SLC examinations (equivalent to GCSE) started on Monday. I was surprised to find the gates to the ETC and Adarsha High School padlocked and guarded by police armed with lathis (big sticks) when I arrived at work. Eventually I persuaded them to let me through, promising that I would not disturb the examinations or smuggle in answers. The reason for the security became apparent when we read the newspaper report about an examination centre in the next town: “Police had to fire 17 rounds of ammunition to prevent parents throwing pieces of paper with answers written on them into the exam room. Parents pelted the police with stones, who had to resort to lathi charges to disperse the mob”. Grade 10 students are sent to examination centres (not their own school) to sit the exams, which last for 8 days. Question papers are in both Nepali and English, and private school students answer in English, while those from government schools write in Nepali. The papers are almost entirely factual recall from the grade 10 curriculum. Government school students are severely disadvantaged by the huge amount of time they have missed because of strike action this year.
We went early to Janapath on Wednesday to meet Buddhi for the science paper. He is justifiably proud of the way in which he organises the exams there. I was delighted to find I could remember enough to do well on the biology questions, if not the physics. ‘Good old-fashioned’ biology, including classification of a sea horse, of which, unsurprisingly none of the teachers except Buddhi had never heard. I was able to provide a drawing and impersonation.
Election momentum is gathering. Competing loud hailers go by all day, and flag waving crowds gather on street corners and outside temples. 25% of the candidates are teachers. 600 election observers from 14 different international organisations have arrived and are in evidence in white land cruisers. 90,000 national observers have been appointed. My colleagues have all had election training. Koirala, the 85 year old Prime Minister has stated that the current seven party alliance should continue to govern for the next 10 years; Deuba (Nepali Congress) has announced that he will be Prime Minister and Prachanda (Maoist leader) has declared that he will be President. An interesting take on democracy. Meanwhile in Kathmandu there are royalist plots hatching to reinstate the king, and dissident groups in the Terai are threatening further action to disrupt the polls.
On Thursday, a polling booth was set up on the school field, surrounded by flags on bamboo poles and information posters for a mock election. Thousands of people flocked in and were organised into orderly lines of men and women. It was far more lively than voting in England – and more complex, with two different ballot papers, one for proportional representation and one for first-past- the post. Several international UNMIN observers were there, plus a TV crew. A group was organised to create a disturbance, so the police could practice quelling it, which they did with great enthusiasm and much waving of lathis. We hope the real event will pass off as smoothly.
David’s production of teaching materials has been disrupted this week, as his tailor is too busy making election flags and banners. However, the prototype of the pocket chart is completed, and he has demonstrated it at the ETC. The photograph shows it in action with mero kitab - my book. He has made sets of Nepali and English alphabets and sets of numbers for mathematics teaching. We fear for the carpenter’s feet as he holds strips off wood between them while he saws off blocks, then files them smooth. We hope to use them at the ETC when primary teacher training starts again after the election.
At home, power cuts are increasing and we have been without water in the flat for nearly two weeks. There had been no water in the ETC since I arrived last May (one reason for never going to the toilet during the day), but it started flooding through the roof on Wednesday. Unfortunately this abundance did not spread to Tintolya where we live. . It is surprisingly easy to manage without, as long as we can fill buckets from the outside tap. Our neighbours, who rely on bore hole water, are amused by us carrying buckets indoors and washing our hair outside. We attract a large audience – including the beautiful new striped cow over the wall. We get daily phone calls from VSO about the security situation; for us security is two full buckets.
Friday and Saturday - Fagu Purnima (Holi), the Hindu festival of colour, celebrated by smearing heads and faces with luridly coloured powder, and flinging it about with water and ruining clothes. The children opposite are currently attacking our neighbours with giant waterpistols, while the children next door retaliate with full buckets. What a waste! They are calling to us ‘tapaaiharu uslaai khelna aaunus!’ (come and play with us!)
So, Kathmandu on Monday, and we will have to stay for ‘the duration’, however long that is. No-one knows how long it will take before election results are declared, and what repercussions there will be …….
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Nepali spring
The Terai spring is characterised by leaf fall and the instantaneous sprouting of green buds. It lasted for 3 days before the temperature rose dramatically. It is now over 30oC in the day and this week the night temperature has risen from 7 – 21oC. Nepalis are shedding their layers of winter clothes; a few hardy men are back in sandals and their woolly hats have been replaced by traditional topis. Women are wearing scarves instead of blankets over their kurtas. It’s the wedding season, so each morning we are woken by wedding bands, and chanting and singing goes on until the early hours of the morning, when the new loudspeaker at the mosque starts, accompanied by a strident dawn chorus of courting birds.
