Undergraduate / My village and its customs that changed my life! [25]

Kaudena, a village located at the south of Nepal, is the place where my mother was married at the tender age of 16. It is located in a very rural area and barely has any facilities that the capital Kathmandu has. During my childhood, I had to frequently see my mother in the hospital. I would talk to her often and I remember promising her that I would become a doctor one day so I could 'fix' her. As a child, I was always curious as to what was giving my mother so much pain. One day, on asking the psychiatrist who treated my mother, I discovered that the cause of her illness cause was the shock she received on getting married at the early age.

One of my visits to Kaudena, turned out to be the most life changing. I almost became a child bride myself at the age of 13, when my grandfather insisted I must be married offer but my father thought otherwise. He wanted me to have a better future than the other girls from our village. He wanted me to have the freedom to choose my husband even though my parents were a result of an advanced marriage themselves. I remember thinking to myself how different people there were from anyone I had met in Kathmandu. I found myself in a state of mind that maybe my mother felt when she was my age. I knew I didn't want that for myself.

My father was the first generation to discontinue the tradition which was ritually passed on from one generation to the next. He wanted something more for me too. He has always tended to help the family regardless of where he was in his work. He has always been supportive of my ambitions and I feel grateful to him for the decision he took going against the society's value to educate me. When my mother frequently visited hospital because of the depression and anxiety attacks, my father would prepare meals, clean the house, wash clothes, and stich my torn school dresses so that I did not have to miss my school. He is what made me who I am today. I will make my father feel proud on me in the near future.

The day I overheard the conversation between my father and grandfather, and considering what had happened to my mother, I became determined that in the days to come, I would bring the girls of my village in the new light of educational and economic prosperity so that they would not undergo psychological disorders as my mom did, so that they would not hear about their marriage at their teenage as I did. I have an ambition to uplift the poor economy of villages such as my own and take the villagers out of the cycle of poverty in which they are bound to live in today.

I have been working for Hoste Hainse for the past two and a half years. Tutoring the poor children of the NGO gives me a sense of inner satisfaction. Last summer, the same program helped me to revisit Kaudena, but this time I went there with an intention of spreading awareness among local community about the impacts of early marriage. With the education and experiences I wish to receive I want to someday work for societies such as mine.

I like to think I have already started my journey....