The 67-year-old of Magran in Siddheshwar Village Development Committee, Palpa had to bear the brunt of diarrhea for a week this time. His usual visits to faith healers didn´t work and even sacrifice of a rooster failed to cure him. But he still was not prepared to seek medical help. [break]
It required much persuasion and a little lie from a local teacher to finally send him at the doors of a health post and it worked wonders for him. “I tried everything I could, but to no avail. Jhabindra Sir said there is a Lama (faith healer) at the post on hill top who will completely cure me,” Kumal recalls. “I had given up all hopes of living. Jhabindra Sir saved me,” he adds on.
Jhabindra Gyawali of a neighboring village had paid visit to Kumal after hearing of his illness and told him a Lama had come to the health post. “It turned out a doctor and not a Lama as sir had said. I felt well in two days after taking tablets,” Kumal reveals.
Having recovered from diarrhea, Kumal now has no doubts as to where he should go the next time he falls ill. “I have discovered that going to a doctor gets better result than visiting a Lama,” Kumal says with a smile.
He is not the only reluctant hospital visitor. Rural health worker at the Siddheshwar Health Post in Magran Churamani Gyawali says the Kumals have more faith in Lamas than in doctors. “The major problem of Kumals is their superstition. They quarrel among themselves daily blaming each other of witchcraft,” Gyawali says.
Pitambar Basyal, local facilitator for the Social Resource Development Center (SRDC) that is running a goat borrowing program in the village, recounts being shut in a shed for half an hour while paying visit to a Kumal abode. “They will not let any women or elderly in their shed fearing them to be witch trying to cast a spell on the animals,” Basyal reasons.
Khum Bahadur Kumal, a leader of the community that has 90 households, also relates how the locals once refused to drink water from a drinking water project a few years back and continued to use their regular source.
The superstitious and poor Kumals have also lag behind in education. “The plight of the newer generation would have improved if the children were to go to schools. But there is no hope as no one can afford to pay for the children´s education,” Gopal Kumal, the only Kumal of the village to pass certificate level, rues.
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