Making friends, making mo mo's and a visit to Kolkal

Hello Everyone,

Last week was a frustrating week in some ways but also a quite productive and useful one. I had hoped that after a long but enjoyable trip to Gorkha, a couple of days to get sorted and have a break would be followed by a trip to Mahachaap, the only twinned school I have yet to visit. Unfortunately and at rather late notice I was informed that it wasn’t a great time for a visit for them. It would have been good to know this in a bit more advance so I could have planned a visit somewhere else but as it happens I had plenty of work to keep me busy and so it wasn’t time wasted. Aside from making resources the real positive from last week was securing a visit to the rotary club of Palpa, whom we were hoping could work with us on future projects and provide a permanent point of contact when dealing with future projects, in particular building work, especially when there are no Manisha volunteers out here.

The advantage of the rotary organisation is also that there are people from many different backgrounds so it hopefully can help to ‘get things done’ in a country where that is not always so easy! I initially met up with Utpal, a Rotary member who Steve Tonry, our Chair of Trustees, himself a Rotarian, had made contact with. We had had a previous meeting with Utpal near the beginning of my trip but with festivals, strikes and everything else going on we had rather lost touch. After phoning Utpal to try and re-establish a contact, I found myself meeting him an hour later and I outlined to him what we were looking to do and how we saw the partnership working. He seemed very positive and invited me to the monthly meeting, coincidentally and thankfully the next evening.

I felt rather nervous attending a Nepali rotary club meeting but they were very welcoming and put me at ease though the first half hour or so was devoted to other matters, and obviously being in Nepali, meant that I just had to sit patiently and occasionally nod to try and show that I was following with interest (clearly I wasn’t!!!). After a while though I heard Manisha UK mentioned and so my time had come – I explained what our project was all about and our intentions and this was translated (some of them could understand some of what I was saying I think). After about five minutes of discussion amongst themselves they agreed they would be happy to work with us, so all in all as successful meeting!!

We hope that this partnership will be a real benefit and will mean that projects and building work can be monitored for progress and with the help of an organisation who knows how things work and what our expectations should be.

The other accomplishment last week was getting some teachers together for a teacher training planning meeting. We are hoping to create a sustainable approach to teaching in our schools and for that to happen it is important that we get the teachers involved in planning the training as well as taking part in it. I had three teachers working with me from Bhalebas and Dumre schools. They gave me a good idea of the areas we needed to cover (this teacher training will be based around Science – not my strongest subject!). I want to try and demonstrate how to make Science come alive for the children through simple demonstrations, experiments and investigations. One teacher, the head teacher from Bhalebas school, Mr Singh, has also volunteered to show off some activities for electricity and light. This was really pleasing and hopefully something we will see more of in the future. Having held the meeting I am now feeling a bit more confident about the session, though still quite nervous about leading it for the whole day!

Besides the meetings and resources work, there were also some really nice guests staying at my homestay. Besides the lovely Bashayal family who really do treat me as a family member it has been really great meeting the various guests that come through. Tansen is not a particularly touristy town, though certainly not unvisited. Most people stay here for 2 or three days. Staying last week was an American lady, called Susan, a Spaniard, named Laura and two Nepali students, currently studying in Bangkok, Samip and Samagya. We all got on really well and had some very enjoyable evenings with a few beers and a pack of cards, and not mention the pick-up sticks, which has turned into a bit of a favourite game out here!

I also went for another sunrise walk – have done quite a few now but still enjoy them and the pain of waking up early is definitely superseded by the ‘wow factor’ of seeing the early morning sunlight painting the icy peaks, first orange then pink and finally bright white. It is a really great way to start the day and, thankfully, does not commence quite so early as it did when I first arrived!

Making Momo's - it's more difficult than they make it look and they taste delicious!

Samip and Samagya on another amazing sunrise walk.

There were a couple of other events of note last week. Firstly the prime minister of Nepal came to Tansen to celebrate the town being noted as 100% literate. I'm not entirely sure what the criteria they set for being literate is but for schools it once again meant a day off school, marching around the town in celebration. I did not have too much time to join in as this clashed with my teacher training meeting but it was clearly an important event for them and it was amazing how many people were there to parade around the town! 

