Pumdibhumdi, Kaski

At the end of the monsoon, the farmers living in the small scattered villages of Pumdibhumdi are growing rice on the terraced hills.
Daal bhat, rice with lentils, is the favourite dish of all Nepalis. Served with pickles made of all kinds of vegetables, it makes a spicy and tasty meal.

Houses in the Western Hills of Nepal are usually made of stone with slate roofs. The kitchen and bedrooms are on the ground floor whereas the upper floor is used for storage.
If there is no fieldwork to do, people spend a lot of their time sitting outside on the veranda fulfilling their daily chores like grinding grains, weaving baskets, etc.

Passing through the paddy-fields, the way down to the bus stop on the Butwal-Pokhara highway is almost scenic. However, during the monsoon there are bloodthirsty leeches all over the place, so taking a rest here is not such a good idea!

Dil Kumari Baral, 25, runs a small shop in Lukunswara together with her mother-in-law Apsara, 67.
Dil Kumari spent part of her youth in India where her father used to join the army. However, she likes living in the Nepalese countryside. The only thing the place is missing in her opinion is a road connecting the village to the highway.

Together with her mother-in-law, Tukumaya, 57, Dipa Baral, 22, is doing fieldwork.
Dipa's biggest dream is to work as a motivator in a women's project and give training to uneducated women. She says she has already contacted a project in Pokhara and is planning to start when her daughter is a little older.

Like other young married women, Laxmi Baral, 22, helps her mother-in-law with the housework and in the fields. At the time, she has to go grass-cutting one or two times a day. She also looks after the cattle.
Laxmi's husband and her brother-in-law both go to college in Pokhara. Laxmi, who dropped out of school when she got married, feels happy staying with her new family and her 10-months old daughter.

Desmaya Gurung, 24, lives close to Pokhara. Today, she has brought her children to give a last visit to their grandparents.
Desmaya tells us that she is moving to India the day after. Her husband, an Indian Army soldier, is already waiting there for his young family who will stay with him for the next 3 years.

Saraswati KC, 19, is on her way to Pokhara's PN College. She has already put on her black and white college dress.
College education is regarded as essential among the Brahmin and Chhetri families in Pumdibhumdi, so both sons and daughters are sent to study.
Saraswati, who is in her second IA year, would like to become a nurse later.

Man Kumari KC, 45, is the mother of five daughters between the age of 2 and 13 years. She and her husband Tej Bahadur, 35, live toghether with her parents-in-law.
As Man Kumari was never sent to school, she makes sure that her daughters attend school regularly. She wants all of them to get a higher education and hopes they will be able to afford it.

Kalpana Baral, 27, is looking after her smallest child while she is preparing lunch. At daytime, she shares her the house- and fieldwork with her parents-in-law, while her husband works as a salesman in Pokhara and her two older sons are in kindergarden.

Sangita Nepali, 21, is originally from Pokhara and moved to Kalabang 3 years ago when her parents arranged her marriage to Raju, 27. Currently Raju works as a security guard in Malaysia, so Sangita lives alone with her in-laws.
Belonging to an untouchable caste, Sangita says she would like to be a social worker in her village fighting superstition and trying to raise the status of the lower caste people.

Bet Kumari Paudel, 27, and her mother-in-law Lalmati Paudel, 51, do most of their daily work together.
Bet Kumari sees her husband Dami Ram only once every 2 years as he has got a job in "Arab". Thanks to the money he sends, Bet Kumari can send her 2 children to Westpoint Boarding School where teaching is much better in her opinion than in the public schools.

Vishnu Maya Paudel, 23, lives in a large house in Kalabang with her husband's parents, his brothers and their families.
Vishnu Maya's husband Risi Ram works as a cook in Bombay. Last year she spent 8 months with him, but she decided o go back to Nepal when she got pregnant. However, she is planning to go to India again once her 2 children are a little bigger.

Elisa Baral, 17, has just started college in Pokhara. She studies English and Nepali and wants to go for a bachelor degree. After graduation she would love to work as a teacher.
Elisa still lives her parents who are both farmers and have never been to school. She helps as much as she can with the work at home, eg she is cutting grass, looking after the buffalos and doing housework.

Sita Baral, 20, visits her parents and her grandmother Sumitra, 65, in Kalabang.
Sita lives in Pokhara where she rents a room together with her younger brother Mahendra. She studies sociology and Nepali in PN Campus.
Even though Sita belongs to the Brahmin caste, she takes an interest in development problems of lower caste people and thus would like to become a social worker.

Hiku Maya Gurung (here with her mother Mankala Gurung, 54), who is 32 years old, now lives with her parents in Anadu on the shore of Fewatal.
After she divorced her Pokhara husband, she went to Kuwait and worked there as a housemaid for 3 years. Hiku Maya has finally convinced her parents that working abroad is nothing bad for women, so now she thinks about going again, this time to Hongkong!

Uma Gurung, 16, shares a small house in Anadu with her mother and 4 younger siblings.
When her father, a fisherman, died half a year ago, he left his family in some financial trouble. Though Uma is not sure if she would like to go away from Anadu, she dreams of taking a job abroad and making enough money to support her family.

The Photographs