Thanksgiving & Conceptual Development Model for Nepal

Many people might not aware of the origin and culture of thanksgiving. It was started by the pilgrims (originally the members of English Separatist Church moving away from England to avoid religious prosecution); the first real European settlers to go to North America boarding a ship called Mayflower in 1620. They landed at Plymouth (Massachusetts) where they had to face a terrible winter. Their first crop was a complete failure and they ran out of food. But with the help of Native Americans they produced a great crop yield next year so they decided to celebrate with a feast along with the natives. The feast was more of a traditional English harvest festival than a true “thanksgiving” observance. The Pilgrims continued to hold a Thanksgiving celebration every year, and it was eventually declared a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln.

Though there is no real evidence that turkey was served at the Pilgrim’s first thanksgiving, but with time it became an obligatory part of the Thanksgiving tradition. My first thanksgiving was more concerned with eating Turkey than its culture. I and my friends were introduced to thanksgiving by our respective host families. One time we even tried to bake a Turkey, “the thanksgiving fashion”, in our apartment. Since living here in US, thanksgiving certainly has been a part of my life too.

I did have a turkey a week before Thanksgiving Day when my friend Erika invited me for a thanksgiving dinner, however on that particular day I ate something else. A stomach full of Lamb momo at some Nepalese friends place (whom I didn’t even knew before that day). Then to follow it up with a momo party at a Nepalese Professor’s place next day. I had a quite a chat with Dr. Durga Poudel (Professor at University of Louisiana at Lafayette) sipping Red Label and eating momo.

Dr. Poudel and I were talking about possible paths for development in Nepal; we both agreed that political parties need to integrate scientific agenda with their policies. We also agreed on strong federal government with independent and sustainable local governance. I always felt that constructing road in Nepal is the path towards the development but he gave me a new insight to something broader. He is a developing a conceptual model which he explained to me; that there needs to be a detailed soil series survey in Nepal. This long term study requires Soil Survey, GIS, Remote Sensing, Natural Resource Inventory etc, and could provide new jobs to 10 thousand people. His rough calculation suggests that it requires total 10 million dollar over 10 year’s period to complete the project after which we will have a strong scientific base to formulate our policies. We can use that base for urban development, road construction, increase agricultural productivity etc. If the current agricultural practices and productivity continues then it will require five times the project sum to import food for ever growing population in next twenty five years. Dr. Poudel has more facts to support the necessity for that project and he will be happy to answer if anyone of you is curious about his conceptual model. He is planning to present that in Nepal in couple of months.

No matter if Nepalese government accepts or rejects Dr. Poudel’s model, I think we definitely need a scientific base to formulate our policies. This blog proves how much I can digress, started with thanksgiving and ended with development model for Nepal. I think I need to stop writing now or else I will start about new James Bond movie.