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goodbye Nepal
the daughter of one of the women we interviewed My last full day in Kathmandu was probably one of my hardest emotionally. Sushila and I started the day off by doing the final 2 interviews with sex workers. Our first one was a 20 year old woman with a 7th grade education. She is working in a massage parlor where customers pay Rs 600 per hour for the massage (of which she got Rs 150), and then Rs 300+ for sex (of which she got Rs 150). She said she serviced as many as 5 or 6 customers a day, 7 days per week. This was a particularly heart breaking case because the girl had been trafficked there by her own female cousin, who is the owner. She told us how she was arrested and jailed once for 24 hours. Although she wasn’t physically hurt by the police, she was verbally abused to the point that it made her tear up to talk about it. Poor Sushila, who has not been involved in these interviews with me before, cried after that interviewee left.
But the second interview was the hardest by far. The woman was 23 years old with 5- and 3-year old sons who are still living back
goodbye Nepal
with Renuka and Hasta getting ready to leave in the village. She was fairly well-educated—S.L.C. passed, which means the equivalent of a U.S. 11th grade education. But this young woman’s life has been unbelievable so far. She was raped by a boy in her school, which meant she was forced to marry him. But since he was not really interested in having her as a wife, he ran around with other women, as well as lacked any income, other than from the volleyball tournaments he would play in. She was taking birth control while with him, but her mother-in-law made her stop, so she quickly got pregnant and had to quit school.
Now she works at a dance restaurant in Thamel as a waitress. It sounds like she performs sex work every night. She earns Rs 1800 per month from the restaurant, when paid, plus as much as Rs 1500 per night if hired for sex for the whole evening. She said in total, she makes about Rs 3000-8000 per month. When the restaurant is slow, or if she has no clients for sex lined up for that night, she has to sleep with the owner and/or the broker, who arranges the time and price with the
clients.
She told us how some customers bring “blue films” (pornos) with them and force the women to do the same positions as in the movies—being on top and facing away, putting her legs straight up in the air—positions Nepali women do not do. She’s had STI symptoms and 2 abortions because of her work, but she’s afraid to get tested for HIV because if she is positive, then she will lose her job.
As if this all wasn’t tragic enough, what really got to me about this particular interview (and what made me cry in the middle of it—all 3 of us were crying!), was the fact that the woman was once arrested during a police raid. She and all of the other women were taken to jail, and many of them were forced to have sex with the police officers—for 2 nights.
If there was ever a time when I might be a man-hating feminist, this would be it. But I’m smarter than that—I know full well that this is just a small group of men committing such atrocities. But I couldn’t help boiling up inside at the thought of the horrendous trauma this woman has been put through—by her husband, by her employer, by the police. If you cannot trust any of those people, then who is there??
After the interviews I went for noodle soup and tofu at my favorite Japanese restaurant in Lazimpat and tried to debrief alone, and it took a long time to calm down. I realized that accepting a job in a research non-profit, rather than in academics, was the best decision for me right now. There is no way I can go back to a classroom of American college kids, 90% of which care more about which bar they are going to hit that night or which handbag they are going to buy this season rather than what’s happening in the rest of the world. I can’t face that right now without having a complete meltdown. So I’m glad I’ll soon be starting a position where I can continue to do the work that really makes a difference. Maybe after I burnout from that I’ll be ready to go back to the classroom.
Coming out of the restaurant I saw 2 trucks and a bus full of Tibetan protestors being hauled off to jail. They were dangling out of the windows, shouting and motioning with their fists. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo.
I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting a couple more friends (most of which had gifts for me), and then went home to finish packing. I gave Sita a ton of stuff—she looked so funny carrying so many bags back to her room, and her kids swarmed around her to see what she had to share with them. She asked me if I was going to take my rice and other food back with me to the U.S., but I laughed and asked her to take it all.
I hardly slept last night—about 2 and a half hours—probably because I was so excited to leave! I went outside at 5:30am, found Sita brushing her teeth, and asked her to make me an egg and some roti because I was starving. I was packed two hours before Beejay from Fulbright was supposed to come pick me up, but it’s a good thing because Renuka and Hasta came to say good bye, as well as Kiran and Bindiya, to give me a scarf to wish me luck in my travel. Sita put tikka on my head and gave me a big flower garland—all for good luck during my journey.
After they loaded all of my heavy bags into the van (I don’t know how I’m going home with as much stuff as I came with when I gave so much away), I gave Sita a hug, and she started bawling. Yesterday I gave her photographs of me that I had printed, including a large one of the two of us. She asked me to write my name on the back, so I wrote something to the effect that she is a great person and an excellent Didi (not that she can read it anyway). Her husband told me that she is going to miss me, and her bursting into tears when I left was indicative of that. She said to me in Nepali, “Please come back to Nepal and come stay with me.” She’s one person I really look forward to seeing again. It is so nice that we formed this little bond despite the language barrier and vast cultural differences. My relationship with her was one of the most rewarding parts of this whole experience.
Bindiya drove with me to the airport, keeping her hand on my knee throughout the ride. We were met by her uncle who works at the airport, and he helped usher me past all of the hoopla of waiting in lines, as well as convinced Thai airlines not to charge me for my extra bag (which saved me a lot of money since I have to pay for it again when I check in in Bangkok). Bindiya is another person I will really miss. Being similar in age and her with modern ideals, we had a lot in common, again, despite the vast cultural differences.
So now I’m on the plane, too wired to sleep again because I’m so excited to go to Bangkok! I usually don’t like to talk to people on planes, but I ordered a glass of wine with my dinner, held it up to toast myself, and told the Canadian woman sitting next to me how I had just finished living in Kathmandu for 6 months. Time to celebrate!
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Alan
non-member comment
% to high
I think your percentage is a little to high on the Bar and Handbag comment. There are plenty of students who care about world events (just look at all those chalk protest over campus) or other issues than going out to Bars. Just look at the comments in the Daily Campus or the different organizations on Campus. Now if it's the end of the week maybe 90% is correct, if it was the end of finals, some Frat or dorm was having a party, or it was Spring Weekend. I think that it's more an even split though.