Christmas

An inauspicious start to our Christmas holiday as we are both struck down with Giardia, David has terrible cold and cough and all flights delayed by fog in Kathmandu. When we eventually reach the Pacific Guest House, it is freezing and we have a tiny room with no natural light, cold shower and lumpy cotton mattress. Went immediately to the big shop and bought a fan heater to stop David shaking. We managed to be fairly jolly when we went out with friends about to set off for Dorset and Delhi for their Christmas treats. On Monday David felt worse and went to the clinic while I went to VSO to prepare for the action research workshop next month. Text message conveyed severe upper and lower respiratory tract infection and suspected malaria. Tests inconclusive. He spent the next few days sitting in the sun in many layers of clothing attempting to keep warm, then diving under many layers of bedcovers still fully clothed in the evenings. Shakes subsided; malaria unlikely; as the antibiotics started to alleviate the respiratory infection, his face erupted into a massive cold sore. He remained cheerful and determined that we should go to Bardia. So after a successful few days work, we returned to the airport to find no flights to the Terai because of fog, but we eventually got to Nepalgunj in south west Nepal by early afternoon on Saturday 22nd. We were met by a jeep and the charming Raju and sped along the western part of the Mahendra Highway, passing small mud villages, rice stacks, laden buffalo carts, bright yellow fields of mustard, surprisingly pink pigs, and YCL road blocks. Gradually the forest thickened on either side of the road, and we entered the national park. An hour of dirt road, fording two rivers and passing through many prosperous looking Tharu villages brought us to the lovely Tiger Mountain lodge (no tigers or mountains) in traditional mud and thatch. After a delicious daal bhat snack, we walked in the sal forest, hearing wild elephant and parakeets, seeing fresh tracks of rhino, leopard and tiger, holes of porcupines and pythons and seeing crocodiles, deer (various) and monkeys (various). We returned past the 5 domestic elephants eating their supper, and were greeted by tea and popcorn around a blazing fire, hot shower with an alarming jet propelled shower mat, dinner and a bottle of wine, before retiring to our room where hot water bottles had been placed in the huge bed. The only other guests were a white Kenyan couple doing research as part of an international rhino conservation project. Rhinos are severely threatened in Bardia. The 80 transported here from Chitwan were all poached within a year. An early morning walk on Sunday; the misty forest smelled remarkably like an English beech wood in autumn, but there the similarity ended. Many tracks and noises, but few animals. After a late breakfast and relaxing morning in a sunny hammock, we set off into the forest on top of the enormous Laxmi Kali in a sturdy howdah. A green sea of towering elephant grass opened before us and we crossed rivers of swirling waterand seemingly impenetrable thickets in search of elusive animals. After 2 hours she sank to her knees so we could dismount with some dignity, and we were jeeped to a tented camp by the massive Karnali river where we spent Christmas. Safari luxury, with big tents, hot showers, camp fire, the wine bottle and hot water bottles. There were 2 resident python beneath the camp, the female with a ‘waist’ measurement larger than mine. A perfect Christmas day, rafting down the Karnali in warm sunshine, watching birds and Gangetic dolphin playing, stopping for a picnic on the river bank, before meeting Laxmi Kali on a sand bank. Worries about mounting were short-lived, as she knelt down, hooked her tail into a stirrup and propelled us up her mountainous backside. We encountered wild elephant (surprisingly not poached for their ivory) on the way back to the lodge. Christmas dinner (lots of vegetables but no sprouts) was followed by a flat brownish cake with Merry Xmax in white icing. Two more days of elephant safaris, walks and reading in hammocks. Colonel Jim Edwards, the founder of Tiger Tops and owner of the lodge arrived on our last night with some of his children and their friends, with much hospitality and entertaining stories around the fire in the evening.
We spent 5 hours in Nepalgunj airport on Thursday afternoon waiting for a plane, and a further 4 hours at Kathmandu airport on Friday waiting for our flight home. Security tried to confiscate David’s candles as a WMD. We did not know that domestic planes flew at night – there are no lights on the planes or the runways. Everest by moonlight was spectacular and landing a big surprise!

Training, training, training

My naïve assumption that the English training package had been divided amongst ‘experts’ in particular areas has been shattered. After half an hour with Kumar discussing what he was planning for the next day, he confessed that he has never heard of the topic before. There is nothing helpful in the trainer’s guide. “Perhaps you can deliver it?” Perhaps not, but I was able to make some suggestions to help him out. We did some good professional development activities today, using grade 10 students from the school, to find out about students’ problems in learning English. I was happy watching the teachers sitting cross-legged on the field with a small group of students, encouraging them to talk. We had done some work on phrasing questions beforehand, getting rid of some eg ‘is your teacher bad?’ ‘does your teacher beat you when you make a mistake?’ Lots of good points, which will provide a focus for the classroom research session tomorrow. As we were finishing, a demonstration was parading past the ETC (a frequent occurrence), and a group of women came in with a petition to be delivered to the PM’s residence further down the road. It was a demand for implementation of the legislation for 33% female representation in parliament written and signed on a series of bedsheets. We all added our signatures enthusiastically. There is only one woman in the secondary group.
The atmosphere in the training room is much more positive and relaxed now we know each other better. Many come early in the morning to talk to me – the first time they have every spoken to a native English speaker – and they want me to comment on what they are trying to do in their classrooms. The delightful Lilanath stays at the end of the day, as he is late every morning. ”I do not go to temple and pray to god; I go to the deaf school to teach the children as a volunteer”. We have planned a visit when the training is over. One of Kumar’s better ideas was to form groups by making them pick from a bag of sweets. They are now proud to call themselves ‘milky bites’, ‘choc drops’, ‘mango sucker’ and ‘coffee crème’. The person selected for the house captain role each day (responsible for time management and keeping order) now has a small brass bell. Surya used it very effectively today, especially keeping the disruptive ‘milky bite’ Shiv Narayan under control. He is the class hoodie, with the fur trimmed hood of his anorak permanently up. Today he was also wearing an anti-pollution facemask. Most teachers add extra layers of clothes daily, as the temperature continues to drop; Umapati is growing a winter moustache and we all go to the field to warm up between sessions. The ‘routines’ that Durga and I have created are beginning to have some effect, so now the teachers ask “ where are your objectives?” when a new trainer comes, and point out that he is telling them to develop student-centred teaching, while demonstrating teacher-centred methods. Progress?
David’s teaching goes from good to better. More children come every day, so more name cards have to be made each evening for the following day’s activities. Farmers have also started coming from the fields to hover in the doorway of English lessons to see what the teachers and the strange man are doing. Soon they will be able to join in the chorus of ‘Old Macdonald’.
Good business for the bicycle repair man this week, as we have acquired 3 punctures and a leaking valve! A long cycle ride on Saturday to reach Kulabari, Anita’s village, to meet her family. Aama sends huge bundles of greens for us every other day. Aama was waiting to greet us, the first time I had seen her since she appeared at the end of our bed one morning. At the back of the house are 3 cows, a goat and a vegetable garden with potatoes, spinach, garlic, onions, peppers, chillies, greens, cauliflower, pumpkins, herbs… and more. It is fertilised by the waste from their own biogas producer, which provides their cooking fuel. A splendid example of self sufficient living. We had a lovely afternoon, with lots of snacks and many local children coming round to try out their few words of English.
We are going to Kathmandu on the 18th for a 3 day planning meeting at VSO for an action research workshop in January. On 22nd we are flying to Nepalgunj in SW Nepal and will be met at the airport and transported to Tiger Mountain in Bardia National Park for a Christmas treat. Back here on December 30.

Breakthroughs?

The pampered cow that wore a raincoat during the monsoon now has a smart paisley blanket on winter mornings. It starts getting cold about 4 pm, so we are now only swimming at weekends. David has just worked 12 days without a break at Bal Rani, as their school self assessment took place over last weekend. Teachers, students, community members, parents and the DEO have been working together on a new school improvement plan. The staff are really keen to improve both their teaching and the school, and he feels he is making some headway. Babaram from the DEO has been interested in David’s presence and involvement in the self assessment, and has come back to school to watch David’s lesson observations and feedback. He has now managed to talk through a teaching and learning action plan with the head and the DEO, and VSO are interested in using this as a model for future placements. His team teaching has been going well, and he planned to take Gayenau’s class when she was away on Thursday. The children had made name cards that he had then typed and printed for some work in English. He was disappointed that the children did not remember the alphabet song he had taught them the day before, but as he tried to match children to the name cards, realised that he was in the wrong class!
I’ve resisted invitations to work through another weekend training programme, although I’ve had great fun with a group of secondary teachers doing Life Skills this week. A really inventive programme, with lots of games and role plays. The human noughts and crosses competition on the school field drew many spectators. Cow poo was an additional hazard, and the goats became very frisky. I also did my bit for World AIDS day, with a quiz and discussion.
The primary teachers have trickled in from the hills during the week and we were up to our full compliment of 60 by Friday. They range from bright young men in smartly pressed shirts, trainers and baseball caps who call me ‘auntie’, to elderly men in traditional Nepali dress, and stout middle aged sari clad women who call me didi. We have interesting ‘mixed language’ conversations. Training for English and Maths secondary teachers has also begun, so I am working alongside Durga with the English teachers. They are finding it very difficult to work in English. Its hard to plan ahead, as training mostly follows what teachers do in class – pick up the text and see what’s next. However, he has put several suggestions from the last training into practice and we have now agreed a ‘good practice model’ for all trainers to follow. Quite how this will be done is yet to be determined, but it’s a start. Some of the training materials are good, but others range from the dull and irrelevant to the bizarre. Today’s session on social inclusion, where we organised some very effective role play (a new experience for the trainees) ended with a handout on English customs: “Do not be surprised if you are called flower, chuck, me duck, mate, gov or treacle. It is perfectly normal.” “Do not remove pickings from your nose, clean your ears (bike key is the favourite implement for this activity here), spit (frequent trips to the window to clear nose and throat and expel vast quantities of mucus is common) or pass wind in public places”. Having watched the poor young trainer today struggle with the less than helpful and largely irrelevant materials in the guide, I’ve agreed to help him do something more active and relevant on Sunday, while Durga is visiting elderly relatives in Jhapa.

