The monsoon has arrived with vertical sheets of rain, a profusion of new lakes, happy ducks, croaking frogs from dusk to dawn, wallowing buffaloes and mud, mud, mud.
Madan Nath from NCED arrived last weekend to start a 10 day programme for English ‘master trainers’ from central and eastern Terai. When I arrived at work on Monday morning, the group had already started, having decided a 7am start would enable them to finish for the day before it got really hot. He presented me with a schedule, with my name against delivery of sessions for 3 days. Although I explained that I have no experience of teaching EFL, he seems to think that being a native speaker is enough. It is at least giving me a chance to talk to someone who writes policy and training materials, so I am being very cooperative! Delighted to see some familiar faces amongst the participants, including our friend Rajendra from Ilam. On the second morning, my arrival was described in the daily report: “Madam Deborah joined our training. She is very old, but energetic. She is very marvellous”. One of the biggest challenges is nasta break; while my friends consume daal bhat, I am challenged by a whole ripe mango that I have to try and eat while sustaining a conversation. While my fellow trainers deliver sessions where the intricate differences between grammar-translation and communicative methods are discussed in detail, I have developed games, role plays and other interactive activities.
David leaves for school at 5:30am and I follow an hour later. Once the masters’ training is over, I join the headteachers and / or the secondary English training. I am also trying to get to see the primary teachers on teaching practice, but with 57 in 6 different schools, its impossible to follow that up properly.
Meanwhile the king has left the palace, leaving his mother and concubines behind, presumably to become exhibits in the museum that the Maoists intend to make. Political stagnation continues.
A week later: masters training now over, so my time has been divided between schools in the hope that primary trainees will actually be teaching rather than organising musical chairs (no chairs, lots of mud) or making materials for their ‘exhibition’ – artistic rather than having any relevance to teaching and learning. Back to the ETC at tiffin time to see the secondary English group that I now teach every afternoon. David is back on the day shift so life is returning to some normality. Our friend Anil, a volunteer with an NGO in Kathmandu, arrived on Thursday, having survived the 15 hour bus journey with a colleague to visit a water and sanitation project in Jhapa; nights on a double bed in the office with several others and daal bhat 3 times a day. Strange and delightful to have a friend for a meal and a bottle of wine (the first in Biratnagar!); talking and listening is exhausting after our usual isolation.
A treat this week was a visit to the local girls’ school. I know Mina Pokharel, the deputy head quite well, as she comes to the ETC to train Science teachers. She is a very good trainer, wears beautiful clothes, has short hair (very unusual for Nepali women) and rides a motorbike. Her daughters are at school in India. The head of the school, Bina Koirala, has just completed the headteacher training; she is due to retire next year. Like Mina, she is very smart, with a fantastic sari collection – a different one for every day of the 30 day training. I arrived at school at 9:50 on Thursday morning to find most of the staff present, and 600 girls lining up for assembly. Primary students were in ragged blue dresses, while the secondary students wore blue and white kurta surwaal. Grade 10 girls led Saraswati’s (goddess of education) prayer, followed by the national anthem. It was then grade 6’s turn to pick up the litter on the field before going to class. I met all the staff – 9 women and 8 men, before being taken on a tour of the school and being introduced to every class. Taught grade 6 for part of the lesson before grade 10 English. Delightful, well motivated girls. After a science class with Mina, she showed me the cavernous science lab which resembled Miss Haversham’s house, before going to take her optional computer class. To my amazement there are 5 working computers in a newly refurbished room, with a group of students doing fairly advanced computer graphics. A very enjoyable morning and possibly a place of refuge when things are slack at the ETC.
Newspaper headlines are depressing. After one meeting of the new CA when the republic was declared, there has been no further meeting. Koirala continues to make all decisions; strikes are starting again. One Minister locked six of his junior ministers in a toilet for 3 days because they did not agree with him. Maoists have announced they are quitting the non-existent government. MEd students taking their final exams rampaged when invigilators tried to stop them cheating, attacking teachers, ripping up examination papers and preventing others from completing their exams.
