#pcchaupadi

"We must bring about change ourselves," explains Kali Bista, center, holding two of her grandchildren at their home in Bhageshwar village, Achham, Nepal. Kali followed the example of her neighbor Maheshwari five years ago and now sleeps in a room inside her home during menstruation instead of outside, as many of the area women do. Bista said years of public campaigns did nothing to stop this practice in the village until Maheshwari led by example. "NGOs come and go but we, the villagers, are here to stay."

Image and caption by Pulitzer Center grantee Allison Shelley. Nepal, 2012.

We chose to report from Achham because it is a place still bathed, toweled and wrapped in tradition-- every action colored by a deep and abiding belief in something.  A spoonful of rice offered to the fire while cooking.

Here in the crisp Nepali mountain air, ten hours by jeep from the nearest airstrip, it is festival season.  Here, to reach anywhere worth reaching you must walk.  And anyone who can walk walked to a place called Dauthegada on Wednesday-- emerging onto an open hill terraced for planting, the green carpeting of first shoots garlanded as if for Christmas by thousands of spectating women in red festival saris. 

But this holiday is in honor of goddess Barba Devi.  In what is part bullfight with a dash of county fair, male cattle are chased across the steps and hacked at by men brandishing sticks, knives and strong buzzes under a full moon. Sticky orange donuts, peanuts, apples.  Couples elope on this day as the meat is consecrated and distributed to the poor.  The heads are carried triumphantly home.

-- Allison Shelley

Ed. Note: Pulitzer Center grantees Allison and Allyn Gaestel are reporting from Nepal. Photos by Allison Shelley. Nepal, 2012.