I can well remember my first visit to Shanti, 14 years ago. Shanti only had around 120 members – otherwise, I would certainly not have had the idea to give parting gifts to all large and small. The women could choose from nail varnish and coloured bangles as I had noticed a long time ago: the sick also like to make themselves nice but cannot afford such luxury articles.
When I came to Basta Maja with my small basket, I was certain that she would choose a bangle – what was she supposed to do with nail varnish? I was therefore all the more amazed when she reached out for a bottle of bright pink nail varnish! Baktej had to paint her two remaining toe nails!

In time, they both had to take leave of their wish for their own children after Basta Ma­ja suffered a number of miscarriages.
They then spent their love on a black goat.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I visited them in their small hut back then: both of them were proudly sitting on their bed, beaming at me and the goat was standing next to them in the hut! When they noticed my amazement, Baktej stood up and walked over to a slightly damaged cardboard box next to the door. He lifted it up and four chickens even appeared from underneath it!

I will never forget what I saw once: it was the monsoon period and it was raining heavily. Basta Maja and Baktej were walking towards me with the goat between them on a piece of string. Baktej was holding a large black umbrella and he was holding it – over the goat!

They were both in Buddhanilkantha for many years but one day we met them in Kokhana, the state leprosy ghetto, a place of dread. Basta Maja threw herself upon us and was sobbing, she wanted to return to Shanti but Baktej did not want to and did not want to work. What could she do? What could we do? It was out of the question for her that she would separate herself from him so they remained in Kokhana. When we now asked what they do there all day, they replied “We simply sit there!"

Now they were standing in front of us and beaming at us with a baby in Baktej´s arms.
No, Basta Maja did not give birth to it, she adopted it or to be more exact: she found it and this was how it happened:
Baktej wanted to buy vegetables on 15 or 16 July. Whilst he was on the way there, he felt an urge and went down to the river as lavatories are more than rare in Nepal.
On the way to the river, he heard a pitiable crying and saw a baby wrapped in a bloody underskirt. Two policemen and some other people were standing around and they did not know what to do with the baby. Baktej then offered to take the baby home with him and the police officers seemed to be quite relieved to have had the problem solved so easily.
So instead of returning to his wife with vegetables, he returned with a baby!

We asked what they fed the child on when Basta Maja is obviously unable to breastfeed it and we were greatly touched when they said that they had sold a part of their "ration" and then used the money to buy milk for the child!
"Ration" – that is the ration of rice and oil which the residents receive from the state so that they can survive to some degree. It normally hardly suffices for one person – and they use some of this for their son, for Shyam!

Shyam is cute! He is clean and cared for, awake and lively and on that morning, he told us everything about what he had already experienced in his short life!
The only thing is: his eyes do not react. We were even unable to elicit a reaction with a strong pocket torch. Shyam is blind. A German doctor, who visited us before returning home, confirmed our sad diagnosis. We did not have the heart to tell the lucky parents the whole truth but they have become a little restless themselves and want to take him to the eye clinic (a very good clinic for the poor which the Lions built in Kathmandu) in the coming week.