Nepali wedding

Luckily Rob is now feeling much better and we have just spent two long but enjoyable days at our first Nepali wedding. We were invited along as guests of our homestay family and were made to feel very welcome. Nepali weddings are big celebrations! The money spent on them in comparison to what they have is crazy (though I guess it is back home too!) but it is a big part of their culture. We were aware before we went that we would have to 'dress up' as best we could but were rather limited in what we could do, particularly in the case of Andy's rather tatty old shoes which he has worn most days for teaching, in dusty classrooms and along rocky paths. We did have a look around Tansen the day before but not didn't find a single shop that sold shoes big enough! They are only size 10's but Nepali people apparently don't have big feet!!!

 

The wedding was between one of the Dhani's relatives (the groom) and a girl from Butwal, about an hour and a half South from Tansen. It is difficult to work out exactly how arranged the marriage was but we knew there had been discussions between the families, though we were assured that the couple were happy, despite having only briefly met each other (that's just the way it is out here).

 

The whole thing was rather bizarre and we took a bit of a back seat as the Bashayal (homestay) family were quite important and close guests (Deepa was some sort of bridesmaid) and Dhani was the grooms uncle. We won't go into too much detail as frankly a lot of the time we didn't really know what was going on!!

 

We started off initially going to Dhani's village where the grooms family lived. Everyone gathered there and there was a small gathering where the bride came out and they put both their heads under a blanket. The bride didn't seem to us to look too happy but apparently that is a lot down to the nerves and there were also a lot of tears from the groom - it was really a rather a rather solemn occasion but full of colour.

 

 

After an hour or so we all headed in cars (except some of the women, Janake included who stayed behind and didn't attend the brides home (we're not quite sure why!). At the brides home there was a big marquee where dinner was served, an enormous buffet. Following that we were dragged up to dance in front of quite a crowd of amused onlookers and then tried our best to keep a low profile!! There was quite a lot of hanging around and various ceremonies going on.

We left the wedding in the early evening and travelled separately to the Bashayal's who were going to continue the celebrations back in Dhani's village and stay overnight there. We travelled on a privately hired bus back to Tansen, which is not to say it wasn't as cramped as usual and we were stood up for the whole way back. It was a good fun journey back though with everyone in good spirits (though not drunk - being a Brahman caste wedding alcohol was not permitted). When we arrived back we met up with Sonja and Budhi, who had come to visit from Bardia. We had a really fun evening with them sat out on the balcony with a few beers.

The following day the four of us, along with half of Tansen it seemed, crammed into a jeep (it had only supposed to have been 7 of us in total but seemingly word had got around!) and headed back to the wedding party in Dhani's village, a little over an hours drive away. It was nice having Budhi and Sonja there, as again there was quite a lot of hanging around! They made food in a huge cauldron stirred by a stick and there was more games and dancing. We tried where we could to play with the children there - it is easier to communicate with children by playing with them than adults who you have to try and make a conversation with, with limited language! One game which was very popular was where they covered coins and other objects in a bowl of rice and there was a competition to see who could pull the rice out quickest. This largely seemed to be a competition between the bride and her new mother in law.

We felt rather uncomfortable when the bride was pretty much forced to go up and dance and seemed to be really quite upset. It really was quite bizarre, the whole thing, partly we felt it was because she was so shy in having all that attention but it may also be down to the fact that when she leaves the wedding after the ceremony she is effectively leaving her home for good and going to live where her new husband lives. That is not to say she will never visit again but she certainly wouldn't live elsewhere before the day of her wedding. It must be a hugely emotional time with all of that going on.

We headed back to the homestay with Sonja and Budhi, whilst the Bashayal's stayed for another night. We went out for some mo-mo's in the evening and again sat out and enjoyed a few beers with them. It is not too long until Sonja leaves to go back to Netherlands for another six months. It must be very hard for her to leave though she plans to be back in October or November. We're hoping that we will meet up with them again in Pokhara as they are heading there in a couple of days and we will be there after our visit to our school out in Gorkha.

The next morning we had a bit of a plumbing nightmare when we ran out of water. Rob and I managed to get some from the street down below us - the shop at the bottom of our hill has a tap. Water is always a major problem in Tansen and we hadn't really known what they do each morning for pumping it up. Thankfully though the Bashayal family were back shortly after to restore order!!!

