Gordon says: “I saw hundreds of these massive concrete electric cable posts, snapped in two like match sticks. You can imagine what the storm did to thatch homes and the families that lived in them.”

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The sun has barely risen over the arid fields of Chediya, a village inhabited by one of the poorest and most neglected groups in Nepal. Known as Kamaiya, the people here are former bonded labourers. For generations, the Kamaiya had to work under slave-like conditions on plantations to repay debts that had been passed from one generation to another.Most of them remained illiterate and were never certain when, or if, their debt had been paid off. As a result, they remained in perpetual servitude. The system is deeply rooted in the complex caste system in Nepal which discriminates against groups identified as “untouchable” by higher castes.As we walk around the dirt track that runs through the village, flanked by simple clay dwellings, Virendra Singh Thaguna, programme manager with the International Rescue Committee, says that despite a government ban on bonded labour in 2000, life for the Kamaiya has hardly improved.

“Like here in Chediya, they have been given temporary land by the government,” he says. “But the houses are very bad and the land is infertile and unattractive.”

The bank of the Karnali River is just a stone’s throw away and every year the 4,000 people here are forced by seasonal flooding to leave their houses and sleep out in the open in a nearby forest. Poverty is rampant and many of the villagers see no other option but to go back and work for their former landlords for a pittance.

“The government freed these people without a back-up plan, Virendra sighs. “They have very few options now.”

The IRC has tried to make life easier for the villagers by setting up small-scale vegetable gardens and distributing household articles and livestock, such as goats.
 
Ramkrishni Tharu, a woman in her late 40s who lives in a mud hut with a straw roof, was released from her landlord only three years ago. During her years in servitude, she received small rations of food and rudimentary shelter in return for backbreaking work in her employer’s fields.

“We were often beaten by our landlord,” Ramkrishni tells me. “When we were finally freed I moved to this place. I cut bamboo and collected mud and the men helped me construct this house. I have very little money but at least I can decide over my own life.”

Ramkrishni makes less than two dollars per day, mainly by transporting heavy loads on her back for the local farmers. She grows a small vegetable garden outside her house and an IRC-donated goat is grazing in the shrubs. The villagers will breed the animals and share them with the community, Virendra explains. 

Although desperately poor, the community has seen many things change for the better. A large communal vegetable garden is providing much-needed additional food for the most needy.

The IRC has helped Chediya’s inhabitants organize themselves in a village council, which is
debating and organizing the development of the community. “This is very important for us,” says the
council chairman, Raju Choudri. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC

And with the assistance of the IRC, Chediya’s inhabitants are now organised in a village council, which is debating and organising the development of the community. Virendra tells me that its members, who have been elected by the people of Chediya, have just gone through an IRC training programme where they were taught bookkeeping and how to write formal proposals for funding, which will be submitted to the local government and aid groups.

“This is very important for us,” says the council chairman, Raju Choudri. “We have never asked for aid before, because we didn’t know the process.”

The council has just submitted a proposal to the local authorities. It is to fund a dam project that will prevent the banks of the river from overflowing, Raju says.

“We are just too tired of moving.”

Part 8 - Kailahun, Sierra Leone  It’s nearly showtime again.  Time for the women and girls to review their photos and pick two—just two apiece—to present to their community at a final exhibition.  Choosing is never easy.  Think about it.  These women rarely if ever get to decide anything.   And they’ve got a lot to choose from.  Altogether 17,792 photos to be exact.  How fast could you do it?  I know they’ll need a lot of patience and support.

The photographers of the Women’s Action Group of Pendembu.  That’s Christiana Gbondo (Chris G.) on the left and Christiana Massaquoi (Auntie Chris) in red on the right. Photo: Ann Jones

Trouble is, I can’t get out of bed.   One by one my African colleagues stick their heads around the doorframe, lift the mosquito net to peer at me, and say: “Malaria.” They’re used to it—this scourge that kills more Africans each year than does that other plague HIV/AIDS.  I’ve seen my colleagues break into a drenching sweat, pop a couple of pills, and carry on working.  Not me.  I’m flattened.  If malaria attacked Americans at home, the US would launch another “war” against it.  But to our shame, we spend our wealth on other wars.
 
