Upper Mustang

Random Acts of Reuse In The Kingdom of Mustang

/ Liesl Clark / 3 Comments

In Upper Mustang, Nepal, there is an ethic of reuse that has changed my ways. Few things are consumed and then simply thrown away, except for candy wrappers, plastic packaging like biscuit wrappers, ramen noodle packets, and plastic bags holding washing powder. These, sadly, are found underfoot in nearly every village.

Plastic Packaging Used for Irrigation:

But most plastics in Mustang are put to use in innovative ways. Take the plastic lining for water diversion in irrigation ditches. Rather than using jute sacks filled with sand, a readily available material is plastic packaging and bags layered with mud, unwanted clothing and textiles to create an impermeable dam for irrigation ditches. The plastics, unfortunately, often break free and are carried downstream into the Kali Gandaki River where all water flows.

Potato Sack Turned Horse Feed-Bucket:

One of the most innovative Mustang-style trash hacks is the method by which local horses are fed their grain. Potato sacks made of woven plastic are sewn into a configuration that fits easily around a horse’s muzzle, with long string handles that hang over the horses’ ears. Corn is measured out and put in the potato-sack-turned-feed-bag, the chaff blown by hand from the corn to prevent the horse from inhaling it in the bag, and the bag is hung from the horse’s ears: a muzzle feeder that’s a brilliant light-weight way to feed one’s horses while traveling. No need for heavy buckets. Whether on-the-go or at home, these muzzle feed bags are the preferred feeding bucket for Mustang equines.

When one becomes worn out and a hole develops, they’re quickly patched up, as this one was mended by a talented tailor friend in the village of Samdzong, utilizing his son’s worn out sweat pants.

I grew up with horses and we went through plenty of buckets, some made of PVC and plastic which when broken became yet another hefty item in the landfill. The potato/rice sacks turned into horse feed bags are one of the best reuses I’ve ever seen in a remote part of the world that could easily be adopted world-wide!

Planted Pots in Buckets, Paint Cans and Tins:

Anything that is a receptacle is used in Mustang until it can no longer hold anything, disintegrated by sun and wind to the point of uselessness. In the topmost photo of planters, below, you’ll see a plastic bucket that developed a crack and was then sewn back together with plastic twine. Potted flowering succulents are such a valuable addition of organic color to a household, taking the time to repair that heavy-duty plastic pot is clearly worth the effort. If we treated our own plastic pots and buckets the same way, there’d be a significant reduction in the production of these plastics in the first place, and a renewed ethic which the Lobas, the people of Upper Mustang, haven’t lost, of repairing everything again and again until its useful life is truly over. Now that’s reuse!

Secrets of the Sky Tombs

/ Liesl Clark / 13 Comments

Years ago, my husband, Pete, and I made a promise to ourselves: We’d try to give our children the best real-world alternatives to video games and virtual reality we could find because reality itself is so much more fulfilling. To that end, our children have grown up on the trail. Daily lessons are often as blunt as the hard-won objective of simply reaching the next village without incident.

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Pete with 3-year-old Finn, on the trail up the Kali Ghandaki River to Jomsom. © Liesl Clark

Ancient castles, fortresses, and real-world kings are normal for kids who’ve played amongst crumbling fortress walls that intermingle with cold clouds, echoes of the past tickling us in the driving wind.

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The winter palace in Tsarang, Upper Mustang, crowned by the Annapurnas. © Liesl Clark

If our children stayed at home, those castles and forts would be grand designs crafted from code in video games they play on their devices. Yet today they can work and play amidst the real thing: Tombs of the ancient dead, haul bags filled with faunal and human bones to sort and clean, artifacts hewn from leather, silk, iron, copper, silver, and bronze, some dating as far back as 2800 years.

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10-year-old Cleo bagging two femurs, with Marion Poux overseeing her work. © Liesl Clark

Nothing in those video games can compare. As parents, we make our choices, whether we allow our children glimpses into our professional lives and our special passions. They, in turn, feel empowered to follow their own dreams, ask their own questions, and seek the truth.

