Stikkordarkiv: women

Maya´s story

Maya Thapa (53) is one of many disabled people living in Nepal. Life has always been hard, but now that she has lost her only daughter, it has become unbearable.

  • We used to think that money is not everything, but now we think there is nothing bigger or better than money.

In front of a grey stone house on a dry river bank in Kalanki, east of Kathmandu, a smiling man in a wheel chair greets us, waving both of his hands. He is Akal Thapa. His friendly being is easy recognizable as he is sitting in a wheelchair. His hear is tousled, on his lap sits his two and a half year old grandchild Uswal. Both Maya and Akal Thapa are disabled, neither of them can walk anymore. We follow Akal inside the living room, where Maya is waiting in the dark. She is sitting on top of the bed, wearing a red t-shirt and a green longi which village women wear for work. Her hands are clutched around her knees. She is the only woman I have seen in Nepal with short hear. It is too hard to wash it. At the wall behind her, hangs a picture of two young beautiful people. It is her daughter Purnimas wedding picture.

It has only been four months since it happened. The two children lost their mother and Maya and Akal their only daughter, only 23 years of age. Maya takes a deep breath before she starts telling the story.

  • We used to have a poultry farm, and our daughter used to take care of it. It was a cold and rainy night. At half past seven it was getting dark, and it was cold and muddy in the farm, so our daughter went to change the bulb to keep the chicken warm. We heard her scream for help. Then we found her there, her body lying on the floor. We tried to move her, but it was not possible, Maya says through the tears. Akals body is shaking.
  • The wire that killed her was underneath her body. There was no more hope. She had died in a minute. Then she was brought to the hospital and declared dead, even if she was still warm, Maya says crying.

While his grandmother is speaking, the little boy becomes restless and starts moving around on top of the bed. Maya gets down to prepare a bottle of milk for him. She can not walk anymore, in stead she moves close to the floor, her feet crouched underneath her body. But it hurts for her to move like this. The small one is drinking thirstily, waving the bottle to show the us what he can do. After finishing the bottle, he keeps our attention by pushing a small green plastic chair in front of him, all the time studying us closely to see if we are watching.

Maya met Akal in the hospital. Both of his legs had been amputated after he served in the Indian army as a young man. Once he was posted at the Chinese-Bhutanese border where there was heavy snowfall and the weather was icy cold. The soldiers used to make fire to keep warm, and Akals legs were hurting. Six months later, after having returned to the village, he started feeling pain and the doctor said he had to amputate both of his legs.

Suddenly the door opens and a little girl wearing a school uniform comes running into the room, throwing her ruck sack down to the floor, jumping on top of the bed to be with her grandparents. She is their oldest grandchild, Roshani, three and a half years old.

Maya and Akal used to rent a flat on government land but they were chased away and had to move. Then they took a big loan, to make their own home here in Kalanki. The first year, however, the flood came and water filled their apartment. It was impossible to live there. Then they took another loan and made a second floor. They now owe almost 300.000 rupees. Their daughter had a good job and a steady income, but after her death it is not possible for them to pay back the loan, soon they will not have money enough to send their granddaughter to school, they can hardly feed themselves. Both of them are sick and need expensive medicines, still they have to take care of the children, as their son in law is working. They are trying to make a living by selling batics to foreign people, but since tourists deserted Nepal, there are no market to sell anymore. Disabled people in Nepal have the right to claim 150 rupees per month from the welfare office, but for people living far away from this office, it may be even more expensive to collect the money from this office, which does not even have a ramp for wheelchairs.

  • There are no dreams left, Maya says. – All of them are gone. I would like to see peace in Nepal, people being able to stay in their own villages, working together for peace. And we would like to do something for this, but because we are old and disabled we are not able to.

Akal gets out of the wheelchair and humps on top of the bed, where he gets seated next to his wife. Then he lifts up his grandson and places him on the lap.

  • People are dying, and even if life is not good, it is better to live with each other in peace, Maya says. – We are only one nation, but political parties are arguing and fighting each other. I think they are trying to destroy this country. People tell me not to cry, but I can not help it. We had a daughter and because of her and the grandchildren we could have done something. But since our daughter died, we are not able to do anything and cannot dream of anything. The last year it was hard for us even to survive. Most of the days we are crying and life is passing, just like that, Maya says.
  • We used to think that money is not everything, she says. But now we think there is nothing bigger or better than money.

Kathmandu, January 2005. Interpreter: Indira Amatya

What is a good woman?

I meet her at her office in Ekantakuna, where Saneharika Samula runs its recourse center. Bandana Rana is the president of Women Communicators Group and the vice president of SAATHI, an organization working against domestic violence. In between these jobs she reads news at Nepal Television, she is active in social work and the mother of two children. Most of her time, however, is spent on working for the women of Nepal.

In the hallway there are posters displaying womens possibilities to work for peace and how women refugees suffer a lot. The recourse center is really a library room where more than 100 women journalist members can come to read, share their experiences and discuss. I curiously glance at the secretary who is busy looking at the webpage of Unifem, just above her head the wallpaper is decorated with an article on womens poor representation in the media as well as a poem called “How to recognize a good woman”. I read that a good woman is a proud woman who knows what she wants, is not afraid to express her own needs and does not need to find recognition in others. The door opens. Rana looks relaxed behind her great desk, excuses herself for being late and orders hot water to help her soar throat.

