Waiting for elections and strikes to finish...

Hello everyone,

It was a strange few days after the other members of the team left and I couldn't really throw myself into teaching as the transport strikes continued to keep me away from schools and in the days after the elections the schools remained shut for a further few days. 

I did however keep myself busy with making resources and getting other things sorted out. Checking schools first aid kits is one of my responsibilities and my experience so far has been that they are rather sparse to say the least! With that in mind I met up with Ramlal, a pharmasist in Tansen and also chairman of Bagnas school. I asked him to make up sme first aid kits with all of the necessary items that should be included and I will be providing each school with one of these.

Another success has also been sorting out a permanent office for us here in Tansen, which was managed through Sagar, one of Saran's friends and also the chairman of the Montessori school which we visited a few weeks ago. He has been a huge help so far in so many ways. He has given me contacts for some of their schools suppliers, who can produce really great quality teaching resources. Just visiting that school a couple of times has given me ideas and inspirations to create my own resources. The office we have is small and currently a bit of a mess but in time I hope to transform it into a really useful base for us. For now though it is proving useful as a storage centre and has helped to free up some room in my bedroom which, to put it mildly, was becoming rather cluttered! The office is only costing us Rs 1000 per month (about £6.25!!) so I think we got a pretty good deal. In time we will also have internet and powerpoints in this room included in that price!

It may not look much at the moment but i'm confident we can transform this into a really good office and a permanent base for Manisha UK.

One afternoon I visited Tundikel, a large flat sportsfield, perched on a ridge at the bottom of the town. There is a dusty running track around the outside and you often see early morning walkers getting their daily exercise. There are also football pitches, though with very little grass, and aside from that not much else but dry, browned grass areas. It is a really nice place to visit though in late afternoon with lots of young people playing, street vendors selling foods and cows and goats grazing on the dried grass. I went with Bzoo and her two sisters but we were soon joined by some other younger boys, intrigued by the odd shaped ball I had brought along. We played for an hour or so with the rugby ball enjoying the late afternoon sun which seemed to make the whole area glow a warm golden colour and with the views of Tansen above it was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. One particularly funny moment I enjoyed was when Susmi, Bzoo's sister, was proudly telling me about how the cow is Nepal's national animal and right on cue the lusty cow infront of us mounted his female companion and left us all in fits of laughter, and Susmi a little red with embarrassment!

Top left: Playing with the rugby ball on Tundikhel, Top right: Bzoo's friends' son - he got rather attatched to the rugby ball. Middle picture - the municipality building with Tansen and Shrinigar hill behind. Bottom: View up to Tansen from Tundikhel - at the top of the tree line, just to the right of the centre you can see the tower which we sometimes climb for sunrise.

The following day there was a music concert down at Tundikhel which we visited but apart from the odd cow wandering around and a crazy man dancing, it was not exactly Glastonbury. We sat and watched for a while but the people performing didn't seem to be really ready and would play a few notes then it stopped. We wandered off and came back about an hour later but there didn't seem to have been much progress so we left it!

Tansen music festival - not sure Glastonbury has anything to worry about!

Thankfully the elections are now over and all the craziness is behind us. The last few weeks has been full of parades and government speakers which has been of some interest but thankfully the disruptions are at an end for now!

I am now looking forward to continuing my visits to schools with Shree Amrit (Angakhola) and Rakama Devi (Jheksang) next.

I will update further after my visits there.

Andy

The election caused a huge amount of disruption and despite it all being rather interesting and mostly good natured there was also some trouble (thankfully nothing too serious in Tansen) and so there was always a heavy police presence. I am relieved that the election has now passed and I can get back to teaching!!