An Image of Nepal

It was the eyes that I first noticed. Do you remember the girl on the cover of National Geographic maybe ten to fifteen years ago? I think she was from Afghanistan. Eyes you just cannot forget, like green and brown jewels in a sincere serious face looking straight at you, showing all the pains and sorrows of its owner. These eyes were exactly the same.
Several days per week I go to the busiest street corner outside Boudhanath, Nepal, to the three-way junction between Mahankal, Teenchuli and Simaltar. Kathmandu Valley in the spring 2009 is hot, extremely dry, it has had almost no rainfall for 6 months and it is in a political and financial situation that is worse than most of this world’s countries. The Maoist leader and Prime Minister Prachanda has just resigned and the country is left without government. The Maoists are talking of civil war if their point of view of the conflict that led to the president’s resignation is not regarded, the newly gained peace seems once more at a risk. The traffic pollution and dust from dirt roads, street cows and dry fields makes most people cover their mouths when they go outside. There is a lack a clean drinking water, there is “load-shedding” – electricity cuts scheduled to save electricity for up to 16 hours per day – every day of the week.
But my friend, the fruit vendor, whose working place is right in the junction, is always smiling. Almost everyday I see her in the middle of the traffic chaos with her little wagon of delicious fruits, her scales and her lovely smile and beautiful, colourful sarees.
I do not know her name and she does not know mine, our communication is mostly confined to body language but she gives me the prices in English. Nevertheless we made friends immediately. She helps me pick out the best fruit, often gives me a couple of bananas extra, and she always smiles and looks wonderfully beautiful and cool in the midst of the dust, dirt and heat on the street corner. How she stays healthy and not coughing her lungs out like so many other Nepalese do, I just do not understand. Maybe it is the fruit. I hope she enjoys some of the mangoes and apples herself. But last week the visit to her was very different, there was someone she wanted me to meet.
Her brother’s daughter was there. Her niece is a young girl with the most striking eyes. I turned to her aunt and told her what fantastic eyes she had, just to discover that the girl spoke to me in almost perfect English. She asked me, “where do you come from”. I told her, “Sweden, it is in Europe”. She then told me her name and explained that the first name was her caste, the other her own name. She was wearing a very dirty, worn out, yellow t-shirt, her black hair was far from clean but I could not keep my eyes from her face, her gaze was so intense. Then her aunt seemed to urge her to tell me something.
“My mother died, five days ago”. I asked if she had been sick, and the girl nodded. Then her aunt once again urged her on. “I have a little sister, she is seven months old” and she stretched out her arms to show me the size of her sister. I said I am so sorry to hear about her mother’s death, and I asked her who takes care of the baby. “My grandmother does”, was the reply. I spoke to her a little while, I found out she is 11 years old and when I asked her about the future she said she wanted to become a doctor.
Once more she looked me into my eyes with her serious gaze. Then the girl, just like her aunt had done a few minutes before, picked two more bananas for me from the wagon and put them in my black plastic bag. I awkwardly said thank you for the bananas, told her she would make a wonderful doctor and went home.
At the time of writing I do not know if this is the end of the story or the beginning of a story. I know the girl’s aunt, I can probably find out where she lives. And, I can probably try to help her. She will not be able to regain her mother, but she and her sister might get help from me and maybe others to make at least one dream come true, to become a doctor so she in her turn can help others. The fee for university here is maybe 1.000 EUR per year. Right now I have a choice; to try to help or not to help, to get involved or not get involved in another person’s life, one of so many children in Nepal who is in need of help. Will I? Would you?