Landmine survivor eyeing career as beautician

KATHMANDU, April 2: Soft-spoken Sunita Ghale grew up watching her caring father struggle to raise his seven children in Thaljung village of Ghermo-8, Lamjung district.



Sunita had a single dream as a schoolgirl: one day she would head for a foreign land and make enough money to be able to ask her father to stop toiling in his farm and spend his remaining years in leisure. [break]She had seen grown-ups from her village send money from abroad allowing the elderly in the village afford retirement from physical work in old age.







But things didn’t quite work out that way for Sunita, now 22. Today a new, less ambitious, dream has replaced the old one: becoming a beautician to stop being a burden on her father.



Sunita lost her right leg after accidentally stepping on a landmine laid on the grassland behind Lamjung’s army barracks on May 14, 2007.



Abandoned now by her husband to whom she got married just a year before the accident, Sunita is now taking training at Angel Beauty Parlor in Bangemudha to become a beautician.



“Physical disability forces one to dream small,” said the simple village girl who is now dealing with complicated and harsh realities of life. “My husband has distanced himself from me. My old folks see me as a burden as they had married me off. All I want now is to stop being a burden on anyone.”



A MOMENT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING



In May, 2007, Sunita left her husband’s house in Manang to spend her last few weeks in Nepal with her parents in Lamjung before leaving for foreign employment. The plan, that never materialized, was to head for Kathmandu later that month where she would meet her husband who was arranging a job for her in the Gulf.



In the morning of May 14, Sunita went to a local forest with four of her friends to collect mushroom, her favorite curry. As a kid, she had toured the forest quite often looking for mushroom that grows there in abundance.




“We lost our way in the forest and eventually reached the backyard of the army barracks,” said Sunita, who now walks on an artificial limb. “The trail to my house stretched in front of the barracks. But the barracks was surrounded by barbed wire and we didn’t know how to reach the trail.”



There was a signboard erected over the grassland they were treading on. It probably read DANGER. But letters on the signboard had faded so badly from rain and sun that they were difficult to read.



Sunita and her friends approached the barracks to ask army personnel how to reach the trail. Before any army personnel came in sight, Sunita heard a loud explosion that seemed to tear her body apart.



“I felt numbness in my legs and arms. Before passing out, I sensed that my right leg was badly hurt,” she said.



When she regained consciousness in the evening, she was at the Army Hospital in Chaunni. She was told by doctors that she had been airlifted to the hospital, had undergone surgery, and was out of danger.



“It was then I felt I couldn’t move my right leg. Doctors told me that they had to remove my right leg to save me. I was an amputee,” she said.



Sunita spent three months at the hospital, struggling to come to terms with her amputation. Her husband came to see her once, but hasn’t done that ever since. In those three months, she often saw her brothers, sisters-in-law, father and mother whisper among themselves. She understood that she had become a burden on the family.



It was only after she received an artificial leg from International Committee of the Red Cross that she felt she wasn’t totally finished with life.



JUST ONE JOB TO FREEDOM



Sunita says she needs one job to get back her freedom. And she is doing everything she can to make sure that she gets one.



“I can walk properly and, to those unaware of what happened to me, look normal wearing socks that hide my artificial leg,” she said. “But the artificial limb causes bruises on my knee quite regularly when I have to walk long distances.”



Her biggest fear today is that the limb may hamper her efficiency as a beautician as the job requires one to stand for long hours while attending to customers. But she is improvising her standing posture so that it doesn’t become a problem. And she is using extra cushions these days to protect her knee from bruises.



The job is the best hope for the girl who dropped out of the Shree Chandrodaya School in Lamjung after completing the eighth grade. She dropped out after losing zeal for studies following repeated closures of the school by local Maoists. And she lost her leg from a landmine laid by the state army.



“I could spend the rest of my life blaming the Maoists as well as the state army for what I have become. But I won’t do that,” said Sunita. “And I won’t force my husband to take responsibility of me. He has a whole life ahead of him.”



She is sure the training at the beauty parlor will land her somewhere.



“I have to consider myself lucky on at least one count,” said the girl who lives in Gongabu with her elder brother. “I don’t have a baby. All it takes is one small job and I’ll be on my own.”



(SURVIVOR is a series of personal stories about people who survived life-threatening situations such as accidents, terminal illnesses, crossfire and other tragedies. Under this section, we intend to cover stories of people who have refused to give up. We hope the stories will inspire people who have faced similar tragedies to take on life´s challenges and emerge as winners.)



(All photos by Bikash Karki.)



bikash@myrepublica.com