We have both been working ‘early shift’; David visiting schools where tiny children who rarely attend school are sitting on benches doing formal examinations. For most of them this means copying the paper with a small stub of blunt pencil. During the rest of the day he is developing materials for early years teaching, and I arrive home to find the floor covered with alphabet letters and multiplication tables. He has enlisted the help of the carpenter who made our furniture to make building blocks from scrap wood, the stationers for paper items and plastic balls, and Umesh at the fabric shop for pocket boards and children’s socks to make small puppets. After exams are over, the schools close for teachers to mark the papers – given that most children can’t do the papers, this seems an unnecessary indulgence. Then its holiday time again, followed by the start of the new Nepali year (mid-April); the first 2 weeks are spent registering the children before any teaching starts.
Meanwhile I have been taking training sessions on action research for secondary school teachers, cycling off just after dawn with the sun low and red in the sky and the orange neon street lights still on. Scabby dogs stretch out to catch the first rays of the sun; men in lungis and blankets are huddled at tea stalls; women in red saris are on their way to the temple for puja, while others are lighting fires to make breakfast and sweeping the dirt from one pile to another. People are coming in to town with sacks of vegetables for the market; bicycles are laden with sugar cane while others have a pair of goats suspended in jute bags from the handlebars and a cage of scrawny chickens on the carrier. Children on early shift are straggling to school and the cows and goats are still curled up under the trees.
March 13 - David’s birthday. He was still sleeping when I left at 6:30 for the ETC to teach action research to social studies teachers, leaving a candle stuck in the last slice of homemade bread in the kitchen. The social studies teachers speak no English, and Govind, their trainer speaks about as much English as I do Nepali. It was remarkably successful, with lots of laughter, many different activities and the help of my dictionary. At 9, a visitor arrived and joined in – I later discovered he is the deputy director of NCED (National Centre for Educational Development) on a monitoring visit, who will be a useful contact; we were able to spend most of the day together. At the end of the session, the 2 women took me off to the photographer, combed my hair and adjusted my clothes to pose for a photograph ‘for memory’. We finished the 3 day workshop for secondary teachers at the end of the morning. At 1:50 the papers for the 2pm examination arrived on the back of a motorcycle in a carefully stitched cloth bag, double sealed with sealing wax. On the way home I bought luridly coloured birthday cake at ‘Kiran’s cake parlour’, and was delighted to find that we had running water at home again after 2 days without any. The electricity was off, of course, but after a candlelit dinner (again) it was restored in time for us to watch ‘Elizabeth’, one of the many DVDs we bought in Kathmandu for £1 each. From time to time the language changed from English to Russian, adding new interest.
The election campaign is gathering momentum, with daily rallies and heavy police presence. There have been no unpleasant political incidents here since we returned. The only recent fatalities have been as a result of ‘huge tuskers run amok in Jhapa’. To our dismay, we have been recalled to Kathmandu on March 24 (although as we have just had another day without water or electricity there may be some compensations), as our passports need to go to immigration for new work visas. We will have to stay until after the election. The VSO annual conference has been rescheduled for election week, so we can all be incarcerated together. A group of new volunteers has just arrived, and we will spend some time helping with their initial training, planning conference activities and training materials for when we return.
We have both been working ‘early shift’; David visiting schools where tiny children who rarely attend school are sitting on benches doing formal examinations. For most of them this means copying the paper with a small stub of blunt pencil. During the rest of the day he is developing materials for early years teaching, and I arrive home to find the floor covered with alphabet letters and multiplication tables. He has enlisted the help of the carpenter who made our furniture to make building blocks from scrap wood, the stationers for paper items and plastic balls, and Umesh at the fabric shop for pocket boards and children’s socks to make small puppets. After exams are over, the schools close for teachers to mark the papers – given that most children can’t do the papers, this seems an unnecessary indulgence. Then its holiday time again, followed by the start of the new Nepali year (mid-April); the first 2 weeks are spent registering the children before any teaching starts.
Meanwhile I have been taking training sessions on action research for secondary school teachers, cycling off just after dawn with the sun low and red in the sky and the orange neon street lights still on. Scabby dogs stretch out to catch the first rays of the sun; men in lungis and blankets are huddled at tea stalls; women in red saris are on their way to the temple for puja, while others are lighting fires to make breakfast and sweeping the dirt from one pile to another. People are coming in to town with sacks of vegetables for the market; bicycles are laden with sugar cane while others have a pair of goats suspended in jute bags from the handlebars and a cage of scrawny chickens on the carrier. Children on early shift are straggling to school and the cows and goats are still curled up under the trees.
