Life in a Nepali village

Namaste!

Majority of people in Nepal live in villages. On one hand, life in a village seems almost idillic: beauty of nature, fresh air, no noise and pollution of cars, organic vegetables and fruits grown in your own garden. On the other hand, life in a village means hard work every day. In Nepal you can find rather big villages with even specialized services like tailors or blacksmiths, as well as such small ones that have only a few houses. Houses are built of thick rammed earth or large mud bricks. Windows if any face south and west. Roofs are flat and built of clay laid on brushwood or stones. Very often there is no electiricity or running water.

The villagers grow rice, maize, wheat, barley, potato, lentils, depending upon the suitability of the terrain. They keep chicken and ducks, breed pigs, goats or sheep for meat and wool. Many folks keep buffalo for milk and its products, for dung as fertilizer or as fuel and also for work in the fields. Nepal's landscape and poverty make machines of any kind a rare sight, everything depends on the strong hands and backs of the people and on the help of the buffaloes.

Year round daily chores include collecting water, firewood and fodder. In some cases this means a rather long journey each way to the water source as well at to the forest.