Adarsh Youth Club

The Youth Club is a sister organisation of the Social Welfare Committee. It works to mobilize young people in the village and to raise awareness of education, health and sanitation issues through drama and cultural programmes. It also organises games and development activities. For Dasain, the club organised a song and dance show with awareness raising sketches focusing on social issues. As Jancis was visiting Ghumna, she opened the show.

Although the weather is still hot in the daytime, mornings and evenings are cool and early morning mists are common.

After the festival, farmers have a busy time. The rice needs to be harvested and threshed in the old-fashioned way and the fields have to be ploughed in readiness for the winter crops.

After the blessings, people eat a variety of meat and vegetable curries. Chickens, pigs, goats and sometimes sheep are sacrificed in large numbers at Dasain. Most families sacrifice 5 chickens, one to each of the five major gods. If a son has been born into the family in the past year, a goat has to be slaughtered in celebration.

Here Gita is carrying Sel Roti and Fini Roti, fried breads which can be made in advance of the festival and are commonly eaten at Dashain.

For the blessing ceremony, the Tika is made from a mixture of vermillion powder, rice and yoghurt. Each elder person sticks the Tika on the younger person’s forehead three times (some of it always falls off!), wishing them all the best for the coming year. They also put the cut Jamara shoots and bebri in the person’s hair (ladies) or behind their ears (men). Then they give gifts of fruit and money.

Within each family, Tika is also given, starting with the head of the family. Here Anita and Hallu are giving Tika to their son.

Old and young enjoy the dancing, even if the younger generation think they are a bit too cool!

After the tika ceremonies, the villagers gather in the headman’s compound to sing, dance and drink.

Every year, at Maghi (the Tharu new year, 15 January) the villagers elect a head-man and on the morning of Dasain, the men go to his house to celebrate and receive Tika (blessings). This year, in a departure from tradition, the women also received Tika. Each person takes a bottle of chanki (rice wine). In this photo, Hallu has received the Tika (the red mark on his forehead) and Jamara behind his ears and is drinking chanki from a traditional leaf bowl.

On the tenth day of the festival, everyone should wear new clothes. This can cause quite a strain on poor families, who have to buy clothes as well as food for the celebration. The SWC arranged a sale of clothes donated in Kathmandu on the eve of Dasain so that even the poorest people could have something ‘new’, albeit second hand, to wear for the festival. A group of committee members sorted through the clothes, pricing them according to what they thought people would pay (ladies to fix ladies’ clothes’ prices and men to fix men’s), and then organised the sale in the early evenings when people had free time. The sale raised over 2000 rupees which will be used for emergency relief for flood or fire victims.

As well as worshipping the household gods, the gods of the area around the house are also worshipped.

A puja room with oil lamps

The different gods are represented by various household items:
a broom (barni) symbolises Laxmi, the goddess of wealth
a healer stick (bet ke lathi)
a horse (bherwa) symbolises a powerful Tharu god, worshipped for heatlh and wealth
a man (saura)
a woman (maiya) representing devi and khekari (sister of devi)
a snake (sapuwa ) This god is kept outside the house and is worshipped only with cows milk, not wine

In contrast to the dikris eaten at Tihar, Dewari in Tharu, (see last year’s photos), those used for the Puja are top-shaped.

The festival of Dasain, (Dashiya in Tharu), one of the two biggest Hindu festivals, was celebrated in October this year. The name means ‘tenth’ – the festival lasts for 10 days.

In Tharu families, the eldest son is responsible for looking after the family gods and worshipping them during the Dashain festival. On the first day, Ghatasthapana, Tharus pray to the moon, saying ‘Ditiya ditiya ram ram’. Maize seeds are planted in an earthen or clay pot called a Handi in the Dehurar (the Puja or worship room).

By the 10th day, the Jamara (shoots) are tall and yellow and ready to be used for the Puja.

This man, the head of his family, has fasted for the entire day before beginning the ceremony in his dehurar (Puja room). Here he family gods are in the pata, an area of the dehurar where the main gods are set up. The oil lamps here are in the pata. For the Puja, he offers each one a leaf plate containing Jamara shoots, bebri another green leaf, dikris (steamed rice flour balls) and an oil lamp. He then sprinkles the god with drops of rice wine, praying all the time.

Gender awareness training

It takes a lot for women in Nepal to speak in front of an audience, especially when that audience includes men. This training brought the men and women, educated and uneducated, of the village together, to talk about male and female roles and responsibilities.

Tharu women traditionally have greater equality than women of other ethnic groups but this equality is being eroded due to increased contact with people from outside the area. The SWC wants to foster pride in these positive aspects of
Tharu culture in order to prevent them dying out.

Vocational training for boys
The participants, their trainer and their finished work
In April 2006, the SWC organised a carpentry training workshop for 10 boys (school drop-outs and/or brothers of the sponsored girls). A local master carpenter did the training and now allows the boys to work alongside him in his workshop when they have free time. As they cannot afford to buy their own tools, this system enables them to continue to develop their skills.

Although the sponsorship scheme was initially open to boys and girls, it soon became clear that the pressure on boys to contribute financially to poor families is too great and as a result the drop out rate for boys is much higher than for girls. Boys can earn more money and at a younger age than girls, by working as farm labourers and share-croppers for local landlords.

This training gives the boys a basic skill which will help them earn a better living in future.

The boys during the training.

The training uses appropriate technology – a hand made drill, turned by a second carpenter, using strings – as well as more modern tools.

New teacher’s desk and chair in the Japanese built classrooms in Ghumna.

The school commissioned the boys to make furniture for the staffroom and the new classrooms as part of their training. The quality of the furniture made was very high- as good as anything that can be bought locally.

