Chapter 12
Nepal
‘A lot of people came to our village after the earthquake,’ said Meena.
‘They had nothing. Many women and children settled here, but the men had to leave to find work. Some of them send money back to their wives, but not all. For the women it is hard to work and care for their families. At first there were no jobs.’
Meena and I were walking along the main street towards the community hall where the market was being held.
It was the first time since she’d shown me to my room that we’d spent any time alone.
She was quiet on the outside, but I’d seen her deal with two drunk men who tried to break into the camp last week.
This woman had a core of steel that I wouldn’t want to mess with.
‘The village feels quite buzzy now, so I guess things have improved?’
She nodded. ‘The tourists have found Chitwan. And mostly this is good for us. They have money to spend in our shops, they buy food and drink at our restaurants.’
‘Only mostly?’
‘It makes our young people feel restless and want to leave the village. They see people on holiday with money to spend. Even the volunteers who come to help us are only here because they can afford to work without wages. We have lost many of the younger generation to the cities in search of adventure and better pay. And we need them here to bring money into the community.’
‘Young people will always be restless,’ I said, pulling Meena out of the path of an ox and cart plodding stealthily past us. ‘Always wanting to see whether the grass really is greener on the other side.’
‘This is true.’ She laughed. ‘In Sanaura, if we want rice, we grow it, we harvest it, we lay it out to dry in the sun. Only then can we cook it. Kathmandu offers rice today without the work or the wait. Young people prefer the rice from Kathmandu.’
The image made me smile. I remembered planting sunflower seeds with Bronte one year.
Every day she would run outside expecting to see a fully grown sunflower in the garden.
We had to start growing mustard and cress in the end for faster results.
But the day the sunflower finally flowered, she had been beside herself with excitement.
She fetched her soft toys out into the garden and set up a picnic by the edge of the flower bed to celebrate. Such a sweet memory.
Suddenly a small boy leapt out in front of us and flung himself around my legs.
‘Maggie!’ exclaimed my favourite little boy.
‘Hello, Hom!’ I squatted down to his height and looked around for his mum. She was hurrying towards us, a heavy bag of vegetables over one arm.
‘Namaste,’ I nodded to her.
‘You have met Shila?’ Meena said, introducing us.
Hom’s mum nodded shyly. ‘Namaste, mam.’
Hom tugged his mother’s arm and whispered something in her ear. She set her bag on the floor and reached into her pocket.
‘For you,’ she said, in hesitant English and held out a necklace identical to the one she was wearing.
Hom bounced around us and chattered away excitedly.
Meena laughed, ruffling the little boy’s hair. ‘He says now you can be as pretty as his mama.’
‘Thank you, Shila, and thank you, Hom. I agree, you have a very beautiful mama.’
Shila pressed a hand to her cheek and smiled. ‘I make it for you to say thank you. You make Hom happy and that makes me happy and then life is good.’
That was so true. When the ones we love are smiling, then so are we.
‘You made this yourself?’ I said, turning it over in my hands. It was a delicate elephant pendant within a row of tiny colourful beads.
She nodded. ‘I do them for friends.’
‘Then your mama is clever and beautiful, Hom. Do you sell them?’ I stooped so that Meena could fasten the necklace for me. ‘I’d like to buy one for my sister, and I’m sure all the volunteers would buy them too.’
‘No, no, I could not sell them, it is not possible.’ Shila’s face clouded.
‘I understand,’ I said, hurriedly, sensing her discomfort. ‘I’m very honoured that you have given me one of your necklaces. I shall treasure it for ever.’
I thanked them both again and we continued on our way.
‘I wonder why she said it wasn’t possible?’ I mused.
‘Her husband disappeared after Hom was born, so she lives in her father’s house,’ Meena explained.
‘Since Shila’s mother died, she has been looking after him and Hom.
She is a smart girl and wants to work, but her father is old-fashioned and will not let her.
She will probably not even have money of her own. ’
‘What a shame.’ I glanced back over my shoulder to see Shila walking away, that heavy bag of groceries hanging from her shoulder.
‘Equality has not reached every corner of Nepal,’ said Meena, following my gaze. ‘There is a gradual cultural change, but it will take several generations for us to accomplish what a woman like you has already achieved.’
‘Me?’ I batted away her compliment. ‘I haven’t achieved anything special. The thing I’m most proud of is raising my daughter – and Shila is doing as good a job as I ever did.’
Meena shook her head. ‘Travelling across the world without a husband would be a great achievement for a woman in Chitwan.’
‘If I’d waited for that to happen, I’d never have gone anywhere,’ I replied.