My sixtieth birthday has been and gone, with party hats and cards at breakfast time and the ceremonial harvesting of our first radish. The day was not without incident; the training was probably the best we’ve done together so far, David came to meet Bedu at the end of the day and we all had pepper tea at Thapa’s mosquito infested tea stall. His arrival caused much interest amongst the primary teachers, who quizzed me about aglo manche (tall man) the next morning. My treat of a bucket of hot water at shower time was spoiled by smashing the bathroom light as I swatted a mosquito with my towel. Naked, dripping, cold, surrounded by broken glass, in the dark, and sixty. We ate dinner at Friends’ Restaurant near the bus stand; in addition to good Indian food, the menu boasts ‘hard liquor’ and single cigarettes. The bhai (waiter) is charming and looks after us well, the paper napkins are not torn in half and our elbows do not stick to the tables. Dinner for two £1:50. Very dark cycling home, under the orange saucer of a new moon, where David surprised me with birthday cake (the best attempt at chocolate cake Kiran’s bakery could manage) complete with candles (6).

Meanwhile Saroj, in the absence of Tanka and Amita who have gone to Kathmandu, has set up a slalom course in the garden in anticipation of his motorcycle test – a 5 minute exercise weaving between 6 posts without putting your feet on the ground or falling off. The rice harvest is coming in from the fields piled high on ox carts, handcarts, rickshaws and heads. An impressive pile is being built next door.

More festivals

The 5 day Tihar festival started on Wednesday, with crows as messengers honoured, followed by garlanded (rather than usually much abused) dogs on Thursday as we set off for Janakpur. I love being at a bus station at dawn. Pink-grey sky; hustle and hassle as conductors try to fill their buses. Attempts to find a seat that was welded to the floor with the back attached to the seat and glass in the window proved impossible, so we departed precariously at 6am. Surprisingly chilly and damp as we crossed the huge Koshi barrage that supplies much of the electricity for the Terai. Endless stretches of sugar cane and rice paddy in shades from bright green to ripe yellow, with brown stalks where it had alreadybbeen harvested. Large herds of cattle and goats; the many rivers were alive with boys washing buffalo, while in the villages women were repairing their house walls with mud and cleaning for Laxmi puja.

After 6 bone shaking hours we arrived at the Rama Hotel in Janakpur, where the corridor to our room was also being cleaned, necessitating wading up to our ankles in soapy water to a depressingly brown room. But at least there was water. Janakpur is the city where Sita was born and later married to Ram (for details see the Ramayana), and is a Hindu pilgrimage city for Nepalis and Indians. We walked south to Kuwa village to the Janakpur Women’s Cooperative, where local women, previously confined to the home, are producing traditional Maithili art work; huge paintings of village life in vibrant colours, ceramics and textiles. The project is very successful, and many of the women have started their own small businesses since the project started 12 years ago. In the village, women were decorating the walls of their houses with mud relief work and painting them in traditional designs. Men were threshing rice with teams of cattle, children were playing among the rice stacks and buffaloes wallowed like hippos in the ponds.

On the morning of Tihar, huge banana plants were delivered to all the shops, erected, wrapped in brightly coloured paper and hung with decorations. We spent the day touring the ponds and temples with many gaudy statues of Ram and Sita, and visited the Big Monkey temple where a rhesus monkey is being fattened to emulate his 60kg father. As we returned to the hotel, mandalas in brightly coloured powder were being prepared outside all the shops and houses, and at dusk oil lamps were lit on every surface, from the roof tops to the streets. Beautiful. The effect was spoiled by the fireworks which are now also traditional and big on noise but not aesthetics. A combination of Christmas and bonfire night.

Saturday is the day cows are celebrated, and they were splendidly striped in shocking pink and turquoise; we watched a small girl dying her goat a vibrant green. We caught the last bus home, hoping to arrive before dark, but our progress was impeded by a puncture. Nepali buses do not carry spare wheels, so we limped backwards to the nearest town to get it repaired. We arrived home long after dark, our walk back from the bus stand lit by the Tihar lights of Biratnagar. Still no water. A promising brown trickle on Sunday morning was short-lived, so we use the outside tap like many of the other local people.

Friday (November 16), was Chhath, a huge festival in the Terai, celebrating sunset and sunrise the following morning. After work we followed the crowds to the river, where thousands of people were gathered along the banks. Every temple (there are several hundred) had its own appointed place, strung with garlands, coloured lights, tinsel and other decorations. Women in their best saris had brought huge baskets of puja offerings and tiny butter lamps were lit along the river and floated off at dusk. The women waded into the filthy water with their puja offerings and immersed themselves, while boys splashed in the shallows and emerged to let off more firecrackers. We followed the crowds back to where we had left our cycles, and eventually found our way home via a very dark, circuitous route. That seems to be the last of the festivals, and already there are strikes planned for Sunday, huge Maoist protest rallies, Madhesi bandhs called and inertia in Parliament.

We have just finished a 7 day ’training of trainers’ programme; no concession for weekends, so 12 days of real work without a break. Durga and Babaram attended a ‘master trainers’ course in Pokhara last month, and were promised a training package to deliver. This has not materialised. Durga had collected the powerpoint presentations given by the ‘experts’ and decided this should form the basis of the training. Forward planning is not a strength, but we did eventually meet to discuss the training the day before it started. I was in despair having seen the material; densely typed pages lifted from the internet, many inaccuracies and no practical application. My questions of “Do you understand this slide?” “Is it useful?” left with us with nothing after completing the exercise. Having decided what would be useful and relevant, we have had late nights preparing materials. Maybe next time we will start earlier………. We were working with 30 English and 30 secondary Science teachers from eastern Nepal – one female in each group, which is better than none. Sessions improved slowly during the week; I am trying to model what I think is good practice. I’m not sure Durga agrees. After a session with the scientists when we played at being molecules on the field, joined by goats and several stray children, I think he doubts my professional credentials. We started at 7am on the last morning so participants could catch heir buses home before an indefinite bandh started on Thursday. The week ended well, with many invitations for us to go and deliver training in the districts. Lalmani and his family prepared a feast (daal bhat) in the hostel at the end of the training. The ‘peons’ work so hard while training is on, carrying furniture and equipment, cycling to the photocopy shop, shopping for materials and looking after the hostel (a rather grim building with small 17 rooms and very basic sanitation). I’ve just finished summarising all the feedback forms and writing an evaluation, with many positive comments and a few lessons for next time.

Thursday was spent planning the next round of training; 60 primary teachers arrive on Sunday for 10 weeks, 25 for a week of Life Skills on Monday and 60 secondary teachers the following weekend for a month. Busy at last!

The cyclone in Bangladesh has resulted in the arrival of cool air; colleagues arrive at the training centre each morning wrapped in jackets and scarves. 28^oC at midday today, but our cold shower (water now restored) is beginning to feel unpleasantly cold in the evenings. We have a new ‘friend’ in the shape of Amita’s mother, who is currently staying upstairs. She sent us many delicious Tihar snacks last week, and is obviously fascinated by bideshi living. David found her in the kitchen yesterday and she was standing at the foot of the bed when I woke up this morning!

Winter

Back to work. Glorious weather – sunny and dry with gentle breezes; the mud has dried and turned to all pervasive dust. The rice is being harvested. Colleagues are wearing socks, shoes and long sleeved shirts in recognition of the winter season. It’s a cool 30 - 32oC during the day. I’ve planted lettuces and herbs in a box on the terrace; they have germinated in 3 days. We’ve started working ‘winter hours’, as it starts it get dark soon after 5pm. The neighbours are shinning up their coconut palms to thin them, reinforcing one of the messages from the security conference that Terai volunteers are in more danger from falling coconuts than Maoist insurgency. There was an earthquake in Kathmandu on Monday, causing the temporary evacuation of parliament and the VSO offices.
Over the Dashain holiday, Durga has purchased a motorbike, Govind has acquired an unfortunate moustache, Tulsi has new trainers. A huge marquee has been erected on the school field for an international medical conference that will start ke samaya pacchi. The goats are missing – victims of Dashain. One of our new rooms is being used for some training for technical instructors by some ‘experts’ from Kathmandu. I was invited to watch their presentations and give feedback on Tuesday, with topics ranging from jam making and snake bite to castration and family planning (not related). On Wednesday I cycled with David through the countryside to Bokhari primary school so ‘his’ teachers could demonstrate their new skills. A lovely day, squashed on benches with grubby children desperate for us to mark their books. Outside the newly painted classrooms, women harvested rice while boys (who should have been in school) watched the grazing buffalo. The medical conference did start on Thursday, causing the PM to leave crucial talks to try and resolve the political stalemate to come and open it. I had to weave my way through many check points and armed police to get to work. During the day, the police use one of our training rooms to rest, parking their guns, taking off belt, shoes and shirt before turning on the fans and lying down on the tables to sleep.
Laura, our friend from the programme office in Kathmandu arrived on Friday for the weekend, so we could start to plan VSO’s project on action research. David had managed to find a reasonably priced mattress in town that arrived several hours after she did. It was good to have a visitor at last, and we had an enjoyable time introducing her to the delights of Biratnagar (not too time consuming), as well as producing a substantial proposal for VSO.
At last Bhakta has returned from his holiday so the rest of the books have been moved into the ‘library’. On Monday I was faced with 50 locked shelves and over 200 apparently identical keys entwined in string. I managed to unlock 46 shelves by the end of the first day. With Anil’s help, I completed it by day 3, and have now finished most of the sorting, reshelving and labelling. My attempts to relegate out of date curriculum books, broken books, books with covers missing, books of no relevance to anyone or anything to the store have thwarted, but I did manage to sneak some Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets into the cardboard rubbish box. I have now bought a bin. After my days of physical exertion, Tulsi decided I was looking very thin, so organised a weigh in for all the staff, followed by him taking our blood pressure with an ancient sphygmomanometer he found in the science store.
On November 5, after a late meeting at the ETC to discuss the Training for Trainers of English and Science that does not start for another 10 days (is this progress?), we cycled home through the acrid smoke and alarming bangs of firecrackers – not a Guy Fawkes memorial, but some of the many loud and enthusiastic preparations for Tihar that starts on Friday. Noisy nights all week with ferocious firecrackers. We have also been without water for 2 days, but the shower at the pool is functional and our almost buckets full.

