Harmonious society.... not always

Often people have a romantic view that rural villages live in a harmonous society.
It is not always like that. They are all individuals with their own reasons for doing various things.

The best insight I had was with a book "Decision-making In Village Nepal" by an anthropologist, Casper J Miller, that lived in rural nepal for a year in the 1970's, to obtain an insight into how the Nepali's reach various decisions.

My best understanding is that each household works independently, as daily life is such a struggle in Humla, often people do not have enough food to eat over the winter, and the main people each individual relies on, is within their own household.

So my thoughts are that their main motives are to survive, and relationships within their household are key for this.
Miller also gave an insight into how the villages conceal information, which many people can read into, as there is virtually no privacy in a rural community in Nepal.

Now I cannot fault any of the people in the community, as I cannot say I would not act the same in similar circumstances.
When doing any work in such a community, we have to remember it is a different culture.

To be successfull for any work there, we need an incredible amount of respect and understanding, as they are people. They act and do various things for their own reasons, which we need to respect.

Now to the picture. I was looking at some of the pipes of the village water source, as there were some problems.
On the way back, there was a group of approximately 10 women at the top of the village, shouting, cursing, and pointing to a group of about 10 women at the lower part of the village.
Now I have absolutely no insight to what caused this, and the Nepali staff in the field office did not know either. But if a community project is going to be run within a village such as this, it may run into problems.

A development organisation may not have insight to frictions within the villages they work. Knowledge like this is key to to the success of any development work. If the people are not careful, they may unintentionally create rifts within a village.