New shelves in the school staff room. The things that look like mug trees are actually bangle trees which ladies keep their glass bangles on.

Piglet with an identity crisis?

The last traditional, wood lined, well in Ghumna.

Most people now have a hand pump near to the house which saves time and effort, especially for the women as they are the ones who would have to bring water for the whole family. Unlike in many areas of Nepal, the ground water here is drinkable even for westerners!

Mustard oil fields.

Mustard oil has a spicy taste and is used for cooking. It is also used as hair oil, massage oil and for light in oil lamps. In October/November the whole of the valley is splashed with yellow and the flowers scent the air with honey.

Rice fields and haystacks

Rice is the staple food of people in the plains of Nepal. Although the land is flat, the fields are slightly terraced so that water runs from the irrigation channels through each field in turn. This ingenious system means there is no need for mechanical watering machines and the farmer can channel water into whichever field needs it at the time.

The rice harvest is just beginning here. In the background are haystacks. The rice straw is dried and kept for animal fodder and bedding (both human and animal) in the winter.

Traditional dress

The Tharu traditional dress is dying out in Ghumna and the surrounding area due to a combination of low status and high cost. The skirt in itself uses 6 metres of fabric! Sadly, there are also no longer jewellers with the skills to make the traditional jewellery – what these girls are wearing have been passed down through several generations.

Basket-making, a traditional craft of Tharu women, is also becoming less common. Baskets are made from local grass, often coloured in bright shades and decorated with shells from shellfish which are found in the irrigation channels in the rice fields. The grass is so tightly woven that it is very durable. Women carry produce from their fields to market on their heads, walking gracefully even though they are carrying 10-15kg. In the past, new brides took their possessions to their new house in a huge woven basket which would be hung from the rafters to protect it from rats and snakes.

Traditional dress. Like in many traditional societies, wealth is displayed in a woman's jewellery and Tharu women wear lots of intricately worked silver as well as glass bangles and strings of glass beads.

Sunset over the Rapti River.

The new bridge across the River Rapti

Ghumna is located on the north of a large river and until this year contact with the villages to the south, and with India which is also to the south, had been limited due to the difficulty in crossing the river. Dugout canoes were the only way of getting across apart from in the dry season when wading was possible. With this bridge transport has become much easier, although the road on either side is still liable to be swept away in the annual floods.

Local transport.
There is now a ‘motorable road’ from the local market town to Ghumna village (although it would be called a rough track in Europe!) served by land rover-type jeeps which run every hour. With only one jeep an hour, space is limited – when we took the jeep, there were 15 people inside and about another 10 on the roof. Dangerous and not very comfortable, but much better than a one-hour walk!

This 3-wheeler runs along the main road to the market town.

Local scenes: Temple, Dumdumwa village. Tharu people are Hindu. This is the only specifically Tharu temple in the area. It is famous because the clay images of gods which are left there break into pieces on their own!

In October 2006, I visited Ghumna with a friend who sponsors Samjhana. We were invited to meet the parents of the sponsored children and present uniforms to the 7 girls who have just joined the sponsorship scheme and also to give notebooks and pencils to all the girls. Again, the parents were keen to thank everyone for their support.
This uniform ‘distribution ceremony’ is an important way to bring the parents of the sponsored girls into contact with the school. Illiterate people in Nepal tend to view school with awe – they feel that it is something for the privileged and that they have no right to be involved. The SWC tries to make school more accessible by involving the parents at all times; there is a Parent-Teachers association and parents, the SWC and children come together at these ceremonies to celebrate the children’s achievements.

New uniform

Although it is usually mothers who are involved in the school sponsorship scheme, fathers are also welcome. This dad came along to see his daughter receive her new school uniform.

Girls receive new notebooks and pencils twice a year.

Some of the sponsored children making Dashain cards for their sponsors. The SWC is aware that a culture of dependency can very easily develop if people appear to be given money for nothing. Making these cards reminds the children that they also have a responsibility to their sponsors!

Children's day 2006

The school celebrated International Children's Day on August 20 by organising a fun day for all the students

Children's day August 20 2006

Dashain and Tihar are Nepal’s 2 biggest Hindu festivals and they fall in October/November. At this time, families get together, sometimes traveling for days to get back to the family home and eat and drink and give presents. At Tihar, children and young people do ‘Bhailo’, something like carol singing in the UK – they go round each house in the village singing and dancing and are rewarded by a little rice and some money. This year, the sponsored girls made a group and learnt both traditional Tharu dances as well as more modern pop moves. They are going to spend the money they earnt on a picnic.

They say Happy Bijaya Dashami (Happy Dashain) to everyone who has sponsored them! As you can see from this card, it’s the year 2063 in Nepal!

This coloured powder is used in most, if not all, religious ceremonies – not only cows, but dogs, other farm animals, crows (if you can catch them!!) and vehicles are blessed at Tihar. On the most important day of the festival, bhai tika (brother's day) brothers and sisters also bless each other by using this powder to paint elaborate designs on each other’s foreheads. Sisters make sweets and food for their brothers and brothers give gifts of money and clothes.

One of the major days in Tihar is Laxmi puja, the festival of Laxmi, goddess of wealth. In urban areas houses are decorated with strings of fairy lights but in rural areas without much electricity traditional lamps are used. The lights are used to guide the goddess into the house and thus ensure prosperity for the coming year.

The SWC commissioned a local potter to make these lamps and committee members filled them with clarified butter. They were then sold in the village and in the nearby market town to raise money for the SWC. (2000 lamps at 4p each – enough to sponsor 2 girls!!).

Tihar festival is a series of festival days. On one day, the cow is celebrated as it is a sacred animal (as well as being the national animal of Nepal). The pink marks on this cow means that it has received a blessing.