A new year

Sunday December 30. Back to work as the orientation day for primary school-based training that I had suggested had been moved forward by 3 days. The primary teachers were pleased to see me back, and were particularly proud to show me the giant rabbit they have made out of cotton wool; I’m not sure how it relates to the curriculum. We had invited the primary heads, but unfortunately only one of them turned up. Everyone is wearing increasingly bizarre woolly hats, and even Lalmani, who spends most of the year in vest and pants, is wearing a shell suit (remember shell suits?).
I was able to attend the last session of the day with the English group, just in time to be invited to their end of course picnic that they had organised for the next day. I also learnt that Durga has to go to Sunsari for 3 days on Tuesday, so there is ‘no-one’ to complete the last 3 days of training. I suppose I am pleased to be trusted with it; they are a lovely group of teachers, but find working in English very difficult.
On Monday I arrived at Aqua Park at 10:30 as requested. The aqua was a green slime pond, the banks littered with the debris of previous picnics. The park was a patch of grass with a couple of metal swings, but as Lilanath said, it was the cheapest place to go. All the participants were busy cleaning pots, lighting fires and preparing the several tons of vegetables that they had brought from the market. No knives, but a dangerous sword like implements you hold between your feet and slice things against. Far too dangerous for me, so I peeled onions with my fingers while Bishnu scraped carrots and potatoes with a spoon. Nasta (breakfast) started at 11:15. A sack of beaten rice was divided onto 25 leaf plates, piles of spicy chicken, daal and vegetables added, then raw onions and chillies. As they knew I would not eat the chicken, I was also given a box of sweets, 3 oranges, apples and bananas. About 12:30, the other trainers arrived (10:30 Nepali time), ready for lunch. This consisted of goat (all body parts, fried in masala) prepared by Binod, aloo gobi prepared by Maliti, the only female teacher (2 buckets or cauliflower, 2 buckets of potatoes, 2 buckets of onions, I bucket of tomatoes, several packets of spices) and yogurt (10 litres). We sat crossed legged in a circle eating with our fingers, as the hooded crows gathered and became increasingly bold scavenging the left overs. Afterwards there were stories and songs, and Tulsi made a speech and told jokes in Sanskrit.
The first 3 days of the new year were really enjoyable, as I was able to plan and deliver the last topics of the English module. David’s attempts to start working at Janapath school were thwarted by the arrival of 20 student teachers to supplement the nine he was intending to observe, and when he decided to return to Bokari to check on progress, he found that the teachers had given themselves a week off to mark test papers. We delivered a day’s training on communication skills together, and had lots of fun – as did the teachers. Like the Ethiopians, once introduced to role play, their enthusiasm was hard to control, especially in conflict situations! Friday was the day of the examination, which Durga was scheduled to organise, and I had planned to observe primary teachers at Shankapur. As Jeevan remarked “dear respectable Deborah madam, we do not want you to come to the examination, as we are afraid you will not let us cheat”. As Durga did not arrive, there was no choice. I discovered that they could not read English silently; most of them had their manuals and notebooks on their chairs, and Surendra and Ganga (obviously influenced by Crorepati – the Indian version of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’, now on Nepali television) attempted to ‘phone a friend’. Fortunately Durga arrived after half an hour, so I was able to hand over my responsibility and not feel guilty. He had been to one of the teaching practice schools, to find no teachers or trainees present. The peon had rounded up the children with a stick and had them singing the national anthem while teachers drifted in up to an hour late. He waited for the head to talk to him about his responsibilities before coming to the ETC. After the exam, we had presentation of their projects – some heart rending stories of trying to improve attendance by visiting families to persuade them of the importance of education, while children were taken out of school to mind goats, work in the fields and the house. In one village, three 12 year old girls had been sold to brothels in India. Some teachers are developing extra curricular programmes to stop boys dropping out to play football, and ‘go roaming’. In some of the more affluent areas there is an increasing drug problem. The day ended with the usual ‘closing ceremony’ for both groups (Maths and English) with all the trainers at the front making long speeches (except me). It was dark by the time we had finished and the mosquitoes were rampant.
It’s the season of grapes and power cuts. The grapes – small green ones from Nepal and larger black ones from India – are delicious. The power cuts are increasingly frequent: 5:30 – 8:30 am and 5:30 – 8:30 pm most days, and for unpredictable periods during the day and night. David has bought us a gas heater, and we have moved into the small back room where we can keep warm in the evenings. Thwarted by exhaustion of battery power for computers, inability to access internet or bake bread on Saturday, we decided to cycle to India. The border was marked by a bamboo pole, a piece of string and two boys in bobble hats in a shed. We resisted the temptation to just carry on cycling in case we could not get back. On the way home we found a wonderful ‘garden centre’ with sweet williams, snapdragons, pansies, dahlias, and verbena. We rode home with flowering baskets.