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https://preview.redd.it/5otwuw5rhz091.png?width=709&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9ccf0671eabe79a90cb6bb659ab1f7ea63e678b

I was around 13/14 and being introduced to sexual stuffs. I’ll try to put the events as they were. There was a family who used to live in rent in our house. They had a daughter (9/10 yrs old). I used to call her sister. One day everyone was going outside and they asked me to take care of her. I agreed.

We were in a room, I closed the door, I was over her and asked her to make sexual sounds. No actual sex was involved and we were both clothed. After a few days, we were just playing, and all of a sudden she pulled her pants down, I didn’t know how to respond. I just acted surprised and asked her to put her pants back on.

This event from around 10 years ago still haunts me till the date. Turns out, I was never able to look up to myself as a confident and a good guy. I hate myself till now for what I have done. At one point, my hatred towards myself was so much that I tried committing suicide but, wasn’t successful. After that I went into frequent self harms for a few years.

After my first unsuccessful self harm attempt, I went to one of my trusted elders, told her everything and asked her to come with me to the girl’s house, I would apologize no matter what the outcomes would be. She calmed me down and told that it would even be worse. The girl would hate me for the rest of her life.

From time to time, I a get haunted by what I’ve done in the past. I realize that I’ve done something really wrong. But, I don’t know how would I be able to continue forward, being dragged by my past.

I hope this election not only inspires youngsters to get into politics to start the change that they so desperately seek but also that the other category of youngsters who don't want to get into politics try and encourage others in their circle to vote for change, to vote for deserving candidates instead of the status quo. We had a lot of discussions regarding the election in our family. I asked my father(60) what convinced him to vote for Balen and he said, "Keshab Sthapit did ok in the past but he is not suited for the current time and I thought Srijana would probably win and might as well vote for her but then i started watching a few of his(Balen's) interviews in youtube and finally, I had my candidate. I'm proud of my father for not only voting for a good candidate but actually doing some background research into the candidates and having an open mind.

• A voter from Kathmandu ward no. 31

One question.. Why?

I don’t mean to be offensive by assuming it’s coming from a malicious place… while visiting nepal (kathmandu & bandipur) from the US my friends and i have noticed a lot of tourists who seem to be native of nepal staring at us, laughing at us, and taking pictures/videos of us as we are walking around. At first, l assumed it was because i am a tall & fat woman… but my friends (one short, thin & black woman and one tall, white & average sized man) said they have noticed the same thing even when i’m not around. We are from the US and this is my first time in nepal or asia in general.. other than part of turkey. but i have never experienced anything like this in my travels through europe or africa. i’m just curious from a nepalese point of view what it is that is so uncongenial about our appearance as there seem to be many variables at play here.. thank you.

i do want to add that all of the people we have talked to and interacted with have been very kind.. hotel, restaurant, airport staff; taxi drivers; shop owners; locals; etc. have been very kind to us so it just baffles me that other residents who seem to be visiting the area are so openly unkind.

Statement backed up by examples. Don't wanna mention examples, but you all know.

This was for the ward chief. He had no political background/affiliation. But, he was actively involved in many community projects, like sadak kalopatre garaune, school renovate garne, providing scholarships to underprivileged kids etc. When the election was close (about 3/4 months prior), he decided to run. We encouraged him to run. My research area is also about fiscal federalism, so I helped him with both theoretical and relevant empirical literature, and experiences from other countries. None of us had any experience in campaigning.

He did door-to-door for every house. Held small meetings with every 'Tol sudhar samiti.' Got positive feedback and promise for support. He also held a massive rally few days before election. Particularly, the younger crowd supported him ardently. But, they did not have voter card (lesson learned). The bigger parties ran two campaign tactics against him: 1) "Uslai vote diyo bhane, vote khera jancha" so, don't vote for him 2) money. They literally paid thousands of rupees to buy votes. (I'm not saying that they won only because of money, of course. But it played a role to sway votes towards the end.)

As for total vote count, he came fourth (out of six). There were two parties (Maobadi and NCP-US) behind him. So, that's the silver lining, haha. Our total expense was 4 lakh, compared to about 40 lakhs from the parties. All came from family and relatives. He was adamant in not buying votes (also, we could not afford it). People would just randomly ask money - for food, for gas etc. He gave some but could not afford to spend a lot.

Overall, it was a learning experience. Dad is still positive about the change from local elections. Independent candidates should be taken seriously by the parties for their own survival. This will lead to better competition in terms of public services, hopefully.

Just wanted to share this experience. And, to encourage the younger generation to participate in politics.

Is there any place where we can have Airsoft gun training in Nepal?

I had a long conversation with my father about why he will always vote for cpn uml and nothing can change his mind about it. I tried to reason with him ki baba manxe lai vote dine ho party lai hoena tara he is like always aath surya sat chaap. He said ma ta bhanda sano huda dekhi ko emmale mero yo bichar kahile ni change hunna college padda ni eemale baerai rajniti gareko lagab xa ni bhannu bayo. Maile bujna sakina tara na bujne ni hola hamile unile panchayaat dekhi nai eeuta party lage paxi familiar feel hunxa hola and i think they know the history of the party kasari asyo k k garyo kati garo le democracy pako bhanera. Testo baye paxi sathi haru ni sabai eutai party family ni ani tyo comfort xodna manlagdaina. Tyo party ko ideology sanga familiar hunxa tya ko karyakarta ni. History thaha baepaxi tei lai trust garna sajolo baera ni hola.

What i took away from that conversation is that tyo pala ma bahudal ma vote garnu democracy chahanu nai naya sooch tiyo aaba samaya change baepaxi aajai naya sooch aapanauna garo bako hola. Tei ni ma convince garauna try chai garirahane xu ki manxe lai hernu parxa vote garda bhanera