The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes by Barbara J. Scot

Four little girls played a complicated jump rope game. The women at the water tap, in their wonderful wildflower shades of clothes, stood talking with their golden water urns glowing in the sun. Little boys tossed a ball made from old socks back and forth to each other. Saturday is a bidhaa, holiday, in Nepal, and little clusters of men gathered lazily under the chautaara, the resting tree, with its gnarly roots. I think of one of the villages where I rested. The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal, winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, is a moving memoir of a western woman’s transformative sojourn in Nepal. But I am having a crises of confidence about anything the developed nations have to 'give' or teach Nepal about the quality of life.

I try not to overly romanticize the pastoral scene, because the elimination of the health problems in these villages would certainly add to the comfort of life for the Nepalis. How rich the Nepalis are for all their lack of western wealth. “By the time I started down off the ridge, I felt absolutely gluttonous with natural beauty. The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal We should be studying them to see how we can compensate for what we've lost before they've modernized so much that they have little left to teach.” And it has much that the West is crying for: stable families that guide children into a solid identification with their society as a whole, a spirituality that pervades their daily life, and a blend between work (that's still mostly honest physical labor) and play that validates the importance of enjoying life. He thinks westerners must be smarter somehow because they are from a technologically advanced culture. But I don't like this restless gnawing that Indu exhibits, this feeling of inferiority about his own culture's accomplishments, and his deference to me. I certainly don't blame them for wanting to improve health and sanitation. “I don't blame the Nepalis for wanting some of the material things they've become aware of since the 1950s when the country was opened to the West.

The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes by Barbara J. Scot