Dichi Bhotia Tells Her Story
Dichi Bhotia is a student in the Residential Schooling Program of our partner organization the Nepal Bhotia Education Center. She wrote her story in Nepali (her second language) and it was translated by Anita Paudel in our Nepal office.
I was born 19 years ago in a very remote village called Hatiya. I was born to Mrs. Kasum Bhotia. I grew up in the place where I was born. I don't know how I looked like when I was small but I recall I used to live in a shed. I preferred to live in shed until I grew big. I never could identify my mother when I was very young because my stepmother also lived with us both the mothers loved me very much. As I grew bigger other people told me that I was born to a younger mother. My mother always went to work for the whole day and used to come after getting dark when I was already asleep. I used to be under the care of the elder mother.
I have five brothers from both the mothers. When two brothers just started to walk they fell sick nevertheless my mothers went to work leaving them behind. My brothers got seriously ill, and my father took them to the witchcrafts but it didn't work and at last they were taken to the hospital at the village but there were no doctors and still there are no doctors at the hospital. There was one helper at the hospital who examined and gave the medicines. Even so they got worse after taking the medicine. The villagers thinking that it was because of the medicine they again took them to the witchcraft but all the effort went in vain. Both my brothers passed away, I was just 6 or 7 years at that time.
After the passing away of them I had leisure so I was assigned to look after my cousin brother while at school, he was of my brothers age and my aunt feared that he might fall down on the way to and from school and also he might be beaten up. Fortunately the teachers put my name down on the register. I studied for the year and I could get through however my cousin brother failed, I told it to my father and he told me to continue to study. My big father brought books for me and I happily started going to school even so I could not be regular to school because I had to do lots of work at home. I was not good at the household stuffs so I was always assigned to go to the cowshed and study. I liked to stay in the shed since I lived in the shed from the very young age.
When I studied in the village I used to go to school from the shed and return back to the shed, it was only during the lunch break I used to go home and get the things I needed at the shed. When I returned to the shed after school I cleaned the cow-dung, did milking and all the work for cow. I didn't have the habit to study after school and I could not be regular at school especially on Fridays when there were workers on the farm. And when I stayed at home also I had to do my the household chores and I used to have other general works that hindered me from my studies. That way I could get through class 5 and my village have only primary level education. My mother and my grandmother suggested me to stop studying whereas my father told me to study further.
Fortunately, my father met Chhongduk Sir who was searching for the girl students to help them pursue their education further. I went to Khandbari with my father and he returned back to the village after arranging me for my studies. I stayed at the hostel and started going to Shree High School. I stayed at the hostel of Nepal Bhotia Education Centre. There were other 10 girls like me to whom we got a chance to know each other. In the beginning we are confused about our sittings, I had two friends and we started to sit together in the last bench. When the teacher came they used to ask for our introduction but we could not speak Nepali and when we started to speak all the students used to laugh and even sir used to laugh. Moreover we didn't even understand the teacher's teaching. We didn't understand Nepali language there was no question of understanding what the teacher taught. We didn't have toilet in our village, we were very much shy to use the toilet at school. Once three of us went to the boys toilet because we never knew that boys and girls have separate toilets, after that the boys started teasing us saying the girls going to boys toilet. We missed our parents very much and during the lunch time all the friends of the same village gathered and we went to the start of the path to our village and cried. That is how we spent the school year.
It was time for us to appear for the examination. The school was very big and the classes were also big, there was a seating arrangement for one student in one bench. We were so nervous and could not write what we knew and we even trembled to write our own name. We just wrote our name in the answer paper and submitted as a result I failed. So that I had to had to repeat class 6. But next year I could easily get through.
That time we had a teacher called Tsinki at hostel, she use to teach Mathematics very nicely, we could understand her teaching very well that's why I found Mathematics easy. I use to score highest marks in Mathematics until class 6, 7 and 8. Tsinki Miss was a very good teacher. When Tsinki teacher left the hostel I started to find difficulty in Mathematics. Later in class 9 I failed in Mathematics yet I was promoted to class 10 but in class 10 I failed again. To pass in that subject I had to spend more time in comparison to the other subjects, If I studied just half an hour the other subjects I practiced mathematics for an hour. I think I need coaching class to overcome the difficulty in this subject.
I don't have a definite idea what am I going to be in the future since there is no trend to educate a girl child like me in the remote area, there is a general thinking that girl can't do anything though they are educated. I feel like I will work to abolish such thinking and to educate girls and help them to move forward by the help of my knowledge and skill. I wish that other girls like me also be educated. I will work as a teacher to make the girls of the remote areas towards light and I also feel like being a doctor and serving the villagers. It is obvious that the villagers strongly believe in ghostly spirit because there are no doctors in the hospital. It is just like a cover without the matter inside. There is no doctor no nurse but just a guard and he does the every work of there. Yet the villagers don't go to the hospital when they fall sick because their illness gets worse after taking medicine, they go to the witchcraft for the treatment yet their illness is not cured, for example the patient of tuberculosis is not cured by the medicine of witchcraft like my two brothers, they have to lose their lives. Now I realize that my brothers were died from pneumonia and typhoid, I was too small to know about it. Other children like my brothers have also died out of such diseases. I feel like studying medicine and cure such patients in front of the villagers. And the next aim is to be a teacher and bring light to the lives of the children like me. I want to make the people of my village educated and develop my place. It is difficult to develop such a big village alone that's why I wish the other girls also to be educated like me so that the number of educated girls will be more and the parents also will be aware to educate their girl children.