This woman gave me a ride in her boat across Lake Bagnis very early one morning as I was leaving Surya's village and heading for Pokhara. She saved me many miles of walking and the time it would have consumed. She was so gracious in her humility and her physical strength and stamina. Paddling the boat across the lake was kind of symbolic of what most Nepali women do not have and yet there she was happy for the company and finding pleasure in what she was doing.
This is Surya's older daughter who he has "liberated" in the sense that he has given her freedom to do what she wants with her own life, given her autonomy in other words. Her reaction, at first, was confusion because she didn't really appreciate or know exactly what to do with her liberty, her freedom, but of course it wasn't long before she realized how unique it was to be able to say she could set her own course in life: do what she wants to do, marry who she wants to if she wants to be married, have a career, travel, study, and to not be tyrannized by that freedom.
These two young women in these last two photos in this section were standing on a stone wall as the sunset behind them. They were dressed in their finest clothes and were very excited when I asked if I could take their picture. They hopped closer together and stood in perfect poise as I took several frames. The picture below strikes me in a much different perspective than it did when I took it and I see them now as standing together looking out towards the world. It represents Hope in a way I didn't quite see when I was actually there. My hope is that Nepali women are given their autonomy and allowed educations, access to politics and the government, to health care, and to legal protection under the constitution and local laws.
As for that level of hope, however, as I write this in May 2009 I just received an email from Renu in Kathmandu saying that the upheaval in the Nepali government during the past week casts a pall over the plight of women and any progress they have made in the Nepali courts in the last few years. Renu cited several cases she has been working on at the Women's Foundation during the past two weeks, since May 4, 2009, one, in particular, in which a woman reported being tortured, raped, threatened with death and then beaten on the head with bricks until she lost consciousness by her husband who also tortured their children by raping their mother in front of them and binding them by their hands and feet and leaving them without food. It's hard to think of anything to say after you read some of Renu's emails.
This woman gave me a ride in her boat across Lake Bagnis very early one morning as I was leaving Surya's village and heading for Pokhara. She saved me many miles of walking and the time it would have consumed. She was so gracious in her humility and her physical strength and stamina. Paddling the boat across the lake was kind of symbolic of what most Nepali women do not have and yet there she was happy for the company and finding pleasure in what she was doing.
This is Surya's older daughter who he has "liberated" in the sense that he has given her freedom to do what she wants with her own life, given her autonomy in other words. Her reaction, at first, was confusion because she didn't really appreciate or know exactly what to do with her liberty, her freedom, but of course it wasn't long before she realized how unique it was to be able to say she could set her own course in life: do what she wants to do, marry who she wants to if she wants to be married, have a career, travel, study, and to not be tyrannized by that freedom.
These two young women in these last two photos in this section were standing on a stone wall as the sunset behind them. They were dressed in their finest clothes and were very excited when I asked if I could take their picture. They hopped closer together and stood in perfect poise as I took several frames. The picture below strikes me in a much different perspective than it did when I took it and I see them now as standing together looking out towards the world. It represents Hope in a way I didn't quite see when I was actually there. My hope is that Nepali women are given their autonomy and allowed educations, access to politics and the government, to health care, and to legal protection under the constitution and local laws.
As for that level of hope, however, as I write this in May 2009 I just received an email from Renu in Kathmandu saying that the upheaval in the Nepali government during the past week casts a pall over the plight of women and any progress they have made in the Nepali courts in the last few years. Renu cited several cases she has been working on at the Women's Foundation during the past two weeks, since May 4, 2009, one, in particular, in which a woman reported being tortured, raped, threatened with death and then beaten on the head with bricks until she lost consciousness by her husband who also tortured their children by raping their mother in front of them and binding them by their hands and feet and leaving them without food. It's hard to think of anything to say after you read some of Renu's emails.
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