Sermathang

Sermathang is a village situated at an altitude of 2500 meter approximately. It lies south east of the Helambu Village Council in Sindhupalchok District.

Shermathang is a village located exactly at the altitude of 2,621 meters from the sea level and the Chhimi gaon is somewhat in lower height. Helambu is the one of the biggest Rural Municipality of the district.

Being specific to a locality, Shermathang, a village of Helambu, is in the northern most part of the rural municipality surrounded by Chhimi, Thangpaldhap, Bhotang, Chitre, Kakane, Kieul and other villages of the district. Shermahtnag is on the lap of the mountain just below the forest area of Langtang National Park (LNP). It is accessible by graveled roads from the main bazaar Melamchi and the capital city Kathmandu these days and have frequent bus service in winter days.

Shermathang is a village, situated in the upper high hill of the northern part of Helambu rural municipality. There were a total of about 4 dozens of households and some hundreds of people in the village.

One shopkeeper named Pema dai in Shermathang told, due course of an interview that – “they even sometimes feel the goods brought by Tibet are of good quality. For the Tibetan tea (also called salt and butter tea or Chuchya in Hyolmo) to be made tea leaves is brought from Tibet otherwise the local tea grains cannot give a good taste.” They do have such trust and belief over goods from Tibet their daily behaviour and their thought are being influenced by the Tibet mania. For other life process like getting education also they do have a belief on Tibet productions. Not only Tibetan in thir original land they believe Tibetan in refugee and in diaspora. In his article O’Neill mentions one petty capitalist from Helambu sent a son to become a Buddhist acolyte in a Tibetan refugee monastery in South India, subsidized by profits from carpet production.

The families that reside in Shermathang are equally involved in tourism business and in agriculture plus foreign work of some family members. But when it is calculated with their total population it gives the normal calculation to sum up the centum value. Some people who are newly migrated in the city areas have not totally left their agricultural practice. Since they are involved in other profession like service and working abroad they are still trying their destiny in governmental service since there is a provision of reservation for ethnic groups. Some people who are residing in city areas for long time are already involved in other occupation other than business and their agriculture practice in their ancestral village. In such cases for those families, their farm land is given to those villagers to cultivate in certain type of contract or in some cases it is found there is no such agreement of give and take. Those who are still in villages have no other options to change their occupation but they are still doing their traditional profession. So here their migration and changing occupational status is directly affecting their economic conditions and they are rapidly changing for some families in their recent history.

The village like Shermathang and Melamchhim are rich in using their arable land since they are considered as touristic communities as tourists go Langtang trekking destinations through these settlements whereas Shyamger, Suganche and Chhimi are such villages with comparatively less use of land and they are considered as isolated villages from tourist point of view. The maximum land for a family is found in Shermathang and the minimum is found in Shyamger. But in present days the use of land for agriculture and their holding pattern is reducing since there is scarcity of labours to work in Khet and Bari. And it is due to opportunity of foreign employment that they easily get offer everywhere even in their villages by brokers and agents of Agencies

Some poor/food deficit households of Chhimi,and Shermathang villages used to migrate to Sikkim and Laddakh of India seasonally in search of employment. They used to go to Sikkim from Bhadra (August-September) to Mangsir (November-December). This period was slack agricultural season in the provenance and they could find no or little opportunity for the absorption of their labor. And this period/season in Sikkim was an opportunity for the poorer people to work as the agricultural labourers for harvesting cardamom, and this labor requirement used to be, to some extent, fulfilled by the Nepali seasonal migrants. In so doing, they could also earn some income. By and large, such seasonal migration to Sikkim and Laddakh has been a coping mechanism for the poor/food deficit households of study area.

Tourists could also camp in the playground of the school. Like in Shermathang, the local farmers used to get benefit from the tourists by selling their commodities such as vegetables and chicken (which the trekking agencies used to buy depending upon their needs).