To my Nepali sisters

Chances are you'll not meet as many Nepali women as you'll meet Nepali men when walking around. If you're a tourist many things will seem completely crazy to you in the beginning, so you'll probably not get or take the opportunity to see the very very local life.

Sabita Didi, a very funny, very traditional lady

I mean the way Nepali's work, celebrate, joke, wash, cook... and because in the house is where a women's life is to be lived mostly in these countries- not seeing the very very local life will also result (at least from my experience) in not knowing how Nepali women are like, unfortunately.

I've been here for almost 3 months, I can't tell you how many new "brothers and sisters" I've met, and especially my Didis (elder sisters) have been more than welcoming in so many ways.

I want to write something to my Nepali sisters, who I look up to for their grace in a life that is maybe not filled with works that impress or interest a lot of people, nope, what my Didis do is just two things: simple and hard.

Carrying the harvest of the field on their back, washing the whole families cold with very cold water, making sure everyone always has enough to eat and more and all the children of course.

I've learned from them how to take life every day, and next again, over and over until life fills itself with small failures and successes that are enough for one life. What they do doesn't interest many, but I've seen it every single day, and know now, what my didis do is important.

What they do has meaning for all their family and all their neighbors around, maybe it has even more meaning than what many people working in offices for I don't know who can say of themselves.

Anita waiting for our bus to KTM

So let me tell you who my Didis are: first of all, it's my host mother in my home: Anita. Who I know has put in so much effort to make me feel like a part of the family. It's custom for Hindu people to welcome guests as best as they can, and any other family would've been incredibly friendly as well I'm sure. Though I ended up with Anita's family, and I'm very happy about that. Anita doesn't speak much English, she grew up on the other side of the valley, and like every other Hindu wife she moved to her husbands’ house 19 years ago. She's still very young, and very talkative, funny and very boss. She's one of the wives who's taking in a small job (she's a business person for a life insurance company) to help her stand a tiny bit more on her own feet. Once she said to me: "just housewife, not more, I in home, every day, doing nothing." When I am leaving I will write her a letter in Nepali to explain just how much I think this is not true, she is much more than that. Above all, she is a woman with pride, and I saw that from the first moment, and I hope she sees that in herself too.

Same goes for Auntie who lives just next door, very proud and just a very beautiful young woman, with the best laugh. She's got two young boys, 6 and 3, who are hilarious and dancing to very annoying kids songs 24/7, ut auntie is never annoyed, she's dancing with them. The two boys are running around, singing checking out things while sitting on the dinner table, they very rarely really told off for it. Being able to sing and scream and run like these two is something I would wish for many other children too. I look up to auntie for the way she leaves her boys be, they're very loved but not worried for all the time, auntie is not only a mom. She's living just for herself also. To all the helicopter moms: be more like auntie.

Auntie waving goodbye as I pass on my way to Bottlehouse

Third, Nisha, my closest friend here, She's definitely one of a kind, I'm so glad I have here. She also told me on my first days that I can always call her, which meant a lot cause I needed quite a bit of help in the beginning. We went out together in Kathmandu once and met some of her friends and her little sister too. Nisha came quite a long way and I'd give her a scholarship for anything in the blink of an eye, and for her too: I hope others see what I see, and give her the chances she deserves. Nisha is one of the genuinely kindest people I have EVER met, my coworker with a heart of gold.

One of my favourite pictures of Nisha laughing :))

Nisha and her friend Anusha, when we were out in KTM

I also work with Bimala, she's actually a Bahini, a little sister. 18ten and a teacher to be, she gives a bunch of her free time up to volunteer in the project, teaching open school every single day, for free. She's very fun to be around, laughing and joking about things that happened or the latest tiktoks. Bimala and Nisha are both exceptionally hard-working, and always making it seem like that is nothing.

Bimala and I, happy because it was sunny and we had ur day off.

Ambika didi, is an elder lady that is the secretary of the project, she's around 1m50 but that didn't stop her from becoming a very important "child care consultant", always there to joke, never stressed even if nothing goes as planned. I'm telling you don't underestimate these ladies, they would beat you in the Olympics of business and management anytime, any day.

At work, there are many more Didis who are very nice to me and who I can't understand 90% of the time, but 10% seems to be more than enough to become friends. There are the women from the literacy classes (from 18 and just married, to 70 and still wanting to learn), the farming ladies, the teacher from the school. There is Sabita, who must be one the kindest people I have ever ever ever met! Single mother of three, she is looking after the cows for a little more than what Luxembourgish 15year olds get for pocket money each month. I often spend lunch and tea breaks with her, all-in-all it could well be that we haven't properly talked for 1H total. Our conversations are basically her telling me to have more rice and me showing her random pictures, sometimes she tells me I should get a Nepali boyfriend or we laugh at how funny our puppies look when they play. I'm happy when I just gt to help here a little (I'm a guest most of the times, so no matter what I do, it draws attention), together we are cutting grass, filling up water tanks, taking out honey...