Birthday, Bagnas and Pipal Danda



 

 The day after we got back from Jheksang was spent trying to avoid the persistent rain and we spent quite a long time in Nanglo West, one of Tansen's restaurants, updating the blog and catching up with the outside world. In the evening we enjoyed a meal to celebrate Andy's birthday, the following day, with Sagar and Saran and the four girls; Biju, Kamala, Sushmi and Sobah. It was a really fun night with a nice meal and lots of dancing and joking around. Sagar presented Andy with a special Topi, the traditional Nepali hats, the girls gave him a Karawa, the traditional Palpa drinking pot which they had had inscribed and Saran gave Andy one of the traditional Nepali bags. It was so generous of them all and it is so nice to have made such good friends.  

From left: Sagar, Rob, Saran, Biju, Sushma, Sobah, Kamala and Andy at Andy's birthday meal in Rock Regency.

Unfortunately as a result of the meal (we think) Rob was really quite ill over the following days and was not able to do too much at all. It is not uncommon to get very ill staying in these parts of the world as Andy had experienced on his previous travels in the area. Andy will now take up the rest of this post as Rob was constrained to his room for the most part.

 

The timing of Rob's illness was a shame as on my birthday I went and taught at Bagnas, a school I have really come to love. It is the smallest of our schools but that has meant that I have been able to spend a lot of time with the children and really get to know them.

 

It was pouring with rain in the morning, as it had been over the course of the weekend, and so for the first time, I opted out of walking there and instead got a taxi. I had a lot of stuff to take and without Rob, it would have been extremely difficult. I also was able to give Pushpa, one of the teachers, who lives in Tansen, a lift so we didn't both turn up to school looking like drowned rats. As ever nothing ran on time though and we were inevitably a little late in getting to the school.

 

 

We had a really good creative day and spent a large part of the morning with the whole school in the library letting them read the books and explore the resources I had brought along. Once again the children were fully immersed in this and loved all of the new things. We felt that it was also good to give an opportunity for the children to see all of the resources so that the children knew they were there, meaning that they would not just be locked away in a cupboard somewhere for fear of being damaged. That might seem unfair but with having so few resources the teachers are understandably protective about the new ones we bring. Hopefully with bringing more resources in the future they will be more encouraged to let the children use them more often. 



A morning of exploring new books and resources.

It was a really lovely morning and a nice opportunity to read with the children and ask them questions and also see how creative they could be given the chance.

Afterwards I worked with the older year groups making the 3d shapes. Being a younger age group than others we had done this lesson with, I gave them the net on the coloured paper to cut out but they still got to see how it all fitted together and had to use the scissors accurately. They mostly managed quite well and I think they maybe do a bit more creative work in this school than others we have seen.

Making cubes.

I had a very short lunch break with Rajan and Pushpa before an afternoon doing some hand printing with the paints. The leaf printing had not worked too well at Angakhola school so this time I got an old white board and spread the paints out on their as a sort of artists palette. The children then took it in turns to cover their hand in paint and print it onto their poster. I did this with both class 1 and 2 and they really loved it, as well as it giving them a colourful poster to put up on the walls of the classrooms. I had been a bit worried about what kind of a mess we were going to have with them all with paint on their hands but with other teachers there we were able to manage it well and it turned out to be a really great afternoon activity which we will no doubt do again in other schools.

We found poster paints really difficult to find and the only ones we could get were small tins. It would be really great in the future if we can find some of the big tubes of poster paints that you always find in UK primary schools as there is so much that can be done with them and the children really do enjoy it.

Thankfully we managed any paint related disasters and the children had a great time!

Another bit of artwork for the classroom wall.

It wasn't until I took this photo that this girl knew she had given herself a blue bindi!!!

It was such a nice day at Bagnas and a nice way to spend my birthday. It was a real shame Rob couldn't be there too. I was really impressed to see more display work up and the classrooms are starting to improve. The progress of the new building is amazing too - the chairman of the school Ram Lal is fantastic and is really helping to push the school forwards.

Lovely to see art work on the wall in Bagnas.

In the evening I was greeted by my homestay family with great excitement when I got home. I had a really lovely evening and they had gone to so much effort for me with a 'Happy Birthday Andy' cut out on the wall and had had an amazing cake made for me. Rob came up for a while despite having felt very ill all day, whilst I opened my presents. Rob gave me a traditional Tansen wicker stool which I had had on my list of things to buy. They are actually made in the prison at the bottom of the town and are really bright and colourful. The only slight challenge will be getting it in my bag to come home! My homestay family brought me a shirt and I also opened some presents and cards that family and friends had sent from back home. It was a really special evening - I really do feel very attached to them and it is going to be really hard to leave in six weeks time.
 

My wonderful homestay family, on my birthday.

Sagar and I at meeting with Pipal Danda.

We were pleased at the attendance of this meeting so we could
speak to them as a whole rather than just to individuals.

