Medieval.

This is the most disturbing report I have ever read in the newspaper. It got a small box in the national section of the Himalayan Times- it should have come out in the Medieval Times.

Himalayan Times
Kathmandu, March 24
Tika R. Pradhan

A gang of people led by a school headmistress forcibly made a woman eat her own excreta in Lalitpur, accusing her of practicing witchcraft. The headmistress of Gadi Bhanjyang Primary School, Bimala Lama, forced Kalli Kumari BK, 48, to confess that she killed locals in the area with her black magic and forced her to eat her own feces.

Fortunately, a police head constable came to know about the incident and informed the Federation of Nepali Journalists about it. He has provided shelter to three members of BK's family despite death threats from both his and her family. Talking to the Himalayan Times over telephone, BK said that around 50 women and men tried to amputate her breast with blades and knifes on Friday.

"They forced me to eat my own excreta in public," she said, adding that they also forced her to "confess" that she was behind the deaths of all the people in the village.

BK yelled for help via telephone to this scribe, saying that members of the society had threatened to cut her into pieces. "How long will you find shelter? We are going to see for how long the police will protect you," her attackers said.

"On my request, four policemen had reached the site today but to no avail," Ghimire said, who is currently serving at the Metropolitan Police Commissioners Office, Rani Pokhari.

On the initiation of Jagaran Media Centre, representatives of human rights organizations, National Dalit Commission, National Women's Commission and the media are going to visit the site Wednesday.

This is the first reported incident taking place in the Kathmandu Valley involving and educated woman, Lama, who tortured a woman on the charges of witchcraft.

All I can say is, I would like to meet the woman who instigated this brutality and take her to task. It makes my blood boil as a woman, an activist and as a human being. She is the principal at a school for Nepal's youth. What does that say?

This happened in the heart of the city, not the village. That is the most appalling part about it. Women's rights in this country are fragile- everywhere.

Cancer Society Nepal- Women's Health Camp

Eye Exams.


Waiting to get a pap smear.




Nothing says Cancer Society health camp like taking a smoke break!



This woman has advanced-stage cataract.


15 of the 75 women tested have mature stage cataract and will soon go blind. This woman's cataract was clearly seen with an old flashlight. I personally looked at both her eyes and what I saw was horrifing. She needs surgery immediately, but can not afford it, of course. A woman in the village- what to do? The main cause of high instances of cataract is smoke fires inside the home. The woman are at the fire cooking and cleaning most of the day.



Lung check-ups for the first time.


Incredible to witness.


Pap smear awareness poster.


Waiting...


Tamang and Llama woman after their tests. Results will be processed and the team will return to plan treatments and arrange care for the women.



Through the generations....


In a two-day health camp sponsored by the national organization, Cancer Society Nepal, eye doctors, gynecologists and cancer specialists visited the surrounding villages of Kakani, Helumbu Region. Women from over 12 villages walked to the Kakani secondary school to get free check-ups and medicine. Conducting eye exams, pap smears, breast examinations, and lung exams, doctors from the only cancer hospital in Chitwan, Nepal, came to the village to create health awareness and diagnose cataract, lung disease and cervical and breast cancer.


This was the first time in this region that pap smears (vaginal examinations) were administered. Women lined up to fill a questionnaire about their health history and their current health concerns. In a small grade 5 classroom, made of stone with a dirt floor, a gynecologist gave each woman a pap smear test and breast examination. The ages of the women ranged from 18-85. None had ever had an exam and most were nervous to step into the room.

It is, of course, suggested that a woman in America get her first cervical examination at the age of 18 or after her first sexual experience. Cervical cancer is the number one diagnosed cancer in the country, with lung cancer and breast cancer second and third, respectively. The chances of getting cervical cancer are very high in the villages due to factors such as, early-age sexual experiences (tied in with early childhood marriage) lack of cleanliness, early-age childbirth, high child/woman rates, and STDs (tied to the lack of condom use). Women cancer patients far exceed men in the country and like all other health care here, cancer treatments are not accessible and very expensive.


We spent the day at the health camp interacting with the women and doctors. Most all of them were illiterate and while answering questions before the tests, many did not even know their names or ages. It was incredible. In the village, age is not important and older women might not know when they were born or how old they were during their first sexual experience or pregnancy. It was an eye-opening experience. As women in America, we are very fortunate to have the facilities and means to stay healthy. Let's remember that....

Trekking in Helumbu

Me with Frank, the wonderboy. He is 6 and has trekked Annapurna Base Camp and was completing his second spin on the Helumbu trek!

Karate session with some boys on the way to school.

Filtering water with cheese cloth.

The things we carry.