Chhatra, our landlord is back in Kathmandu and phones daily with instructions for Karna, who remains cheerful and is a delight to have around. Yesterday he cycled to India to buy shears to attempt to tame the vegetation in the garden. SLC results (GCSE equivalent) were published on Monday; we were overjoyed to discover that Karna has achieved a first division pass, so discussions about his future are underway. His brother, Durna, has also passed, and is likely to go to Malaysia to earn money, as so many young Nepalis do.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Saturday, 7 June 2008
More strikes
David started the early shift at Bokhari on Monday, leaving home at 5:30am. The staff and children were delighted to see him and he enjoyed his day helping to plan teaching and learning for the next two weeks. My primary trainees started their teaching practice; I visited two of the three training schools, and found them excited and working hard on timetables and lesson plans.
Tuesday: David home by 7am as a bandha called for 15 days to protest at the lack of textbooks in schools. There were a number of incidents at the end of last week, with students protesting and the DEO office closed. It seems that the Ministry has called the current action, presumably to divert attention from the fact that they are responsible for the production and distribution of textbooks. Ironically, David has seen his best teaching since the teachers were relieved of the constraints of the textbook. I went to school at 10 to see what was happening in the training schools. All the trainees were at Shankapur with about 30 children, and mothers were bringing new little ones. Most of the regular teachers were there, so we sat in the porch on plastic chairs and chatted about what we might be able to do. My friend Rekha arrived and was delighted to see me as she is timetabled for grade 4 and 5 English this year, and needs help. Some girls who I taught in grade 4 came to chat, and I was dismayed to discover that Sony, the brightest girl in the class has got married (age 12) and will not return to school. Tragic. We spent the morning looking at lessons plans and teaching materials and I returned to the ETC to help sort out a contingency plan.
The government then announced a three day public holiday to coincide with the first session of the new parliament. Training continued at the ETC, while David spent the day converting his alphabet charts from Q is for queen to Q is for queue in recognition of the new republic.
Wednesday Jestha 15 (May 28). The new parliament met and the end of the monarchy and beginning of the Democratic Republic of Nepal was passed by 560 votes to 4. The start of the meeting was delayed by many hours, a few bombs and fears of a military coup. It is likely that Koirala, the 83year old PM, will become a constitutional head of state, and that Prachanda, the Maoist leader, will become PM when they meet again next week.
On the home front, the water problem seems to be resolved at last. A reserve tank with a motor has been installed downstairs so we can pump water to the roof. The non-functional taps in the house have been replaced and the kitchen tap now has proper water flow after the drip drip drip of the last year. Several leaks have appeared in the pipework, but are being fixed. Karna and his brother Durna are living happily upstairs and working hard during the day and studying in the evening. They have been a great help in sorting out the plumbing work, and Karna’s English improves every day.
MoE U turn on Monday when they declared all schools must reopen. Half the staff, 3 trainees, one small child and a dog were at Balmandir across the road from the ETC where I checked first before deciding it was not worth ‘doing the rounds’ on my bicycle. At last I got my ‘training of trainers’ underway, only 90 minutes late. 5 each of English, Nepali and Social Studies part timers arrived on Monday afternoon for allocation of the one month training that starts on Wednesday. The ETC staff also took part; we’ll see if there is any difference. Pandit Guru, the Hindu priest who teaches Nepali has had a makeover. Formally only wearing white – white trousers, kurta, shoes, socks, cap, topped off with a bobble cap on cold days, covering his white hair. Today he was in saffron robes and saffron topi covering bright orange hair.