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Finn, now 13, connects easily with his friends in Samdzong. He also flies all of our drone aerials. © Liesl Clark

This drive is what makes us human, what pushed the early pioneers to find shelter amongst the world’s most hostile and glorious mountains. These early settlers brought their children with them, because the alternative was unbearable.

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Leaving the kids at home, so we can do our work in the Himalayas, is unthinkable to us. © Pete Athans

On January 4th, 2017, our film, “Secrets of the Sky Tombs,” about our quest to find the first peoples of the Himalaya will air 9pm ET/8 Central on PBS’s NOVA. The film will also be broadcast in the upcoming months on France 5 in France and National Geographic Channel worldwide. It’s been a decade-long endeavor, and we’ll likely continue for another, as unknown caves, more ancient human DNA, and new questions need to be explored.

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Finn & Pete below Tsaile, headed back to Jomson, dreaming up the next filming expedition. © Liesl Clark

But if there are “secrets,” (as the film’s title suggests) to be uncovered, they’re the clues to success of a people who foraged for what they could off the land, who found meaning in the struggle, and who relied on their clan and their fellow villagers for the bare essentials to survive. Community and one’s lineage is the secret to strength in times of hardship, in the face of the extremes.

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Looking down on the village of Samar, Upper Mustang. © Liesl Clark

This lesson is not lost on us today.

High Mountains, Pure Water

/ Liesl Clark / 6 Comments

Sample Nepal Village Zero Waste Plan

(A work in progress)

1)    Locate village waste sites. Are they trash pits dug out for burning? Are they in a windy spot? If so, build a fence around them so rara (ramen) and biscuit packets don’t blow away. Do cows frequent the site and forage? If so, a fence will stop this. Cows die from ingested plastics, and the plastic can’t be a positive influence on the milk the cows produce.

2)    Are there incinerators for burning trash in the village? Review which plastics are being burned and at what temperature.

3)    At the trash pits (and also in a few volunteer homes) separate out the resources from the trash: aluminum, glass, compostables like paper, cardboard and food scraps.

4)    Find a nearby source that will buy the aluminum and a local willing to carry it out.

5)    Find a nearby source that will buy or recycle glass and a local or foreign NGO willing to carry it out. Often there are porters willing to carry for a small fee or trucks heading downvalley that are empty.

6)    Conduct awareness camps with locals to re-assess why compostables like paper, cardboard, and organics like food scraps are ending up in the trash pits. Methane gas from organic waste in landfills is a large contributor to greenhouse gas worldwide. This organic waste should be seen as a resource for compost piles. Remind locals that tea bags can be composted. Eggshells can be composted. If locals are going into the forests to collect leaves (carbon) for compost, they should be saving their paper and cardboard which has the same affect on compost piles if shredded into smaller pieces. Teaching locals to keep the leaves beneath the trees to prevent erosion will take time, but showing them that the paper and food scraps can take their place could go a long way in reducing the amount of leaves being taken from the already denuded environment.

7)    Toxic waste drop-off site: designate a local place (either one right at the pit or at a community center) where people can drop off their toxic waste – batteries, lead acid car batteries, CFL light bulbs. Find a local conservation group that will transport them to a safe disposal site.

8)    Cut down on single use items. If there are many plastic water bottles in the trash pits, locals can look into getting a potable water filter donated to the community. Informed trekkers will bring their own water bottles to be re-filled with safe drinking water. Signs in the village indicating where the safe potable water can be purchased will help reduce plastic water bottle waste.  The village or individual lodges that purchase the water filters will get a return on their investment.

9) Create goals for the future: plastic bag bans in your village, public potable water station.

Thanks to Clif Bar, we’ve been able to take some of these steps in interested villages in Solukhumbu and Mustang. The goal is to get the plastic and toxic waste out of the critical high mountain watersheds. Our steps may be small, but with continued follow-through they will have a lasting impact on Nepal’s increasingly threatened, garbage-choked watersheds.