Village Life

After traveling 7 hours and we came to our place to stay for the evening, although I hesitate to call it a hotel. As usual they gave us the best room in the house. Suman stayed downstairs in a room that held around 8 people and said there were extras in the room that evening as there were around 6 mice. All I can say is thank goodness for the invention of wet wipes because the road left us with a coating of dust that changed the color of Dan’s otherwise brown hair to a brownish white. Wet wipes would be our shower for 2 days.

After waking the next day we drove the final half an hour higher still. When I say higher in some parts of our trip we reached elevations of 6000 feet above sea level. We were to begin two of the most amazing days of our lives. The beauty is beyond belief. The land is fertile with flat patties being carved out of the mountain where crops are alternated. Right now they are growing rice. The people are warm and welcoming.

The village - plowing a field the hard way ...

Throughout the country & over the years,
many of the 'hills' have been planed down by

hand to allow for the growing of crops.

Didi is a young woman that was rescued as a result of the border monitoring program. Part of PRC’s reintegration is to go up to the village to speak to the family of the girl that was rescued, and educate her village and family as to what has happened to her so they will accept her back. In many cases this does not happen and the girls then live at the shelter home full time. Gratefully this would not be Didi’s story. She is from the lowest class of people here, called untouchables. That means no one will touch anything after they do, without washing it first. No one from another class will eat with them and they are given little and are extremely poor. Their children are usually not educated and cannot read or write.

The first thing we did when we got there was go to their house for lunch. The house consisted of two room stacked on top of each other both being no more that 10 or 11 feet square. There were 8 people staying in the house with one of them being a guest. There was a tree limb to the second floor with notches cut out of it for stairs. Inside the mud house it was surprisingly cool. Let me say that this was some of the best food we had eaten on this trip. Didi’s father knew we were coming a few days before and picked bananas from his tree. Bananas here are really good but this was a piece of fruit that horticulturalist work a life time to produce, a blue ribbon winner at any fair... Shanta is from one of the highest classes in Nepal Brahmin, and for her to be eating in their house is a great testimony to the rest of the village. To have included westerners is even more of an oddity. Shanta even stayed at their house over night because there was not room at the hotel.

The 'stairway to the 2nd floor ....

PRC had given Didi sewing training at the shelter home before she arrived back at her village, and had set her up with a space there in the village to teach classes to other girls. Now she is teaching a sewing class in the village that consists of about 20 girls for a course that will last about 6 months. All different classes of young women are coming to take the course. This not only has elevated Didi’s status (and her families) in the community, but is working to break the class barrier as well. She also has a small tailoring business that PRC helped set up with a micro loan. Didi and 9 others are part of this cooperative. This young woman is 24 years old and is changing the face of her community. Didi, along with her other 9 young girl cooperative partners are about to buy a piece of land where they will be able to sell the crops that they produce. This will again raise their standing, and now they can also become self-sufficient.

Didi had been led to Christ by PRC after experiencing the love that was given to her by them. She now has led 12 others to Christ, and they meet in that 10 foot square room for bible class. She is hoping to open a small church in the village where she lives. Right now she has to walk two hours each way to attend church. Didi is a success story, living in a remote part of Nepal where most people will not go. There is no other trafficking NGO’s that travel to where PRC does to make a difference in these girls lives, and give them options to stay in their village. They can not only be a success, but have the opportunity to change the lives of other young women that may not otherwise get a chance.

A sewing class in the village...

PRC is not only working with the sewing school, but about 3 miles up the road they run a non-formal school. That is one small room consisting of a chalkboard on the floor and well as words on big white pieces of paper nailed into the mud walls. All the women that come during their work day were never given the opportunity to read and write. They want to learn and desperately want their children to learn. There are there are around 12 students ranging in age from about 16 to 50. It was a class filled with joy and laughter that would otherwise not be there if PRC did not open and staff it. They truly are the hands and feet of Christ walking where others do not go.
Another note worth mentioning, we were the first white people that some of these people had ever seen. Not to mention someone with red hair, it was like the circus came to town. Everyone stared and whispered among themselves, you could see a combination of amazement and amusement on the faces that saw us. At one point the guys all got out of the vehicle to go look at a fish farm and Shanta and I went on down the hill a ways to wait for them to walk down. I got out of the car because it was so hot and let me tell you I drew quite a crowd. Walking around the car I was invited to sit on a bench in fount of a small shop. The man next to me asked where I was from and began to speak in broken English. Finally, I asked him where he learned to speak English and he informed me he was the school teacher. He had gone away to college to be a teacher and felt an obligation to come back and educate the children at the school. The crazy thing was they had a dial up connection and I left him my facebook as well as my email address.
While sitting there I saw a small girl with the most beautiful green eyes and lighter hair. She was obviously very poor. She wore a red had that had the word NICE on it. I said to the teacher that she probably has no idea what it even says. He said no she did not because she could not read. We had parked just as the school was getting out and almost all of the other children had school uniforms on. I asked why she was not wearing a uniform and he said it was because her family was so poor they could not afford one but they did allow her to come to school. I thought what chance does this beautiful small child have?

It was a great privilege and honor to be taken in to these people’s lives for a few days. It made up for the road once there, and I hope to go again,