Nepal - Carried and Built by Hand

The physical labor of daily life in Nepal is well beyond what we're accustomed to, although there are surely segments of the population who escape it. Not too soon after arrival, we became aware of how much our environment was shaped by the human hand. Not by the human hand running a power tool or other machine, but by hands working with hand-held tools--hand-hewn beams inside, stones hammered to gravel at construction projects, terraces cut into every hill around for farming.

It looks like this man is carrying a cabinet of some kind. One day in Kathmandu we saw two men delivering furniture, each with a couch on his back in the same fashion this man is carrying his load.


In rural areas, I saw groups of women walking (and talking and laughing) together carrying their loads in baskets strapped across their foreheads. I realized this practice wasn't confined to the countryside when I saw these women at Swayambhunath temple complex in Kathmandu.


On morning runs, I'd meet women carrying baskets of greens to town to sell to restaurants. At construction sites, building materials were carried up and down the same way. Hard work, all of it.


Water buffalo eat a lot. In an area without a lot of grass pastureland gathering food for the beasts seemed like a full time job.