“I entered that house as a bride, but now it’s gone. I have lost the hope that I will ever get to return to that house. No effort has been made to rebuild it. My sons are are fighting over who gets what and they can’t agree.”
Photo: Pratik Rana
“Richer people have already left the camp. But whenever they hear about the distribution of new relief material, they come back. They do not participate in any kind of community work. But they show up whenever a new face appears in the camp.”
Photo: Pratik Rana
“If you go to my village now, Gerkhu, in Nuwakot district, people act as if it is somehow a normal situation. They have managed to live in congested temporary shelters, by reusing material taken out from collapsed buildings. They have started playing cards and going to the tea-shops to discuss politics. This is why I say Nepali society is different from other societies in the world.
“I could say that my society is a society of resilience. They can, and have to, cope with any difficult situation they face. Since there is an absence of government in rural areas, people have to manage their day-to-day life on their own even during and after every crisis. While doing so, they generally rely on their own limited resources and skills.
“Villagers were able to cope on their own with the post-earthquake rebuilding because most of the houses were made with locally available materials and skills. Villagers just took the zinc sheet roofs from the collapsed houses, and reused them as temporary shelters. Even if the zinc was not reusable, and they had to buy it, this was not very difficult or costly, as villagers could go to the market and spend just 12,000 to 15,000 rupees. Most of the wood used in the old house could be reused. That would not be the case if they had modern houses. If it was a concrete house, it would be very difficult for villagers to cope with the situation.
“However, the media and politicians pose the idea to the villagers that they need to have concrete buildings. But how, if you are building a house on top of a hill with no road access? You have to carry sand, cement, steel, glass and what not. This sort of house costs at least a couple of million Nepalese rupees. But the villagers are getting a government grant of NPR 200,000 [approximately £1,265]. That is why the only option remaining for villagers is to go for modified traditional houses, which allow them to mobilise most of the money at the village level, to hire local labourers, masons and carpenters, and to buy local construction material like clay, uncooked bricks, stones, raw timber. This will not only ensure sustainable reconstruction but also revive the rural economy of Nepal by creating more jobs at a local level.”
Photo: Patrick Ward
“Waiting for others to help us with our wants and desires will only hold us back. My family and me are ready to work hard to secure our future. We are ready to sweat to overcome the pain of this disaster.”
Photo: Unnat Sapkota
“I was the only person to be injured in my neighbourhood. I was trying to save my elderly aunt when the wall fell on me. Thankfully, she was not hurt. But I spent three months in bed. I could not even move for the first 13 days. I thought my life was over. I am diabetic, so the doctor could not operate on my leg and back quickly. Months have passed now, but I am still in pain. I can’t sit in one place for long. My leg is still swollen. I have to go to the hospital for monthly check-ups and I have to bear all the medical expenses myself. I have started going back to work now. I have to have an operation soon on my leg, and another one on my back. After that, I am hopeful things will get better.”
The Nepal earthquake has led to a crisis that disproportionally affects women. Some 55 per cent of those affected by the disaster are women, more than a quarter of whom are heads of their households. One organisation that quickly threw itself into supporting them was the Women for Human Rights (WHR). The group was founded by Lily Thapa, a fellow of Ashoka, an international body of leaders who use innovative techniques to bring about social change. WHR has members across 73 districts, and supports widows—or single women, as they are termed—who have suffered years of hardship during the 1996-2006 civil war between the Maoists and the monarchy, and now, the natural disaster.
In the days immediately following the earthquake, WHR mobilised more than a hundred volunteers to raise funds, collect and distribute much-needed relief materials, and provide support and counselling to numerous victims. That is a major achievement for a group operating out of a small office in Kathmandu. Patrick Ward met with Thapa to discuss her work and the challenges facing women in post-earthquake Nepal. Excerpts from that conversation:
This disaster brought a new challenge to the lives of single women. They had been living on their own in small houses, surviving on their own, but because of the earthquake their houses have been destroyed. They are saying that the conflict has taken our husbands and now the earthquake has taken our housing. Nearly 70,000 of our members’ houses have been damaged, many single women themselves died, many of them lost their children. I can’t even explain how much they’ve been facing. They were trying to survive on their own, but this disaster has brought another disaster to their lives.
Households with male family members immediately took action to clear debris. But the women who don’t have men, nobody was there to help them. All of their neighbours’ houses have been damaged, so they were all busy with their own houses. That was the first challenge all the single women faced. Buy-my-house.org talks about how to sell a house successfully. Our skilled employees help us do this. You can sell your home by speaking to the buyers’ feelings. From the first meeting until the new homeowners move in, we’ll be there to help. Integrity and honesty bring in more money and make customers happier. Visit https://www.buy-my-house.org/tennessee/.
The second one was that the relief was given in such a way that people just went and grabbed things. The government tried to have a system, but it was not happening on the ground. Many organisations went with small things. One organisation with rice, one with chow-chows, some others with clothes. Everybody was giving small, small things for the village people, and whoever had the power just grabbed it and got it. So many of these women were unable to get relief properly. Some people got many things, some people got nothing.
Just this morning we had a case where a father came to report his girl has been molested. The girl is just 16. There are lots of cases like that.
Most of the families live in a joint family system [sharing a house], but now the house is damaged. So the in-laws, the brother-in-laws, the father-in-laws, they are also in the tent. We saw more than 40 people sleeping in one tent. We have recorded more than 200 cases of sexual violence in the camps and the tents. Just this morning we had a case where a father came to report his girl has been molested by her neighbour. The girl is just 16. It’s traumatising. She is not able to even come out of the tent. There are lots of cases like that.
