My encounter with the people of Nepal
| Saturday, December 30, 2006 | Printer friendly version |
| by (Translated by: shioyama) | Original in Japanese |
Nepal is well-known for its beautiful Himalayan mountains. However, for the past 11 years, starting from 1996, many of Nepal's citizens have been caught up in an ongoing internal conflict (currently suspended thanks to a peace agreement signed November 21th, 2006) that has resulted in 13,000 deaths, thousands of injured, and a hundred thousand displaced. 60,000 people have disappeared, Nepal having recorded, in the 2-year period between 2003 and 2004, more conflict-related disappearances than any other country in the world, according to investigations by the United Nations and Amnesty International. This despite Nepal's small population of 22.7 million, only 1.8 times the total population of Hokkaido (Japan's northernmost prefecture).
In March, 2006, I graduated from Sophia University and started to work for the human rights NGO Amnesty International Japan as an intern. My main task was to co-ordinate a speaking tour, entitled "Nepal: suffering under conflict, striving for peace", which was to take place in 8 months time. The plan was to invite a leading human rights activist and journalist, both engaged in humanitarian support at the front lines of the conflict, to speak at ten different locations across Japan on the theme of human rights violations in Nepal.
As an intern, I was busy every day gathering documentation and reports related to the conflict, what I saw of which conveyed exclusively a sense of deep sadness and despair. At that time, I happened to notice a leaflet about the Nepal Study Tour organized by an NGO called the Asia Volunteer Center (AVC). Through exchanges organized with women belonging to the lowest rank in the caste system (Dalit, or "untouchables"), the goal of the ten-day-long program of the study tour is to educate people about the status and progress of women in Nepal. I immediately recognized that this tour could be a unique chance to see for myself the reality in Nepal ― one that thus far I had only read about in reports ― and made the decision to join.
Although I was excited about my first chance to set foot in Nepal, anxious thoughts about the dangers of the internal conflict situation in the country crossed my mind. The Nepal that I experienced first-hand through the study tour ended up, however, being completely different from the image of the country that I had previously held. It was a Nepal of clean, clear air, rich in its natural environment, whose people live a life that is free and spontaneous, surrounded by wildlife.
On my first day in Nepal, a volunteer Nepalese interpreter, Arjun, warned us on the bus: "In Nepal there are many stray dogs, stray cats, stray cows, and stray horses, so please be careful." For our group, just having arrived from Japan, this was a great surprise: "Stray cows? Stray horses?" We all burst out in laughter.
That night, as we gazed at the town below from the veranda of our hotel in the highlands, another interpreter spoke words to us that I will never forget. "In Nepal, when night falls, from above and below, the stars all come out." Since there are no street or traffic lights, when the sun sets, the streets become pitch dark. The lights from people's homes puncture this black backdrop, so that when the lowlands are viewed from the highlands, they appear like a night sky filled with stars. The sky is also filled with stars. People would ask each other, laughing: "Which one is the real sky?"
My experiences with the warmth and kindness of the local Nepali people made me wonder if the richness of their hearts was perhaps related to the richness of their natural environment. The children greeted us with great friendliness. The local villagers, when faced with our questions, responded with a welcoming smile and listened intently to our every word.
Of the ten days I spent in Nepal on the study tour program, the memory that stays with me the most is that of my overnight homestay at the home of a Dalit woman and her family. Each of the study tour participants was paired with a volunteer interpreter and assigned a host family for their homestay. I was paired with a 26-year-old volunteer interpreter named Pankaji and stayed with the Achami family household. I was surprised to learn that the host mother has a 6-year old son, despite the fact that she is only 26-years of age (only 3 years older than me).
While Pankaj and I relaxed in the living room of the Achami home, the neighborhood people, curious to catch a glimpse of this unusual visitor, came to meet me. As though it were a very natural thing to do, they all entered the house and sat around us ― not only people, but also dogs and cats, and even mice! At the sight of mice scurrying across the living room floor, I jumped with surprise. Noticing my response, people laughed at me and said, "It is such a natural thing, why is it so different from dogs or cats? There are mice in my home too."
The conversation I had sitting and talking with two young women that day left a deep impression with me. I asked the two their age; one replied that she was 24, the other, 20. I then asked if they were married, to which the older woman replied that she had a daughter 9 years of age. Both Pankaji and I were very surprised. "At what age did you get married then?" I asked. She explained that she was married at 12 years of age, and gave birth to her daughter at age 14. "But my husband became very sick and passed away," she told me. "Since then I have been bringing up my daughter by myself, so my life has been very difficult." Her advice to me: "Don't get married young like I did."
After dinner, the Dalit women gathered at the town square for a meeting, which we, as participants of AVC tour, also attended. The women explained to me that, in the past, Dalit people were not allowed to enter cafes; even when they were given permission to enter, they had to wash and return their teacups themselves. Recently, when confronted by this kind of discrimination, Dalit people started demanding to know why they should be treated differently from everyone else. In response to these demands, we were told that public awareness of the Dalit people's situation has slowly started to improve. While at the meeting, we shared with the Dalit women our different perspectives on discrimination, contrasting the situation of Dalit people in Nepal with the Buraku people of Japan, who face similar discrimination. We also spoke about the ways in which the children of the women at the meeting, who face discrimination from society, should go about teaching people about the problems of the caste system.
The meeting continued until ten o'clock at night.
The next morning, I woke up to find Ishanta in a sour mood. After a moment, he began to cry. I asked Pankaji why he was crying. "He is upset that we are all leaving to go home," he explained. "We're not going home yet," we lied, trying to console the boy. "We're staying one more night, so it's okay.“
Ishanta pointed out the window to the bus waiting outside. "You're lying! Look, the bus has come," he said, and continued to cry. Desperate, Pankaji tried to convince him that the bus outside was not ours, but the boy wasn't listening.
"Okay, then, would you like to come to Japan with us?" we asked him. He nodded. "Your mom can't come, will you be alright on your own?" Again he nodded eagerly, his spirits up. Then came an unexpected reply. "Do you even know where Japan is?" we asked him.
He grinned and pointed far into the distance. "Toward Kathmandu!" he exclaimed confidently. Everyone present, Pankaji and myself, the host family, and the neighbors who were there, all laughed and laughed.
What a sweet boy. Of course, in the end, he burst out in tears when we left. The Achami family who graciously welcomed me into their home ― and sweet Ishanta, who cried when we left ― are all very close to my heart. I stayed with them only one night, and yet my short visit left me with more fond memories than I can possibly express here.
In the midst of conflict, poverty, gender inequality, caste systems ― among all the variations of social oppression and discrimination in this world ― there are people living their lives. Among these people, the Nepali struggle day by day, with great strength, to improve their situation and assert their rightful position in society. The Nepali people live carefree lives. The Nepali people value their traditional songs and dances. They take pride in the fact that their country is the birthplace of Buddha, the god of both Hindu and Buddhist religions. A rich natural environment and a rich culture, friendly and generous people, this is the Nepal that I was welcomed into, this is Nepal as I know it.