Holiday

Back to Biratnagar airport, where a furtive leap onto the baggage scales reveals either that they are grossly inaccurate or that we have lost more weight. From the traffic congested roads, department stores and supermarkets of Kathmandu, we ventured 10km south and arrived at the dusty, rusty bus stop of Bungamati, where we entered an almost mediaeval world. A walk up into the hills through terraced rice paddy and stands of bamboo gave a dramatic view of wooded hills leading up to the Himalaya. Small groups of women, bent double under huge loads of firewood and animal fodder trudged barefoot back to town. The many streets are lined with traditional three storey brick built Newari houses with intricately carved wooden balconies and windows, festooned with drying maize cobs. Ducks, chickens, dogs and cats with new families roamed everywhere. No motorised transport and few bicycles. Courtyards led into more courtyards lush with tropical plants, drying mats of chillies, small Hindu shrines, and children flying kites. The main square has a magnificent Sikhari temple, accessed through a huge gateway guarded by enormous stone lions, and leading down to narrow streets where women were sorting grain and making clay pots while many men were engaged in traditional wood carving. There were no outward signs of tourism – or indeed modern civilisation, inspite of the proximity to Kathmandu.
On Tuesday we arrived at the bus station at 7am for the “5 hour scenic journey by luxury coach” to Pokhara. The coach is comfortable, the weather is grim and the journey lasts for 11 hours. We spent the first hour stuck in Kathmandu traffic and the next 3 hours getting out of the valley around 3 horrendous accidents that had blocked the road and stopped the traffic. After more than 6 hours we reached the halfway (100km) lunch stop. The last kilometer was blocked by yet another accident, so the driver attempted a back route along a track that eventually petered out into a swamp and the bus got stuck under the branches of a huge tree. We walked the last 200 meters through steady rain and thick mud, while the driver extricated the bus from the swamp/tree. Spirits were revived by daal bhat, arrival of bus, clearance of road, lifting of cloud and stunning views of Annapurna and Machupuchhare as we eventually sped towards Pokhara. We arrived at our hotel as the sun was setting, with apricot tinged mountains reflected in Phewa Lake.
The next morning we set off for Naya Pul and the start of our trek, with a sprightly Dutti (the guide) and Baburam weighed down under our bag. We had to negotiate huge herds of woolly legged mountain sheep and goats with gaily painted horns being driven into Pokhara to be sold for Dashain (and slaughtered). We learn quickly that there is no flat in the Himalaya; a gentle ascent led to a steep descent to a valley with a bubbling milky white river over sparkling granite rocks, then up through forest dripping with epiphytes and singing with insects. Butterflies from tiny lilacs to velvet blues the size of bats fluttered in and out of the sunlight. After 5 hours we began the final punishing ascent up nearly 4000 stone ‘steps’ to Ulleri, where we were rewarded by stunning views of Annapurna South, a hot shower, large amounts of carbohydrate and a comfortable bed.
Day 2 was a steady uphill for nearly 5 hours, with the weather getting noticeably cooler and the forests becoming quiet and darker. We crossed many thundering rivers on stout iron bridges, different from the rather alarming bundles of twigs I remember from my last trek here. We overtake and are overtaken by many mule trains, transporting goods (mostly to feed tourists) up into the mountains. By the time we arrive at ‘The Sunny Hotel’ in Ghorepani, the sun has disappeared and it is cold. The rooms are named after international sports people. We are in ‘Tiger Woods’, with breathtaking views from Dhaulgiri to Annapurna. There is a warm dining room and extensive menu, with hot soup, lots of Tibetan bread and tasty yak cheese. The next day we climbed Poon Hill (3210m), avoiding those who rose at 4:30am to get to the summit for the sunrise. The view was just as good at 8am and it was silent and sunny. We were told that the next day would be downhill. It started with a rapid ascent of Gurung Hill before plunging into a deep valley and up the other side. This pattern continued for several exhausting hours until we arrived in Tadopani, shrouded in mist, with light rain falling. What seemed likely to be a very long afternoon and evening was enlivened by hot bowls of soup on a charcoal heated table surrounded by Tibetan carpets in which to wrap one’s legs and the lifting of the cloud to reveal the sunset over Machupuchhare. In the evening we were invited to a spontaneous singing and dancing Nepali Dashain party. The descent through the forest to the interesting Gurung village of Gharnruk was lovely, especially when we reached the butterfly and langur monkey belt. All the villages have erected huge bamboo swings for the children to play on over the holiday. Our last full day took us to Biretanthi; some very steep downhill was difficult for David’s collapsing knee, necessitating crossing the bamboo poles over a raging river and a landslide on his bottom.
Back in Pokhara, I had my first hot bath for 7 months, and we had a relaxing day by the lake, although disappointed by no mountain views, before flying back to Kathmandu. After a day in Kathmandu, spent mostly in the beautifully restored neo-classical ‘Garden of Dreams’ and eating dinner with friends in a traditional Newari house, we returned to Biratnagar. The security woman at the airport was bemused by the bottles of olives, pesto and balsamic vinegar that she discovered rolled in the dirty T-shirts at the bottom of my rucksack.

Kathmandu and back again

After a slow rickshaw ride to the airport on October 2, we were rewarded by stunning views of the Himalayas all the way to Kathmandu. We were able to collect the tickets for our holiday and buy essential supplies (coffee, muesli, pasta) from the supermarket before having dinner with friends. After a day preparing materials and activities at VSO, we really enjoyed delivering the ‘Training for Trainers’ workshop for a group of volunteers and programme staff. It felt very good to do some real training again!
The annual security conference to focus on the election was scheduled for Friday. The morning’s headlines announced that the election process had been ‘suspended’. Fortunately, the Risk Management Officer from DfID is an extremely well informed and engaging speaker and was able to provide an interesting analysis of what might happen next. Many possible scenarios, none of them very positive for peace and development.
An unintentionally amusing presentation about what to do when the next earthquake occurs followed, with useful advice about attaching one’s fridge to the wall with Velcro to prevent being crushed beneath it and the apparent inclusion of salt and pepper in one’s emergency evacuation kit. The last major earthquake occurred in 1934, but a ‘local’ one in the eastern Terai in 1988 destroyed the Dharan clock tower. At the end of the day, the T-shirts and numbers for the Kathmandu marathon arrived, having been stuck by bandhs in Biratnagar on their way from a factory in Bangladesh.
Suitably prepared to cope with emergencies, we went to dinner in Thamel with some friends, where Rosemary fell down the restaurant stairs, cutting her head and fracturing her wrist, so we were able to put some emergency plans into action. She is now making a good recovery and expects to set off trekking next week.
Saturday was the first ever Kathmandu marathon, and we assembled at 5:30am in semi-darkness at Tribeshwor stadium. The organisers were just starting to erect banners, and a lorry was stuck under the starting gate. At 7am, only an hour behind schedule, the full marathon runners started, followed by 5km, half marathon and 10km (us). By this time it was getting hot and the traffic was building up. The route was not marked and there had been no attempt to divert traffic. By the time we set off, the street sellers had covered the pavements with their goods, and people were out shopping. There was sufficient water for the first 100 runners and nothing for the other 9,900 and shops along the route quickly sold out. We managed to get lost very early on, so trotted with Neil to his house and then for breakfast in a very pleasant garden. The men’s event was won by an army officer, but the Nepali woman who finished well ahead of any rivals was disqualified having been sent the wrong way by a steward in Bhaktapur, thus forfeiting the $5000 prize. VSO then hosted a picnic for staff and volunteers, to celebrate the success of the several volunteers who completed full or half marathons. There we learnt that there had been a Madhesi uprising in Biratnagar on Friday and that the city was now under 24 hour curfew, so we were told we could not travel home on Sunday.
On Sunday morning we received a phone call from our landlord, Chhatra, who was still in Kathmandu, but leaving for the USA the next day, so we were invited to visit him and his wife and daughter in their Kathmandu house. The family greeted us with their heads encased in a kind of black mud pack, presumably some pre-departure beauty treatment, and plied us with tea and sweet fried pastries. Tara has been buying wedding gifts and all the paraphernalia for her son’s marriage puja for the last 2 months. The wedding will take place in Washington in February, and they expect to return to Biratnagar some time in March.
After some persuasion and discussion with our colleagues in Biratnagar, VSO allowed us to fly home on Monday afternoon. Biratnagar seemed much as usual, and we were able to get to the market and buy food before it got dark. At work the next day, I was treated to a tour of Anil’s new motorbike and an account of Durga’s adventures in Pokhara, where he had been attending an NCED training workshop. I had been invited to contribute, but this clashed with the VSO programme in Kathmandu. I heard little about the training, which was held from 6-10am on 7 days, to leave the rest of the time free for sight seeing. He has lots of photographs of Durga-as-tourist to prove it, and a new hat similar to David’s. We will now deliver similar training to English teacher trainers as soon as the NCED ‘packages’ are printed. He was glad to get home safely and had a police escort as far as Itahari, where he had to abandon the bus and take a rickshaw the last 25km home. Most of Sunsari and Jhapa is now under curfew and there has been no movement along the highway east for several weeks. This has had a devastating effect on supplies of yoghurt to accompany our muesli mountain. According to the newspaper, vegetable prices have ‘puffed up’ as a result of the transport problems.
I went to Shankapur for the last day of school before the Dashain holiday. Rekha abandoned me for an hour with some very excited and completely uncontrollable grade 2 children while she went to the bank to collect salaries. I am not sure how many children were supposed to be in the class; they were very small and kept disappearing through the door and windows. No-one else was making any attempt to teach, but teachers had closed the windows and were sitting with their feet up across the doorway to try keep children in the room. The small ones crept out under their legs. When Rekha returned, we all assembled in the grade 5 room for a ‘special programme’, with many children – and teachers – and me, doing a ‘turn’. Memories of trying to keep it all together on the last day before Christmas.
The ETC and DEO were closed on Friday for Ghatasthapana, when soil is brought from the holy river and barley seeds are planted in special clay pots and worshipped for 9 days to evoke Durga, the goddess of power. Everyone was in festive mood, and the market was seething with people, inspite of the ‘puffed up’ prices. We spent the morning chatting with Dinesh in his shop, eating laddoo (sticky sweets) he had brought back from Kakhabitta.
Back to Kathmandu on Sunday and off to the mountains on Tuesday – our first holiday for more than 6 months.
Dashainko shubhakamanah!

