Lisa Tron,
Volunteer: Action Works Nepal
Midwife and Freedoms Activist, Germany
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| Rara lake in the morning in October |
AWON improves human conditions
like income and food. They are mobilizing people especially in women
empowerment which includes everybody, so that there can be a chance out of the whole
society. Otherwise, the women would get just more violence. It has to be a
transformatic process thought the whole society that chance can happen. AWON
also works on education through engaging schools, has a Miteri Recycle Center where
used clothes get collected to reprocess and to empowerment the women in marginalized
communities. For details; https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miteri-Recycle-Center-Nepal/508155022598780
Here, Radha Paudel,
Founder/President of AWON who is WAR Suriver wrote a book "Khalangama Hamala"
to reminding of that Maoist Attack in Khalanga (City of Jumla). This book got
this year here in Nepal the highest book award called Madan Purskar. From the royalty of her book and other donors
or peace lovers, AWON is also building up a Miteri Peace Learning Center in the
same premises of Peace Commemoration in Jumla. They also do memorialization
(peace commemoration at the name of people who were dying and suffered from
more than a decade war in Nepal) for cultivating peace. For details: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miteri-Peace-Learning-Center-to-Commemorate/492407570870104?fref=ts
The stature there stands for peace, reminds
of people who died, gives a kind of meditation and shows again the meaning of
Miteri with this four types of texts in English, Germany, Jumli and Nepali. For
instance, the message in English is
"
Welcome in the Miteri peace garden . This garden commemorates all people who
died during a century long conflict in Nepal. It is a symbol of mutual love and
respect regardless of caste, class, gender, region, religion or race across the
world in order to respect diversity promote inclusions and cultivate a culture
of peace."
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| Miteri Peace Commemoration |
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| Peace mandala at the front of the peace statue |
I was with Radha Paudel in
Kathmandu, Jumla and on the Rara lake trekking tour as a companion. I followed her conversation and her work with
people across the world like Austria, French, USA and Nepalese from different
walks of life. She also engaged with various historical activities from the families
in the villages, to the police chief and chief district officer in Jumla. I learned
and got to know a lot from her and feel deep respect and love towards her. She
is poor since her childhood, went with barefoot to school and slept with empty
stomach. She learned nurse and spent over 20 years in remote areas. She is war
and GBV (Gender Based Violence) survivor. Today, she is still poor, is working
as a 100% full time volunteer, is using second hand clothes and goes into the
field so often she can to do something.
She is a wonderful person, really a full heart peace and change maker and rural
woman activist.
Now I will write about the life
in Jumla, which is another kind of life, like in the middle-aged, we know out
of movies in Germany. You just have to add plastic, motorbikes, buses, some
cars, mobiles, radios and solar stations to it, where the families get a little
bit energy for one or two rooms for the light in the evening. It is a wonderful nature with lovely people,
but it is a very hard and strong life. So the life expecting time of the people
there is just around 40 years in addition to the national life span which is
about 65 years and in Kathmandu about 81 years.
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| The mountains of Sannigaun where I lived for three weeks |
The people in Jumla are working
very hard, from the sunrise till the evening. They are working on the field,
cutting grass in the hangs of the mountains, hitting stones for building up
something, have to carry and bring water home, take care of the animals and
have to see that they collect enough for the strong winter like beans, maize,
grass, wood and rice. In the winter, in this area, it goes down till minus
20-30 Celsius and snow till the belly. In this time, especially from January
till March the family is sitting in front of the fire and tries to survive.
