amazing 4 days

The last 5 days have been extraordinary.  We have travelled hundreds of kilometres, seen the most incredible poverty, danced with prostitutes, travelled the scariest roughest roads, meet beautiful generous happy people, cried many tears, picked up  girls who have come from brothels in India taken them on their first bus ride, plane ride and first trip to Kathmandu and delivered them to the safety of the hostel.
Today we went to the school and saw the end result. The children at the school came from these backgrounds and today we watched them dance,  sing and laugh at children's day. We were cuddled, hugged and kissed and a game of "round and round the garden like a teddy bear" was a huge hit and caused lots of laughter.

To see where the girls came from, the  villages, poverty and pain and then see them at school laughing is the greatest thing ever.
I am loving it here, i would not want to live here it is the worse thing I have ever seen. But what a amazing work Educate Nepal is doing.
I must go we have a very early start tomorrow, we are off the the country again.

Love Trish            

Binod's experience

We have built a good relationship with our Maoist politician. Not at all what one would expect.  In his dealings with the Badi people, he made a statement that resonated with us all.  He says to the Badi women, "you will no longer be sex toys, but queens in a palace"  He is very passionate about helping them.  He told Raju, after travelling with us for 4 days, that he has worked with many NGO's before, but we are different.  He says that others are interested in the project, while we are interested  with people.  He also told Raju that in all his years of polities, these past 4 days have been the highlight of his career.  We all got a big hug as we parted company, and we believe he will do all he can in his political position to help us.

Robyn

Back in Kathmandu

Friday, 14th

It is so good to be back in our flat.  We are totally exhausted as we spent the last four days banging around in a mini bus on rough roads, dangerous and slippery roads around mountains, and playing chicken with every oncoming bus, truck or bullock wagon.

We began the day yesterday collecting Nepal's throw away women, 5 in all, and the little girl Katie wants to sponsor.  The oldest one is 26, but she looks much older.  We stopped at villages, and out they came, one from here and another from there.  Our poor little 13 year old had never been out of her little village, and on the long trek back to Nepalgunj

More rescues

Wednesday, 12th.

Today, we met 3 women rescued from an Indian brothel.  One is a bit older, and the other  two were 20 and 18 respectively.  The two young ones have already been enslaved for 4 years.  These are the first of more we are hoping to get.  I am unclear about how this has come about, but they will be flying back to Kathmandu with us tomorrow also.  Raju is organising a half-way house for them, where they will be cared for and trained so they can gain meaningful employment.  We had lunch with them and it is so great to think what the  Lord can do to change these lives.  This afternoon, we all piled into the bus, with all our new additions, and went to another village a couple of hours away.  We were trying to arrange for girls from there also to come to Kathmandu.  Sadly, there was one girl we have been looking for before who was going to be coming in and then was nowhere to be found on the day she was to be collected.  She was 15 when she was originally contacted.  We found out today that we are too late and she has already been taken to India.  It is hard to look at her photo that we have in the computer and know we have to delete it, as she will no longer be on our list.  We are also bringing in  the younger sister of Pabrita, the beautiful girl who was rescued from India about 6 months ago.


Robyn

A day of rescues

Wednesday,12th.

Last night, Raju had a young 13 year old girls in tears, pleading for help for her family.  He joined us at the evening meal upset from the experience.  This morning, there was a bunda (strike) so no one was allowed to travel.  Raju sent us off with a man to photograph a family near here and the surrounding village.  We trekked down a long gravel steep path and came to our destination.  There was a mother, grandmother, and four beautiful daughters.  The oldest daughter asked for help for the family.  When we came back to the hotel, our photographer, Katie has fallen in love with this beautiful girl and asked Raju if she could sponsor her.  She also contacted her mother,who would sponsor another one, and Trish had friends who would sponsor the other two.  Raju was very excited.  The mother is very willing for this as she wants her daughters to have a better future.  The oldest one, of course, is the 13 year old who had pleaded with Raju the night before.  She will be flying back to Kathmandu with us tomorrow and the other three will be coming on the bus with other girls who are waiting for sponsors.  A whole family rescued.  It was wonderful after all the sad days we have had in the past few days

Robyn.

Back to Garbage River.

  

We were exhausted by the end of Monday having left Kathmandu guesthouse at 6.30 a.m., caught a plane to Nepalgunj, spend over 6 hours travelling, with all the stops in-between, plus the emotional rollercoaster of all we had heard and seen We crashed into bed and I didn’t care that our toilet floor was a swimming pool.  We were grateful for a bed and sleep. 

Today we were glad to escape the heat and head up with Winding Mountain to Chinchiu.  This is such a beautiful country.  Mountains everywhere, terraced rice fields, flocks of little goats with floppy ears.  We visited the hostel up here where we hope to start a new school next April and then headed on to Jhuprakola (garbage river) where most of our hostel girls come from. Once again we saw the same poverty and the  same houses, only on the banks of a lovely river.  Just down stream is where all the bodies are cremated and then the remains thrown in the river, Raju has renamed it Hallelujah River.  There is now a little church there with about 250 believers.   From there we have moved on to Birendernagar where we will be saying for 2 nights.

Wild West – Continued

Monday afternoon.  Binod wanted us to see another village he called the brothel village   Once again, little mud buildings and thatched roofs.  The women’s dress was quite different.  almost Egyptian style.  They are absolutely stunningly beautiful.  The men were surly and stood back but the women were smiling and crowding around.  They presented us with lays made of hibiscus flowers then they began dancing so beautifully, from the young to a very old wrinkled lady.  Then they insisted that we try.  So Raju and Binod danced (they were very good) and also the other lady Rama, who travelled with us.  Then we Aussies also had to have a go.  They really enjoyed seeing us make a fool of our selves.  It was such a happy scene out under the spreading trees, yet underneath the terrible slavery those beautiful women endure.  Even as we were there, we knew what was going on in those little huts.  We were told these precious ones are sold for a mere 20c. A time.  Men take their wives and make them dance while they play in front of houses.  Then the men in the houses come out, and if they like the woman, the husband stays outside while his wife is being raped inside.   As we left and watched those smiling women waving goodbye, our hearts were breaking.