'Pharmacy' in the village.

My new friend, Nanu.

Walking 5 miles straight up a ridge to get to school....and playing ball along the way!

Llama girls at a bonfire party in the village.

Blizzard and sunset in the Langtang Himalayan Range.

This woman was at the top of a tree in the middle of no where. How in the world did she even get up there?

The intestines and stomach of a recently sacrificed goat.

View from Tharepati after the blizzard.

Sherpini planting beans.

A 'tree' with pair yellow rain boots makes its way down the path.

After trekking Everest, Annapurna and Langtang, I had one more region of the top 4 to explore, Helumbu. This region is the closest trekking region to Kathmandu and home to Helumbu Sherpas. Differing from the Sherpas in the Everest Region, this group speaks different languages, follows different cultural practices and cultivates different crops. Although all 4 of the main trekking routes offer something special and fantastic, this trek must go down as my favorite. Simply because of the people. The Sherpas, Tamangs and Llamas that live in this region are very friendly, hospitable and extremely hard-working (especially the amazingly strong women, named 'Sherpinis'). Continually I was in awe of the women and girls carrying 50 Kgs sacks of rice, large bundles of leaves and fodder for animals and firewood. Me with my ski poles, fancy trekking boots and first aid kit had nothing on these women, sometimes shoeless in torn clothing with bloody fingers and aged faces.

When we were trekking through the village of Tarkegang, a woman with a basket on her back full of tree branches approached me. She pointed to the athletic tape on my fingers (to prevent blisters from the poles) and then showed me her fingers. They were bloody with blisters, open sores and callouses from cutting through the brush day after day.

I pulled out my first aid kit and taped all her fingers. I gave her the rest of the roll and she was extremely grateful. Yet another inspirational encounter with the women in this country- through there determination and toughness. Her work is done out of necessity. Her livelihood depends on carrying loads to feed her animals (her greatest possession) and tirelessly roaming the hills for resources to keep her and her family alive. It is her blood and her heart that lives in those hills- I just feel blessed to have walked on the same path.

This trek follows through small villages, through small living huts sometimes and traces steep-hill ridges. We did it in 5.5 days, instead of the suggested 8. That meant 6-7 hour days blazing up ridges 800 meters and down 1,600 meters on the same day. It was exhausting, beautiful, and everything a trek should be. On the trail, we were time and again taking care of by people who showed us the way (we had no guide) and let us into there homes to wait out hail storms, blizzards and down-pouring rain. It was a great farewell to Nepal and another examples of why I love this place, its people and its spirit.

Ethniklashistan

This hilarious satire is from a 2001 "the Onion" article. It was worth a post!

source: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28369?utm_source=EMTF_Onion

UNITED NATIONS–In a bold gambit hoped to resolve dozens of conflicts around the world, the U.N. announced Monday the establishment of Ethniklashistan, a multinational haven in the West Bank that will serve as a new homeland for Irish Protestants, Hutus, Serbs, and other troubled groups.


An ethnographic map of the new Homeland.

"For far too long, these groups have been locked in prolonged strife with their former neighbors, unable to achieve a lasting peace," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. "Now that these various peoples have a new homeland where they can find refuge, all the years of fighting and bloodshed can finally be put behind them."

Former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, now presiding over a Serb settlement near the Jordanian border, was optimistic about the future. "All Muslim scum must die," he said. "Death to all enemies of Serbian purity!"

The various groups, transported to Ethniklashistan by a massive U.N. airlift, will share their new homeland with the roughly two million Palestinians and Israeli settlers who currently occupy the region. U.N. officials say the West Bank site was chosen for its centralized location, opportunities for tourism, and comfortable desert climate. These factors, combined with the already diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious composition of the area, offer "a unique opportunity for many international groups to live together in peace."

"This is truly a win-win situation," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "War-ravaged peoples from all over the world finally have a place they can feel safe. And, for the Palestinians and Israelis already there, the presence of additional ethnicities should reduce any pre-existing stresses. Arabs and Jews will enjoy exposure to a glorious, multiethnic stew, and they will, in turn, have the opportunity to lead by example, serving as role models of peaceful coexistence."


Hutu leader Kagabo Ndadaye, who between 1994 and 1996 personally oversaw the machete deaths of more than 10,000 Tutsi Rwandans, echoed the positive outlook. "The glorious Hutu are the one pure race," said Ndadaye, speaking from a Hutu settlement near Hebron while eyeing a nearby Kurdish settlement. "All inferior mongrel peoples shall be put to the blade."