Return of the rains

A huge storm over the Bay of Bengal on Saturday has brought persistent rain back to the Terai for a week. This has invigorated the mosquitoes and, inappropriately, I spent most of the training day on non-violent discipline trying to swat them. My attempts to ward them off with a raised left eyebrow were unsuccessful, as was the promise of a gold star for not biting me. There were some very interesting observations and discussions about student motivation and (almost) differentiation. I tried very hard to persuade Durga to organise some role play, but have not had much success so far.

David, having attended the 4 day School Self Assessment training has now been in Janapath for 4 days seeing the training put into action. It started slowly, as no-one (apart from David) arrived on time, and the school had not been informed about the nature of the assessment. The head was then faced with the challenge of assembling representatives from the staff, students (relatively easy), and members of the School Management Committee and some parents (less easy). These representative groups are supposed to meet together with a facilitator for 4 days for structured discussion, with the whole group coming together on the last day to agree a School Improvement Plan. An ambitious project, made more difficult as no-one had any prior warning. Women were brought in from the fields to take part in the parents’ group, but did not stay very long as they had to return to feed their cows. After 4 days, during which there had been some interesting and heated debate, the SIP was drafted, but it is not clear what will happen next or who will monitor it. Another document to gather dust.

I went with UNICEF to Sunsari to lead some action research training for primary teachers. A wonderful journey, crammed in the back of the statutory white landcruiser, with a phallic antenna for radar security communication equipment. Radhika and the driver sat in the front wearing UN flack jackets. The field officers in the back were off to do an attendance monitoring exercise in rural schools. The one on whose lap I was perched had done his English language training in Colchester. We left the highway at Duhabi and set off through seemingly endless completely flat brilliantly green rice paddy, irrigation canals, herds of buffalo and small thatched villages. The training was in a long room attached to a guest house, with 25 grade 2 teachers, ranging from men in their fifties to young women with their babies and toddlers, sitting cross-legged on cushions on the floor. Most of the morning was spent playing games and making materials to use in activities when they return to school. Copious buckets of daal bhaat were served for lunch. My task in the afternoon was to introduce them to action research as a way of improving teaching and learning, and they joined enthusiastically in the activities I had prepared and started to develop some very useful ideas. By the end of the day, most of which I had spent cross-legged on the floor, jumping around like a monkey, or singing songs with actions I felt as if I had just done a long yoga session.

I returned to Shankapur on Thursday; to my delight, Rekha has reorganised every classroom in the school, with benches around the room, so she can see all the children, check their books easily, and have a big space in the middle for activities. This is only possible because so many children are absent. She had prepared lessons, brought some resources and wanted me to play an active part. I decided that demonstrating active teaching methods was probably the most effective strategy. I was lucky with the subject matter (photosynthesis); carbon dioxide and oxygen are apparently universal words. Amazing what can be done with a few words of Nepali and a lot of body language. Two teachers went home at ‘tiffin time’, leaving more children without a teacher; it is hardly surprising that attendance is so poor. Rekha persuaded me to take grade 4 for the afternoon for ‘optional English’. I’ve exhausted my repertoire of songs and activities, but I now have time to prepare before my next visit.

The big news of the week was the success of Prasant Tamang in winning the Indian Idol contest. There were spontaneous street parties and fireworks when the results were announced late at night, and celebrating children in the schools the next day. A week of noisy nights, as the bitch in the house opposite is on heat, so all the stray dogs in the neighbourhood congregate to serenade her.

Our vegetarian status has become severely compromised by an unstoppable ant invasion. They are minute and manage to penetrate sealed jars and packets, and are even lively in the fridge. We were amused by the newspaper advertisement for the new buffet at the Radisson in Kathmandu: ‘50% off if 3’ high or under’.

My colleagues (and pension application forms) are beginning to make me feel my age. The spokesman (hesitant English speaker) from the headteachers’ group over glasses of tea in the shed one day: “We are very curious about you. You are so old that we are very surprised that you have come here and are so active”. We’re off to Kathmandu to participate in the marathon next week.

The monsoon ends

We were woken by bright sunlight at 5:50 on Tuesday morning, dry air, deep blue sky and soaring temperatures. Students at Adarsha now assemble on the field (formerly a swamp) for daily prayers at 10am. David manages to get to Bokari without getting covered in mud; period 2 has mysteriously disappeared this week. The female teachers try to take him home at the end of the day to feed him up. He spent the end of the week and the weekend at training for the UNICEF School Self Assessment project. We will be involved in the SSA of ‘his’ DEO schools and the ones the ETC will use for school based training. I have been at headteacher training sessions most days, making suggestions about methodology that are sometimes implemented. At the end of the day I am usually asked if I have anything to add. Hard, when I have little idea about what has been going on most of the time. Lalmani and Bhakta are slowly moving books into the ‘library’; my main concern is giving teachers access to them; theirs in keeping them locked up. Using the brown dog as a guard does not seem to be an option.

The most dramatic news of the week was the withdrawal of the Maoists from the interim government on Tuesday. This led to an almost instant shut down of shops and transport, rallies at Mahendra Chowk, marches along Main Road, phone calls from VSO, e-mails from the British Embassy and Risk Management Office and warnings from our colleagues not to go out at night. Etienne had managed to get to Birtanagar from Dharan on Saturday to meet with Joseph and us to plan ‘the eastern cluster security strategy’. We met at our flat, followed by dosas at ‘Unique’ and a very hot walk to the river. This will be followed by a VSO conference in Kathmandu on October 5. Our UNICEF trips to schools have been cancelled. On Wednesday, life seemed to be back to normal, but the Maoists have announced their plan of ‘action’ (mostly inaction); the peace process and plans for the election are in jeopardy.

On Wednesday Govind cycled with me to Shankapur to meet Rekha Parajuli, one of the recently trained primary teachers I am following up. We stopped at every junction for me to draw a map so I can go independently each week. ‘Left at the Exotic Cheese Balls sign, follow the road past Lord Buddha College, right at the big tree, right onto the track with the red and yellow shop on the corner …….’ Mango trees with grazing cows and egrets searching for grubs and frogs surround the school. Rekha was delighted to see me, as were the students I had met before the monsoon holiday. It is hard to be an observer, as I am the centre of attention and am called on to do ‘turns’ eg sing and dance. I hope this will stop when they get used to me appearing regularly. There are 6 classes, 4 teachers, the head and a girl who bangs the plate and watches the nursery children. The head does not seem to do any teaching, but she occasionally walks around with a stick. The headteacher is not well and tells me her problems in rapid Nepali. She also makes good cinnamon tea. In period 4, Rekha seemed to be the only one actually teaching. She tells me that she is completely different after her training, loves the children (and they love her) and encourages them to come to school. On her way to work in the mornings, she collects them “aau, aau” a bit like a Nepali Pied Piper. Attendance is lamentable; 16 / 31 in grade 5, 9 / 23 in grade 4. Most of the children are out fishing, playing in the fields, watching the animals or working. She certainly has a child-friendly classroom if not a child-centred one. She speaks three words of English, mango, banana and apple, not particularly useful for observation feedback and ways of improving student learning. Bistari, bistari …… The English teacher is rarely there, and is unlikely to be much help. Next week I will make a start on constructive feedback. The only hazard I encountered on my way home was a herd of frisky young buffalo.

We had a visit from NCED (National Centre for Educational Development) on Friday to evaluate the current training programme. He brought an animated version of the new national anthem on his pen drive, so part of the afternoon was spent practicing how to sing it.

The main excitement for the young people of Biratnagar this week is Prasant Tamang, a young Nepali, getting to the final of ‘Indian Idol’. The students from the school came round collecting money on Friday for phone calls to India to cast their votes.

The main challenge at home this week is sorting out what to do with our rubbish. When Chhatra was home, it used to ‘disappear’ when we left it by the gate. It no longer disappears and is accumulating in a seething mass of maggots. We suspect it used to be chucked into the ditch. We take what we can (paper, plastic) to the Dalit family on the corner who make their living from scavenging rubbish, and leave vegetable peelings for next door’s goats. There is no public system; we are trying to hi-jack one of the men we see occasionally wheeling a rubbish cart through the streets, with no success so far.

