Tuklung Village: Two Months in Nepal

April 22, 2015

The ride was smooth until we reached the long, windy dirt road that really took us off the beaten track. We had been in Nepal for a month already, and we were on our way to assist a health camp in the rural village of Tuklung, a small remote village a couple hours from Gorkha city. Sarita, the first Nepali female Ayurvedic doctor, led the way along with a crew of Nepali doctors, assistants, and program managers — a total team of about ten women all piled into two taxis. The purpose of the trip was to provide gynecological exams to the village women over a total of three and a half days. Having both no experience in the medical field, my mom and I had no idea how we would contribute, but we were excited to be part of the journey and so grateful to get the unique opportunity to experience Nepali village life.

The road became so rough that any American would have certainly turned around in defeat. But for Nepali people, anything is possible. Sometimes people got out and walked a bit so the car would be lighter and could get over a ravine. The wild ride was full of laughter, bumps, and moments of ‘No way, they’re going for it!“ Until, we came to an enormous bulldozer in the middle of the very narrow road. There was no one in the machine, and wouldn’t be for who knows how long. There was no way to go around it without going over the cliff. So, we got out and began the walk. We had no idea how long it would be, or how to get to the village beyond just following the road we were already on. And the adventure officially began. Through ups and down and a couple hours, many of us walking in sandals, and receiving directions from village people, we finally showed up to Tuklung right before dark. Many of the kids seemed to never have seen a Westerner before. Immediately, we had a crowd of kids following us as we entered the village. Every time we turned around to say hi, they froze with big eyes, trying to figure us out.

The whole team stayed in the home of a family in the village. My mom and I slept with nine other women in a small room with eight single beds so squished together there was no place to walk, but we had to climb over the front beds to get to the back ones. There was no electricity and only two very tiny cut out windows. The ceiling was falling apart and had tin sheets scattered above in an effort to fix it. The dirt floor was covered with a few straw mats. It was the room of the three sisters in the family, ages 12, 10, and 7, who temporarily relocated into the main house for us, where the mom, dad, two yr old and grandma slept in one room. Beneath the house was the cooking area/place to keep the goats/where the chickens wandered/where the chickens got slaughtered/the way to the outside toilet. The first time on the way to the bathroom, I veered far away from the mama goat and her two babies. By the end of our time in Tuklung, I was petting the goats along the way. The family, and I mean the full family, all kids very much involved, cooked every meal for us all. The water spigot was about 75 feet from the main house, opportune real estate, and they used long plastic pipes that always lay in walking pathways to get the water to wherever they needed.

The gynecological exams were much needed in this area. All women living in village conditions in Nepal carry extremely heavy loads on their backs with a band on their heads for hours. It causes great stress on their bodies, especially after childbirth. Often this causes a prolapsed uterus for the woman, where her uterus begins to sag down and some come completely out. They have no education about how taking a rest after childbirth is so necessary for the body and sometimes they are forced to go back to work early. The grandma of the family we stayed at had a heartbreaking story. Only three days after she gave birth to her first son, her mother-in-law (when women get married they always leave their family and live with their husband and his mother) forced her to get back to work. When she tried to take it easy by carrying "only” 20 liters of water, her mother-in-law beat her until she took 40 liters. She felt extreme pain and could literally feel her uterus move down. In the health clinic, there was an education aspect where one of the doctors taught a large classroom of Nepali women about their bodies, from the very basics of where in the body their uterus is, to how to lift things in a better way, to the proper rest post childbirth. Many Nepali women feel a lot of shame talking about these things, and even if they notice that their bodies feel different, they keep quiet. Many women do not even tell their husbands in a fear that the husband will leave them, and this makes their condition much worse due to continuing intercourse. In the classes, it was really interesting to see the women learn. It is hard for me to imagine not knowing a single thing about what is under my skin, beyond what I can see. They watched a demonstration video about the prolapsed uterus that so many of them had, and it was the first time they saw what had happened to them and the mechanics of their own bodies. Later, we found out that the grandma who had no choice to work after childbirth left the room after only a few minutes because she started crying when she started realizing what had really happened to her. For thirty years she had kept quiet and told no one that her uterus was so painful and displaced. She told her story for the first time to one of the doctors through tears.

So how do you cure this? Using ancient Indian Ayurvedic methods, Sarita and the other doctors gave exams and used various natural herbs. This strategy saw very good results in the health camp. In only 24 hours, most women came back for check ups and their uterus had raised itself significantly because of the medicated natural herbs. Truly unbelievable. Each day we had stations of check in, medicine dispensary, examination room, and education time each day. Word spread and each day there were more and more women lined up. Over the 3.5 days, the doctors saw 300 female patients, from far and near. Some walked 3-4 hours. Each way.

