Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 1: January 2014 | Page 32

Parsu earns just enough money to
cover vegetables, books, pencils, and clothing
for his family. Photos by Christina Ammon.

ABOVE

Pokhara’s tourist district, passing
bars advertising mojitos for 500
rupees each. Was it annoying for
Parsu to see tourists downing the
equivalent of his daily paycheck from
a cocktail glass?
“No,” he said with his usual equanimity. “I know it can be expensive
for tourists here.” Having grown up
in Pokhara, Parsu was long accustomed to tourism and its accompanying two-tiered economy; the same
cup of chai that costs him ten rupees
can cost a tourist five times as much.
We boarded a local bus and
rumbled off through what felt like
a parallel universe, lurching down
streets I’d never explored. Instead of
the standard-issue dance bars and
shops selling embroidered T-shirts
and overpriced prayer flags, the shop
stalls that lined these streets sold
more pragmatic wares: plastic buckets, mops, potatoes. Fifteen minutes
later, we arrived in Parsu’s neighborhood and walked toward his house
through fields filled with burgeoning

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HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE

plump cabbages.
The streets were clean and peaceful; the neighbors waved. When we
arrived at Parsu’s cement-block house,
his children ran out and enthusiastically pulled me inside. His home consists of one dingy room that triples as
a bedroom, living room and kitchen.
We sat on the bed (which now
functioned as a dining-room table)
and ate biscuits and milk tea, while
his sister-in-law squatted on the floor
and stone-ground ginger for the
evening dal bhat.
Although Parsu doesn’t consider
himself poor, the 500 rupees he earns
each day is just enough to cover vegetables, books, pencils, and clothing.
When health problems crop up, he
relies on the neighborhood’s informal
insurance system. If one person gets
sick, everyone rallies to cover costs.
Working in the landing zone
clearly isn’t making Parsu rich, but
it’s a comparatively better and less
demanding job, considering his previous vocations. For seven months he
stuffed pillows in a foam factory in
Punjab, India. He also spent a year
in Dubai, toiling with heavy marble
for 14 hours a day and sharing a small

room with 10 other men. Most of
the money he made that year went to
cover the cost of his passage. “They
treated me like an animal,” he recalls.
His prospects are better now.
Like many glider-packers the world
over, he harbors ideas of becoming a
tandem pilot and earning up to 100
euros a day. But he is careful to gird
his aspirations. The cost of lessons
and a glider are prohibitively high
for someone earning less than 1500
USD per year. When we talked
about it, he chewed his biscuit and
thoughtfully looked into the distance.
He has a five-year plan in mind.
“First, I’ll need to start a goat and
chicken farm to earn more money.”
His son, however, lunges at the
idea of working in the LZ and becoming a pilot. The 10-year-old has
been on a couple of tandem flights
and, unburdened by adult considerations, is less restrained in his
dreams. He jumps on the bed as if it’s
Christmas morning.
His son’s enthusiasm is understandable. Glider folding can be the
on-ramp to a pretty good lifestyle
for a Nepalese kid. The wage is often
higher than at a restaurant job and