They have no heater, just one fireplace in the kitchen where they also
cook. The other rooms are too cold,
mostly without a window and also the people don't have good clothes, so for
example the most people also just wearing flip flops in winter and have no warm
jacket. It is really sad to see. As I
was there we already had in the night minus 8 grades and I just put everything
on what I had, because otherwise is would be too cold. So I went to bed with 3
pullovers, a cap, 2 long pants, socks in a sleeping bag and 2 blankets. It's unbelievable how it will be in winter, I
mean the rooms were already very cold, they have no warm water, the ways are
small and difficult and they also have to go and carry the water. They also do
not have electricity, no internet and telephone, just a solar station for the light in the
evening and special mobiles which are working in some area or families. They also don't have a
bathroom like we know it from Europe. It is all outside, the little wash station
where you wash your face, hands and dishes. It is a water bag, it's very cold
and the family, mostly the kids has to bring the water from a little river or
water pipe. The toilet is made out of wood or mud or stone and mostly some
minutes away from the house. Inside is a little hole which is the toilet and
you don't have toilet paper, just may or may not have water. Sometimes, there is no door and very hard to
enter due to very short height e.g. 3-4 ft. When you want to wash yourself or the clothes
you have to walk to the next river or water pipe. The water is like ice and to
protect your body the women take on special dresses, so that nobody can see
them naked. The clothes get washed with the help of stones, water and soap.
After washing they lay the clothes into the grass or hanging them over bushes
so that they can dry in the sun.
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| My Miteri host family in Kudari, we were at the kitchen around the fire and cooking |
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| My Miteri host family in Sannigaun, carry beans and grass for the winter...right side you see the washing station for your hands, face and the dishes |
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| Washing clothes in the mountains at a little river |
In the morning, the family drinks a /herbal /tea
and eats sometimes a special handmade bread, which is made out of millet and water
over the fire. Especially the women went then the whole day in the mountains to
cut grass in the hangs or collecting wood and carry it back home for the winter. When they have little kids, they have to take
them with and you see them sitting next to their mother and playing alone. The
women do not really have time to look for them. When the kids are older they
are cooking on the fire for the rest of the family, take care, bringing water
and washing clothes, when the mother is in the mountains. So around 10 months, they
eat rice and soup, in the afternoon may be fire potatoes or millet bread between
working and in the evening again rice and soup.
Sometimes you also see men working and helping on the field, but mostly
the women. Women are working longer and harder than the men, 20 hours/day where
as men are working for just 11 hours a day. The women also carry the bags with
rice, beans, grass, wood, cowpuh (dung) and stones up to 60 kg on their back.
It is really amazing how strong they are.
In front of the winter everything goes around the point to save
everything, so that they have enough to survive for themselves and the animals.
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| Woman with her little child working in the mountains |
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| Woman carry grass back home from field |
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| Woman with her baby going to wash her clothes |
The women have the hardest live,
they have no rights and no voice and they have to work harder than the men,
carry the most things, working in the mountains, have to manage the family and
also they still have to follow the practice of Chaupadi. Chaupadi is a
traditional practice of centuries which cuts women out off the family and
society, when they have their menstruation or get childbirth. They belong then
to the untouchables and have to live and sleep alone in the cow shed. They aren't
allowed to enter the house or temples, use normal public water, eat milk
produces, take part in festivals or touch others during their menstruation,
especially men, pregnant women and kids. They are isolated alone in the cow shed,
which is unhygienic, insecure, unsafe and very cold. There are cases of women
dying while practicing Chaupadi, because of illness, attacks of wild animals,
snake bits, fire lit in poorly ventilated rooms, attacked by men, rape and get
killed. Young women whom are growing up, getting the knowledge that the others are
targeting ill when they thought or live with them together during their
menstruation. Explored to the dangers of assault and sexual abuse many women
are too afraid to even sleep at the risk of being attacked by men in the
villages. Even women at childbirth and just after getting birth are considered
to be part of the untouchables and so are forced to live in the same conditions
in the cow shed with the animals, which includes many cases of infections, maternal
and child mortality results. The women don't have a chance to come out of this
tradition, they are growing up with it, thinking it has to be like this and
even when they would know it, they don't
have a voice and rights, no possibilities.
It is unbelievable and very sad, poor souls. It has to be a chance in
the mind set of whole society!