March 13 - David’s birthday. He was still sleeping when I left at 6:30 for the ETC to teach action research to social studies teachers, leaving a candle stuck in the last slice of homemade bread in the kitchen. The social studies teachers speak no English, and Govind, their trainer speaks about as much English as I do Nepali. It was remarkably successful, with lots of laughter, many different activities and the help of my dictionary. At 9, a visitor arrived and joined in – I later discovered he is the deputy director of NCED (National Centre for Educational Development) on a monitoring visit, who will be a useful contact; we were able to spend most of the day together. At the end of the session, the 2 women took me off to the photographer, combed my hair and adjusted my clothes to pose for a photograph ‘for memory’. We finished the 3 day workshop for secondary teachers at the end of the morning. At 1:50 the papers for the 2pm examination arrived on the back of a motorcycle in a carefully stitched cloth bag, double sealed with sealing wax. On the way home I bought luridly coloured birthday cake at ‘Kiran’s cake parlour’, and was delighted to find that we had running water at home again after 2 days without any. The electricity was off, of course, but after a candlelit dinner (again) it was restored in time for us to watch ‘Elizabeth’, one of the many DVDs we bought in Kathmandu for £1 each. From time to time the language changed from English to Russian, adding new interest.
The election campaign is gathering momentum, with daily rallies and heavy police presence. There have been no unpleasant political incidents here since we returned. The only recent fatalities have been as a result of ‘huge tuskers run amok in Jhapa’. To our dismay, we have been recalled to Kathmandu on March 24 (although as we have just had another day without water or electricity there may be some compensations), as our passports need to go to immigration for new work visas. We will have to stay until after the election. The VSO annual conference has been rescheduled for election week, so we can all be incarcerated together. A group of new volunteers has just arrived, and we will spend some time helping with their initial training, planning conference activities and training materials for when we return.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Holiday and home again
February 7. From Biratnagar to Delhi in a few hours. We sped through clean, green New Delhi – majestic tree lined avenues, new (but frequently dented) private cars (Tata of course), gas powered autorickshaws, buses and even rubbish disposal carts. Our friendly hotel in Karol Bagh was surrounded by the usual jumble of street vendors, garish colours, vibrant advertising hoardings, tea shops, beggars, stray dogs and piles of debris. We spent the next day in the sophisticated Khan Market, buying books (what choices! 3 international bookshops, including the one William Dalrymple claims as his favourite) a few clothes at the irresistible Fabindia, and eating delicious food. Part of the ‘old India’ survives and I was able to get a haircut and head massage for less than £1.
South to Kerala, where we stayed in the small guest house on the cliff top in Varkala that we discovered when it first opened 5 years ago. Ten wonderfully relaxing days of beach, sun, big seas, new books and quiet evenings eating dinner under the stars, listening to the waves pounding against the cliff. We made occasional trips to town to buy fruit, passing flatbed lorries carrying elephants between temple festivals, and enjoyed an evening at the local temple with a colourful parade, marvellous drummers and a procession of highly decorated elephants. On the way back to Kathmandu we spent a night in the relatively posh Jorbagh colony in South Delhi, although we were reminded that it was Indian by the ‘do not spit in the flowerbeds’ signs, and ‘do not use the towels to clean your shoes’ notice on the back of the door to our room. We strolled thorough the beautiful Lodhi Gardens, full of mynah birds and green parakeets flitting between the magnificent 15th century Moghal tombs, to replenish our books and our stock cupboard. At the airport the next day attempts were made to confiscate my supplies of pesto and tahini, bought at great expense in the Delhi deli. Eventually they compromised by opening all the jars and digging around with a pair of scissors for WMDs. They didn’t find any.
Back to a Kathmandu almost at a standstill. Two week bandh in the Terai had prevented any petrol, diesel, kerosene or gas reaching the capital. Huge hopeful queues at fuel stations which remained closed, food supplies reduced, restaurants shut, friends running out of fuel for cooking and heating. We managed to escape for the weekend to the beautiful Newari hill town of Bandipur, where the paved streets have only human traffic and many of the buildings have been lovingly restored.