Chris G. perches on the bed, notebook in hand, for some quick computer instruction.  Then she and Auntie Chris set off for Pendembu to help the photographers choose their photos and make plans for the show.   IRC’s Dr. Jeff Kambale Mathe, a physician from the Democratic Republic of Congo, drives four hours over rough roads, carrying a plastic bag full of pills, to save my neck.  Thanks to him, I get up again in time to print the chosen photos and hang the shows.

Our eager girl-photographers occupy the front row in the packed assembly hall of the
Girls’ Primary School—ready to begin the show. Photo: Ann Jones

Then, as we saw in Cote d’Ivoire, what happens next depends largely upon the community leadership.  In Pendembu, the progressive chief tells a large crowd gathered in the Court Barrie about the country’s new gender laws that raise the legal status of women.   He goes beyond the new laws, which don’t recognize rape in marriage, to admonish men: “Do not force yourselves upon your wives.  That is rape, even if the law does not say so.”   Then he hands off to his wife, Auntie Lucy, the chairlady of the Women’s Action Group.  She wears a fabulous hat for the occasion. The chief and his wife are the ultimate power couple, bravely hauling their ruined village into a new century.  Aunty Lucy summons the women photographers one by one to present their photographs, and then she holds forth herself, making sure that no one misses the point or the message of gender equality.

Gender Club advisor Mr. Shariff holds the megaphone and listens attentively as 12-year-old Isata Amadu presents a photograph she took of him.  Isata is about to bring down the house. Photo: Ann Jones

Two days later at the exhibition in Kailahun town another chief rises angrily to warn the audience, “You must not speak of female genital mutilation.  It is our tradition.”  The audience applauds.  Even women of the Women’s Action Group applaud.   The Global Crescendo team hasn’t spoken a word about FGM; we leave it to women participants to talk about what they will.  But since the chief has raised the issue, Amie Kandeh, the GBV country manager, and Navanita Bhattacharya, the regional GBV technical advisor, try gently to respond.  A prominent woman leader shouts to drown them out.  The chief stalks out of the meeting.  Later, when Amie and others go to talk with him, he says he knows that FGM is wrong and that it must be stopped—but gradually.  How will he justify to himself, I wonder, the hundreds or thousands of girls who will be mutilated, their lives irreparably wounded, while he lets the practice he knows to be “bad” phase out?  Surely the last girl mutilated, like the last soldier to die in a mistaken war, will be an enduring rebuke.  Yet African “tradition,” here as in Cote d’Ivoire, rests on the courage or backwardness of men like these chiefs.

The photographers of the Women’s Action Group of Kailahun. 
Christiana Massaquoi is on the right in the front row. Photo: Ann Jones

The girls’ show comes last, before a packed house in the assembly hall of the Girls’ Primary School.  Parents attend, all dressed up, and teachers from other schools.  The Pendembu chief sends a representative, as does the District Office of Education, and the Family Services Unit of the police—a uniformed policewoman who delivers a rousing diatribe against rape and sexual exploitation.

Then it is the girls’ turn.  One by one they speak about their photos, displayed on the blackboard, while their Gender Club advisor Mr. Shariff holds the megaphone that carries their reedy voices to the corners of the big room.  They speak of early pregnancy and sexual exploitation.  They speak of the importance of girls’ education.   Then 12-year-old Isata Amadu connects the dots.  Pointing to a photo of Mr. Shariff, she says:  “He gives us information to help us in our lives.   I took his picture because all teachers should follow the example of Mr. Shariff—and they should desist from impregnating schoolgirls.”

Parents gasp.  One mother shrieks.  The room buzzes.  The headmistress puts her head in her hands.  Isata returns to her seat while the other girl photographers cheer and throw her high fives.  Shy little Isata has voiced the unspeakable truth that everybody knows.  She speaks for every girl in the room.  She speaks for every girl who wants to get an education, every girl who wants to contribute to her community, every girl who wants to be all she can be. Isata herself wants to be a teacher.

Girl power: the photographers of the R.C. Girls’ Primary School Gender Club on Exhibition day. 
Christiana Massaquoi is on the left, Christiana Gbondo on the right, and Isata Amadu
is third from the left in the front row. Photo: Ann Jones 

Later all the schoolgirls sit under the trees in the yard, sipping Kool-Aid—provided especially for the occasion.  It’s a Kool-Aid kind of day.  Something has happened.  Something different and special.

That’s what this Global Crescendo project is all about: Women’s Voices from Conflict Zones.  Girls voices too.