surrounded by condoms

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Now my Kathmandu apartment is also polluted with condoms. Who would have thought??

Deepti and I spent time this afternoon putting together the gift bags and condom goody bags. She said it was her first time seeing condoms in real life. What a learning experience this intervention is going to be for some women! It looks like we have about 8 women coming for the first round of sessions, so I’m hopeful it will be a success. We decided to call it the Let’s Talk! Program for Women. Monday morning is the kickoff. If I can get 40-50 women in total to participate, it could be a really great research study.

I talked to Durga today, the director/founder of ABC Nepal, the anti-trafficking NGO Mary and I have been working with over the past few years as part of our research. They run a shelter/transit home for girls who have survived trafficking, domestic violence, or in the case of Ranju (Mary’s sponsored child), were just found on the streets.

Durga said because times are so difficult in Nepal right now, it is very hard to meet all of the basic needs of the girls in the shelter—that many of them are hungry and suffering from depression because they can hardly keep the place running because of the shortages and high prices of everything. She asked if I knew anyone who could help sponsor girls, even for a few months.

So here’s a call to my readers—for 3000 Rs per month ($48) you can sponsor a girl and cover all of her food, medical, and other expenses. Is anyone able to help? Even for one girl for a couple of months? You can send a check to my address in the U.S. and I will make sure it is delivered to them in rupees, with a receipt made out to you for tax purposes. This place has been in existence for over 10 years, and we know Durga very well and have had a lot of success working with her. I’ve also spent quite a bit of time in the shelter with these girls and have seen first hand what the need is. I plan to sponsor a couple of girls for a few months, but if I could help them even more, I know they would be thrilled.

The line for the fuel pump near Bhat Bhateni was probably at least a mile long today. People were just sitting around near their parked vehicles while a couple of guys sold peanuts and the police looked on, batons ready. My taxi driver said to me in broken English, “Nepal no good country. Very bad situation. Nepali government man very bad.”

“Yes,” I said, “No fuel. Very corrupt government.”

“Yes, very corrupt.” He charged me 25Rs extra for my ride in addition to the meter rate, which was actually reasonable, since I paid double to actually get to my meeting on the other side of town this morning. It’s hard to tell how much I should be paying now—obviously extra since there is such a shortage, but of course some drivers are now taking extra advantage of the foreigner.

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Comments

[Bethany]

Just caught up on the new entries. Your outlook upon returning sounds so exciting!