Plight of Balmaya in Gorkha

 

Balmaya Pariyar is one of the members of ADWAN’s women group in Taklung Gorkha. She has been actively involved in the group for the last ten years.

 

Like many other villagers Balmaya also completely lost her house during the earthquake which stroked Nepal on April 25. When the first quake took place she was in the front yard of her house. She explains that suddenly she felt the badly shakes and she was unconscious for a while. When she opened her eyes the house was destroyed.

 

Then she started looking her children around and luckily she found them safe and unhurt. She took a long breath. After the first quake she was not like a normal person for the next few days as she was traumatized and stressed. She says that her state of mind was not functioning properly as she saw the most of the houses in the villages were destroyed. The continued aftershocks made Balmaya even more serious and she thought that she would die any time or what will happen next. Nothing was functional in the village. Market was closed, offices were closed, there was no movement of people and situation was very strange. She thought that she would not survive any more. The small portion of the food stored in the house was buried and destroyed within the house. She was more worried about her five children as they didn’t have food to eat. 

 

As days passed by everyone in the village including Balmaya was desperately waiting for the relief materials from the government and other organization but no one appear in the village. We heard that some relief materials came to the district headquarter but again we didn’t get anything says Balmaya. She further adds that it may be because we were Dalit and we are never prioritized in the list of government. After some days Balmaya and her family received some immediate relief support from the village development committee which was again not enough. Balmaya thanks to ADWAN who provided relief materials such as rice, lentil, blanket, oil etc. which helped them to survive until these days. “I will never forget in my life the support provided by ADWAN. Wecan’t imagine if we didn’t receive any support from ADWAN. Therefore, once again thank you ADWAN fory our support in this difficult time” Said Balmaya.

 

There is long way to go and get recovered from this situation. Like other villages Balmaya is much more worried about her temporary shelter and how she can build her house. Government has announced some support but Balmaya is pessimistic about getting the support for many reasons. Even if they get something from the government it is not sufficient to build temporary shelter. Balmaya says that the relief is only for those people who can fight and have access to the government. Bolmaya has seven members in the family and her husband is a patient of diabetics. In this situation she is worried about her five children who would suffer from not having food, clothes, shelter and livelihood. “We have survived from the quake but we are not sure if you can still manage to build our house again” said Balmaya Pariyar (with tears on her eyes)

 

Many families in Taklung are living under the temporary shelter which is made with tent and tarpaulins. As monsoon is about to hit the village people are extremely worried about their life.