out into Birganj, I discovered something very troublesome.
On many levels.
I paused, then composed a haiku:
I gave this country
education for the poor,
and they stole my bike.
So there it is. Nothing else. Moving [...]

Characters, part 2

Previously I wrote about some of the odd people I’d met in Jhapa district, namely Sunjay, the Islamic Extremists, and a child named Time Pass.
I’d now like to write about some of the odd Birganj-wallahs that have crossed my path since coming to this town. While I’ve made actual friends with whom I socialize, we [...]

Burning candles, Tihar

I remember where I was last Tihar, a year ago. A year ago? A year ago I’d gone to Kathmandu to hang out at the Spice deraa, my old co-owned flat in Kathmandu, with some of the folks there.
Pardon me while I wax nostalgic, but a year ago I was living in a different house [...]