I also did the experience with
Radha Paudel and we went for one night together in a cow shed by one family in
the mountains. It was very cold due to
heavy raining for couple of days, different smelling, dogs shouting in a scary
way outside, no light, darkness, open door,…..Glad fully I was together with Radha
and not alone and we both had a sleeping bag. I thought about the snakes, wild
animals and attacks from men. I was
afraid and thinking of the women who have to do this alone every month, even in
the winter, isolated from everybody. I
felt so sorry and depressed, its unbelievable that it still get practiced in
our century and that we in other countries do not know about it. I mean menstruation is a good thing, it shows
that you can get a baby and by the childbirth a new human comes in our life, but
the people cut them out of the society and family without shame.
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| Radha and me were in the cow shed |
Women get married in an arranged
way mostly between 14-19 years. Than they have to leave their family, have to
live in the family of their husband and to manage everything for them. You can recognize a married woman with the
help of red necklaces and arm bangles, a red point between and a little over
their eyes and a red powder line in their hairs. Men do not have really a sign
which shows that they are married; it is up to them to wear a ring.
The women are also very young
when they get their first babies. The most are between 15-17 years old, they
are also still kids when they get their first babies. They often have no
possibilities, time or knowledge to cook that their kids have everything they
need after or in combination with breastfeeding. So I got in Kudari (village) a
list with underweight kids till 5 years which is about 25 % and this is of
course too much. This list also showed that there are more girls are
underweight then boys, which shows another problem (gender discrimination). It’s important for women to get a boy; girls
are unnecessary and not really important. A girl has to leave the family and a
boy will stay and his wife will take care when they are old. So for example, one
woman was pregnant with her 9 child and still waiting of a boy. Sometimes the women also earn violence from
her husband because she doesn't get a boy.
When
a women get pregnant they still have to manage the family. Normally they should
come 4 times to the check up, but they do not really come and when just
irregular or when they have problems. Here in Nepal they do not have midwifes,
just special educated nurses, which are called ANM=Auxiliary Midwife Nurse. To
get a AMN you have to study 15 month and follow for another 3 month a AMN by
her work and look at it.
In Khalanga, I had the chance to
be with by a delivery. This hospital was constructed of the leadership from
Radha Paudel and she also took lead role to do the first C-Section and blood
bank in this area.
There are 2 rooms, one is the waiting room,
where the women are waiting with one woman from her family till the baby is
really coming, then they have to went with the nurses help into the delivery
room which is next to the operation room. To come to it you have to go into the
operation area next to the waiting room, where you just chance the shoes into
flip flops. The other room is the post natal room where the women are after
delivery. In the delivery room, there are two delivery beds next to each other,
without something between. It is a small room, with these two beds in the middle
and one baby bed. So we went with this one women into the delivery room, she
was already in the end phase of delivery. One woman from her family was with
her and two nurses. Men aren't allowed to be with by the delivery here in
Nepal. She seems very young and I think she got her first baby. She had to go
on the bed and like in the most hospitals in Germany as well unfortionable lay
on her bag and has to push so that the baby gets born. She took my hand and was
searching for hold and care in my eyes... As the baby was born, it comes
shortly to the mother, so that they can cut the umbilical cord and then it came
into the baby bed, where one nurse make it clean and afterwards she gave it to
the family member . The other nurse looks in his time that the placenta comes. As
I was there, in this time also another women came with some of her family
member. There was also a man with, I was wondering and was upset, because the
other women just lay there openly. This other women already got birth, but the
placenta was still inside her. But then we had to go, because the room gets full.
In Khalanga, they can manage a lot of things, it's the only hospital in
this area and when people have a problem or in case of emergency they have to
come to this hospital. But here in Jumla they do not have emergency cars or
something like this, when there is a case of emergency, ill or pregnant women,
they have to carry them on a lie or on their bags and have to go to the next
health center or bus stop when they have to come into the hospital. In a case
of emergency, the health centers also cannot do something and this is of course
a big problem, especially in the mountains. When there is a case of emergency especially
by the childbirth, you don't have a chance and the women, child or both are
dying. So I heard about one woman which died because of a retained placenta.
The
women get mostly their babies still in the cow shed, because they just follow
the tradition, which also brings a lot of mortally with, because it's very
unhygienic. They are not allowed to get their baby inside their home, because
they belong in this time to the untouchables. It is very sad.