The following day we had a meeting set for Pipal Danda. We had bumped into the village chairman during our visit to Jheksang and this seemed to have prompted a bit of a move forward. I travelled there with Saran and Sagar and we spoke to a large number of the villagers and explained what we were trying to do. There was some resistance at points and at one point both myself and Sagar had to be quite blunt and tell them that there were many other schools which needed our help and that they were not the only ones. They seemed to be insistent on having a number of rooms built which were completely unnecessary but finally did seem to come round and we left with the village voting to work with us. Whilst we are not there yet it was a good step forward in getting this building project back underway and I was fairly pleased and relieved at the end of another long and fairly intense meeting. What is rather sad is the amount of time that we could have spent working with the children rather than having all of these meetings. It is a sad fact in Nepal that for the most part, right from the government down, there is far too much talking and not enough action.



Rob, was feeling a bit better when I returned, though far from 100% and wasn't really ready to go back to Bagnas the next day for what I believed would be my final day there. It might be that we will be able to pop back for a quick visit before we leave, given the schools proximity to Tansen.

An enthusiastic morning welcome from the children at Bagnas.

I was once again warmly welcomed by the children who waved and called out my name enthusiastically as I arrived at the school. Carrying on with the creativity from two days before I started out with Year 4 and we made wall hangings from leaves, an activity chosen by Pushpa, from one of the books we had brought for the school. Again the children loved the practical nature of the task and it gave them an opportunity to work together in a small group. I was really pleased with the results and there was a lot of practice for the children at cutting and following written instructions and they got to explore symmetry too.

On a hunt for materials!

Showing good teamwork skills.

Getting creative with sticks and leaves. The ideas were taken from a book we brought which is full of creative ideas using natural resources which are easily accessible in our remote villages.

The next lesson I taught, and another new one, was sound with Year 3. I showed the children that sound is made from a vibration which I demonstrated with the Madal (drum) small stones on it, showing how the vibrations from the drum made the stones jump up off the surface. We then made cup and string telephones which the children were very enthusiastic about. We tried different lengths, made a 4 way telephone and looked at whether the string needed to be tight or not. The children were also able to feel the vibration in the string as their partner talked. It was really very clear with this exercise in particular as to how much practical activities can help with children's understanding.

Exploring sound through cup and string telephones.

We again had a short lunch and as a snack I tried a rather unusual local delicacy - chicken feet!!! Despite how disgusting this sounds it actually wasn't too bad - you didn't eat the whole thing but just chewed off the crispy outside layer. I'm not sure this will ever catch on back home though!!!

Vegetarians look away!! Chicken feet for lunch!

 

 

In the afternoon, the chairman, Ram Lal came along and they presented me with another Karawa - I'm building up quite a collection now, and thanked Manisha UK for everything. With their new building almost completed they requested help in getting the rooms furnished, something would be excellent for a school twinning project. I hope they can get these new classrooms looking really great. They have done their best with display work in their other classrooms but it was always quite difficult with the rough walls. It would be great if we can get their classrooms looking more like their 'Room to Read' library, full of colour and displays.

 

 

I was almost tearful leaving this really lovely school. They are the friendliest and most welcoming school and I wish them every success in the future. That's the end of another entry. Rob and I are going to a Nepali wedding over the next couple of days (hopefully he is feeling better for it!).  

Rajan speaking at the leaving ceremony.

Group photo with all the teachers and pupils of Bagnas.

 

Their work not mine... but great to see!!!

Great progress at Angakhola and Jheksang

Hello again,

 

After our return from Okhaldunga we had a busy weekend before heading back out for our visit to Angakhola and Jheksang schools on the Monday.

 

On the Friday afternoon of our return from Okhaldunga we visited a science fair at a local school where Abhi was representing his school. We had seen Abhi's work in it's preparation stages but were so impressed with what he and his friends had made, a model of a JCB with a fully working scoop which could move from side to side and scoop up dirt from the desk on which it stood. The model worked on a hydraulic system using plastic syringes attached to tubes to move the different parts. It really was a great model and we both agreed that we wouldn't have been able to make anything like it now let alone when we were 12!

All of the work from the other children at different private schools from around Tansen was very impressive and it was great to see some creativity which is so often lacking in some of our schools. The children of these schools though do have a far more privileged upbringing than the children in our government schools so it is not really a fair comparison. The event though did provide  us with some more inspiration for ideas we could use in our schools.

