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Global PeaceWorks | |
peace among religions is the key to world peace |
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PeaceWorkers of 2003-4Andrea Juliette Mair
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Yes, Khorum,
Eric, I am in Nepal, still, somehow it didn't let me go. The country's
in a crisis which despite the people's movement,
despite the people's anger and longing for peace and democracy, might
go without a change for years, or which might collapse tomorrow,
uncertain with what kind of consequences. People die every day in
the spreading violence by both Maoist freedom fighters and security
forces, the newspapers prove tolls of deaths day by day; bombs are
now not any more laid in government offices only but in public and
crowded busses as well. In terrorist- and misery-affected village
areas, the lack of people's, of students' and children’s security,
is causing a migration to the capital where many strand as low-wage
workers or jobless; children without their right to education being
fulfilled as their parents don't have any methods to send them to
school; children who become workers trapped in circles of exploitation;
children on the streets with nowhere to go but into the addiction
of drugs and alcohol, their childhood being left behind untouched. We
cannot give all the love slogan adapted for Global PeaceWorks from the Jana Stanfield song "All the Good" |
And the city is falling in dust and struggle, people pushed down by the hardship of their work and people trying to raise their voice for justice, for development, for ways out of the deep crisis. But people of the city are, many of them, trying to find ways just for themselves out of the crisis, it seems like against the fall of the country, people are developing an egoism to keep themselves on the good side, not to do something for everybody's good. There is so much money-mindedness here; the economy is falling lame and people talk about collecting money, war is spreading and people talk about building themselves big houses with money taking under the hand or earned outside the country, the boat is sinking and people are denying to look and help each other.
But people are there to help and share. One family has kind of adopted me, and they are one of the most honest and truest people I can imagine to meet. We all stay together in one room of a small old house, my two girl friends Sharmila and Bimala, their grown-up brothers Prem and Raju, one small sister that we found lost on the street and who claims to have no mother and father, and me. Mother and father, Amma and Bua, are running a small tea and khana (food) restaurant just behind the Paropakar orphanage where I have more and less been involved in since the very beginning. We always assemble there, friends from paropakar and around and the family. The river of Kathmandu, the Vishnumatti river, in front of our place, is drowning in rubbish and leakage and the blood and bones of slaughtered buffaloes, so now that the heat has come, the air is filled with bad smell, drinking water is a big problem everywhere and pollution is coming down in dusty clouds.
But what there is is pure caring, I am like their own daughter and whatever bad and corrupted people and intentions, how many people gone mad and how many turned into alcoholics - they stand like soft fortresses against it with hearts so big that it could embrace the universe. Raju who had to quit school in grade 8 to help earn the family's living is the most simple, most peaceful and stable person ever.
His heart is clean and attentive, never asking for anything for himself. He comes home from a hard working day and is happy just to listen to music, probably really tired, but when I again start looking for whatever it may be that I cannot find in our small shared space, Raju will stand up and ask and whether that thing is important or not, he will turn all clothes and places for it, and when it is found, he will never even think of any thankfulness or reward. His hard work is to help his family also, "whatever you say, Amma, I will do", he once said to his mother.
Prem is the funniest joker I'ver ever met, and the best, because he can be serious as well. It takes him 1 hour to finish his rice, either because he is talking during it, reciting poems or just enjoying the rice so much, many times Amma and Bua have to wait with closing the shop because Prem is giving a performance of any kind, as a poet, a comedian, a tai-chi-master (really) or as a singer, and we all stand laughing. Sharmila and Bimala also do their own thing, the one studying so hard - getting up at 5 in the morning and sleeping at 10 or 11! Sharmila 's thinking: "We have to stand on our own feet, whatever it takes, I will try to do things alone and go my own way, even if it is struggle, and I will stand by my friends, because friendship is deep and unique and the most most important of all!"
In the evening, after staying in paropakar with the children, hanging around nearby with paropakar friends, coming back from the street children organisation or from friends' places ( with friends mostly meaning families whose children I met on the street, who are working children or living in hard conditions, who I got to love so much) we go home together in our small common room while Amma and Bua stay to sleep in the in the small hotel ... I am often having long talks with Amma because in the hard struggle of her love she has come to know and understand many things, and she wories about me like about her own child. Bua, though so quiet, so simple, is always worrying that I don't eat well, and tells me to eat sooo much... I have to smile every time because this is his way of expressing love. Maybe good people are always those who live in most simple circumstances. Simple would be right, but this is poverty; but never, never would they ask anything from me, they care without any intention, share the tiny space they have, the food even if it shouldn't be enough for themselves, whatever they have they are willing to give, asking me always about my whereabouts. And because of this, because there is pure giving, I want to give to them - both a true giving from the heart. Somehow, in this city of misery and losing mystery, I came to this tiny hotel, and it became like a sort of Nepali home. This family believes strongly in God and they found through their belief and trust in God so much strength. Sometimes I feel that yes, it must have been that god that the forces of the sky and the earth and the hearts of the people brought me to stay here. And brought me somehow also to these other people who I met in their very tough struggle for life, for their very survival.
I feel so much love for them. It makes me sad that in the time I spent in Nepal I couldn't be there often for all of them, and that now I soon have to leave. The circumstances in the country make it very difficult to travel to villages, so I stayed near Kathmandu most of the time, leaving sometime for the countryside in the valley. Nepal's countryside, these villages, are most beautiful, and life and people are simple as I would dream the world to be. Every time it ends up to be about one thing: about the people. Every time it ends up to be about one thing: about love and sharing.
dear friends - I don't know if this is the message you should receive
after such a long time -but other I cannot write but what comes
from the heart. Please know that, although I have been out of any
contact for so long time, to me our friendship is always in my
heart. What has become precious will remain precious, no matter
how far and how long away. Moments unforgettable are locked up
in the heart, and when the right time comes, these moments will
rise to be real again ... at least we can make this wish upon the
stars and pray for it.
dear Eric, Khorrum and friends. I wish all the best to all of our family, that it will become an even stronger unity that in Delhi this December like before.
love you still.
Shova Kamana
and love
Andrea Juliette
NOTE from JULIETTE
: IF SOMEONE IS ABLE TO GIVE SPONSORSHIP FOR A CHILD, A FORMER STREET
CHILD WHO LEFT HIS STREET LIFE
MONTHS AGO AND WHO DREAMS ABOUT GOING BACK TO SCHOOL,
PLEASE CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY.
THERE IS GORE WHO IN MY OPINION IS MORE THAN TALENTED- ABLE TO
DO SOMETHING GOOD FOR THE WORLD ONE DAY. HE IS SMILING AND
AMBITIOUS AND CAN BE. HE TELLS ME OVER AND OVER AGAIN:
I want to study I want to go to school. TO PUT GORE OR
KAMAL AND HIS SMALL BROTHER SANKAR INTO A HOSTEL AND A SCHOOL WOULD
COST ABOUT 600 USD / YEAR. PLEASE CONTACT. THANK YOU.
You may contact Global PeaceWorks
to reach Andrea Juliette.
read Andrea Juliette's Letter from after the project
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