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.