To be honest, Kathmandu hasn’t changed a lot. I see the same shops, the same restaurants, the same school buses, the same गल्लि (small roads) at the same spots where I left them five years ago. Things have remained the same for the better, or for the worse.
I was fortunate to meet a lot of people last week that I would have met in six months in California. My phone was ringing instead of buzzing, which says that people still prefer calling instead of texting in Nepal.
The sense of community, the bond of togetherness & richness of us is powerful here. You’ll find pockets of people watching projects happening in their locality. You’ll find them talking endlessly about people, politics, and the country. One person said to me that they have 45 households in their community, and everyone knows each other. I cannot say that coming from the west.