My mom and I found ways to be helpful. Outside of the examination room, we often were frantically called in with our cameras and told to take pictures of the patients’ medical conditions. We also tried to organize the system of lines. At check in, the women were given sheets with a number, but this system was not being used at all, and instead they ignored the number and just lined up near the exam room, which was turning into fighting and pushing. Our job was to take their sheets, order the numbers and only let the next handful of women stand in line. Simple enough, right? Well, the numbers were in Nepali. Who knew that sixes in Nepali look like sevens in English? My mom and I became the center of a swarming sea of Nepali women all trying to take their paper and put it on top of the pile, while we were trying to figure out Nepali numbers and order the papers. It was a nightmare. Then, once we got the order and the Nepali women started realizing we weren’t just dumb Westerners standing around anymore, but we were suppose to be given the papers, then we had to create the line in front of the exam room. This required us to say Nepali names, which resulted in belly laughing from many of the women because we butchered the names so badly. I naively went up to some women to have them read a name aloud, and they motioned that they couldn’t read. That was an eye-opener.

My job at the health camp quickly also became summer camp coordinator for all the children of the village and consequently an entertainer for the elderly women waiting in line. I had gotten bubbles from my boyfriend when we spent Christmas in Cambodia just a few months prior to Nepal, and these bubbles soon started some of the sweetest relationships. Over one morning, I slowly got the group of bored kids to warm up to me with the bubbles I brought. Since I had arrived, they had stared at me like I was an alien. They wouldn’t smile at me, and showed no interest in interacting. After an hour with bubbles though, I cracked them a bit. I got the small group of girls (ages 6-12) to sit in a circle, and I showed them duck duck goose. They didn’t know any English (and I don’t know any Nepali), but they mumbled the words and made it clear when they choose “goose” to get chased. It was a hit. From then on, I heard their only English: “next game, sister.” So, I put on a summer camp in front of the clinic. Relay races. Octopus tag. Simon says. Freeze dance. Their Nepali game in English that they didn’t know the meaning of at all. We played on and on and on. It was a show for the elder women in line who loved it and laughed throughout. I explained everything through motions, most games got broken down to their simplest form, and most involved my voice being the boombox for music. For example, Simon Says turned into a copy me game. This was our favorite game because I got them doing the silliest of things: tongues out, hopping on one foot, arms like an elephant trunk, and wiggling their hips, or standing in a line with their finger on the nose of the person to their left. The goal was to get them laughing which was the easiest job in the world. We rolled on the ground in fits of laughter. Five young girls soon turned into twenty kids. They started calling me “Auntie Emma,” “Sister,” and “Deedee Emma” (which Nepali people say to older women in their life).

One morning I woke up to eight of the kids standing outside my door waiting for me to play with them. As soon as they knew I was up, they came in and stood ready for me. They stared at my backpack, wide eyed. They wore the same clothes all four days I saw them. My bag must have been so luxurious to them. But to me, I’m “roughing it” and took the “bare minimum” of clothes and things from my life back home. They noticed my belly button piercing and were so curious about it. I was wearing a sports bra and cut off t shirt, and they laughed at me and poked at the bare skin they could see of my sides. The second day of camp we repeated the fun and games. And the next. By the end of the camp, I had dozens of kids climbing on me, wanting to take picture after picture, and fighting over who got to hold my hand.

On the last day, the children stopped the games and wanted to show me their homes. Ten of them pulled me along to a house where three of the girls lived. They sat me down and gave me candy from their little storefront. I felt bad taking from them, but they insisted and all watched me eat every bite. The older girls asked me questions that they had learned in school: What is your village name? What animals do you have? Cow? Goat? They showed me where they sleep - a very small room with two single sized beds for five people to pile in. They showed me another room where I said “oh bedroom” because I saw a bed, but they said ‘no, sister’ and motioned that it was a kitchen, which I barely noticed because it was just a few pots and pans in the corner of the room. They were very proud to show me their one family photo of the trip they took to Bhaktapur, a tourist Nepali town I had stayed at in the previous month. They showed me behind their house where they had their animals. One said: “my village, sister” pointing to the view of many houses like hers. I said “very beautiful” and she looked up at me and proudly beamed. It was time for me to go to the house we were staying at for our last meal. Before I left though, the mother of the house sat me down and served me some vegetable curry that she watched me eat until it was finished. Then, she brought me three traditional Nepali bangle bracelets as a gift. All the children crowded around me smiling as the mother squeezed the bracelets onto my wrist. In return, I gave her one of my bracelets that I had gotten from Thailand. It was a really sweet exchange that I really treasure. It is always remarkable to me how the people with the least always give the most.

It was hard to say goodbye to Tuklung. The children followed me all the way until the last second when we left in a Jeep. They gave me hand-picked flowers, and I had dozens of little fingers in each of my hands. I felt like I had established real relationships with them. I felt like I showed them a lot of fun in the days I was there, and I felt good about that. It was hard to think about the reality of their futures though. Most of them happened to be girls, and the path for a girl in their environment is pretty grim. They get married very young, often in arranged marriages, and then they start a life of extreme hard work and labor. It is a hard life. The kids as little as six years old were already working harder than I ever have in my life. When playing with them, it was striking that they were just like any kids I have ever played with in any country though. They thought the same things were funny, they had gorgeous smiles, they could play forever. I didn’t want to leave them; I could have stayed in Tuklung for much longer. The Jeep churned up the road’s dust as we pulled away from the village, through the dust I waved back at the glimpses I saw of the dozens of children’s hands wildly waving, and I wondered if I would ever see any of them again.