An old woman cuts betel nuts at the Samurou relief camp.She gets 50 paise for each chopped betel nut
Imphal:
Like many relief camps in Manipur, some classrooms have been set aside at Samuru Government High School in Imphal West district with mattresses on the floor for IDPs to sleep on. Children from families living in the camp walk to the classroom next door every morning and sit with regular students from outside.
During the day, the cats tiptoe into the classrooms that have been converted into dormitories and lie comfortably on neatly folded blankets because there is no one around – the displaced people living in the camp have all gone out to do odd jobs to earn as little money as possible. Many are tailors, carpenters, plumbers, etc.
However, the seven women had work to do at the camp, so they stayed. They said the money wasn’t much, but it was the best they could do in the situation rather than sit in their dormitory and worry about the future.
“We cut betel nut into chewable size for 50 paise each. For the past one week, we have been receiving 300 betel nuts every day,” 67-year-old Hemawati Ningthoujam told NDTV.
Ms. Ningthoujam and five other women sat on a straw mat in the middle of the school playground, picking up betel nuts one by one. After the teacher left, the sound of children talking in unison in class spread to the playground.
“We earn 150 rupees a day, divided among the six of us. We are not doing this for this ridiculous amount. It feels very bad to sit here doing nothing all day long,” said Ms. Ninsojam, whose home is in Sugnu. The events in Kachin District remained only in her memory.
“Five of us came here last May after our house was set on fire and robbed. They removed the pipe from the gas cylinder and left it there. It exploded,” she said. Her husband, a tailor, has been able to find work in the city of Imphal. All of them want to return to Sougnu. “At least in this camp, the officials gave us a lot of help. That’s the only reason we can bear this pain,” she added.
A seventh woman, 74-year-old Vijaylakshmi Oinam, sat alone in the far corner of the venue. She was the eldest among them, and she got a batch of 300 betel nuts for herself. “I am also from Sogonu. You must have heard that there was a bomb attack in Sogonu last night,” Ms Oinan said, splitting a betel nut in half with a pair of heavy scissors. She was left alone in the camp. “My son does not want to come here. He is in Sougnu, guarding the town. He is not afraid of dying there but will not live in any rescue camp,” Ms Oinan said.
Women buy betel nuts from nearby betel nut shops. The store did not need their help as it would be an unnecessary expense under normal circumstances, but as a small gesture of help it was decided to give betel nuts to them. “They don’t want free money. They are very angry about losing their homes, so we came up with this idea. Sometimes, we can only deliver 150 pieces a day. We are small shops too,” said Shyamo Naorem, who owns a paan. The shop is half a kilometer away from the camp, he told New Delhi TV.
The camp receives help from the state government for daily food and other necessities expenses.Three people with long-term management experience leikai Or a neighborhood club is taking care of a rescue camp. While they have integrated their management skills into their voluntary work – the facility in Samuru is one of the best in Manipur – their work lurches from one mini-crisis to the next, they say. It’s a never-ending challenge.
“We spent 15,000 rupees on treating a displaced person who was involved in a road accident. Then we ran out of money to buy firewood because we paid for medicines. We don’t use cooking gas. We use firewood for cooking.” Meipu (perforated tin buckets to hold burning charcoal) as well, as it can get very cold at night. N Doren, one of the three caretakers of the Samurou camp, told NDTV: “The electric wires cannot withstand the heater.” He said the camp spent about 6,000 rupees a week on firewood for cooking and other purposes.
Camp records show that the camp hosts 67 internally displaced persons, 35 men and 32 women. Thirty of the 67 were children in the age group of 5 to 15 years.
More than 180 people have been killed in ethnic conflicts between the mountain-based Kuki-Zo tribe and the valley-based Meiteis tribe, and thousands have been internally displaced. The country that borders Myanmar – a junta-run country that is struggling for its survival – has yet to achieve peace ten months since the first conflict, largely due to conflicts over the sharing of land, resources, political representation and rights. There are serious differences on operational policy.
