Last year one of the Trust’s volunteers at the start of a return stint in Nepal was told by one of the children how she looked much better than on her previous visit, adding that she was now “so much fatter”. The subject of a lady’s weight is not a taboo subject over here and no one, even a stranger, seems to be inhibited about broaching the subject. A friend once told me how she had been asked at a Kathmandu police vehicle checkpoint how she could be so fat while her husband (who was behind the wheel) was so thin. Similar intrusive comments are reported in an article in this month’s edition of the locally-published UN Women’s Organisation in Nepal journal “The Mirror”. A Nepali lady, who has spent a great deal of time abroad, tells how she was once asked “kasto dublo, jugako ausahdi khannoopurryo?” (you are so thin, have you tried de-worming?). She added that fat people can expect comments like “Alee kum khanee gurra, sungur jasto motayero phootnoo aateeyow” which translates as “better start eating less, you are fat like a pig, you might just burst”.
This all could be construed as being merely an amusing, quaint lack of subtlety. But worryingly from a childcare provider’s point of view, I feel it also reflects a huge lack of sensitivity in this pass-remarkable, unsophisticated society. Our goal of integrating disabled children and young people with mainstream society and reintegrating the survivors of trafficking and sexual abuse becomes all the more challenging in this milieu. At the end of the day, there’s only so much that we can do.
