Let’s face it, most of the Western made films about educating girls as a means of combating poverty (even when inspiring) are pretty predictable. They’re mostly promotional pieces like what we set out to make. Shanta’s death has compelled us to move this conversation to the next level.

We tackle that level by going inside Shanta’s family’s day to day life. This UN video below makes it look like a simple decision to send a girl off to school– like it is a matter of just the family making up their mind that it is the best thing to do. It does not mention the weight of hunger, financial stress and deep discrimination.

The costs of opportunity.

Hmmm…

Sarita is one of the few. Today we went to one of the main government colleges here in Kathmandu to film her in class. Sarita is studying  to be journalist. Her goal is to report on women’s issues and to return to her village  to be an advocate for girls’ education.  Her village is about a day’s bus ride and a half a day’s walk from Kathmandu. Her scholarship from the Bo M. Karlsson foundation pays for her tuition, for her sweet little one room apartment, her books, and a small living stipend. This girl is rocking it!

She is a long way from home and says she misses her parents a lot. They don’t get to talk on the phone very often and she only gets to go home during long breaks from school. However, she finds community in her building. Many of them are from the same caste, Tamang, and share her native language. Most of her days are either spent in class or studying. She reads the newspaper everyday as well as reads history books ‘just to learn all the things’. (She picked up what looked to me to be a very dry book about the political life of the last Prime Minister and hugged it to her chest.)

“I love to read about the histories!” Then she looked up at the bare bulb on the ceiling—”When there is light.”

This city only has 6-8 hours of electricity a day. And as far as I can tell, when you get  or don’t get electricity is pretty random. Sometimes it is on, sometimes it is not.

She also has to ration her water. A truck comes to deliver it once a week. I forget to ask her how she gets the big drums of water up her stairs.

Sarita. She is amazing!

Even though she was a little nervous in front of the camera, she was so eloquent speaking about how the Bo M. Karlsson made it possible for her to go to college. She is the only one from her village to do so. Wow!

I am excited to edit this piece!

I left there promising myself I will learn Nepali. Although our translator, Nitu, could not have been better,  I so badly wanted to really talk to Sarita myself. I still have so many questions for her.

I can’t wait to see what she is doing in 5 years. (I think I can learn Nepali by then!)

Sarita in her class

The door to Sarita’s classroom.

Sarita’s apartment.

Nitu, our translator, Sarita and me

This is what I have done in one week and two days:

I have filmed over 10 hours (not including little asides on my Flip and  Canon G9 cameras). I am pretty much filming EVERYTTHING. Filming it like it might be a personal documentary —Nina Davenport style. I watched Operation Filmmaker before I came to Nepal and it inspired to keep the camera rolling. I don’t know what the story is. At this point, it is ALL IMPORTANT. Even the drinking tea part.

I have been drinking a lot of really yummy tea.

(That said, having me be part of the documentary still kind of makes me queasy.)

(That said, I kind of like filming my own reaction to things. It makes it like it really happened. This place is so OUT OF THIS WORLD to me, I question its existence even when I am existing in it.)

I have been working with the raddest fixer, translator, scooter taxi, filmmaker ever, Ramyata Limbu. She is seriously rad. She has made two documentaries: Daughters of Everest about the first Sherpa women to summit Everest and Sari Soldiers about 6 women in the Maoist conflict. She also runs the Kathmandu Mountain Film Festival. She is really good at her job and I am so thankful to have her.

I have found a translator/ transcriber named Era. She has worked for Al Jazeera and other news organization out of Kathmandu. She has the most lovely smile. She speaks Nepali, English and French and has a six year old son. I am excited to get my first tape transcript back. There is something so solid about having a tape both logged and on paper.

I have talked about my project A LOT with A LOT of different people and everyone is interested.

I have thought a lot. I am constantly thinking about what I am doing and what it means and what the story is and what will help the world.

Here is me thinking TOO HARD while enjoying a salty lassi.

I also prayed about it after lighting one of these candles in a Buddhist Monastery.

Things I have NOT done:

slept (very little anyway)

go to the Bryan Adams concert (First western concert EVER in Nepal. It was a HUGE deal. HUGE! But I didn’t go. My host and good friend here works for the embassy and handles logistics of all American deaths in Nepal. The concert came with a stampede warning. Luckily there wasn’t one.)

relaxed (Oh, well there was that one hour and a half massage where they massaged everything including my eyelids and it cost $20).

Pass it on if you like it.

Amy was on the radio today, talking in a really nicely conducted one-hour interview about Girlworld. Keesha Ewers, whom we met at a fundraiser for another lovely org that supports girls’ education and women’s empowerment in Nepal, invited Amy to be a guest on her show.

It was prerecorded last week, but we didn’t hear it until it aired today. I believe you will be able to download an archive of the show from this link–it’s a 25 megabyte MP3 file that will download and you can play on your iTunes or other media player.

Keesha and Healthy You! Radio have also highlighted Girlworld as “A Holiday Gift that Counts” on the website. Wow!

The interview itself was really good. Keesha herself is very interested in educating girls, in particular as a means of preventing their becoming victims of sex trafficking, and her family is quite involved with this cause. So there’s a ton of overlap between her area of interest and ours. She really laid out this landscape in the interview, and Amy held up her end quite admirably too (yeah, I’m proud, and glad I wasn’t in the hot seat!).

We’d love to hear your comments. Ahem, once we get you the link to hear the show, that is. If you heard it, tell us what you thought!