NEPAL | faces

There is something very special about the Nepali people. History has etched lines on their faces and hope shines timidly in their eyes. They have suffered. Yet, there is a gentleness about them, or is it their reception to kindness that makes them gentle? Any distrust coming from a long history of being lied to by any government that should but does not help its people out. Defeated but not destroyed. They still smile with their eyes and they want to know "What is your country?" They are a village people wrapped up in long woven blankets with twisted braids and big beaded necklaces. The old men wear these funny tilted hats that make them look oddly official. They walk with their hand behind their backs. And they walk and they walk and they walk. Nepal is a very rural country with high mountains and low desert lands. Remote villages are connected via small paths for people, porters or yaks. It's completely land-locked and China (above) and India (below) seem mostly interested only in what Nepal might have for them. China shoves the landless Tibetans in to Nepal, India comes in to traffic humans. Other than tourism, the resources are few so no one wants to invest, except for human relief organizations—some good, some equally corrupt. And so Nepal suffers. But as it goes with most impoverished countries, those that suffer are those that seem to complain the least. They just keep their shoulders to the grind. Empty promises don't hold water, you learn that quickly. Instability, community, the earth. Those are their constants, and these are their faces.