The distance from my house to work is probably two miles. For the first few days Krishna would come everyday on his motorcycle to pick me up from home, and would then drop me off on his way home. For other outings I would just walk. While my walking to get food and get on the net was bearable, Krishna decided that picking me up every morning was not. So it was decided that the office would buy me a bike.

So on Monday Krishna and I went to a bike shop to procure my trusty steed. It was a small, dimly lit establishment with bike parts hanging from every available space on the wall and ceiling. The shop owner was a portly Nepali Muslim who sat behind his desk in a pristine white shirt, with the Koran under his hands and a postcard from Mecca behind him on the wall. The workers in the shop were mostly between ten and fourteen years old, rail thin, and covered in grime from their work. As we spoke with the shop owner he sat us down and ordered three lemon teas and three yoghurts. Krishna and the owner chatted and made small talk while around us work was being done quietly and quickly. Within minutes bicycles were taking shape from the pieces strewn about the shop.

While sitting with the owner, chatting and eating was physically comfortable, the situation itself made me feel uncomfortable due to the clear distinction between the owner and the workers. All the workers in the shop were clearly Madheshi (basically an ethnic group deriving from the Indian plains) and ethnically distinct from their owner. With Nepal still struggling to eliminate discrimination based on caste and ethnicity, to some extent I felt like my sitting there eating yoghurt was on some level participating in the discrimination. Of course this was just one shop and for all I know the workers there are treated well and paid fairly, but talking about and hearing about discrimination everyday at work, it is hard not to see it around you everywhere you look, even when it isn’t there.

Eventually our chat with the owner returned to bicycles and we selected a green “superior model” bike that would work well for a “tall and heavy” person like me. Once money had changed hands and two workers had tightened all the nuts and bolts they could find, Krishna took off on his motorcycle and I pedaled my way home on the bike. If the looks I got before might be described as curious, the looks I get peddling my giant bike through town are down right befuddled. I have nearly caused a dozen bike and rickshaw accidents as people cannot peel their eyes off me as I pedal by. A white man on a bike…you do not see that everyday.