Peas are Mango in Color

So, I just got back from 6 eventful weeks in Saping, where the school is located.  It was really amazing. I got a great insight into agricultural life in Nepal, which, apart from the introduction of partial electricity, probably hasn't changed much in the past 500 years!

I will try not to write to much, because I have a heap of photos. So, I think I'll just insert the photos and write about them.

First, the views, which were just incredible. I took most of these photos from my bedroom window! Those Himalayan ranges in the photos are actually 100 kms away, and they were massive, all around 7 or 8 kms high. Mt Everest is about 500kms away from the school, but if you walk over the mountain behind the school you can see it on a very clear day.

Beautiful sunset over Uttam's  family home

Kids playing on the special swing built once a
year for the Dashain Festival

So, onto the school stuff. It was really great to see the volunteers in action, and my first month was incredibly busy because just running around doing everything from playing the guitar to washing nits out of kid's hair. I really got to unleash my inner assistant-principal and I'm not sure who enjoyed it least, me, or everyone else at the school. 

Big blue guitar, little blue guitar. 

The first couple of days, we worked out that the teachers had been giving the students and extra 45  minutes of lunch time every day, and given that school only goes from 10 till 3.30, this was a big deal. I sms'd Uttam to tell him and he sent me a message saying, "Emma, to immediately tell the teachers that lunch only goes for 45 minutes!", and I sent a message back saying to immediately tell them himself. Which he did, but of course they knew that I was the one who had told him! Ugh. It was a bit awkward, especially because I was trying to encourage the Nepali teachers to mix more with the volunteers!

I quickly remembered why I have avoided any kind of management role in any paid or volunteer work I've done. I hate it...I spent the whole 6 weeks trying to channel Bahn Khi Moon and failing miserably. 

The first thing we did was try to tackle the big problem with absenteeism. Usually, around 1/3 of the kids are missing every day.  So, I wrote a little song called 'See You Tomorrow' filled with lies about how much fun it is to come to school, and we taught it to all the kids who now sing it at the end of the school day.

Then we had a 2 week competition where each class competed against the other to see who could get the highest attendance rates. It helped during those two weeks, but it's something that needs to continue. 

Teaching the song to the grade 3's.

Two of the teachers teaching the song. Aren't their saris beautiful?

Then there was a music concert, which was great. A wonderful Danish volunteer spent a month at the school, and she taught all the classes a song which they performed for each other at the end of the month. The kids had never done anything like this before, so they had to be taught to sit and listen quietly and then clap at the end. It was just fantastic. 

Then we had some Spanish volunteers come. The were extremely energetic and tried to teach the kids a heap of science, which about 1/3 of them understood. The problems with the English curriculum were starting to become extremely apparent. Some of the kids catch onto the English, but those that aren't adept at languages get left behind, which means that they also get left behind in maths, science, and every other subject! 

I love this photo - half the class is doing an art project with the Spanish volunteers, while the boys are having a bit of a biff up the back.

Once a year in Nepal they have a festival called Teej, which is kind of a woman's day, where women fast and pray for a long life for their husband. If you don't have a husband, you fast and pray for a good one. The teachers were so kind to me and the two Danish volunteers and spent ages dressing us up in saris and doing our makeup. Then we all went and met the other women and they made us dance, which was just embarrassing. The two Danish girls looked like Norse godesses, of course!

"Dancing."

Romila wrapping me up in a sari.

Farewell BBQ for the volunteers, the facilities at the
school have improved vastly in the last year! We even
have a BBQ pit. 

We then had 7 days of exams, which produced the following hilarious answer to a question that made no sense. The upshot of all of this is that Uttam is going to change to a Nepali curriculum next year. Which is a great thing.

Then, it was festival time!  The Dashain Festival celebrates the end of the year's work in the fields. Everyone gets a tikka, which is a good luck blessing for the next year. Uttam's sister-in-law gave me mine, and it's made of a kind of yoghurt mixed with rice and some die.

Getting my tika

With Uttam and his dad, who is a bit of a legend.

Uttam's brother and his wife, she's one of the most beautiful women
 I've seen. She could run Nepal!

Uttam's son and his mother.

Shanti, Uttam's daughter, looking like a little
Nepali pixie.

There were lots of goats killed for Dashain, and the goat that isn't eaten is hung up around the farmhouse to dry. I asked to go and see it, so the kids took me upstairs. I had to stoop through this little doorway, and it was quite dark, so I got up there and said, "Where's the goat?" And they said, "Hanging around your head!"  I screamed of course, which they thought was hilarious. 

Gorgeous Shadev, Uttam's nephew,
with all the goat pieces around his head!

The goat's head was put on a kind of alter in one of the houses. 

Shadev looking very handsome with his tikka! We worked out 
that his grandfather  (Uttam's dad) was married at the age Shadev is now...ten!! His grandfather has been married 73 years. Amazing.

And, that's all! I fly to Kuala Lumpur in 6 days, rest there for 5 days, and then I'll be back home. 😀😀😀