> I am from a country where I can no longer access npm without tor, and even then it is so excruciatingly slow as to be unusable.

Since it seems you can access github, you can install dependencies without touching npmjs, with one of these:

    npm install git+ssh://git@github.com:<githubname>/<githubrepo.git[#<commit-ish>]
    npm install git+ssh://git@github.com:<githubname>/<githubrepo.git>[#semver:^x.x]
    npm install git+https://git@github.com/<githubname>/<githubrepo.git>
    npm install git://github.com/<githubname>/<githubrepo.git>
    npm install github:<githubname>/<githubrepo>[#<commit-ish>]

(add --save if your npm is old)

Why would a country ban npmjs?