By the end of June, after our trip back from Kalikot, I was impatient, for September to arrive and go back to Achham and Kalikot to check on the results.
Each time we return to the villages, the accumulated tiredness there, and all the things I have seen and experienced do take their toll. Many times I feel depressed because I can’t do more, physically exhausted and thinking in all the work that still remains to be done.
This time, I decided that I would take 10 or 15 days to lay back. That afterwards I would write and prepare the pictures and that I would have a quiet month of August, a quasi-holidays period. To remain at home, at rest during the rainy season. I rented a room in a guesthouse (a cheap one) in Patan, as I wanted to try if I would like to live in that area, full of expats and maybe with more connections and means for the NGO, and in my first night there I called a friend from the Putali Nepal NGO and fixed with her going to a concert, where we talked about work and our trip all the time! 🙂
But, from the following day, yes: about ten days doing “practically” nothing. Then we start doing the follow-up of the girls via the telephone, and with the little money we had I started preparing the trip for September. Susmila, our first nurse, recovered from her surgery, was ready to come with me to Achham and Kalikot and that was the plan. To go both of us by ourselves just to do the follow-up. I wrote to Ruby Cup to tell them how things had been. I told them that we had a waiting list of 140 girls and they offered a new donation of 160 units. I jumped for joy! The girls would have their cups this year! I had told them that I could not promise anything, but that we would try to have them for spring and it happens that we would have them way before! Great!
Ah! But wait… my happiness was short-lasted: 160 cups, that would be 160 buckets, and soaps and towels and more people to carry all… My quiet August had just gone up in smoke! Now to get money to buy all the materials! Furthermore, as if we didn’t have enough to do, we decided to buy cups to Ruby Cup to sell them here. That way we could offer here the promotion “Buy one and we will donate one for free to a girl in need”.
The idea is to be able to give cups to those girls of 13, 14, 15, 18 years, who can’t go to school because they are too poor to pay the 300 rupee that cost the school every month, or because they were pushed to marry or they have children.
So the whole of August and the most part of September was even more stressful than the first phase, but with the selling of cups we made contacts, we met wonderful people and we have big hopes.
Nothing comes for free in this life, it is needed to fight hard to get anything and that’s what we did, and what we are doing. Working hard to be able to improve the quality of life of those girls who suffer the terrible tradition of the Chhaupadi, and little by little to create awareness about in those remote places in West Nepal.
Thus arrived the 22nd of September and we went out charged with buckets, cups and materials, towards West Nepal, this time with an expedition fully made up of women! 🙂
We will be back soon with more!
Written, and photos with Fujifilm XT20, © by Clara Go.
Now you can contribute for paying one month salary to the nurse, or for some hygiene kit : https://www.gofundme.com/menstrual-cups-in-nepal-chhaupadi
Written by Clara Go. Translation by Tere Salinero
West Nepal girls need this kind of program. And we need help to continue the project!
Or if you feel like it, you can donate via bank transfer at: Banc Sabadell IBAN: ES23 0081 0900 8200 0430 1934 BIC: BSABESBB (your recurring donation will help us have a better planning of our budget to carry out the projects undertaken).
Or take a look others ways to donate at http://beartsy.org/donate/
Thank You! 🙂