In Solu, people don’t dream big but wish for smaller signs of development

Lhakpa Chottee Sherpa knows the difference between work and play.

The 10-year-old Solukhumbu native goes to school, plays in her free time but doesn’t hold back helping her family in the morning. She makes a three-hour walk to and from her house to deliver milk to Phaplu in the district headquarter in Salleri. For surrounding villages, Phaplu is the sign of progess: an airport, market place, schools and a hospital.

“Chottee,” she spelled her name as she walked back from delivering her daily six liter of milk that she carries to the market. Dressed in a pink jacket, scarf, jeans and slippers, her attire looked warm enough for the winter weather when the temperatures go frigid. But people in minimal clothing on the way showed no signs of resilience or complain; they walked, worked and smiled.

As Chottee climbs up and down the hills, she talks about school, the 30-minute walk she has to make it to class everyday, the few English words and sentences she knows, the games she plays with her friends and about her family. She said she delivers milk “to help mother.”

“Some men killed my father,” she says. During the Maoist conflict, more than 13,000 people have died–civilians, police, militants and the military.

But after the Peace Accord in 2006, violence has subdued. People do not fear of death or blasts in their backyards. New projects are being built in Phaplu (a vocational training center), women from different parts of rural Nepal study to become primary health care professionals at the Solukhumbu Technical School. And businessmen say they’re doing better though competition is on the rise.

That’s just a part of progress though, which is only a 30-minute flight distance from Kathmandu in north-eastern Nepal.

An eight-hour walk to other Village Development Committees away from Phaplu and Salleri, development if fragile. Basic infrastructures like electricity and roads doesn’t even exist. But people seem to care about those less.

After the decade-long People’s War, they seem to be rejoicing peace. Children play freely on the dusty, muddy trails, women sit outside their houses and talk, wait for passers-by to stop and have tea at their self-established home kitchens turned restaurants and porters, as old as 60 and young as 10, carry loads of supplies and essentials for their shops or others’ businesses.

People look content. They smile, ask questions to tourists, passers-by and locals. Though they have to walk a day’s distance to reach to hospitals, airport or any other facilities, they don’t complain. They only wish–wish that one day there would be roads that would replace the trails they walk, transportation would reach their villages and their journey would be easier and convenient. They dream of it, hope that their dream would come true.

And the 10-year-old also wishes the same. Though she has never seen the capital, Kathmandu, she thinks its beautiful and has a lot of vehicles on the street. She doesn’t wish for better clothes or luxuries like a Barbie or some savvy product that a city girl would want but wishes that some day her village would have basic infrastructures.

“I wish someday vehicles would come,” she shares her wish. “I wish there would be electricity.”