We are getting better at the daily crossword in the Kathmandu Post; a curious mixture of Asian general knowledge questions, archaic English words and less-than-challenging anagrams eg ‘negative; on anagram’.

Heat and mud

The monsoon lingers on, with torrential downpours and increasing temperatures. David uses clothes pegs as cycle clips in an attempt to escape the worst of the mud on his way to Bokhari, but he ends up wheeling his bike through deep mud for the last part of the journey, then washing his legs and feet at the community pump before going to class. He is usually the first to arrive; the metal plate is banged for the start of school, often before any teachers arrive. He has yet to work out when lessons are supposed to start and end. The timetable shows 7 periods, but there has never been a period 4, and the students are usually sent home before period 7. He has seen some good teaching, and the teachers are quick to respond positively to his suggestions.

Headteacher training started on Sunday at the ETC when 11 of the expected 25 participants arrived. There were three more on Monday, so the ‘house captain’ and the ‘day briefer’ were appointed. After the introduction and making of name labels (this took a long time) everyone appeared to go to sleep, until I realised that it was a visualisation exercise, creating their ‘vision’ for their school. A good start. There were some activities on leadership during the morning, although role playing different leadership styles would have been more fun than reading out information from a chart. The house captain announced we were over time and they needed a break. The afternoon session consisted of some tedious but occasionally amusing powerpoint presentations, disrupted by the noise of the rain, powercuts and water pouring through the ceiling making the computer fizz alarmingly. Some of the powerpoints were in English, which none of the participants speak, and I was required to explain things at various points to Durga so he could translate them into Nepali. When all this became too much, I retreated into my new place of work – the ‘library’. At the moment, there is me, the brown dog, and an empty bookcase.

On Wednesday, it was my turn to present a session on action research. Fortunately I had already discovered that only one person understood English, and they were unlikely to have heard of action research, so I had been able to plan my material appropriately. After a brief explanation in bad Nepali, supported by key words on powerpoint (just to show I know how to use it – but the electricity was fluctuating wildly so it kept going off) we did some simple pair and group activities; I can manage imperatives. They loved a sequencing activity I gave them to do, and wanted to take my cards home, so of course I let them. I have plenty of time to make new ones. They also came up with some brilliant ideas of things they wanted to try out in their own schools, and examples of some things they have done without knowing that they were action research. A good morning, ending with celebratory tea and samosas at the tea ‘shed’ on the corner.

We were summoned to UNICEF on Thursday by the formidable Radhika who will be ‘promoted’ to Nepalgunj (hotter than Biratnagar and the centre of much unpleasant political activity) at the end of the month. She has many tasks to complete before she leaves, and needs help to get things done! Suman, the research director arrived from Kathmandu, keen to use action research as a monitoring tool, and we found ourselves delivering a session as part of a planning meeting for developing new systems of monitoring and evaluation. We have been drawn into a number of training activities, which could be very useful to help us work proactively with our colleagues and achieve some of the VSO objectives. On Friday, Radhika planned to take us to one of the ‘child friendly schools’ UNICEF has developed in Biratnagar. She telephoned just after I had arrived at work and set up the day’s training, so I pedalled home, collected David and we cycled down the hot highway. When we arrived, the white landcruiser was waiting and with some embarrassment we climbed into the airconditioned interior. After speeding towards the Indian border for a few kilometres, we turned off onto a dirt track and set off into the countryside. The track eventually became a swamp, and the landcruiser would go no further. As UNICEF workers do not walk, we returned to UNICEF, home and office in time for the second training session. Umapati had spent the day using the new speedy internet connection, showing everyone who came in the location of their home on Google maps. At the end of the day, over the usual glasses of tea, I treated my colleagues to a virtual tour of Bradford-on-Avon, so they now know something about Saxon churches, tithe barns, weavers, canals, aqueducts ……

Friday was Teej, a women’s festival, so most of the primary schools were closed. After a day of eating on Thursday, Friday was a fasting day where they pray for a long life and prosperity for their husbands. Radhika says they also spend a lot of time cursing their mothers-in-law, with whom many are forced to live. All the temples were packed with women in splendid red and gold saris doing puja, singing and dancing.

Many messages this week wishing us a happy millennium from friends in Ethiopia. The new millennium dawned there on Wednesday. Several of our volunteer friends had gone back to Addis for the celebrations and I managed to watch them on the internet.

Krishna Janmastami

Good to be home, and warmly welcomed by neighbours and people in town. Its still raining, so everything is damp. Apart from infestations with ants, piles of gecko poo, one mouldy pillow, and water dripping through the bathroom ceiling from upstairs, the flat was fine when we returned.
I went to the ETC on Tuesday to find everything closed for a government holiday, but Gita (the wife of the 'peon' Lalmani, who lives in the caretaker's house) was grazing her cows on the school field, and lopping branches off the trees to feed to the goats.
On Tuesday evening, we discovered the reason for holiday, as music blared all night for Krishna’s (the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu) birthday, with loud celebrations in brightly decorated shrines erected at regular intervals along the roads. On Wednesday afternoon the 200,000 population of the city descended onto Main Road for the procession from the Krishna temple. Every temple had its’ own float pulled by oxen, painted in Terai pink and blue stripes, or in splendid coats. The colours of the floats, decorations and clothes are brilliant; so different from the drab colours of Europe. Each float had huge, LOUD loudspeakers powered by generators on hand carts. After nearly two hours, the main chariot pulled by a huge team of men arrived, preceded by a truck removing the festoons of electrical wires that hang over Main Road. The surge of people to touch the chariot and receive blessings was terrifying, but we were kept safe by our friend from the kitchen shop and a group of students.
The new training rooms are already in use, with members of Village Development Committees and teachers being prepared for their roles as election observers. A representative sample of women, dalits, janajati and members of different political groups. There seems to be a consensus now that the election will happen, but there is a great deal of political unrest and 3 bombs in Kathmandu after we left on Sunday. A UN official in a brand new white land cruiser arrived on Thursday to oversee proceedings, and on Friday some young Americans in jeans and baseball caps from the Jimmy Carter Foundation appeared.
David has been at Bokhari this week, cycling and wading through mud to get to the school, and sitting damply in lessons while the rain blew in through the glassless windows onto tiny barefoot children. He feels welcome, and enjoys attempting to chat to the teachers during breaks as well as observing lessons and giving some feedback. There doesn’t seem to be a timetable, and many of the children are working in the fields or as domestic servants. If its raining they tend not to come to school at all, so his carefully constructed plan is difficult to adhere to. Tulsi and Durga returned from Kathmandu on Wednesday, and we had a full staff meeting on Thursday, which lasted several hours. People came and went, and many glasses of tea were brought. Tulsi has established that ‘inclusion’ and student-centred teaching should be our priorities. Good news for VSO and me!
Following our exposure in the national press, Tanka, his wife and brother came to the door early one morning to record an interview for the BBC, so you may hear us on the World Service speaking in both English and Nepali (badly).
The Kathmandu marathon will take place on October 6, with many volunteers taking part as a fund raising activity for development projects in Nepal. Some people are running full or half marathons; we and many others will jog / walk 10km. There is a website if anyone feels inclined to make a donation for our efforts! www.smallenergy.com

Kathmandu interlude

The rains returned at the weekend, and we arrived at the airport on August 15 damp from a 8km ride on a cycle rickshaw with our luggage and David’s large cardboard box for his shopping. We’d forgotten that the aeroplane was so small that we had to crawl to our seats.
We descended into Kathmandu through dense black clouds over the mountains with soft rain falling in the valley. Our initial excitement was soon exhausted as we haggled with taxi drivers, got stuck in traffic jams, breathed the polluted air and smelt the stench of rotting garbage at the sides of the roads. (Do not let this deter you from a trip to Kathmandu – after a few days the rain had stopped, the hills were visible and the garbage strike was over). We were welcomed back to our familiar room at the Pacific Guest House by the friendly Buddhist family. The piece of waste ground outside the window had been paved over, much to the consternation of the ducks who have to waddle off to find a puddle for a swim, but the small boys enjoy flying their homemade kites with dry feet. We spent our first morning sorting out money with the VSO office, and the next queuing outside the Indian Embassy from 7am in steady rain waiting to submit the fax form to the Indian Embassy in Delhi – the first stage of the visa renewal process.
We were quickly re-integrated into VSO Kathmandu social life. It was good to meet up with friends from in-country training, share experiences and eat leisurely dinners with glasses of wine. We have enjoyed eating a wide variety of food in Thamel and stocking up on books, as when our box from England eventually arrived, the 15 books it had contained had been reduced to two. We’ve shopped for items we can’t get in Biratnagar and bought supplies of coffee and muesli for the next couple of months. We’ve also booked a trek from Pokhara for the Dashain holiday in mid October, about the only time the ETC ever closes.
We enjoyed being back at the language school, and were encouraged by our progress. We worked with two other volunteers in similar roles with the wonderfully helpful and flexible Sachita, so have extended our educational vocabulary and role played lots of teaching and learning ‘situations’. Listening and understanding to Nepali spoken at ‘normal’ speed (fast) is still a problem.
An article about us appeared in the Kathmandu Post durng the week “British couple beats heat for education”. Our requests to check it for accuracy were not heeded, and we had assumed it would never be published, and certainly not in the English language paper. It includes many gems “when the clock strikes 6 in the morning, David, 61, hops on his cycle to reach different schools. He proudly boasts of his youthful vigour……. On the other side, his wife Jordon gives training to over 100 teachers…” and so on. Interviews with our Nepali colleagues appeared in the Nepali version of the paper the following day. We have not yet managed to translate them.
The days we were expecting to have ‘off’ were spent planning a training day for volunteers in October and meeting Chhatraji who had arrived from Biratnagar. We needed to make arrangements for the 5 months he expects to be in America planning his son’s wedding.
We were able to see some of the Gai Jatrai festival, where decorated cows from each family where there had been a death in the previous year are paraded in the streets. Now children in fancy dress and face paints have replaced most of the cows, accompanied by musicians with drums and strident horns.
Our colleagues from Biratanagar arrived on Wednesday and we caught a bus out of the city to Park Village at 7am on Thursday morning. The hotel is set in beautiful gardens at the foot of the mountains, with stunning views and a huge swimming pool. The workshop on teaching, learning, monitoring and evaluation raised many challenging issues. It was good to spend time with our colleagues and meet volunteers and partners from other districts. Working together is a skill yet to be acquired, partly, but not entirely because of the language barrier.
We were glad to return home on Sunday, and took a laden taxi to the airport, with our two computer bags, two travelling bags, three large cardboard boxes packed with goodies and 2 metres of drainpipe containing a large Maithili painting. It was weighed (20kg overweight).and checked through with no excess baggage charge, to join the other boxes and sacks to be loaded onto the tiny plane. On our arrival in Biratnagar, we managed to find a World War 2 army jeep to bring us safely home. Apart from piles of gecko poo and many ants, all was well. The outside of the building was festooned with loops of string with leaves attached, presumably for some festival. It resembled an enormous transpiration experiment (biology teachers will understand). We were warmly welcomed in the market and by ‘our’ Indian shopkeeper, who insisted on us buying many things we didn’t really need. Good to be home.

