Photography and Gardening

Not too much to write about this week- I am starting to feel the pressure of finishing up my projects and to start saying goodbye to the people I work with in Kalimati. This past Monday I spent the day at the garbage school with the other Kalimati volunteers and my friends volunteering in Sundarwoti planting a garden.It was a really powerful experience. I spent a few minutes by the river looking at the garbage and the people picking through it and thought how amazing it was to plant a garden at such a place. We were joined by some 4th and 5th graders from the school who eagerly helped us pick up garbage, build a fence, paint rocks, and plant in the dirt.

While people worked on the garden, I spent an hour with my Samata photography group. We discussed taking pictures of strangers (my favorite) and how pictures can tell a story. I asked them why they thought it was important to take pictures and I was impressed with the answers they gave. Susila said that pictures preserve memories so that you can look back and remember how you felt and looked on that day. Another girl said that pictures can capture an important moment in time that can provoke feelings in someone else and that can spread a message. Their assignment for the day was to take several pictures that told a story- a few of them took shots of the river, the garden, and a volunteer, the story being how the school is surrounded by garbage but because of the work of a few individuals it can be made beautiful and we can protect the environment. Esther's (yes that is her Nepali name) story was of the person cutting bamboo- the first picture was of the bamboo strips itself, the next of the mane cutting it, and finally of the bamboo being used as a part of the fence. I asked her why she chose something so different from her friends and she said that when people look at the garden they wouldn't think of the bamboo cutter and the role he played and that without him the fence would not have been possible

Dinesh and Susila

Esther's picture

Esther, Susila, and Susmita

The other project that I finished up this week was with the theater group at the school. I didn't have much to do with the production itself but I did draw an awesome brick wall because I have mad artistic skills (not). Anyway- the show was about the importance of sending girls to school and the group performed it at the TbT daycare in Kalimati. They did a really great job and it was an important message. In attendance at the show were about 10 mothers and their children- it was kind of a shock to realize that most of the mothers were younger then me. It was also sad to think about how most of the women are victims of domestic violence. Some of the other volunteers I live with are working with the women's group that is made up of mothers from the daycare. For the past few weeks they have been talking about domestic violence and almost every single women is a victim. Its sad and pathetic that they have to go through something like that- usually it is a result of alcohol but they have misconceptions about why they experience it. Some of the women think that it is because they are in a love marriage instead of an arranged one, that if the man wasn't drunk he wouldn't beat them, that if the kids are present he won't beat them. Obviously there are issues of domestic violence all over the world including in America, but its different to see it here and to meet people who have experienced it. 

On a more positive note- I booked my flight to Thailand! yay beach :)