On a lazy afternoon stroll along a dusty track in Babiya Birta, a village in Morang district, a window of a one-room structure caught my eye. For me, that picture has come to summarize the challenge for Nepal, reducing the complexity to a simple truth that fits easily within the frame of a window.
It was a simple window, cut out in the middle of a room-like structure located behind a rice mill. The structure had no doors or windows, just empty cut-out spaces.
Inside there was a pot on boil over a low burning flame. Somebody was eating inside but that was not first visible to me from the window. It was only when I went to take a look inside that I realized somebody was sitting on the floor eating.
The person didn’t notice me steal a peek. He ate alone, quietly, sitting cross-legged on a cement floor, hunched over his plate with the concentration of man who knew he had something else to do. When he finished, he got up with ease in one unbroken motion, picked his plate and walked over to the hand well pump outside. He rinsed his plate and left it there to dry. Then he disappeared into the rice mill, which had just started up again because electricity supply had resumed.
BISHAL THAPA
He must have timed his lunch with the load shedding schedule. In the Birta area, electricity alternates between three hours on and three hours off. Even when the grid does supply, the voltage is so low that half the grinders in the mill don’t run anyway. Clearly, he had no reason to rush lunch.
On the window of the one-room structure was an improvised kerosene lamp fashioned out of an old quarter sized whisky bottle. A hole had been broken through the cap. The wick had been laced through and lay half soaked in kerosene.
The village development committee of Babiya Birta is about 25 km east of Biratnagar. Around 15,000 people live there; approximately 2,500 families scattered in permanent or semi-permanent houses throughout the area.
Like many other places in Nepal, this dusty little town has an eerie feeling of being empty. The young men have all left for work abroad. Nobody is quite sure if those that remain are simply an unfortunate lot or hooligans who don’t want to work for a living.
All of the homes are connected to the grid. But there is hardly any supply from the grid. About a quarter have installed small solar systems, which are part financed by subsidy from the government. Another quarter of the homes have battery backup systems that use the grid to recharge the battery. As the kerosene lamp suggests, these makeshift solutions are not adequate.
Alongside the kerosene lamp was a stainless steel cup. It was empty. It was likely used for drinking water or possibly tea, though I saw none of the paraphernalia for making tea.
There is no municipal water supply. Those that can afford it rely on hand well pumps. Most in Birta can afford it. But the water table has been shrinking. These days the boring has to be much deeper to strike water. Several tests have confirmed trace amounts of arsenic in the water. But nobody bothers much about it. Finding a water source for household use is all that matters.
Despite the electricity and water shortages, people still find reason to be happy. There is ample laughter and smiles; except, all of the smiles reveal a greyish coat around the teeth from the strong iron content in the water. One way to tell a local apart from a visitor is from the color of their teeth.
Drinking water is the smaller problem. Water for irrigation is the larger challenge, a point that I had discovered the previous night.
I had lost my way when I drove into Birta the previous night. Nobody travels those parts at night, especially not someone who might need driving directions. But the Limbuwan banda (strike) across the eastern parts of the country had forced me to reschedule my journey. Fortunately, the banda allowed vehicular traffic after 5 pm and I arrived at the country roads of Birta late at night.
I drove on a road alongside the canal for a long time. I would later learn that was the wrong canal to follow. I looked around for someone who could point me towards my destination. But it was close to midnight. Nothing stirred. Much later I spotted a single beam of a motorcycle driving up. It moved in spurts, driving on for a bit, then stopping, driving again, then stopping.
There were two men on the motorcycle. They were driving along the canal to check where it had been barricaded, where it had been cut, which field was being irrigated, which was being left fallow. In urban areas, residents get up at three in the morning to switch on their water pumps to snatch the municipal supply that arrives at that hour. In rural areas, men move stealthily under the cover of darkness seeking water for their fields.
From the window of that one room structure I saw an open fire inside. A pot with a lid was perched on a traditional three-legged stove. The bottom of the pot had been coated with a layer of mud to make it easier to remove soot from the fire. But that had apparently not prevented it from being charred over time.
About 10 percent of the homes in the area have installed biogas plants, which uses animal manure to generate cooking gas. A few use gas cylinders. The rest of the homes are reliant on nature, foraging for pieces of wood, agricultural waste and anything that burns. Even those that have installed biogas plants have to supplement their cooking energy needs with other sources of fuel.
Life in Babiya Birta is spent securing water and energy.
If we only provided water for drinking and irrigation, energy for lighting and cooking, people can take care of themselves.
Every year Nepal’s development programs are laced with billions of rupees for investment in roads and highways, health and education, peace keeping and governance, and many other programs. The development community layers in another thick round of investments on institutional support, reforms, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation. There are countless reports on livelihood strategies and programs that are extensively designed to ensure that the poor will rise from their poverty.
All of our development investments are invariably geared at helping people seek decent livelihood, educate their children, build their homes and manage their health. We presume how they will live and design programs expecting them to respond accordingly.
If we only provided water for drinking and irrigation, energy for lighting and cooking, we might be surprised to discover that people will find their own ways to take care of themselves. They will educate and vaccinate themselves, treat the sick, build roads, link it to markets, establish institutions and govern themselves.
The poor don’t need programs designed to help them get out of poverty. They need water and energy—they’ll take care of the rest.
bishal_thapa@hotmail.com
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