Chandle and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

So I'm off to a rough start. I am sure that most of my problems have to do with the fact that I am extra emotional today, but it still sucks. This morning in the paper there was a small article about a domestic worker who was beaten by her employer. The little girl was 10 years old and her employer, a doctor, thought she had stolen 10,000 rupees ($150). He almost beat her to death. Later he found the money and apologized. She is in critical condition at the hospital but her employer is offering to give her family 50,000 ($760)rupees compensation. Wow, how noble of you. He's not being punished; he's not getting arrested, and every time a bastard like this gets away with it, it opens the door for the next guy to do the same thing. I feel so absolutely helpless. I get to go home in 19 days but 83,000 domestic workers in Nepal don't. I can't protect them; I can't even punish the people that hurt them. How many other kids were beaten up today? I'm doing the best I can, but sometimes it's just not good enough.

I've talked to so many people who "have just fallen in love with Nepal." All cultural sensitivity aside. I'm tired of being politically correct and ethically evaluating the practices of another country with the idea that my Western thought process is potentially flawed. YOU DON'T BEAT UP LITTLE KIDS. That's all there is to it, and any society that consistently allows horrendous activities like this to prevail makes absolutely no sense to me. I could never "fall in love" with a place that needs social marketing campaigns to remind them that 10 year olds shouldn't be assaulted.

Every night on the news someone is beaten to death in a scuffle, police do something blatantly corrupt and violent strikes take place. You can't walk down the street without stepping in mountains of trash, seeing children and people with disabilities beg, and watching someone have to go to the bathroom in the street. The government is supposed to protect the people but all I've seen it do is lie and cheat them. Nepal is truly in a state of nature, and in a state of nature life is nasty, brutish and short. How you could love this country in it's current state is beyond me. Until the people can agree on what's right and wrong and stop fighting with each other things won't get better. Everyone is constantly striking for what THEY want and it seems like very few people are concerned with others. I see young people push elderly people out of the way to get that last seat on the bus. It's customary to treat women and children like animals, and don't even get me started on how animals are treated. Almost every other dog I see is walking down the street with a limp and I consistently see people throw stones at them for what appears to be a game.

I'm tired, but don't get all worried about me. I'm fine. It's the kids I'm worried about.