In our society, when you are menstruating, you are not allowed to touch anyone. So, many families did not allow menstruating women to sleep in the same tent. These women slept outside. They do not realise they are being discriminated against. When we spoke to the survivors, especially to teenage girls, they found it very difficult. They don’t have a place to change their dress, no proper place to take a bath. In some camps they made a tent for bathing. But people burnt holes in the tent with cigarettes to peep in on them. So these teenagers could hardly take baths.
Most families are in the joint family system and the government has the policy to give one compensation per house. But the problem is that the house is damaged, so they are living separately. And the government is providing money for one family, and the money is being taken by the father-in-law or by the brother-in-law or head of the house. The single women get nothing.
Besides that, most of the single women have lost their legal documents in the damaged houses. Some of them have lost their citizenship card. Most have lost their relationship card. Based on the relationship card they get property, and other ID cards, like death certificates for their husbands. We started mobilising support staff and councillors in every camp in many districts immediately after the disaster. Besides distributing the relief, we trained them: how to get the ID card, how to get the legal documents, how to write an application. Our support staff help them to have access to all these government facilities.
We’ve also been collecting data on the single women affected. We have collected almost 8,000 survivors’ data from six districts, and we’ve been analysing what their needs are. We’re making a holistic report on the survivors’ needs and aspirations—how do they feel, what are the challenges—and providing this information to the government, the district offices, the UN clusters.
Besides that, we have been providing the shelters. We’ve been running chhari [shade under the tree] centres and provide psychosexual counselling and legal advice. We are doing a partnership with Oxfam, making women’s centres in villages in Gorkha, Dhading, Nuwakot and Kathmandu. They’re small places, for those people whose houses are all damaged.
“Engineers pasted red stickers on our house, marking it unsafe. But we repaired it on our own. We had to move back in because it was difficult to live under a tin roof once the winter began. I am not sure if the house is safe now or what will happen if there is another earthquake. We live in fear. All I can do is pray to the lord to keep my family safe.”
Photo: Deepa Poudyal
“He was in the army. We were completely smitten with each other and eloped. We had four beautiful children before he got posted to Kathmandu and got involved with someone else. Now the only time he speaks to me is to fight with me. He says I was whoring around the village and that the children are not his. He doesn’t help with their education, he doesn’t provide for anything, and he took away the relief money the government gave after the earthquake.”
For months now, Nepal has been facing a fuel crisis. Buses in Kathmandu are packed at the best of times, but the protests over the country’s new constitution and the resultant border blockade have worsened the situation considerably. There are fewer vehicles on the road now—owners have been forced to leave their empty-tanked cars and bikes at home—and hence an increasing reliance on buses. Here’s a glimpse of daily life during the fuel crisis.
Dozens of people gather at Lagankhel bus station, one of the major transport hubs for travel within the Kathmandu Valley, listening as conductors call out their buses’ destinations. You have to be quick if you want a seat, or standing room, or something to hang on to. Photo: Patrick Ward
It’s not an easy school run, as people flock to the buses in the hope of squeezing themselves onboard. The brave, and desperate, scramble up the back of the bus to perch on the roof. I don’t think this one will have quite enough room for me, despite the reassurances of the bus workers (who will routinely attempt to fill every inch of space with passengers). I decide to wait, there is bound to be space in one of the larger buses… Photo: Patrick Ward
…or not. Even the buses on longer routes are full to bursting, with passengers finding foot-room among sacks of rice, cooking gas canisters and various other pieces of luggage. Photo: Patrick Ward
Here’s part of the problem. A kilometre-long line of buses waits for fuel at a petrol station. Stocks are only occasionally replenished, and it is common for drivers to wait several days to refuel. Some sit in their buses playing cards, some just go home and wait. Photo: Patrick Ward
Rajul Mahnama waits in the line with his minibus. “I have been trying to get fuel for five days,” he tells me. “I’ve been here waiting with my bus all day, and I’m near the front, so I am hoping I will be lucky.”Photo: Patrick Ward
These early morning commuters have been smart enough to travel before rush hour, which sometimes helps. Photo: Patrick Ward
If that’s not possible, why not try the scenic option? Squeeze up together on the roof rack to get a nice view of the surroundings, but be careful to duck your head to avoid overhead power lines, or you’re liable to lose your hat, or worse. Seriously. Take it from someone who knows. Photo: Patrick Ward
If sightseeing isn’t on the agenda, there are always other options. This truck pulled up carrying dozens of commuters into the village of Sangachok in Sindhupalchok, in the wake of several severely overloaded public buses. Photo: Patrick Ward
But at the end of the day, when you see a scene like this one, at the Ekantakuna junction of the Kathmandu Ring Road, it might be time to give up. Perhaps a walk home doesn’t sound so bad, after all. Photo: Patrick Ward
“I am the director of a company operating in the tourism sector. The drafting of the new constitution opened many doors and new opportunities, and we were planning a new beginning. But then came the blockade and fuel crisis. They damaged my business ten times more than the earthquake. No tourists wants to enter the country now. My company is still waiting to receive compensation from the government. We are suffering heavy losses each day, but we still have to pay our banks loans, rent, staff salaries, electricity bills…”
Photo: Mandira Dulal