After some time

Ke samaya pachhi (after some time) is the standard answer to any ‘when’ question:
when will Rudra go to Sagarmatha? Ke samaya pachhi
when should the budget come? Ke samaya pachhi
when will training start? Ke samaya pachhi
when can we start to set up the resource centre? Ke samaya pachhi
when will the schools re-open? Ke samaya pachhi
Some of the schools have started again this week, so every morning I am caught in the ‘school run’. For most children this is a gentle amble, chatting and laughing. A few are accompanied by their mothers in brilliantly coloured saris. Some balance precariously on their father’s bike; I have counted up to five on the cross bar of one bicycle. Private schools provide some transport; rickety buses bellowing diesel fumes for secondary students, three wheeled bikes with a brightly painted tin box on the back for primary children. Up to twenty children are crammed into the box, big brown eyes staring out through a metal grill, school bags piled precariously on the roof. All children wear uniform, ranging in colour from trying-to-be-white, to blue, an unbecoming brown and vibrant lilac and orange. A regimentally striped tie is a feature of all uniforms. This is particularly bizarre in a country where adults never wear ties. Footwear ranges from nothing, to rubber flipflops, white knee socks and trainers and the occasional pair of tiny wellingtons.
This week Tulsi celebrated his 25th year of government service, with visitors from all over the region, photographs, endless glasses of tea, and lots of ‘conversation’. He is suffering from the heat here; I found him lying on his sofa with a newspaper over his head on Friday afternoon. Lalmani and Bhakta have set up the furniture in the new training rooms. I am looking forward to rearranging it. The newsboard is taking shape, and I have finished translating and printing an English version of the lesson observation form that David and I will use in September. Durga and I have been planning our session for the VSO Teaching and Learning Conference this week in both English and Nepali. We will, of course, start with a Nepali song! More cows have appeared on the school field to crop the profusion of juicy grass after the rains. A funfair blaring loud music has set up at the stadium field opposite the ETC. It makes me almost grateful for the daily power cuts, although the heat is almost intolerable when the fans stop whirring.
We have now dried out after the rains, but there are still problems in many parts of the Terai and VSO is contributing to relief work. The temperature here approaches 40oC most days, and hardly drops at night. I had my first puncture this week, repaired in 10 minutes by a friendly old man in vest and lungi, who also cleaned and oiled the bike, adjusted brakes, chain and wheel alignment and charged me 10 rupees (7 ½ p).
We hope the outside painting at home is now finished so we can hang out our washing again. The house now looks like a very grand pink and white birthday cake. Tara’s request for ‘cherry blossom’ trim got rather out of control. Chhatra and Tara departed suddenly on Monday evening for Dharan before another ‘indefinite’ bandh started on Tuesday. Tanka and his wife have gone to Ilam on his motorbike, so we are alone with Karna, who has been instructed to ‘look after us’. He was waiting up for us on Friday, after we went late night shopping in the market, followed by a dosa and icecream. We cycled home by starlight, avoiding the herds of cows gathered outside the vegetable market, feasting on the remains of the day’s produce.
The town is full of pilgrims in brilliant orange lungis and saris travelling from India to the Shiva festival in Dharan, but stranded by the bandh. Our plans for the weekend are cancelled as there is no transport. Even the market is closed today.
Next week we are going to Kathmandu. We have to renew Indian visas, have booster vaccinations, I have a committee meeting, David has shopping (!), we have 6 more days of language school, then the VSO Conference. Durga and Tulsi will come to join me, and David expects Harinandan to come. We will enjoy seeing other volunteers and hearing about their experiences, but will miss our home.
When we will return from Kathmandu? Ke samaya pachhi.

Bats come home to roost

Bats not rats are responsible for the piles of poo accumulating on our window sills. We had both avoided mentioning this, as we also ignore lurking giant cockroaches when we turn on the kitchen light at night. The bats fly off at dusk and have returned by the time we get up in the morning; they add to the wild life attraction of living here. Many more roost in the mango tree outside.
TheTerai is now suffering from extensive flooding and landslides, with over 100,000 people homeless and daily reports of more deaths from drowning, snake bite and dysentery. We are fortunate in town, as we only have to contend with permanently muddy feet, damp clothes, soggy books and paper and mould growing on our furniture, trousers and shoes. Ants have invaded David’s computer and there are leeches on the pineapple.
We went for a wonderful rural ride on Sunday, taking advantage of a brief bright spell. A five minute ride to the east of our house brought us to bright green paddy fields, grazing animals, small farms, oxen ploughing, children playing in the puddles, women carrying huge bundles of animal fodder, and others cooking outside over fires. Another world on our doorstep. It might look idyllic, but living conditions are miserable, especially in the monsoon. Although people are very poor, it is relative; the further we travel from town, the more marked the poverty becomes, and there are real food problems in many villages. School feeding programmes have been successful at getting children into school, but have now been replaced by scholarship funding for Dalits, ethnic minorities and all girls. Most of the money seems to ‘disappear’.
Monday was full moon and the festival of Guru Purnima, celebrating the birth of Vysas who wrote the Mahabharata. It is now also a national teachers’ day, where students visit their teachers with small gifts. On Tuesday we went to the local UNICEF headquarters to meet Radhika, the formidable Programme Officer. I had met her at a training workshop a couple of months ago. As we discovered in Ethiopia, there are many different organisations working on similar projects with little coordination, so it seemed a good idea to find out what UNICEF, with huge amounts of international funding, was doing locally. We arrived at the huge gated compound after a 20 minute ride along the highway to India, parking our dirty bikes amongst the pristine white land cruisers. Hot and grubby, we were checked in by amused security guards in immaculate uniforms and taken to Radhika’s splendid air-conditioned office. We should not have been surprised to learn that UNICEF has conducted extensive active learning training with our colleagues, has set up a large number of ‘child friendly’ schools, provided tin trunk libraries to every primary school, developed tools for lesson observation and monitoring and evaluation. Needless to say, we have seen no evidence of any of this, and our colleagues had not mentioned it.
Days are still full of surprises. When I arrived at work on Wednesday, all the gates were locked and guarded by armed police. I managed to persuade them to let me into the school field and wheeled my bike through the swamp to get to the ETC. Some VIP was being filmed visiting the school building. No-one seemed to know who he was. There was torrential rain through Thursday night; surrounded by flood water at home. I cycled through floods most of the way to work, to discover that the ETC was underwater. At least my sandals got clean as I waded to the stairs. Upstairs I found the ceiling hanging down and the computer full of water. Did not turn on the electricity. Massive security on the way home, with roads closed and swarms of armed police with riot shields; the Prime Minister is coming home.
A gourmet weekend in prospect. When we arrived home on Friday, Tara and Chhatra were gathering huge armfuls of weeds from the garden. We have been invited to share them for supper on Saturday. Our usual Friday night treat at Unique Pure Veg restaurant, where the colourful Christmas decorations are a permanent feature. The range of dosas and Indian veg food is outstanding; we are were tempted by the ‘single swinder chocolate nots’ dessert, but settled for violently coloured icecream. The mango season is coming to an end, but there is now a profusion of pineapples and delicious small crisp apples from Kashmir.
Thursday night’s rain was apparently, the heaviest for 17 years. Today the air is clear, its less humid and temperatures are soaring. Our day started with the visit of Dinesh and Saraswati, a young female reporter from the Biratnagar office of Kathmandu Post, keen to write an article on the much talked about ‘old white people who cycle around town’. Our Nepali is not really up to giving coherent interviews, so it will interesting to see what appears. Our mouldy clothes are now drying out on the line. I am on the terrace listening to Monteverdi vespers. The ‘naked chef’ is in the kitchen making icecream with squidgy mangoes.