 

Celebrations in Tansen that they are a 100% literate town. The boy with the yellow sign in the bottom right picture is Abhi from my homestay.

The other potential thing of note was meeting a man called Klaus, who is working at the University of Seoul, in South Korea, and is working on a project in Nepal to bring computers to schools. The significant thing with this is that they are not normal computers but tiny little boxes (forgive the lack of correct terminology!) which could literally fit into your hand but plugged into a monitor they work as a basic but fully functioning computer. The important thing is that they are the fraction of the price of a normal computer so could be a good way forward for us getting computers in schools. Of course I have to do some more investigative work around this to see if they are a viable option going forward. If anyone has any insights or knowledge about these please let me know!!

Despite a very nice week I was pleased that this week I was able to get back into schools. The school I visited on Monday (there was another holiday on Sunday!) was called Kolkal and is a tiny village school about an hours walk from Saran’s home in Bhalebas which I got a jeep to on Sunday. The walk to Kolkal was really beautiful as it was so clear and we could see right across the valley back to Tansen and I could even pick out the home where I am staying through the zoom on my camera. We could also see the Himalayas rising up behind Tansen and it really was difficult to believe they were over 120Km (80 miles) away.

Not for the first time a child was absolutely glued to one of the books we brought. Some of our schools desperately need more story books!

Beautiful views back towards Tansen with the mountains behind.

What I had not been aware of until the previous day was that it was Kolkal’s anniversary of their opening and so the day was to be a day for games and enjoyment rather than any lessons! Also the following day (Tuesday) was  going to be a few ceremonies and speeches in Nepali so there wasn’t a huge amount of benefit going to that. I later found out it was the schools 19^th anniversary – not really sure that merits 3 days off lessons!!!

Kolkal school: A tiny primary school about an hours walk from Bhalebas.

However we did have a really good day there and I was able to teach one lesson before parents arrived for the fun and games. The lesson I taught consisted of drawing round a boy, Bipin, and then labelling his body parts. The children found it really funny seeing their friend being drawn around and hopefully it made for an interesting lesson. Afterwards I cut round the life size labelled drawing and made a point of sticking it up in Bipin’s classroom, emphasising the benefits of putting up display work in the classroom. 

Drawing and labelling Bipin. A really fun, interactive lesson which the children enjoyed and they ended up with their first display work of the classroom!

When the parents arrived they got together four teams of adults and had a quiz. I thought this was a little unusual as the children were not involved in this part but it wasn’t until the next activity commenced which also was adult only was I told that this was a day for adult games – the children had had their games the previous day! Basically this meant that the children were sat bored watching the adults play games. Periodically I gathered the children round for some games of their own which I don’t think was expected but I couldn’t let the children sit there all day as spectators – after all it was a school event! We played a game of ladders (good to be able to ignore over the top health and safety laws once in a while!) which the children and adults (who I made take their turn as spectators!) enjoyed enormously. 

Man down during the Hokey Kokey! - Nepali children are pretty tough though and they soon got back up to carry on!

Kolkal anniversary celebrations - more adult games than I would have liked but I think everyone enjoyed in the end!

Home made swing!

Saran (bottom) and myself (top) try out a game where you are blindfolded, given a stick and have to hit a box placed 15 metres straight in front of you. Surprisingly difficult and we both failed!

Introducing ladders to Nepal - there was a lot of confusion and many moments of hilarity but the children loved it!

One adults game I did participate in, though I was still shocked that it was not done for the children (apparently it had been the previous day), was musical chairs. I can now proudly state that I am the Kolkal 2013 (2070 by Nepali date) musical chairs champion!! It has to be right up there as one of my proudest moments!!!

Afterwards there was games of volleyball and I also played with the rugby ball with some of the children when the opportunity arose. It was a really fun day and it is really great that the adults are involved in the school community – I just wish they had made it a little more child orientated, though I did my best to steer it this way.

 

Leaping like a ... ten ton rock! I thought I gave it a good go but Nepali's are very good at volleyball - my team lost!

Well that brings me up to today and I am at Saran’s house in the freezing cold (yesterday was really warm - weather here can be quite up and down!). Tomorrow I will be teaching in Bhalebas and hopefully some normal lessons!!!

Will update soon!

Andy. xx