Thank you for correcting us, we’ve made the change. We appreciate your critical eye!

Jill Ryan, Here & Now

Having recently returned from my third visit to Nepal as a volunteer with the courageous intelligent grassroots young human and health care activists and HIV/AIDS prevention and care providers of the Blue Diamond Society (BDS) for sexual and gender minorities, I was very moved to hear Dr. Sangeeta Mishra. “Hear and Now’s” preparation, questions and comments and Dr. Mishra’s sharing and spirit gave, in my opinion, the most comprehensive snapshot possible in such a short time.

In all our cultures, those who are “marginalized” such as women and sexual minorities, suffer great consequences. In a terribly poor country, almost all are
“marginalized” with regard to what we take for granted (adequate food, clean water, electricity, shelter, employment). Nepal has also to deal with the history of caste discrimination. The people are not unintelligent, and their capacity for hard work and endurance, even resilience, is beyond what most of us Americans could imagine or comprehend.

As noted in the program, Nepal experienced more than a decade of civil war. “People power” succeeded in removing the monarchy, but the multi-party parliament has a huge task in reaching agreement to create a democratic constitution and have in the meantime a stable government for the people.

Dr. Mishra was modest and also forthright about how privileged she is to have her education. In addition we should understand that overall Nepal does not have the numbers of doctors and nurses that are needed, let alone with the broad cultural and compassionate understanding and commitment she has. (In the USA we have the numbers, but not enough dedicated to serve our poor and marginalized, especially in the absence of an equitable cost-effective health care system.)

Not a physician or nurse myself, I had never heard the term “prolapsed uterus” (descent of the uterus into or beyond the vagina) until asking a rural health assistant about the problems for the 10,000 people he served. Women give birth and go back immediately to their backbreaking work (e.g. hill farming, wood or boulder gathering for construction). What consequences.

Its girls and women. And boys and men who work to survive. Many children lose a parent (usually the father) for long stretches for emigration to seek work abroad is out of desperation – especially in wanting to be able to provide education as well as basic human needs.

My young friends, most who have been physically and sexually abused as well as deprived of education and employment because of their sexualities, are reaching their poor and illiterate peers in just the ways Dr. Mishra described for rural women.

Those of us who have been fortunate to know the Nepali people – comprised of so many cultural, ethnic, language groups – not only have great love for them. We are
enriched by their spirits. To hear the interview with Dr. Mishra was an example of that.

“Namaste!”