On the Saturday we visited Pipal Danda school, accompanied by the Rotary chairman of Tansen and had a meeting with them to try and get the building project re-started there. It turned out to be a rather frustrating meeting as they are making it very difficult for us to help them. We understood that they had had problems in the past but we are trying to help them and it is frustrating that they are dragging their heels on this. With the monsoon season approaching it really is so important that we can get this project up and running again before the rains come. We did bring the school a number of resources though which they seemed pleased with and we are beginning to build back a trust with them so hopefully we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

With such a busy weekend and having visited Pipal Danda on the Saturday we had a rest day on the Sunday where we did some more blog writing and also visited Madhav, a local man from Tansen who was always keen to say hello and see us and had been inviting Andy to lunch for some time. We had a really nice meal with him and his wife - he was very keen on showing us all of his 'Western friends' - I think there is a certain amount of prestige involved in having foreigners round. He and his wife were lovely though and we had a good time talking with them.

 

On Monday it was time to go back to school as we continued with our busy schedule. The welcome we received from Angakhola school was once again incredible. The children lined the path and plastered tikka on our faces and hung crazy amounts of flower garlands round our neck - for Rob it was his first experience of anything like this and rather overwhelming!

 

 

 

 

 

After our warm welcome we got straight on with some teaching, visiting year 8 to make some cubes. Once again it was not an easy activity for the children and it was very clear that they had no experience in doing anything like this. None of the children guessed what we were making until we literally folded the net together and their lack of skill at using a pair of scissors was quite shocking, though understandable given they have never used them. The finished results were once again really excellent, though it took a lot of time and a lot of support from us. The children really enjoyed the activity and were quite rightly proud of their work.

 



The cubes lesson took up some of the afternoon session also so we only had time left to work with year 3 on our body parts lesson which the children again thoroughly enjoyed and joined in enthusiastically with the actions we made for each of the different body parts.

In the evening we stayed at one of the teachers homes, a 45 minute walk away from the school. In the early part of the evening we took a walk around the village and were joined by a number of the children and we ended up playing various games with the rugby ball and volleyball. The children seemed rather disappointed when we said we had to head back down to the house but it was fairly dark by this point! We enjoyed a delicious meal with local chicken and beaten rice, accompanied by the seemingly obligatory Roxy!!!

The evening was spent with a big dance program where there was a mixture of traditional Nepali music alongside quite a bit of more modern music. A great time was had by everyone though.

We had a nice walk back to the school in the morning surrounded by the children who enjoyed piggy backs, trying on our rucksacks and hanging off our arms and pulling us along. They are always so smiley and it was a great way to start the day walking along in the warm sunshine.



We started the next morning by taking a visit to the nursery and brought the Year kindergarten children up with us. We brought along a number of the resources we had given the school and gave them free time to explore the resources and read the books. The children really enjoyed this and they were all engaged either in an activity or in reading one of the books. One of the recommendations we are giving is that the teachers do bring these resources to the classes maybe once a week for just half an hour and give the children a chance to explore them. We both strongly felt that the children would get a huge amount from this, especially if coupled with discussing with a teacher about what they are doing.

The nursery looked really amazing though (and a few of the other junior classrooms were starting to show some encouraging signs of display work) and they had put up some of the things Andy had brought with him on his last visit. We also visited the library, a 'Room to Read' building, and re-iterated to them the importance of making sure these better classroom are used as much as they possibly can be.



Our next two lessons were Alien Soup and Friction which we had previously done in other schools but these both went down really well and the children thrived on the hands on nature of the tasks. Towards the end of the Alien Soup lesson, for a bit of fun and whilst the children were writing up their investigation, we had a competition to see who could draw the best Alien, voted for by the children, which Andy won!!

After lunch we worked with both the Year 1 and Year 4 and got the paints out to do some leaf printing. This didn't work out as well as we had hoped due to having the wrong kind of paint and with too many children gathered round at one time. The prints didn't really show up that well but most importantly the children loved doing it and so, whilst the end result wasn't overly spectacular the children had a great time and the teachers saw the kind of thing we were looking to do and got the idea of using things from their natural surroundings.

The final lesson we did was PE and after doing the over and under game, which had proved immensely popular when Andy had previously done it in other schools, Rob, as a PE specialist, picked out one of the games he had used in classes in England, benchball. It took quite a while before the children really understood what they were doing but this in itself caused a lot of hilarity and once they did have it they really loved it. The game has the great advantage that as one team scores more points (gets more people on the bench) it becomes more difficult for them so the game remains fairly even throughout and everyone gets an opportunity to join in.