The whole health system in Jumla,
especially in the mountains is still a big problem, just around Khalanga it is
getting better. It is not really clean,
they clean their hands and materials with spirit, rubbish is lying around and
in some places materials are broken which they got from the government or doesn't
work like delivery beds and toilets. It is very cold especially in the rooms,
so in the mountains when a patient comes they lay them outside in the sun,
because it is warmer. They don't have electricity and sometimes it needs month
that they get something they ordered. Another big problem is the water. In the
mountains they have to go up to one hour to get some and carry it back, which
is also a problem for service and cleaning up things. The biggest problem is the staff, which is
not really there. You just find the Doctor
there, when they have time or just by big events like the checkups. In Sannigaun
village, also 2 Nurses from Khalanga are coming for 3 days in one month to do
the checkups of pregnant women and all kids till 5 years. They are going in 3
different villages to do the checkups and so in Sannigau the check ups are in
the health center, but in the other they do not have one, so in the one village
it is in a school and the other one on the roof from one house, between mais. By
the checkups the kids get weight and injections against illnesses. The women
also get sometimes injections, they get iron and worm tablets, the nurses
listen to the babies’ heartbeat and looking for the health of the women. When
something is not ok, they have to go the long way to the hospital. So for example to reach Sannigaun you have to
drive from Khalanga 8 hours with the public bus and then go by feet another 4 hours up into the mountains. The
check ups are important and a lot of women come, but it is still to less. The
people there feel alone, insecure, isolated without a good service! I mean of course,
normally the health center should be open from 10: till 14:00, but it is closed
or open later, you never know... I mean how you will get a good service when it
is like this, it is a circle one belongs to each other, when you have a good
service, and people will come and trust in it. So I think it is also a big lack
of the government’s monitoring, I mean I know it is far away and a hard life,
nobody really wants to live there from the high educated people , but the need
is definitely there. For example, one
patient list from Kudari, where the health center is much better than in the
mountain, like in Sannigaun. This list is from August and includes from 0-9
years = 67 girls and 86 boys, from 10-19 = 63 girls and 51 boys, from 20-59=
137 men and 75 women and over 60 years = 23 men and also 23 women.
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| Treating Patient under the sunshine a Sannigaun health post due to extreme cold inside |
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| immunization program at he Sanigaun |
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| Ante natal Check up at Miteri Birthing Center |
The education is also a big
problem. The whole school system has also a big lack, especially in the mountains
, but also around and in Khalanga. To reach the school is very dangerous and adventures,
there are not really ways to it and they are mostly on a little mountain or
higher in the mountain. They looks big from outside, but when you go inside it shocks.
It is wet, because some roofs have a lack, it is very cold, there are no things
to warm up, no benches or just some,
most time there is just a white cupboard and they do not really have learning
materials. There are mostly just three buildings, two of them have rooms for
teaching and the other one is the teacher’s office. There are just some
teachers, so in Khalanga for example in the best goverment school in this area
are up to 80-100 students in one class. I mean how you will teach them well,
when it is like this. The teachers are not so good qualified, as I expected, so
they just speak a little bit English and teach the kids in English. They are
for every subject, not like in Germany that they have their special subjects.
Also the educated teacher’s families still practice the tradition of Chaupadi
at home. I mean for what is education? Normally it also should be there to
transform and give the kids knowledge, but it is not really like this.
It
is like the other side from Germany, the kids come to school when the parents
allow and want to get teach, but the teachers like the health center stuff, are
not really there, just when they want. So for example as Radha Paudel and me
went one rainy day to one school in the mountain, the kids were sitting outside
over a little fire out of book papers, wet and trying to warm themselves and
waiting of the teacher, which did not come. So they had to go the long and
dangerous way back home. At this day they were our lifeguards just with flip
flops, because we nearly were falling down the mountain. It really thought my
heard!!!