Swimming in the rain

We are continuing to visit the pool most days inspite of the rain, much to the amusement of Suresh, the pool manager. The filtration system has broken, so sometimes he joins us in the pool with a pair of goggles and a scouring pad in a somewhat futile attempt to remove the accumulation of algae. Frogs, ranging in size from smaller than my little finger nail to larger than David’s fist, have invaded the swimming pool, and Suresh tries optimistically to net them while we swim serenely up and down. The frog noise at night is now deafening, with occasional loud bellows followed by eerie silences. Giant snails have appeared in the garden and our friendly gecko population indoors increases daily.
The house has become increasingly full and busy, with even more workmen painting and making furniture. Whitewashing in the rain seems particularly pointless, but it keeps the painters in permanent work and our windows permanently paint spattered. Our porch has now been painted a delicate shade of pink; David has named it ‘hint of carnation’. Tanka’s (World Service correspondent) friends and family seem to have moved in upstairs, and Karna now stays downstairs. He is a delightful young man, who arrived looking for work soon after we arrived. He is 16, from a very poor Dalit family and his father cannot afford to keep him in school. He has decided to try and become independent, as he is desperate to finish his education. He will take his SLC exams (School Leaving Certificate) this year. He speaks some English, and we find some time for him every day for ‘conversation’ to help him develop his vocabulary. He is always cheerful and very helpful with our Nepali homework. Chattra employs him to do odd jobs and has now given him a room to stay in.
Rudra, the head of the ETC is to be transferred. This seems to happen frequently to government officials, often for political reasons. He is well liked, organised, efficient and a good manager. He is being sent to the DEO in Sagarmatha – the Everest region, very difficult to get to, and two days by plane and bus back to his home and family in Biratnagar. His replacement, Tulsi Narayan Adikhari , from the DEO in Dhankuta, a hill region 4 hours by bus to the north of here, arrived on Wednesday to join us. He is smiling and charming, with limited English, never having had the need to use it. He is very keen to get better and has decided that we will have ‘conversation’ for an hour each morning, in both English and Nepali. There is a real contrast with our former colleagues in Ethiopia. Most of the Nepalis we meet are much less ‘westernised’, speak little English, but love to chat. Many of our Ethiopian colleagues had studied in Europe, so had some understanding of life in the west. I am something of a curiosity for them, being female and old, with a lot of professional experience – and no children. The atmosphere at work at the moment is pleasantly relaxed – it seems that this will continue until the new budget is released, training allocated to different ETCs and participants selected by the DEO. It could be months. There is no culture of forward planning, and given the uncertainty and the current political instability, it is understandable. Although they have 54 days annual leave, they only take the 6 days for festivals, as they can accumulate the rest and be paid for it. Current activities (ie not much to do) they describe as ‘informal work’. This week I have helped Govind prepare a newsletter, written some articles, and taught Ram (a student who comes in to prepare printed documents in Nepali) to use Publisher. Anil and I have exchanged music files – he has written some music for Nepali films on his keyboard, and has been entranced by Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg variations. Durga and I have started to plan a workshop session for VSO in Kathmandu next month. In the afternoons he likes to have time to ‘make fun’. Not a lot of progress on achieving 'strategic objectives'!
Meanwhile David stays at home most days preparing for his work with schoolteachers and developing ideas for monitoring and evaluation for the DEO. He has been offered the corner of Rajendra's sofa from which to work at the DEO. His nose is much better, although he claims it is now permanently bent. He joins me three afternoons a week for Nepali lessons. This has now become a focal activity at the ETC, and yesterday afternoon all the trainers came to join in, with Khagda from the school next door also providing input.
My new all-enveloping raincoat is much admired. Even some of the cows are wearing plastic sheets this week. The potholes near the hospital have been filled in. This has the advantage of not falling into deep holes hidden by puddles and the disadvantage of having to cycle over piles of rocks. We remain permanently damp and are uncertain if our laundry will ever reappear.

A passage to India

At dawn on Saturday we left home to walk to the bus station. Women and children were already bashing their washing with wooden bats, while men were taking early morning exercise; old men in lungis hobbled along with sticks, behind portly middle aged men in shorts and shiny white trainers. We met Dinesh, as arranged, but there was no sign of Joseph. The bus stand was alive with people, animals, sacks, buses with revving engines and honking horns, big controllers selling tickets and persuading travellers that theirs was the ‘best express bus’. Having secured our seats on the 6am bus for the border, I phoned Joseph, still operating on African time, so we eventually left without him. We stopped frequently to pick up more passengers, and Joseph managed to catch us up in a frantically pedalled rickshaw before we left the city.
The journey along the Mahendra Highway was a delight, with women in brilliant saris planting rice, men ploughing with oxen, buffalo wallowing, cow and goats grazing, ducks paddling and pot bellied pigs foraging. We travelled through dense forest, stands of bamboo, and fields of maize; crossed many potentially huge rivers bringing water from the Himalaya to Bangladesh. The Bhutanese refugee camp (in the news daily) stretched along for many kilometres. There were many Hindu temples, Buddhist chortens and prayer flags, Limbu and Tamang burial grounds, with graves marked by miniature traditional houses. As we approached Birtamod, blue-grey hills appeared to the north, and the landscape was filled with tea plantations. Many passengers left to head up to Ilam, and were replaced by a herd of very lively goats. Two decided to sit with David. After 4 hours we arrived in Kakarbhitta (125km).
We completed exit forms, got a rickshaw across the vast Mechi river bridge, and entered Indian after more form filling and passport stamping. Raniganj, in West Bengal, is much the same as Kakarbhitta. There was the usual array of small shops selling snacks, and all manner of chij bij . Buses depart every few minutes for Siliguri, and jeeps for Darjeeling. We stopped for some mango juice, then retraced our steps, to the bewilderment of the officials on each side of the border. We emigrated from India and re-entered Nepal in less than an hour. After some lunch, we visited Dinesh’s organic fertiliser project – a long open sided shed where local farmers bring their cow dung for drying and packing, and caught the bus back. 8 hours on the bus; one hour in India!

My internet has been struck by lightning
The monsoon has started dramatically with a violent storm on Sunday, destroying our internet box. It was repaired within 24 hours, but we had to buy new equipment. We are now scrupulous about disconnecting everything when not in use. It is noticeably cooler, but even more humid (can RH be greater than 100%?). Three prangs on the bike this week, with a young man determined to avoid a puddle but not me, a monstrously large buffalo and a flock of over-excited chickens. The banana trees have grown so large it is impossible to open the windows at the back of the upstairs training room. Our balcony plants are exuberant.
This week David has spent a morning with each of his three headteachers for wide ranging discussions to establish a framework for working in the schools after the monsoon break. With the help of a structured list of questions, a dictionary, gestures, drawings and descriptions, he has obtained a remarkable amount of information and a lot of good will. He had an inauspicious return to the DEO on Friday, hitting the bridge of his nose on a metal gate, producing copious amounts of blood. A colleague took him to a nearby doctor to patch him up – treatment, dressing and antibiotics for 25p. He is now sore and bruised, but cheerful, sitting on a damp terrace surrounded by his plants.
I am fortunate to have colleagues who can speak English when they need to. They did not need to until I arrived, but are getting more confident every day. I have spent a lot of time with Durga this week, getting lots of useful insights and we are starting to make plans for the new financial year. We are enjoying our language lessons with Bedu. Improvement is slow, and it still takes ages to construct sentences without writing them down first. Favourite new word this week milda julda = similar. We have a brilliant new piece of software that converts Romanised Nepali into Devanagari script, and Durga is also showing me how to type in Nepali. Next I want a microchip inserted into the language centre of my brain for instant translations. He cycled part of the way home with me on Friday, commenting that people were amused to see me riding a bicycle. “But many women ride bicycles”; “Not old women” he replied.

Conversation with the hairdresser

Another new experience. Nepalis do not go on holidays or do ‘anything nice at the weekend’, so opportunities for conversation were limited, especially as the hairdresser did not speak any English. I managed to establish chhotto (short). Thinned out was more of a challenge, as I only know dublo (thin person). Eventually we established jasto keta (like a boy). After that, the conversation was rather one sided, as she talked and chopped ferociously with some very large scissors and a long handled comb, which spent a great deal of time sticking in my ear, or more painfully, my eye. Soon I was holding up my hands and saying pugyo (enough), and when that failed rocknos! (stop!), but she was intent on jasto keta, and I emerged shorn after half an hour for a very reasonable 50 rupees (38p).

Dinesh delivered by our bamboo furniture by handcart early on Tuesday morning. The next task is to get some cushions made with raw cotton stuffing and bright material from one of the many fabric shops in Main Road. We have also acquired a printer, as VSO decided that the ‘eastern cluster’ needed one. It took 2 weeks to get it across the Indian border, but is now established in our ‘hi-tech’ corner. The heat and humidity create frequent paper jams. Long print runs will have to wait until winter.

Meanwhile, the building work at the house is nearly finished, although more whitewash is liberally applied to David’s clean windows most days. Chhatra and his wife have moved into the flat downstairs. His 80 year old father has come from Dharan to stay, and sits smiling on the porch. Chhatra and his father are into the last month of a year’s mourning for his mother. They both wear traditional Hindu white mourning lungis and vests and keep their heads shaved. A team of carpenters has been working for a week making new furniture for them. The upstairs flat has been rented to a young Nepali journalist working for the BBC World Service. He has a motorbike. There is a progression in signs of affluence from bicycle, to television, mobile phone, memory stick, and motorcycle.

The first wet morning this week. Ducks and ducklings splashed happily in the puddles as I cycled to work, getting wet from the inside out from my new rain gear. I think the reverse is probably preferable. Most people ride their bicycles with an umbrella clutched in one hand; I haven’t yet mastered this technique. The cycle rickshaws are covered in sheets of plastic, and the women bunch up their saris around their knees. There is a drought in Morang (our district) as the monsoon is so late. Only 20% of the paddy has been planted.