 

We finished slightly early at the schools request as they wanted to say goodbye and thank us for the work we had done with them. They presented us each with a Karawa, a traditional Palpa drinking pot, a really lovely gift, which they had had inscribed with the school name also. It was a really lovely leaving ceremony with all of the children gathered around. In general we were really impressed with the school and sad to say goodbye.

We had a quiet night and set off at 9 the next morning for the short trip by jeep down to Jheksang school. We first visited Year 1 as this had been one of the poorest classrooms when Andy had last visited but we were really pleased to find some more display posters up along with a number of teddy bears which had apparently been sent to them by their UK twinned school, Hayes Park Primary School in London. It was really good to see them making a start in putting things up and we helped this further by adding a few more posters and also re-arranging the desks into a horseshoe shape so the children can see and talk to each other. We were really pleased the school was so co-operative with this and hope they will see the benefits.

Jheksang school does not have a library, as is the case with half of our schools. We have been trying to encourage the view that whilst a library building is good, a well stocked bookshelf in one of the rooms is a great starting point. Again we were really happy that the school put their existing resources up and on display and we saw many children come in during our time here and choose a book or puzzle to take away. This has been set up in their staff room, which is not ideal, but it did seem that the children were welcome to come in and have a look.

The remainder of the morning and early part of the afternoon was spent making cubes with year 8 which once again proved challenging but ultimately a big success and the children were evidently pleased with the end result.

 

We were pleased to see some of the pupils involved in an outdoor cooking lesson and it was great to see a practical skill being taught without a textbook in sight! We were invited to come and have a taste later on and it was delicious, the only problem being we had only just eaten an enormous lunch and so another huge plateful of food was difficult to get through!!!

In the evening we made our way up the steep hillside to a neighbouring village, which we reached in just under an hour. Once again there was an evening of entertainment and dancing laid on for us which was a lot of fun!

 

Our next day at Jheksang was full of practical activities; alien soup, body parts, friction and measuring. We adapted our friction lesson (whilst these lessons were new to the schools - we were getting rather tired of teaching the lessons in the same way!) and the children measured whose shoe had the most friction by placing them on a bench and seeing how high one end of the bench could be lifted before the shoe slid down. Some of the results the children were not exactly as we expected and possibly that had something to do with the accuracy of the measuring but nevertheless the children enjoyed it and understood the principle of the activity. 

The measurement lesson we also adapted and had the children completing a standing jump and measuring the results. We tried to explain to the teacher that this was a great starting point and the data could be used to create graphs, look at averages (mean, median, mode and range) or innumerable other activities. The idea being that it is much more interesting for children to handle data if it is relevant to them and real. In our final lesson we took the books and resources around to class 3 and let them choose what they wanted to read or do, again explaining to the teachers the benefits of allowing children to immerse themselves in a book or an activity of their choosing. We really hope this is something they will take on to make the fullest use of the resources possible.



We again walked up the steep track to the village in the evening but this time for a nice quiet and peaceful evening which we were thankful for. We arranged to make an early start the next morning to trek up to the top of the hill, a 2 hour walk, where apparently the views are amazing. Unfortunately in the night it rained heavily and hearing the rain thundering down on the tin roof at our wake up time we didn't move, knowing the walk would not be happening. It had thankfully stopped by the time we left for school but it was still very difficult trying not to slip up on the steep, muddy track down to school. This walk is something that some of the children and teachers have to do every day and it is difficult to imagine what that must be like come the monsoon season. Jeeps at that time of the year are not possible as the roads are too slippery and dangerous. Life must be very hard.

 

On the final morning we made some posters about different countries using the maps and factsheets we had brought. Once again it was difficult to get the children to show any originality but when you consider how little they know about other areas of Nepal, let alone the outside world it is not so surprising. They drew some great pictures though and we talked with them about the things they had drawn. Passing the globe around, a few of them could easily locate Nepal but not too many. Again this just goes to highlight their lack of access to good atlases, globes that we take so much for granted in the western world.

Finally we ended our visit with another game of bench ball, which again the children loved. One of the boys was particularly good but also grew frustrated with his less accomplished team mates. It was funny to see him bossing them around, instructing them to make runs and growing frustrated when they dropped the ball. He had a real passion for the game which was great to see, though he perhaps needed to be a little more sympathetic to his team mates!

On the whole we were really impressed with Jheksang school. They showed real interest in what we were doing and seemed happy to let the children come and have a look and a play with the resources. The two poorest classrooms had also improved a lot since Andy was last here. It was great also to see that they were busy improving the playing are and extending it out further. This seemed to us to be a good use of funds as there is a real shortage of flat areas for the children to play in. We headed back to Tansen just as another heavy rainstorm hit.

Best wishes

Andy and Rob