Home > Feature > The happy little home

The happy little home

13 July 2009

For a family of seven, the shadowy place they call home is a dingy public toilet. It’s a happy home, nonetheless. Metho Dema reports.

Rita Vaspar's four children and brother outside the toilet

Rita Vaspar's four children and brother outside the toilet

For Pooja, nine, and Aarti, eight, there is nothing extraordinary about their home even when they have around 20 to 30 visitors in a day.

They are like any ordinary children except that they live in a public toilet and call it their home. For the average Bhutanese, it is nothing more than a place to attend to nature’s call, but for the family of seven who lives there, it is a home in every sense of the word.

The place looks like any ordinary public toilet. Apart from two extra little spaces that would not even pass for a room, there is little that the average person would associate with home.

Rita Vaspar’s family – husband, four children and a brother – lives in the small, claustrophobic room inside the public toilet next to Chubachu milk booth in Thimphu. All of them huddle together. When her husband is home, her brother has to move to an even smaller adjoining room that is used as kitchen.

The shadowy room is lit by a bulb that glows outside, over what they call the corridor, a small space across which runs a drain that is mostly stagnant with putrid liquid. The family has a television set that is not theirs. It is hired for a monthly fee of Nu 200.

Originally from Jalpaiguri district in Jaigaon, Rita Vaspar has lived in Bhutan for the past nine years. She first came to Bhutan with her husband when her eldest daughter was three months old. Pooja is now nine and goes to Babesa Primary School along with her younger sister, Aarti. “I want my children to grow up here and be able to speak Dzongkha,” said Rita.

Her husband works as a sweeper for Thimphu City Corporation. He earns about Nu 3000 a month. She earns about Nu 2000 a month by sweeping a nearby building. The family is not paid for cleaning the toilet, but gets to keep the money collected from its users, which is barely between Nu 20 and 30 in a day.

Asked how she feels about staying in a place that many wouldn’t call home, she says, “I am happy where I am with what I have; I don’t have any desires for myself but I just want my children to get education and be able to fend for themselves.”

“It’s no use wishing for something you will never have. There are people who don’t even have as much as I do so I am content with my life,” she added.

Her answer is a reminder that the secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what one has.

Ratings: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars
Loading ... Loading ...
Email this page Email this page     Print this page Print this page    

Posted by Chime · Filed Under Feature 

Comments

One Response to “The happy little home”

  1. pesar on July 16th, 2009 2:08 pm

    Regardless of whether she feels content or not, the reality is that she and her children should not be so poor in Thimphu as to live in a TOILET!

Leave your comment





Note: Comments are moderated by Bhutan Observer, and may not appear until they have been reviewed and deemed appropriate for posting.

Bhutan Observer is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache