REFLECTIONS ON NEPAL
15/02/2006
Every journey to a country you have not visited before brings new experiences and you learn more about the diversity and similarity of various cultures including our own. You also learn more about yourself, your ability to cope with different surroundings, people and ways of living. It is a process of personal growth and one hopes it furthers and encourages international relations. I have many friends from my travels.

My colleagues in Nepal were welcoming and wanting to share their practice, knowledge and experience with me. They were also willing to listen to my knowledge and experience of homeopathy and life in general. The classical homeopaths in Kathmandu of my generation are male and with one exception homeopathy is their second career. The exception is a homeopathic doctor who trained in India and has since done classical training with the other homeopaths and our European colleagues. His most telling comment to me was ‘Homeopathy is so difficult!’, and he has been in practice for 20 years!

The majority of the students are women and all of them have a job besides doing 3 or 4 clinics a week. Evening clinics in Nepal are from 3pm until about 7pm. People get up at 5 or 6am and start work at 7am or 8, so it is possible to attend clinics after the day job is over. The women also have their traditional domestic role to fulfill. I am sure that homeopathy will make a significant contribution to changing the role and status of women in Nepal both through women receiving treatment and by training women to be homeopaths. In Kathmandu I am sure that Krishna and Bala Ram are aware that things will change for men and women through this process and gradually and gently it will benefit the family as a whole.

Krishna Dangol and Bala Ram Kisi are the linchpin and the driving force of classical homeopathy in Kathmandu. They both had medical training before becoming classical homeopaths and each has a business to run to supplement their income from homeopathy. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

In my visits to Asia I keep emphasisng that they have the opportunity to adopt the best of Western culture and retain the best of their own culture. [e.g. McDonald’s versus fresh food, no contest]

The homeopaths in Kathmandu are running a clinic twice a month at an AIDS charity centre. They tell me that since I returned, a child who was born HIV positive has tested negative since having homeopathic treatment. They had a patient with diabetes, in one clinic, whose blood sugar levels had lowered with homeopathic treatment so much that she had stopped using insulin and remained well. The body is remarkable at times. For those reading this who are not homeopaths, we cannot do this for everyone who has diabetes but homeopathy can improve your health generally.

Nepal is going through troubled times and I am concerned for my Nepalese colleagues and their patients. They are lovely people, friendly, kind and generous. They are progressive in their practice of homeopathy and their belief in the benefits of education for everyone. They have good traditional values in the strength of the structure of the extended family. Life is tough by our standards but they have compassion towards each other. I hope they achieve a better political system and soon.

Messages from Barbara whilst on her travels.