Authorities in the Gothatar squatter settlement issued a morning announcement ordering residents to vacate the area. Seventy-two-year-old Pampha Damai, who has lived in her makeshift shelter for 13 years, expressed deep concern about having to leave her home. Pampha shared her life struggles and family situation as she waits for assistance. Kathmandu, April 30 – Early this morning, the police administration announced via loudspeakers, “Evacuate the settlement.” Pampha Damai, 72, a resident of the Gothatar (Love Danda) squatter community, was left uncertain. “I have trouble hearing well. Neighbors told me we have to leave,” she said. The process of clearing the homes began. Some started dismantling their zinc-sheet roofs, others went to find new places to stay, some were packing their belongings. Pampha’s shelter was little more than a hut surrounded by corrugated sheets. “Yesterday’s rain soaked my clothes,” she explained, as she tried to dry clothes outside her door. There is nowhere to properly hang or shelter her belongings. Pampha has spent 13 years living in this makeshift shelter. “They say I should find another room, but I have nowhere to go and no money to rent a place,” she lamented. She sustains herself by sewing clothes and lighting a stove inside her shelter. “I still have my sewing machine and can work. If I don’t work, who will feed me?” she said, undeterred. Yet the order to vacate has caused tremendous anxiety about where she might go. “I cannot go anywhere. I won’t allow them to demolish my shelter. If the police come to take me, I will go wherever they take me,” she explained, resigned to having no other options. During the House of Representatives election on March 4, she voted for the Rashtriya Swatantra Party. “I voted for Ghanti. And now he has done this,” she said, showing her voter ID card in frustration. Pampha had 16 children, but now she is alone. “Fourteen have passed away. Only one daughter and one son are left. My daughter said she’ll come tomorrow,” she shared. Her son works in solid waste management. Pampha lost her husband in 2001. She had been married in Thimi, Bhaktapur, before moving to Gothatar. At that time, she owned two to three aana of land. “My husband had cancer. We had to spend the land income on his treatment and raising the children. In debt, I sold the land and came to live in this squatter settlement,” she explained. “So where else can I go now?” While her neighbors prepare to leave the settlement, Pampha remains alone in her hut, waiting for rescue.
