Sorry plight of HIV affected orphan

GAIRAGAUN, Doti, May 23: Neighborhood children his age go to school with pen and books but 11-year-old Bahadur Singh Raut instead goes out in search of work with a spade on hand.



The orphan misses majority of his classes at Shree Bhageshwar Primary School in Gairagaun-7, Chawala as he has to earn daily bread for his 80-year-old grandmother Lali Devi. He has been living with his grandmother for seven years after his mother died of AIDS, a year after his father fell victim to the disease. [break]



“Granny is very old and may pass away any day. I won´t have anybody to live with then,” Bahadur rues. “Her elderly allowance is providing some relief now but even that will stop if she dies,” he adds.



The minor, who passed the third grade this year, is mulling quitting school due to financial hardship. “Admission fee and books come for free but I have to buy pens, notebooks and school uniform. I can´t afford to spend on them when I am facing difficulty in even buying rice,” he reasons.



The Rauts have a small piece of land but it remains barren because there is no one to work the land. “We could at least have grown some food, if someone had helped to plow it. And may be I could continue my study,” he says.



“He (Bahadur) is a sharp kid and is good in studies. But he rarely comes to school as he cannot pay for pens, exercise books and uniform and also has to work to make ends meet,” says his teacher Lok Raj Joshi. Joshi adds there are more children in the village who have had either of their parent dead due to AIDS but Bahadur is the hardest hit.



An assistant health worker at the primary health center at Gairagaun, Lalbabu Yadav, says there are 36 such children affected by the disease in the village. “The menfolk go to India for work and bring back the disease,” Yadav explains.



Bahadur´s grandmother is worried about his plight after her impending death. “One (person of her age) waits for death to be free of all tensions but I am worried about his plight,” she concedes.



Bahadur complains that everybody demeans him as he doesn´t have parents. “Everybody´s father comes home from India during Dashain and Tihar to celebrate the festivities. I feel lonely,” he states.



He also doesn´t even know whether he has HIV. “I had once gone to the hospital for blood test with the village head, but they sent me back saying the test can´t be done before the age of 15,” he says.

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