ADWAN
When the dream breaks into pieces
Bulu Maya Shrestha is a member of Balkanya Women’s Group formed by ADWAN. She has been in the group for the last fifteen years.
Bulu has a big family. There are twelve members in her family. Two of her sons are abroad working in gulf countries. The family lost their house in the devastating earthquake which took place in 25 April 2015. Bulu did not only lose her house but her dream house.
The family dreamed a beautiful house and they built it which came true after twelve years. They had started collecting material every year since the last twelve years. Even small kids collected piece of woods to build their house. Bulu’s two sons who are working in gulf countries collected every single penny to build their house for big family. As a result, the house was about to finish when the devastating earthquake badly hit Nepal including Gorkha district. Bulu spent around 11 thousand dollar including loan.
After completing the house Bulu wanted to get her kids married in the same house. She had another dream to welcome her daughter in-law in the house. The whole family was very excited to see the new house. Bulu said (with tears on her eyes) “my son went far away from us in order to build this house; he was very excited to see this house. But this quake has taken away our dream. Now my son will never have a chance to see this house when he is back.”
The pain of losing her dream in front of her eyes was just impossible to explain, with just a blink of an eye she saw her house destroyed by herself. Despite the fact of losing her physical property Bulu is still happy because after all she was able to see her children, everybody in her family were able to survive and able to save their life.
Many days after quake nobody has dared to go back into the house. The food they have stored for next years has been rabbled inside the destroyed house. Bulu’s family still can’t dare to go inside and get it. “There was no choice than to endure this tragedy. No other choice than to survive and make my family strong. Not only mine but there are many others houses has been destroyed. If crying was the only option I would have still be crying but I have been very patience and strong enough to cope with the situation” says Bulu.
Beside the fear caused by the quake and its numerous aftershocks Bulu and her family has initiated to create a small temporary hut themselves since they have not waited any government and non-government support. “We have small kids at house, before they suffer, we have tried to make small shelter as monsoon is approaching near” said Bulu Maya.
There are many emergency relief support has been going on in the villages. Taklung village is one of them. The village District Committee (VDC) has been distributing relief materials to the households. They have received relief materials like some noodles, biscuits but it was not sufficient. Bulu was very happy and thanked ADWAN for the relief material they provided. “ADWAN has provided us the best support based on the current needs. They have provided us some necessary and immediate food items like rice, lentil, vegetables like potato, oil, Sugar etc. ADWAN’s relief effort is great and we would face lots of challenges if ADWAN wouldn’t have provided this support” says Bulu Maya and her family.
Being one of the members of the women’s group Bulu shared her expectations from the organisation (ADWAN) at the end. She Said “The current priorities for us is to rebuild the house, I know ADWAN only may not be able to support building the house for each one of us. I am not the only person facing this difficulty, this tragedy, there are so many families like me on the other ground but I would like to request the organisation to support in rebuilding my house and help us in recovering from this difficult situation”.