Village Continued

The Village continued….

By far my favorite part of taking a group of Americans into a village to participate in a project is watching the relationships form between people from two different cultures, with two different languages, different religions, different taste in foods and most importantly different perspectives of the world. This trip was no exception.

The villagers went above and beyond to welcome us and accommodate us….and we in return felt right at home. We were invited into the villagers homes, we sat by the campfire at night and were entertained with singing and dancing, we were given endless gifts of oranges and bananas, and we had endless amounts of attention from kids in the village. That is not to say, that things were not sometimes difficult. The outhouse style bathroom with a ‘squatty potty’ toilet challenged even the most avid outdoorsman of the group. The creatures that came out at night and ran around the rooms where we were sleeping on the floor kept some awake…while Ryan just rolled over and smashed the mouse that was crawling on his arm. Then of course there were the meals that the villagers graciously and happily cooked for us that sometimes contained items that we are not accustomed to eating. But at the end of our stay those things were not important….instead addresses were exchanged, gifts given and tears were shed….so many close relationship created in four short days.

Bharat Thapa
One of the village ladies invited Megan to her home. It was there that Megan met the woman’s husband who was wheelchair bound. He had fallen out of a tree about 18 months earlier and suffered a spinal cord injury and is now a paraplegic. Megan being the tenderhearted person she is, was immediately taken with this man and his plight. She came back and told us that she wanted him to come down to sit by the fire with us later that night so he could at least be present for the celebrations. Later that night when we returned to get Bharat, he was laying in bed too tired and sick to join us. It was a heart breaking scene….this man lying on a hard bed, in a room with no heat, too weak to join us for the evening.

I had the opportunity to return to the village a few days after the Waterfalls left Nepal. Having discussed with Megan possible needs Bharat might have, we decided to bring some rudimentary exercise equipment so he could work his hands and arms as they are becoming quite atrophied. Ramesh and I went to his home to deliver the equipment. We found Bharat sitting in his wheelchair in the small area in front of his house. His wife was out gathering feed for the goats and his mother was sitting on the porch grinding corn by spinning one large stone on the top of another. I sat and listened to him tell the story of falling out of the tree and of how drastically it has changed his life. He is an intelligent man and was at one time one of the leaders in the village. He was respected by all and was an example to all. He was one of the first men in the village to suggest to his wife to participate in a womans group so the women might have increased independence and more of a say in the happenings of the village. He went back and forth between English and Nepali as he spoke and when he said something in Nepali I waited impatiently for Ramish to translate. He told us of how guilty he felt that his wife had to work so hard tending to the crops, feeding the animals, cooking, cleaning, taking care of their two boys, and on and on….

Just as he had finished telling us the story his wife retuned with a huge load of branches and leaves on her back. Once she got the goats fed and settled for the night she came and joined us as we sat in the late afternoon sun talking to this amazing man. We asked what we might do to help them….she quickly responded “nothing”. She said that so many people had already helped them and she had no idea how she would ever be able to pay them back. When asked what the greatest health challenge Bharat faces, she informed us it was the constant urinary tract infections from the catheter he constantly has to have in place. She told us that she had gotten training on how to change them herself, but that they could not change them as frequently as necessary because of the prohibitive cost of the Foley catheters. Ramish and I dug what money we had out of our pockets and offered it to her to help cover the costs for at least a few months….she refused to accept it. We finally convinced him to take it. We put the rolled up bills into his withered, semi-functioning left hand and promised him we would be back to visit again.

As we drove down the long dirt road from the village to Damauli, the town down below, the Tophams, Ramesh and I could talk of nothing other than what we could do to help this incredible man. I have thought about him often over the last couple of days. It is yet another one of those times when I wish I had an endless supply of money so I might help better this man’s life.

Bharat and his wife infront of their home