Though hopes are high for Ethniklashistan–a name created by a team of linguists who combined 17 different languages' words for "sanctuary"–the establishment of the new homeland has proven rocky. Of the more than 500,000 people relocated there so far, approximately 97 percent have responded with violent resistance, swearing oaths of eternal vengeance against U.N. volunteers conducting the forced relocations.

Bloodshed also marred the "Festival Of Human Brotherhood," a weeklong, nationwide event celebrating the founding of Ethniklashistan. On Monday, 11 people were killed in a skirmish between Basques and Sikhs near Nablus.

The same day, six were killed and dozens injured on the streets of Bethlehem when Somalis and Greek Cypriots exchanged gunfire and grenades.

Dozens of shifting alliances have added to the confusion and chaos. In a pre-dawn border raid Monday, Burmese Karen rebels attacked a Tamil settlement. By late afternoon, the Karens were driven back by the Tamils, who were newly armed with Israeli anti-personnel missiles smuggled into the West Bank by Zionist fundamentalists who had allied themselves–some say only as a temporary ruse–with the Tamils.

On Tuesday, guerrilla fighters made up of an uneasy Palestinian-Papuan alliance attacked an Irish Protestant church near the Golan Heights, killing 121 Irish worshippers with nerve gas before being repelled by a nearby faction of Protestant-sympathizing Zapatista rebels from the Chiapas region of Mexico.

The violence continued that evening, when the severed heads of 20 Chechens were paraded through the streets of Jericho by Azerbaijani extremists. The killings are thought to be in retaliation for rocket attacks by a band of pro-Armenian Chechen rebels, who have thus far evaded Azerbaijani attempts to flush them out of their encampments in the hills with prolonged shelling.

Alarmed by the new nation's growing pains, world leaders have launched a large-scale international-aid effort to help Ethniklashistan get on its feet. Great Britain has pledged 12,000 peacekeeping troops, vowing to "pummel with rubber bullets, tear gas, and billy clubs anyone who dares threaten the Sons of Ulster." China has pledged 40,000 soldiers to supervise the 2,000-plus Tibetan Buddhists relocated to the region. Indonesia, Cambodia, Nigeria, and Afghanistan have also sent troops.

"There is always a period of transition and upheaval in the founding of a new government," President Bush said. "That is why an international humanitarian consortium of nations, including the U.S., France, Russia, Iraq, and North Korea, has pledged $2 trillion in military aid to the new nation. This way, all Ethniklashistanis, regardless of race, color, creed, or economic background, will have equal access to the state-of-the-art ordnance they need to defend themselves and their families during this initial period of instability."

Encouraged by such aid efforts, experts are confident that a lasting peace can soon be established among the rival Ethniklashistani groups.

"When you take that many long-suffering, war-torn groups and put them in the same place, how can you not have peace?" asked former president Jimmy Carter, who will lead talks among the various Ethniklashistani groups. "This hatred cannot possibly last long."

Women's Day Walkathon- Kathmandu

In a show of solidarity and to promote women's development in Nepal, Global Daughter participated in the 99th International Women's Day Walkathon in Kathmandu. Along with women activists, professionals, NGO representatives and Ambassadors, Erin walked to support women's rights and equality in Nepal and world-wide.

It was great to see women from all walks of life uniting for one voice in the early hours of Sunday March 8th. The event featured well-known advocates and dignitaries from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It was also impressive to see the number of men and young boys participating in the event- walking side-by-side with their mothers and sisters.

The energy of the crowd and the speakers was quite moving. I was thinking it would be even more effective if events like this were also held simultaneously at the local level, in the districts and villages- where women's rights need to be most visible. Sadly, these type of events are rarely organized...but we hope for a trickle down effect from Kathmandu....as quickly as possible!
It was a proud day for Global Daughter. To be recognized by other women's groups and women activists in the country and represent a project that people know and trust. To walk around in the crowd and see women we work with and women's organizations that we are associated with- gave me the feeling that we have truly solidified a presence within the women's community in Nepal.

Good stuff all around as the movement keeps keepin' on......

"Realizing the importance of a consolidated effort for synergy and effective advocacy, this is a singular opportunity for women from all the eight countries to come together as a unified force to celebrate past achievements on the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2009, and work towards Millennium Development Goals for 2015."

The crowd grows...

Erin at the ceremony post-walk.

Banners of support wave on.

Teamwork.

An essential experience for any little girl.

Walk through Durbar Square.

A beautiful face for a beautiful cause.

A walk through Basantapur.

Does this need to actually be stated? The answer is yes, in Nepal it does.

Famous women activists speak to the crowd about lack of security for women in the country.

Traditional Musicians leading the march.

Bangladeshi Ambassador and the next generation of women's activists in traditional Tharu dress.