Our VSO Education review workshop was a safari and logistical nightmare. We started as volunteers only with breakfast in a hotel in Kathmandu. After a morning of heated discussion, we managed to reshape the subsequent days into a more coherent programme. At the end of the day we were bussed from Kathmandu to Dhulikel, 25km into the mountains, picking up our chilly Nepali partners at various points along the way. The journey – normally 1½ hours, took more than 4, with frequent jams and blockades near petrol stations. There was the compensation of dinner waiting, comfortable beds with huge fluffy duvets and hot waterbottles when we eventually arrived. After a good day working with our partners (Durga and Tulsi from the ETC, and Babaram from the DEO office, who appears keen and committed to support David’s project), we had an early night before setting off at the crack of dawn for our next destination, where we joined the HIV and Governance volunteers in Godavari for a day of ‘sharing’. A long journey through Friday night traffic back to the city, where David joined a group of VSO fundraisers about to start a trek to Everest base camp at the Summit Hotel in Patan.
At last, clearance to go home, and after a frustrating 5 hours at the airport on Monday while the backlog of Sunday’s flights cancelled by torrential rain were cleared, we arrived in hot, humid and thundery Biratnagar. We were delighted to open up our dusty flat, cycle to the market where we were warmly greeted by our usual suppliers, especially as they have been suffering by almost 3 weeks of closure, and load up our baskets. At home, the women were quickly into the compound to cut the grass for their animals, while the children were blowing kisses and shouting their newly acquired English phrases. Having unpacked, we received a phone call from the VSO office, informing us of more Madhesi bandhs starting tomorrow……
South to Kerala, where we stayed in the small guest house on the cliff top in Varkala that we discovered when it first opened 5 years ago. Ten wonderfully relaxing days of beach, sun, big seas, new books and quiet evenings eating dinner under the stars, listening to the waves pounding against the cliff. We made occasional trips to town to buy fruit, passing flatbed lorries carrying elephants between temple festivals, and enjoyed an evening at the local temple with a colourful parade, marvellous drummers and a procession of highly decorated elephants. On the way back to Kathmandu we spent a night in the relatively posh Jorbagh colony in South Delhi, although we were reminded that it was Indian by the ‘do not spit in the flowerbeds’ signs, and ‘do not use the towels to clean your shoes’ notice on the back of the door to our room. We strolled thorough the beautiful Lodhi Gardens, full of mynah birds and green parakeets flitting between the magnificent 15th century Moghal tombs, to replenish our books and our stock cupboard. At the airport the next day attempts were made to confiscate my supplies of pesto and tahini, bought at great expense in the Delhi deli. Eventually they compromised by opening all the jars and digging around with a pair of scissors for WMDs. They didn’t find any.
Back to a Kathmandu almost at a standstill. Two week bandh in the Terai had prevented any petrol, diesel, kerosene or gas reaching the capital. Huge hopeful queues at fuel stations which remained closed, food supplies reduced, restaurants shut, friends running out of fuel for cooking and heating. We managed to escape for the weekend to the beautiful Newari hill town of Bandipur, where the paved streets have only human traffic and many of the buildings have been lovingly restored.
Our VSO Education review workshop was a safari and logistical nightmare. We started as volunteers only with breakfast in a hotel in Kathmandu. After a morning of heated discussion, we managed to reshape the subsequent days into a more coherent programme. At the end of the day we were bussed from Kathmandu to Dhulikel, 25km into the mountains, picking up our chilly Nepali partners at various points along the way. The journey – normally 1½ hours, took more than 4, with frequent jams and blockades near petrol stations. There was the compensation of dinner waiting, comfortable beds with huge fluffy duvets and hot waterbottles when we eventually arrived. After a good day working with our partners (Durga and Tulsi from the ETC, and Babaram from the DEO office, who appears keen and committed to support David’s project), we had an early night before setting off at the crack of dawn for our next destination, where we joined the HIV and Governance volunteers in Godavari for a day of ‘sharing’. A long journey through Friday night traffic back to the city, where David joined a group of VSO fundraisers about to start a trek to Everest base camp at the Summit Hotel in Patan.
At last, clearance to go home, and after a frustrating 5 hours at the airport on Monday while the backlog of Sunday’s flights cancelled by torrential rain were cleared, we arrived in hot, humid and thundery Biratnagar. We were delighted to open up our dusty flat, cycle to the market where we were warmly greeted by our usual suppliers, especially as they have been suffering by almost 3 weeks of closure, and load up our baskets. At home, the women were quickly into the compound to cut the grass for their animals, while the children were blowing kisses and shouting their newly acquired English phrases. Having unpacked, we received a phone call from the VSO office, informing us of more Madhesi bandhs starting tomorrow……
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
