"Women are tied by their saris, and bangles are their handcuffs"
Today marks my one week anniversary of landing in Nepal. In true Nepali fashion, things started quickly and haven’t stopped since.
After giving myself two days to adjust to my new surroundings, I meet with Women for Human Rights (WHR), the only organization in Nepal that works solely for the rights of widows. The Senior Program Manager and Program Coordinator, Sumeera Shrestha and Upasana Rana, discuss my project and my expectations as to how WHR can be of help. WHR has offices in 72 out of Nepal’s 75 districts and, as such, have a wealth of contacts for me. Because of this, I can essentially pick anywhere I would like to go and talk to widows in that area. Sumeera informs me that in two day’s time, there will be a WHR run workshop in Sindhuli, a district southeast of Kathmandu, that I am more than welcome to attend. I leave the meeting raring to go, with the not so small task of needing to find a translator willing to travel with me on the 7 hour journey to Sindhuli that very next morning.
I contact Camille Hanesse, the French woman who runs the building I am staying in and who has been living in Nepal for the last three years. She gets me in touch with her assistant, Sailesh, who meets me fifteen minutes later in my building, where we get to work on finding a translator and transportation. Within the hour, I meet Amit Thapa, a friend of Sailesh, who is willing to leave with me at 5am the next morning. I hop on the back of Amit’s scooter and we head off to the chaotic main bus terminal, Kalanki, to buy tickets for our departure. Early the next morning, I sit outside my building watching Kathmandu wake up while I wait for Amit to arrive––for those who believe everything happens slower in Nepal, this is a lesson in exceptions.
But, of course, the cliche is there for a reason: our 5:30am bus leaves at 6:30am, and the 7 hour journey takes 10 hours. Later, we realize that we were treated to the 400km scenic route instead of the 150km direct route. But arrive we did––sweaty, hot, and tired––that Saturday evening. We book two rooms in the Sangam Resturent & Guest House, eat a hearty dinner of Nepal’s staple meal, dal bhat, and promptly pass out.
Over the next two days we attend the workshop, funded by UN Women, and headed by Bimala Pandey, a journalist for Sindhuli’s weekly newspaper, Jana Prabat. Bimala lectures to the 40 or so women present about the state of women’s rights in Nepal, how they should report injustices and what is currently being done by the government for the issue. Similar to South Africa, Nepal has several important laws in place but implementation, especially in the rural areas that form most of the country, is still lacking. Bimala speaks with passion and conviction to the women, using games and dances to get her introverted participants more involved.
Early in the morning on the second day, Amit and I interview Meena Baniya, a woman who lives in Sindhuli and works for the local branch of WHR. When Meena was thirteen, she was forced to marry a local police officer who was seventeen years her senior. She was in labor with her first child at the hospital when Maoist rebels burnt down her house; Meena came back with her newborn baby boy to find she had lost all of her material possessions. Five years later, her husband was murdered by local men and Meena was left widowed with three children. She moved to Sindhuli to live closer to her mother, surviving on a meager wage from WHR and help from her immediate family. Her in-laws, who treated her well while she was married, have cut off all ties from her now that she is tainted by the death of her husband.
Amit and I talked to Meena and her eldest son and youngest daughter, Manish and Aparna, in her simple bedroom, decorated with photos of her marriage and religious icons. The ten year old Aparna is a smiling bundle of joy, popping chewing gum and hanging over her mother’s shoulder while we talk. Manish, at fifteen years old, has dropped the childhood exuberance of his younger sister and bears a striking resemblance to his late father. Later, we become friends on facebook and he uses my laptop to play chess.
Amit and I say goodbye that day, catching a ride back to the city in the WHR car with Bal Krishna, a representative from the organization’s Kathmandu office. This time we take the direct route, swerving around the mountains on rocky, unfinished roads and arrive home in under 6 hours. Back in Kathmandu, I lug my camera equipment up the stairs to my attic hideaway and immediately fall into bed, full from munching on apples and exhausted in the best way.