10-6-17. 

Moving 4 personal rucksacks, 2 suitcases full of materials, 1 bag of cameras and 23 metallic buckets from one village to another in these remote areas can be really complicated! From Rachuli to Cnilkhaya, according to Googlemaps, there are just 9 km. and a slope of 400 m.

First we had to get somebody to help us bring everything down to the road (30’ downwards, between rice fields and small creeks): 3 alumni from class 10 gave us a hand. Then, we waited for a bus to pass by, with room enough to accommodate us and our junk. We were, once more, lucky, and half an hour later we were on a bus towards Chilkhaya. The bus left us in Galje and there we ate, and contracted two carriers who, to our surprise, could haul all our baggage and resources. Supposedly we needed three people, but they could not find a third one.    

We started then our way to the village.

Depending on who you would ask, they said it was an hour walk, or that it would be 3 hours and a half… (this is Nepal… Nobody knows…). We were quite made up to the idea that we would walk for at least 5 hours. The route was really pretty. Kalikot is full of hills from which water sprouts everywhere. And full of fruit trees and paddy fields. We went up and down the hills, stopping to chat with the girls we found along the way, and to eat plums and drink water, taking it really easy, for more than 5 hours.

On arrival, we popped in to the Health Centre, who were already aware that we were coming, also passed by to say hello to the headmaster of the school, and went to the place which would be our home for the next 10-12 days. The feeling when arriving to that village, located amongst green terraces, was of like being in a dream. The curiosity we arose in the people, the questions, the smiles… The doubts of what would this village hide behind their façades. A while before getting there we had been already hearing music from drums. A child had been born (a male) and they were celebrating. This country will never cease amazing me.

What we did not know is that he would be the first of 4 children (all male) who would be born during our stay in the village; the second day another was given birth, we saw the kind of rudimentary stretcher they had prepared to carry the midwife to the Health Centre, the woman in pain, in the middle of all the people celebrating the birth of the child.

And it pained us particularly to know that that woman, together with her newborn, would pass the following 7 days in the stable. If she would have given birth to a baby girl, it would have been 10 days. That’s the Chhaupadi, this matter that impels us to continue with our educational work. So these kind of injustices and violations of the most basic women rights stop happening.

Written by Clara Go. Photos done with FUJIFILM X-Pro1 © Clara Go.
Translated to English by Tere Salinero.

West Nepal girls need this kind of program. And we need help to continue the project!

Now you can donate for paying one month salary to the nurse, or for some hygiene kit or for the menstrual cup control in September: http://beartsy.org/get-involved-with-rato-baltin

We also have opened a funding help line at http://www.gofundme.com/menstrual-cups-in-nepal-chhaupadi

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 to others ways to donate in http://beartsy.org/donate/

Thank You! 🙂