  • How did it happen that you started working on womens issues? I ask, knowing that this woman could have lived an easier life minding her own business.
  • I have been very fortunate. First of all I was born in the city, I had good education and a liberal family. But even in my family I experienced discrimination. My brothers were sent to India to have their education and could do whatever they wanted. When I started my work in the eighties, I got the opportunity to go to several rural areas in Nepal and I saw the plight of women. They could not speak in front of men, they had to carry the wood for fuel, prepare the food, care for the children and serve the men, they had to plough the fields and carry heavy buckets of water from distant places. The women I met had a very heavy burden of work, some of them working up till 18 hours per day. Men would work less hours, and some of them were gambling and playing. I realized how lucky and fortunate I was and I thought to myself: If we do not work for these women – who will?

  • In your opinion, what is the most important issue for women in Nepal today?
  • The most important issue is self identity. Most Nepalese women do not have their own identity. Their identity is always linked to the relation to men, first as a daughter, second as a wife and then as a mother. Few women are economically independent and because of that they have no self confidence – they feel insecure. Nepalese society is a patriarchal society, the power lies in hand of the male. In this culture women experience a lot of violence and because they are insecure, they feel they have to bear the violence – they blame themselves for the violence they experience.

Nine years ago the other organization Rana is working for, SAATHI, established a shelter for abused women. Later they have also started a shelter and a drop-in-center for street-children.  They are also responsible for doing a report on women and violence in Nepal, showing that 77 per cent of the women have experienced some kind of violence in their home.

  • How can this situation be changed? The answer to this rather complicated question comes surprisingly rapid.
  • Through awareness raising, education, capacity building and societal change for improving the identity of women and bringing them to the mainstream of development. If you look at the state, there is almost 50 per cent women, but in the political structure of the state there are hardly any, in the civil service there are hardly any, in decision making and policy making bodies you do not see women. And because of this the policies made are also not suitable for women. Only today we have as much as 108 legislations that are discriminatory to women.

  • But where to start?
  • We have to start in the home itself. If you are a daughter, there is no rejoice in the home when you are born. The daughter does not belong there, she will go to her husbands home anyway, and even there she does not really belong, because her identity is linked with her husband only. Society and attitudes should change so that society look upon girls as equal to boys. There should be no difference between sons and daughters. The women who experience violence in their homes should be able to go to court and find justice.
  • Do you have a dream?
  • Yes, I have a dream. I have a dream to feel free of all inabitions in life, free to think for myself, free to implement what I want to implement, free to do what I want to do. It is not a dream for myself, but a dream I have for all Nepalese women.

Kathmandu, November 2004

Debi needs a loan

  •  I would like to have a small shop, Debi (35) says. We are sitting in her café, which is on the way to Sarangkot, just where the path is making a turn towards left, and you can see that another hill has to be climbed before you can reach the peak. The surroundings are pitoresque like in a tourist poster from Nepal, the spectacular Fishtale (Machapuchare) mountain dominating the background.

In these beautiful surroundings people are experiencing hard times. In the morning at five o clock Debi follows the steep path down to buy new refreshments for the tourists. From the bottles she carries up the hills on her back, she can make five rupees each, all depending on how much the tourists are willing to pay. These days all of her neighbours are competing very hard to get as much money from the tourists as possible. But most of the few tourists who come, pass without a word, annoyed with the unwanted atttention.

After Debis morning trip, she cooks dhaalbhaat (rice dish) for her familiy, before she starts a long working day with farming and houshold work. All of this to be able to send the children to school which is very costly near to Pokhara.

At first I hesitate to stop by the small, dark stone house, as I do not expect to find anything to drink which my stomach can take. Debi then brings me into her cafë, which is really the ground floor of her home, where she has made a small counter with different kinds of snacks and refreshments.

  • Where is your husband? I ask her.
  • He is in Pokhara, Debi answers.
  • Is he working there?
  • No.
  • He is unemployed?
  • Yes.

Debi has three children, one son and two daughters. All of them are going to school. It is a very hard job to raise all the money which is necessary for this purpose, but somehow Debi and her husband have managed to. Their home is situated just where a lazy tourist might start to feel tired.

  • The problem here in Nepal is that we do not have any money, she explains. – That is our problem here.
  • What do you think about your country?
  • I would like everything to become like before.

Debi is referring to the Maoist insurgency which has now lasted for nine years already. Since that time people in Sarangkot, like so many people in Pokhara, have been virtually put out of business. Because of the political situation tourists stopped coming to Nepal, and people have been losing their income. All along the path children are asking for food or money. They are used to seeing tourists with expensive watches and shoes, high incomes and freedom to travel. They are struggling to survive, as they have become used to higher incomes during the better days, when the Annapurna Mountain area was crowded with joyful tourists.

  • What would you like to do if you had power in Nepal? I ask.
  • We do not have any power.
  • But you can vote freely?
  • No, it is not possible.

It is not customary to show up in this place and start asking these type of questions. The neighbours at this time start coming to see who is this person talking to Debi and what does she want. An old man with a topi hat is standing in the doorway. In the beginning he is listening and looking from a distance, but soon he moves closer to our table. Denis daughter, who is doing the translation, starts giving short answers. Now she almost stopped translating at all. She looks down and into the wooden table.

  • I would like to have a tourist shop, Debi suddenly says. – With some souvenirs and artisans, maybe. May be even some clothing. Anything really. The problem is just that we can not get loans. We have a bank account, but there is no loaning system here. I am ready to do any kind of work. Anything. You name it.

Pokhara, November 2004