No Transportation
K’s wife, N, was alone at home most of the year after her son left to study at a private school in a nearby town, and her husband worked at a hotel some distance away. Their new house was only a year old. K had three brothers whose families lived nearby and all three brothers had jobs which kept them away from home. N, who had four sisters and a brother, married K when she was 18 and had her son a year later. She had learned how to sew when she was younger and had gone on to master the trade. “I keep getting orders to sew clothes. It keeps me busy and I earn a little, too,” she said, pointing to the sewing machine covered with cloth lying outside the door of their old home. Apart from sewing clothes, she took care of their cow, buffalo and the small piece of land they used for growing grains, radish and tomato. She still had to buy food from the market as the produce at home wasn’t enough to feed everyone.
A modern toilet had been constructed outside their house, but N said that they had not received government aid to build it. The electricity supply was regular, and although they owned a gas cylinder for cooking, she used a firewood stove most of the time instead. When we asked N what had changed the most from when she was newly married, she laughed and said, “Nothing much has changed. But we have built a new house.”