Have we ruined our world?

Manufactured Landscapes by Edward Burtynsky
I wanted to add this you tube link to a river in Kathmandu.

This morning my 10 year old accused me and the last few generations before me of ruining our world.

"Have we?" I asked.

"Mom, you and your generation and the generations before you are responsible for all of the garbage and global warming... "  He had more to say, but this was the essence.

What have we done?

I asked him to look around him and said, "If I have contributed to the decay of the world then so have you. Look around you.  Everything that you have is made by machines with plastic parts and consumes fossil fuels."  We went hunting around our home for an object completely untouched by modern technology.  I found pottery made by my friend, but the wheel it was turned on was electric and the clay arrived boxed in plastic.  There are few places in the world where everything is entirely industry free.  Perhaps somewhere in the Amazon or high in the mountains of Nepal.  Even though the jewelry we buy is entirely hand built, torches are used to solder the pieces together.

He is right, we are no longer able to live in this modern world without touching objects made by machines and it is ruining the air we breath and the environment that we live in.

Please rent Manufactured Landscapes on Netflix, photo above, It is an astounding film!  It shows the monumental physical damage we have done to our landscape.

Right now in Nepal, Global Warming is causing the glaciers to recede leaving longer dry seasons.  A friend in Nepal just wrote me that they have had no rain for 3 months.  People will die of starvation this year because their crops will not have enough water.  How unfair that people who have barely had access to modern technology will suffer so much for the excesses of the rest of us.

We can not turn back the clock but we can make an effort to change our future.  Technology may have gotten us into this mess, but I think that responsible technology is also our only way out.  Reduce, reuse, recycle, buy natural handmade products, and advocate for the development of clean energy alternatives.  It's not easy in our modern society and it will take a daily commitment make a change.

Bead District in Kathmandu

Beads are an important part of a woman's attire in Nepal.  Hindu women in Kathmandu go to a small alley in Indrachowk called the pote bazaar. Pote, pronounced potay, are worn by married women.  A wedding pote might be very long, worn like a sash that hangs to one's hip.

The different ethnic groups of the Kathmandu valley have different beliefs about how one should wear their pote.  Some women believe that they must wear it 24 hours a day lest their husband should unexpectedly pass away.  Ethnic groups outside of Kathmandu have very different traditions, but wearing loads of jewelry seems to be the norm throughout the Himalayas.

A golden tilauri bead in the middle of a pote necklace is a symbol very much like the gold wedding ring in the west.  It is always a spiky bead, but it does vary a little in length and design. Below is a sterling silver tilauri bead that we sell on our web site aworldofgood.com

Surprisingly, although Muslims don't wear pote, most of the shopkeepers selling them in the pote bazaar are Kashmiri Muslims.  When necklaces are almost finished, the bead stringer will have several threads between his toes and something that looks like a little drop spindle in his hand.  So quickly that my eye can not comprehend, he winds a thread around the several threads between his toes and finishes the necklace making a button hole loop on one end and attaching a brass button carved with a lotus on the other end.

I brought Tania here because they make beautiful woven bracelets for a fraction of what they would cost to produce in the USA and because it was on the way to Kathmandu Durbar Square.  I will show you that square next time.

The pote bazaar at Indrachowk