I have spent the last three weeks volunteering in the rural Terai region of Nepal. I was based in Narti, a very small village in the Dang district. Dang is home to a large population of the Tharu people, an ethnic group that was immune to malaria and enjoyed their way of the region for many years undisturbed. When malaria was eradicated, hill people from the north began to move in and seize the land of the Tharu. Today, over 70% of the population of the Terai is landless and live in extreme poverty. In the face of their difficult lives, all of the people I met during my time in Narti were warm and welcoming, happily offering a smile, which is often all that they had to give.
These are some of their faces.
