Gayatri’s baby
Gayatri’s baby
Betrawati, November 2002
Barsha
Sujal, sitting on the stairs
Sujal, sitting on the stairs
Dadagaun, Kathmandu, 2005
I was visiting friends when I happened to see Sujal, a child of my friend’s neighbors. Sujal sits on the stairs outside of his family’s apartment. When he can manage to get out of the loving arms of his mother, his aunt, or one of the neighbor girls, he’s starting to walk.
I believe Sujal—just 18 months old—had just had his bath. His mother had then lovingly applied a small tika to Sujal’s forehead and kajal around his eyes.
The stairs behind Sujal lead to the roof, which is unfinished but provides a space to dry laundry in the air, or vegetables in the sun. The stairs themselves also provide a space to lean pots to dry after they have been washed at the nearby communal spigot.
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(Sujal’s image above was scanned from a 4x6" that I had had printed with a white border. As such, it's not quite a full-frame image; the image is a little tall for it's width, but I was hesitant to crop it any more)
In this photo showing the same steps, you can see two pots drying. After they have been scrubbed clean inside and out, a thin coat of mud is applied to the outside. I believe that while the mud still allows for the transfer of heat, it keeps the pots from getting black from the fire of the family stove.
Gayatri’s son
Gayatri’s son
Betrawati, 2002
[text below from a postcard I wrote on October 2nd, 2000]
"Gayatri and I were going to her office today; it's about an hour away, far up on one of the hills. She works for women's rights in Nepal. My aama (mother) here joined us for about half the way, then turned off onto a separate path to go see about a bi-see-quo (buffalo). Gayatri and I continued on—even though it was still early, only about 9:45am, it still felt like we were carrying the full weight of the sun on our backs.
The office where Gayatri works is tucked into the side of a hill, surrounded by green fields of millet. Inside it was nice and cool, and there was such a good cross-breeze that I was soon shivering in my sweat-soaked shirt. She and her co-worker Sangita prepared some tea for us which helped rid me of the shivers. They went about their work and I took the time to write. A little while later we ate the lunch that they prepared while Sangita softly sang along to a Nepali song on the radio."
(In the background of the above photo, you can see our neighbor seated in front of her house, stripping dried ears of corn of their kernals.)
If you would like to donate to Mercy Corps’ Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.
If you would like to donate to UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake fund please click here.
Gayatri, with her brother Ishoor, during a festival in 2000.
The make-up around Gayatri’s son's eyes is called kajal. You can see me holding a small tin of it below.