The kids also do not really have
a relationship between education and practice, so they mostly do not know what
they want to become after school and just know the hard work at home. I mean
60% from the kids are still unable to write their name even in Nepali. The kids really want to learn, but the school
system is not very good. So for example as we were at the Rara lake trekking
tour, kids came to us to get teached. It is sad, the kids want, but the parents
do not really send or allow them to go to school, because they need them to
work at home, field or to take care of the animals. So we met one boy, who left
school, because they had nobody at home anymore, which take care of the
animals. Because of this fact the boy said goodbye to his dream to get
educated, so that he can study and to build something up in his village to help
the people. In addition to this the kids also do not have really time to learn at home, because
they have to help a lot and they also come to school dirty, just with flip flops or barefoot, cold
clothes, without snacks or bags, mostly also without notebooks or pencils.
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| At one school at a rainy day in Sannigaun |
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| A school class in the mountain |
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| One boy who left school and takes care of the animals |
The connection and transport way
is very difficult and adventures. Not every part of Jumla has a connection with
the streets. So you just can reach a lot of villages just by foot, walking and following
small ways in the mountains. So this is of course also a ground for the bad
service and a big problem for the people which are living there.
To travel is really adventures,
the buses looks old , they are full with people, which are also sitting of the
top and went up and down by driving. The door is the most time open and you
listen to Hindi or Nepali music. Maybe chicken sitting over or next to you, it
is very dusty, so sometimes you can't really breath anymore. The streets belong
the mountains are very small, often broken or with deep mud roads so that the
bus stuck and has to see how he comes out again with stones and pushing. There
are also river streets you have to cross and just bridges where trees are
laying next to each other. On the road you meet cows, horses, people and when
another bus is coming, it is unbelievable how they manage it, because it seems
there is no place, but they get it.
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| On the way to sannigaun |
I also had the chance to be with
by historical events in Jumla like the first marathon, the visit of the
"Lions" chief from America, the first women conference about "rural
women in peace and development" and a police workshop about the police
work in" public transport for reducing violence against women and
girls" which Radha Paudel organized and was leaded. Because in Jumla women
still aren't allowed to sit in front of the bus, because of believe that an
accident will be happen then.
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| Radha facilitated an interaction program on violence of public transport and role of police |
I got to know, when you want to
organize something, you have to be the active part and push the people. You
need trust hope and good nerves. Everything needs their time, so for example
when you say the meeting starts at 7:00 it will start at 7:30 or 8:00 and
everybody needs their own invitation.
So what I learned for myself in this time:
When you want to chance
something, do not wait, be active and stand for this, what you want and feel.
Trust in life and follow your feeling and dreams. Everything will work in a
special and good way, when you just do it, even when it does not look like it.
But waves belong to life and let us grow up. Be strong, don't give up and work
for it, step by step. Help is necessary in the remote areas like Jumla and in
many other places as well. So we have to work together for peace and a better
life for the poor people, they cannot do it alone. Like Radha Paudel is saying
: "Absence from war is still no peace, it has to chance in the ground by
the poor families. So there is still no peace, when women not treated equal and
have no rights, people have no food or even things to wear."
Miteri Gaun - A Lets Live Together compgain
"A village of choice of your!
You can live together; get dignity, justice and equality forever.
You may from south, may from
north, possible from west, but Miteri never ask,
what is your colour, region,
religion and caste?
No discrimination at all!
Miteri beyond marriage and blood, everyone mutually bonded with love!
Oceans start from drop, drop oozing from heart.
Humanity builds your heart,
Heart connects with heart, penetrating into each deprivation!
Miteri is empowering and inspiration!
What and whatever you are, you are human!
Easily
reachable,
Once google
for AWON (Action Works Nepal) ,
Welcome your
kind, cash and volunteerism, valued each action free from frustration.
Uniting for
cause, choosing unique strategy to get rid of inhumanity.
Your Miteri
Gaun, a village of choice of yours !
You can live
together get dignity, justice and equality forever. "
Thank you for taking time and reading my report !
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Let us work and live together in Miteri, Love and Peace with the trust into the good of life, so that change can happen in the world !!!
In love and peace
Lisa Tron
October 2 - November 29, 2014
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