四肢を失った教師、教壇への復活遂げる　インド

【カルヘＡＦＰ＝時事】インドの村で教師を務めるプラティバ・ヒリムさん（５１）は３年前、壊疽（えそ）により両手両足を失った。その苦難に耐える力を与えてくれたのは、再び教壇に立つという夢だった。（写真は自宅で授業を行うプラティバ・ヒリムさん。インド・ムンバイの北約１３０キロのカルヘ村で）
　ムンバイから車で東へ数時間。教育の機会に恵まれない辺境の村カルヘで、ヒリムさんは現在、腕にくくり付けたペンやチョークを巧みに使い、自宅で授業を行っている。
　２０１９年にかかったデング熱による壊疽で、初めは右手、そして数週間とたたないうちに左手と、両脚の膝から下を失った。
　「最初に片手が切断されたとき、これで何もできなくなると思いました。うつ状態になって、１週間以上、誰ともしゃべりませんでした」とヒリムさん。
　だが家族の励ましに支えられ、ヒリムさんは再び教壇に立つという目標を見いだした。
　ヒリムさんが属する先住民、アディバシが住むカルヘ村では、多くの家庭の子どもが貧しい家計を助けるために早々と学校を切り上げ、働かざるを得ない状況だ。
　ヒリムさんは今、義肢が装着される日を待ちながら、子どもらに学び続けること、自分の手で運命を選び取ることを教えたいと願っている。
　そして、自分自身が困難を克服して教壇に戻ったことで、意思の力を証明したと言う。
　「手足を失って自分は価値がなくなってしまったと思いましたが、それから強く決心したのです」とヒリムさん。
　「何でもできる、何でもやってみせるという決心です」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/06/27-14:41）

When gangrene robbed Indian teacher Pratibha Hilim of her hands and feet three years ago, her dreams of returning to class gave her the strength to endure.
The 51-year-old now gives her lessons from home, wielding a pen or a stick of chalk strapped to her arm, for youngsters in a remote community where opportunities for education are scarce.
I am a teacher, which means someone who cannot sit still but has to do something with children -- teach them or be with them, she told AFP in sun-baked Karhe village, a few hours' drive east of Mumbai.
I've loved children since my childhood and if I sit around doing nothing, I would be in a different world, thinking of what happened to me.
Hilim came down with a fever in 2019 that was so severe she lost consciousness.
Doctors diagnosed her with a severe case of dengue fever and told her the onset of gangrene required the amputation of her right hand.
Within weeks, the infection forced surgeons to remove her other hand and both her legs below the knee.
When they amputated my first hand, I felt bad that I won't be able to do anything further. I went into depression and did not speak to anyone for eight days, she said.
With encouragement from her family during months of recuperation, Hilim found purpose in a return to teaching.
She had worked for nearly three decades in a local primary school but in 2020, with schools shut during the coronavirus pandemic, she began giving lessons at home to children whose families did not have the money to pay for online learning.
Schools reopened earlier this year, but 40 children from the village still come to Hilim's home for regular classes.
My children love to study, said Eknath Laxman Harvate, a farmer and labourer, whose daughter is a regular student of Hilim's.
Like many in Karhe, Harvate had to drop out of school and work as a teenager as his family did not have the money to support his education.
He told AFP he wanted a better future for his own children.
We will educate her until she wants to, Harvate said.
I wish I had kept studying... I feel sad that due to problems at home I couldn't continue and had to start farming.
- 'I made my mind firm' -
Hilim, like many of her students, is an Adivasi -- an umbrella term for members of India's indigenous tribal communities.
Adivasis around the country are subject to entrenched discrimination and their geographic isolation has left them without a share of the spoils of India's booming economy.
Many families in Karhe are compelled to pull their children out of the classroom so they can work to boost meagre household incomes.
Once they can read and write, that is enough, meaning the children are ready to work in the fields, Hilim said.
But Hilim, who is now waiting for prosthetic limbs to be fitted, wants to push children to keep learning and choose their own destinies.
She says her own struggle to return to class is a testament to the power of resolve.
I thought that with no limbs I was nothing, but then I made my mind firm, she said.
I decided that I can do everything and will do everything.