‘For him to give you permission?’ Meena looked scandalised.
‘No, for me to get a husband in the first place,’ I said, amused by her expression. ‘I’ve never been married. By the time my daughter was born, her father wasn’t in my life anymore.’
‘Maggie, I am very sorry to hear that.’ She shook her head sadly.
‘Don’t be,’ I reassured her. ‘He was a wonderful man, and we were very much in love, but we were young and wanted different things from life. Besides, without a husband I was able to bring Bronte up the way I wanted to. We had a very special relationship.’
I felt the familiar tightness in my throat. It had taken me a long time to be able to talk about my girl in the past tense. I hated that it was now becoming automatic.
‘A child to love is a precious thing, but a man to love,’ she fanned her face, ‘that is very important too. Especially in the UK where the nights are cold.’
‘Meena!’ I gasped, pretending to be shocked. ‘I’ve been warm enough over the years, thank you.’
In truth my love life wouldn’t fill a single page of a notebook, but she didn’t need to know that.
‘And now?’ Meena probed.
‘Oh, look, we’re here,’ I said, changing the subject.
At the entrance to the market, a dance troupe of elaborately dressed young women were about to begin their routine. Music blasted from a speaker and so any further conversation was impossible.
The hall was packed with shoppers, many of them tourists, and trade appeared to be brisk.
Meena was soon swallowed up by members of her family and for the next twenty minutes or so I meandered along busy stalls of savoury snacks, spices and chutneys in glass jars, felt toys, embroidered table runners, carved wooden boxes, knitted hats and scarves and handcrafted rugs.
But the products weren’t the stars here, the women were.
The smiles, the passion, the pride in what they had made resulted in a joyful atmosphere.
It made me want to buy everything. I did buy a lot, including a tablecloth from Meena’s sister.
At one end of the room, there was a table festooned with coloured flags and a banner pinned to the front advertising ‘Chitwan Women In Business’.
There were no products for sale on the table, but a woman sat behind it with a notepad and a pile of leaflets.
Her berry-red nails matched her lipstick exactly, and her outfit marked her out as someone who liked to be noticed.
‘Thank you, lady.’ She indicated my bags and beamed. ‘You have supported our businesses and we are very grateful.’
‘I am the grateful one. I’ve managed to buy lots of things to take back to England with me.’
‘We hold our market every month. Please come back, tell your friends.’ She handed a leaflet to me.
It wasn’t written in English, but the photographs told me all I needed to know. There were pictures of smiling women handing out awards, making clothing, tending rows of seedlings, groups with their arms around each other. It was about women supporting women.
‘I’ll have left Nepal by then, but I’ll pin this up on the noticeboard,’ I promised. ‘It looks like a fun organisation to be a part of. If I was staying longer, I might want to join myself.’
Her eyes lit up and she pressed a business card into my hand. ‘Here is my email address and this is my name: Rina. I would like international partners. You could help us.’
‘I’m not sure what I can do from the UK, but I’m flattered. Thank you.’
‘Many of our ladies have not been to school and cannot read or write. But they are smart and want better lives for their families. We help them plan their business and give them small loans to buy what they need to get started. There is no help from the banks for small businesses like the ones our ladies have, so we do it ourselves. We need sponsors, we need space in the big hotels to hold our markets … many things.’
I thought of Shila and her jewellery. Belonging to a group like this might give her the support she needed to gain some independence.
‘So you help people’s dreams come true.’
The woman wagged a finger. ‘Not dreams, business plans.’
I tucked the leaflet into my bag.
A conversation with Bronte wafted through my head: You’ve always told me to put details into your plans, otherwise it’s just a random dream.
‘Of course,’ I said, my vision going a little misty. ‘I stand corrected.’
Meena appeared beside me ready to leave, and I said my goodbyes.
‘Shila should join the group,’ I said, once we were outside again. ‘I’m going to give her this leaflet.’
Meena shook her head sadly. ‘Shila will already know about it. The market has been running for a while.’
‘Oh. You think her father won’t let her?’ I let out a breath of frustration. ‘Why do men get the last word?’
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Ask him yourself. Look, they are there on that cart.’
About to disappear from view was a wooden cart being pulled by a large white ox. Hom sat in the back waving to everyone, Shila beside him. I could just make out a man holding the reins in the driver’s seat.
‘I will ask him,’ I said, making a spontaneous decision. ‘Right now.’
I sprinted after the cart as fast as my Birkenstocks and heavy bags would allow.
‘Maggie, wait!’ Meena gasped. ‘I didn’t mean it.’
‘Well, I did,’ I said, determinedly. ‘Wish me luck.’