Sabita Didi and me before checking out our newborn cow hurrayyyy

I have also made friends with a business lecturer at the community college, she's also called Anita and very boss I think. She has a master and is happy to combine some independent works with her duties as a housewife. College here is from 6 am to 9 am, so even though Anita has a job, the biggest part of her day, she is at home.

I've seen the works my Nepali sisters do, and definitely value them a lot, that's why it is frustrating to see that most of the time other people don't. There is this taking for granted that your mother, auntie, sister will cook, wash and clean up for you if you are a man. Not often are the women thanked for their work, and sometimes they just have to endure, and then endure some more and some more.

ith wonderful women like Sabita, Ambika, and the two Anitas around, I can't help but think about what they could've become if they had been given the same opportunities. This is their life know, but a part of me is still wishing for a lot more for them.

Nepal, though more laid-back in lifestyle than India or China is still a very rigid society in terms of gender roles and religious traditions. You can't be Hindu and not follow these, this means that despite recent efforts, discrimination is still very rooted in day-to-day life. I'm thinking especially about the roles of women, which is emprisoning young girls with modern thinking in an environment that scrutinizes them for every step they take to independence. I want to say that I have seen many things that I admire in Nepal's family life, with time however I also saw family rules under the cover which are so harsh that they almost disgust me. Women not being able to sit or touch their family member while on their period, women often eating last and always just what is left, women having to ask for permission for the money to buy onions at the shop, women not being allowed to attend celebrations without husband or uncle joining. With time. After all, horrible crimes towards like honor killing, in which a male family member kills the daughter or sister because she "dishonored" the family (maybe trying to run away or just falling in love with an "unacceptable" man), have their foundations in Hindu culture. These crimes are extreme, but I have seen where they are coming from. Much hidden and very accepted are the foundations on which these crimes are built, I've heard girls say:" If I do this (for example have a Buddhist boyfriend), I would be dead to my mother."

Girls know that in the blink of an eye, they're all so loving family would be ready to reject them completely.

To me, it's unimaginable to think that my family’s support could be destroyed just because my parents or aunties and uncles don't approve of who I love. Here it's a reality, so much so that some decide to have an arranged manage and still be able to be a part of the family rather than make their own choice of who to marry, but then be completely alone because they're considered less of a daughter or sister after. Because we foreigners don't know this culture, we've got a very black and white view on how arranged marriage is a prison and "love" marriage is freedom, there's actually so much more to it! Once I've met a girl who was just married, and we talked about how I feels like to feel like an intruder in the husbands family for a long time, we talked that there is an unwritten agreement that the daughter-in-law is treated with a lot of hostility by the mother of the husband until she has proven herself submissive enough to deserve respect. For the longest time, the wife is told by the parents of her husband, and often by her husband too, that she is to put herself second. Many young wives find themselves in a situation where they feel they have no home, no loved ones around and nothing to do something against feeling so unwanted. Few mothers in law truly go against this, even though they have experienced the same pain just 20 years before, apparently, that's just how it goes.

On my way home from work, I sometimes pass this little street gang of small kids playing with literally anything, most of the time it's something like badminton with some spinach and cardboard. They're mostly girls (be prepared, young children in Nepal are ridiculously beautiful, they're basically born with Kylie Jenner lashes), always roaming around and quite naughty haha (one of the girls keeps on asking me for Rupees even after the 100th time I said no, whenever I’d say that, she asks me for chocolate). Nisha told me about one of the oldest of them, Sanskriti, famous for her loose mouth, turns out she's a walking brain, getting straight A's even when the teachers in the school haven't turned up. She wants to be a doctor, and for her to, I hope she will get much more than she gets now: I hope the society changes fast enough so that people realize this very poor low caste genius freaking deserves a place at freaking med school, which cost 4 million rupees (as I said, the street gang kiddos don't have money for a simple ball to play, and that one costs 1000 rupees, now let us talk about equal opportunities in education). Sanskriti will need a scholarship in 7 years, so everybody, MOVE! Stick your cast discrimination up your a** and start realizing that one human life is NOT less worthy than another. Yes, I'm also talking to you larries from every other corner of the world, we are born EQUAL!!

I'll finish with some good news: change is coming. I took a picture when I was working at school:

This one shows that girls are really not into wearing the same skirts anymore, they're stretching their limitations, and kind of wearing what they want. Some long skirts, the other ones green and white, some pants...

It's really great to see that within one generation, Nepal could be so much more free. There are places where girls’ education is considered "new", in the last 10 years, girls have really claimed their placesin the classrooms and definitely don't go unnoticed anymore. They've managed to surpass one hurdle at least, there's many more (the main reason for school dropout is child labour in the family, which I think affects girls and boys equally). Boys are also fighting their own wars, it's hard to say who is really more discriminated in school boys or girls. Actually that's not even the main question I believe, What's much more crucial to tackle at this moment is the regional and caste discriminations that touch boys and girls equally. I'm happy to see, just sometimes, that the youth of today is fighting, this means that the next generation will be already so much better.

explaining a game at the community school, watch these girls, they'll go farrrrrrrr

To everyone but my Nepali sisters: especially: the way things are, is not the way things have to be. As longs as there is hope for change, there is power.

In Friendship,

Teddy Smile