There are examinations in Adarsha all week (the school adjoining the ETC) for students completing a 10 month primary teacher training in private colleges. ETC staff are responsible for the conduct of the exams. Cheating is rife in Nepali examinations, as is intimidation of invigilators and markers, and ETC staff are working hard to establish new standards. The first task is to clear friends and ‘helpers’ of the candidates away from the buildings, settle the students at opposite ends of the fixed wooden benches, and persuade the invigilators to watch the students rather than talk on their mobile phones or chat to each other on the balcony. Rudra, wearing his topi (traditional Nepali cap) at a jaunty angle and looking Van Gogh-like, having inflicted nasty damage to his ear while shaving, takes me on a tour of the 8 exam rooms. Several students have notebooks on their laps and edge towards their friends. More young people appear at the doors with notes, but generally its quiet and orderly. Invigilators take the notes, screw them into a ball and throw them over the balcony.

Thursday was budget day, and most people went home early to hear the news on the radio. All government employees will have a 27% increase next month, which starts on Tuesday. (I thought it was Monday, having not realised that this month has 32 days). Teachers are moderately pleased, although they are sceptical about whether they will receive it. Primary teachers currently earn £46 a month, with an extra £2.30 for the head. One of my colleagues has not been paid since he was transferred from Kathmandu 2 years ago. The budget is aid dependent, and many countries are not releasing money until security is better and the political situation more stable.

Anjana has taken me shopping for new clothes this week. £2.50 for a 3 piece kurta set in brilliant colours, plus 70p for making up. Better than the summer sales.

On Saturday we will attempt to go to India to get our visas stamped – a pre-requisite for applying for a new one next month.

So hot it melts bananas

It is so hot that we no longer take lunch to work as it disintegrates before we get there. Melted bananas make an unpleasant mess in the bottom of our bags. I have blisters on my bottom from my white hot bicycle seat. In the afternoon huge banks of cumulus clouds build up, tinged pink and black as the sun sets; there is occasional heavy rain at night. Morning cycle rides are made more hazardous by puddles obscuring the potholes and a mass hatching of chicks and ducklings. Baby goats prance stiff-legged in our path, watched by their prettily pink striped mothers. The Young Communist League are clearing the drainage ditches at the sides of the road, leaving black decaying piles of rubbish, but its more socially useful than some of their other activities. The shops in Main Road now have rain gear hanging outside; the newspaper reports monsoon flooding in India (and in England). We look forward to its arrival here.
We have both been at Janapath secondary school for the 6 – 11am shift two days this week. David has now seen every class and every teacher. I have been observing science lessons – no resources and no attempt at anything practical, but the teachers and students can draw beautiful diagrams! I have spoiled some of these by dripping sweat onto the students’ kaapis and making the ink run. In the afternoon I work at the ETC, cycling there along deserted roads while shopkeepers sleep in doorways and rickshaw drivers curl up under their awnings. Mad dogs and English women ……
I am gradually turning brown – a combination of sun and excessive consumption of mangoes. They are now 15p a kilo, and we eat them at every meal. Anjana, my only female colleague, tells me that I am starting to look like a Nepali, and she is trying to persuade me to grow my hair and dye it black. I am resisting this. I attempted to go to the ‘beauty parlour’ she recommended three times on Sunday to get my hair cut. Each time the hairdresser was sleeping and could not be roused.
Even the swimming pool water is warm, but it’s still good to stand up to our necks in water at the end of the day. The first shower of the day is cool, but the water is always hot by the evening. It will not be when the winter comes.
Friday: David arrived home at 7:30am as school finished early for the monsoon holiday. He was clutching the laundry (including starched napkins this week!) and a kilo of cheese. A delivery had just arrived from Ilam, after a week of transport strikes. I spent the day with science teachers on the last day of their training, when they displayed some of the resources they hade made with their students. Lots of charts and diagrams, but some good working models too. I especially liked the water heater made out of bare wires and razor blades, with a rubber band for insulation. The main excitement of the day was the publication of SLC (School Leaving Certificate) results in the national papers. A supplement listed everyone of the 274,226 students who sat the examination by their role number, and teachers were frantically trying to locate their own students. The pass rate has increased this year to 58.64%, a 15% rise. This is attributed to fewer days lost by strikes , rather than students' and teachers' work. Sounds familiar. David came for the English final presentations before our Nepali lesson when we grappled with the past perfect tense. Dinesh phoned to tell us he was back from Kakarbitta, and when we called at the shop we were delighted to find that he had managed to get our new sofa and two chairs back on the bus. He will varnish them this weekend and deliver on Monday.
We are supposed to go to Dharan again on Sunday for a VSO ‘eastern cluster’ security meeting, but we have just had an urgent message from VSO telling us not to attempt to travel this weekend. Meanwhile a hot wind is blowing, covering our wonderful marble floors with grit.

Bandhed in Dharan

After last week’s thwarted attempt (yet another transport strike – we managed to get as far as Itahari in a rickshaw) to reach Dharan, we walked to the bus station at 8am on Sunday morning and boarded a bus about to leave. David had a permanently reclining seat, while mine remained fiercely upright. The bus stopped every few hundred yards to pick up more passengers, milk churns, baskets of mangoes, plants and assorted wild life. The 22km road to Itahari on the main east-west highway is flat and straight, with a string of villages, fields, grazing animals, paddy being ploughed by oxen before rice planting and many small industrial complexes, ranging from steel plants to biscuit making. We reached Itahari in under a hour, much more comfortably than on the back of a cycle rickshaw in blazing sun the week before.

After Itahari, the landscape changed dramatically, with increasingly dense mixed forest, even smaller and more scattered villages, and women carrying huge bundles of wood from the forests. Memories of the permanently bent firewood carriers of Ethiopia. As we approached Dharan, the first hills appeared, thickly wooded and shrouded in cloud. Dharan is an interesting town, relatively affluent, home of many former Gurkhas, with a large mixture of minority ethnic groups from the Terai and the hills. The market had fresh peaches, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, yellow plums and pineapple, treats not currently available in Biratnagar; there is also a supermarket and a department store (do not imagine Sainsburys or John Lewis). We planned to shop before returning home. At 12:30, in the middle of a torrential downpour, we met Etienne, a young Dutch volunteer working for an NGO in HIV/AIDS education and went for lunch. Half an hour later we heard strident voices through loud hailers, and within minutes all the transport had pulled off the road, shops had pulled down their shutters and the market had packed up. We discovered that the Maoists had called a bandh for the killing of one of their members. No-one seemed to know how long it would last; ‘several days’ was estimated. ‘Ke garne?’ After lunch, Etienne went to a meeting and we wandered round for a bit, discovering that the highway was blocked in both directions by piles of burning tyres. We managed to get a hotel to open its shutters and let us in, so we secured a room for the night in case we could not get home. It is foolish to attempt to travel during a Maoist bandh! David had a shower and went to sleep; I wrote my diary. At 6pm we went out in search of supper and a toothbrush, and discovered that some minibuses were running. We checked with the police who assured us it was ‘thikchha’, but there was likely to another bandh the following day. We decided to get home while we could. The journey home was rapid – and a contender for the most people it is possible to get into a minibus prize. Those that could not get in climbed onto the roof. Police stopped us several times and removed the roof travellers; they reappeared and climbed up again as soon as the checkpoint was passed. We arrived back in a dark and deserted Biratnagar, having already telephoned the landlord to warn him of our late arrival. He is very solicitous and concerned for our well-being. Its rather like having parents again.

It feels like the end of term here – the monsoon break starts next week. Most of the teachers will be in the fields for rice planting. David is busy observing as many lessons as he can before schools close. He is working the 6 – 11am shift this week, and sets off at dawn on his bicycle. One of the 3 schools he is working with is in the countryside, where tiny children with no shoes, books or pencils cram into small poorly ventilated rooms. None of the schools has any resources, but in the town schools the children are equipped with books and pens. Most of the teachers spend most of the lesson reading from the textbook. The children are patient and well behaved; an attempt at ‘active learning’ seems to be to get all the children (sometimes over 100) to read from the book at the same time. He is very happy being with teachers and children rather than in the DEO. I am getting used to a leisurely start to the day, and cycle to the ETC at 9:30; some staff are frantically collating marks and preparing lists for the MoE, while others finish the training groups, back at the ETC for 4 days at the end of school based training. I spent Monday and Tuesday working with the primary trainees as they prepared for their final assessments, and joined in their celebrations after their examination on Thursday. Unfortunately I was required to sing. Several of them will be in schools within cycling distance after the break, so I hope to continue to work with them to monitor how training is put into practice. My enthusiasm for developing ‘training schools’ is for the longer term! The rest of the week I listened to secondary teachers ‘present’ (read aloud) their work (daily journal, case history, notes ….). I feared that they would be required to read every day of their daily journal for the five months of school based training. After two days sitting on a wooden bench listening, I suggested an alternative way of presenting the action research, which relieved the tedium and enabled teachers to learn from each other and discuss practical ways to improve their teaching. The final day was spent doing an examination. I have many questions about how these events reflect teaching competence! We have both written tentative action plans for what we hope do independently and together after the break and optimistically look forward to getting our colleagues together to discuss it. We have started Nepali lessons again with a bright young teacher, and can now ask a range of questions about teaching and learning. Unfortunately we will not understand the answers.

The weather varies between pleasantly cool (about 30oC) and windy, to blazing hot (40oC+). We are regulars at the pool to cool off at the end of the day before we make supper. David’s range of desserts continues to get even better, and we are trying to do interesting things with a variety of curiously shaped vegetables. Friday was a festival day – asadh pandhra, to elebrate the first day of rice planting, so we were invited to eat with Dinesh at his sister’s house. He is distressed that he has still not been able to get our furniture from his cottage industry project near Kakarbitta; his attempts are constantly thwarted by bandhs. After starting with the traditional asadh pandhra dish of chudra dahi (beaten rice with yoghurt), a succession of delicious vegetable dishes accompanied by yet more family members (4 generations) appeared. We cycled home in the darkness, very full, and with a year’s supply of homemade mango pickle. Our attempts to escape from the scorching plains of the Terai to the hills are scuppered again this weekend by yet another bandh.