20,000 families. Even in the best of
times, human kindness is fragile. How
could it weather ten years of war?
If Menuka had the answer, I was
listening. As we waited for the day’s
ceremony to begin, she chatted eagerly,
establishing that we had the same
favorite color. We both have young
daughters. She married at 16 and
moved in with her husband’s family. “I
imagined my husband and I would be
the two wheels of a cart,” she said, but
five years later, when she was pregnant
with their third child, her husband
died. “My mother-in-law made me
wash the teeka from my hair, and told
me that as a widow I could never wear
red again. No bright colors.”
Widows here don’t remarry. A hus-
band’s death is the next thing to it for
his wife. Her community sees her as
bad luck; drab clothing broadcasts her
shame. For widows like Menuka, it also
broadcasts vulnerability and the risk of
sexual assault. Nevertheless, at 21 she
adjusted to a lifetime without color.
“My life was ended.”
I know no other way to be alive than
to keep listening, even to stories as sad
as this. But should I stop hoping that
somewhere the story will be different?
The people of Menuka’s village are
seasonal agricultural workers, joined
by the common ground of poverty.
They have no doors that lock, hardly a
possession beyond the handfuls of rice
stirred into each day’s meal. And still
they could find a way to divide them-
selves into haves
and have-nots.
Married women os-
tracized widows.
High-caste families
still spurned those of
lower caste. Before
meeting Menuka,
I’d talked with an el-
derly widow named
Dhana Bishow-
Karma, an “untouch-
able.” She never let
her shadow fall on
anyone. In shops, she
paid by tossing rupees
without touching the owners’ hands.
In the embrace of two old women
holding each other, I saw the
architecture of human grace.
and our wars. Schoolchildren scramble
for classroom supplies while luxury accumulates around corporate heads. If
we had no other currency for privilege,
I’m sure that we, too, would make rules
about shadows, and hoard color.
During the long drive to this village,
I’d discussed my doubts with a Nepali
staff member from Heifer International, the development organization that
had worked here through roadblocks
and revolution. Its mission is to train
communities to become self-reliant
through raising livestock or other
means. Yes, she agreed, bridging that
gap between rich and poor is complex.
Material support alone—simply having
more—is not the
answer. “It won’t
really change
the situation unless people have
changed them-
GOOD FOR TUNE
A widow of the
highest caste
receives a gift of
livelihood and
independence.
tourist complain scornfully about
our hotel. Privilege begets privilege.
That very morning I had tied a red
scarf on my head without a thought.
Now my scalp burned as I listened to
Menuka explaining how she’d lost that
color forever.
When Menuka’s husband died, her
bereft mother-in-law began attending
meetings of the Milan Mahila Samuha,
or Women’s Togetherness Group. With
guidance from the Heifer development staff, they devised a livelihood-improvement plan. They would raise
meat goats. The first women to receive
the animals pledged to pass some of
their goats’ offspring to other members, renewing the cycle until every
villager had a source of income.
This was the story that had intrigued
me: how did Heifer outlast the storms
of war? The trick was to create material
assistance from inside a village itself,
rather than from far away. I wanted
to believe it could work, but had to
ask: Would some cheat? Don’t lower-caste families get left out? I hated my
skepticism, but that was the question
I’d asked Bishow-Karma. “I am the
lowest of untouchables,” she said, “so
of course I was afraid to go to a meeting, at first. Where would I sit? But the
women who helped organize us were
very open-minded about untouchable
people. They spoke right to me! And
little by little, high-caste women would
share their feelings and even take food
together with me. This was beyond my
imagination. We (CONTINUED ON PAGE 73)