Teaching resumed in schools in a half hearted way on Wednesday, but few lessons were actually completed and teachers and students didn’t manage to last the whole day. I was delighted to find that the nursery at Balmandir now has some toys and I played happily on the floor with tiny grubby children while waiting for the trainees to go and teach. Sadly at Shankapur, the tinies are put into the grade 1 classroom and there is no provision for them. Helped Kalpana organise a game on Friday, before helping Gita with what turned out to be a really good English lesson with grade 3, once she abandoned her lesson plan. Teaching finished after period 2, when the male trainees decided to take all the students outside for musical chairs. I arrived back at the ETC to find that Durga had taken my suggestions about more variety of activities to heart and had prepared a very good role play activity for the English teachers in the afternoon. On Friday evening, a surprise call from Dinesh, back from 2 months in Qatar, where he worked in tourism, taking Americans and Europeans out into the Arabian Sea on a dhow and organising watersports activities. A huge culture shock for a young man who had never seen the sea. He loved it. The biggest challenge was coping with watching people eat beef at the beach barbecues. He will be sent a work visa and will decide if he is prepared to go for 2 years. There are currently 2m Nepalis working in Qatar – making up more than 20% of the population.
New democratic Nepal is still non-functional, as no agreement can be made and all parties are now threatening to pull out of non-existent government. The king has left the palace, and Koirala continues to make all decisions.
Tuesday: David home by 7am as a bandha called for 15 days to protest at the lack of textbooks in schools. There were a number of incidents at the end of last week, with students protesting and the DEO office closed. It seems that the Ministry has called the current action, presumably to divert attention from the fact that they are responsible for the production and distribution of textbooks. Ironically, David has seen his best teaching since the teachers were relieved of the constraints of the textbook. I went to school at 10 to see what was happening in the training schools. All the trainees were at Shankapur with about 30 children, and mothers were bringing new little ones. Most of the regular teachers were there, so we sat in the porch on plastic chairs and chatted about what we might be able to do. My friend Rekha arrived and was delighted to see me as she is timetabled for grade 4 and 5 English this year, and needs help. Some girls who I taught in grade 4 came to chat, and I was dismayed to discover that Sony, the brightest girl in the class has got married (age 12) and will not return to school. Tragic. We spent the morning looking at lessons plans and teaching materials and I returned to the ETC to help sort out a contingency plan.
The government then announced a three day public holiday to coincide with the first session of the new parliament. Training continued at the ETC, while David spent the day converting his alphabet charts from Q is for queen to Q is for queue in recognition of the new republic.
Wednesday Jestha 15 (May 28). The new parliament met and the end of the monarchy and beginning of the Democratic Republic of Nepal was passed by 560 votes to 4. The start of the meeting was delayed by many hours, a few bombs and fears of a military coup. It is likely that Koirala, the 83year old PM, will become a constitutional head of state, and that Prachanda, the Maoist leader, will become PM when they meet again next week.
On the home front, the water problem seems to be resolved at last. A reserve tank with a motor has been installed downstairs so we can pump water to the roof. The non-functional taps in the house have been replaced and the kitchen tap now has proper water flow after the drip drip drip of the last year. Several leaks have appeared in the pipework, but are being fixed. Karna and his brother Durna are living happily upstairs and working hard during the day and studying in the evening. They have been a great help in sorting out the plumbing work, and Karna’s English improves every day.
MoE U turn on Monday when they declared all schools must reopen. Half the staff, 3 trainees, one small child and a dog were at Balmandir across the road from the ETC where I checked first before deciding it was not worth ‘doing the rounds’ on my bicycle. At last I got my ‘training of trainers’ underway, only 90 minutes late. 5 each of English, Nepali and Social Studies part timers arrived on Monday afternoon for allocation of the one month training that starts on Wednesday. The ETC staff also took part; we’ll see if there is any difference. Pandit Guru, the Hindu priest who teaches Nepali has had a makeover. Formally only wearing white – white trousers, kurta, shoes, socks, cap, topped off with a bobble cap on cold days, covering his white hair. Today he was in saffron robes and saffron topi covering bright orange hair.
Teaching resumed in schools in a half hearted way on Wednesday, but few lessons were actually completed and teachers and students didn’t manage to last the whole day. I was delighted to find that the nursery at Balmandir now has some toys and I played happily on the floor with tiny grubby children while waiting for the trainees to go and teach. Sadly at Shankapur, the tinies are put into the grade 1 classroom and there is no provision for them. Helped Kalpana organise a game on Friday, before helping Gita with what turned out to be a really good English lesson with grade 3, once she abandoned her lesson plan. Teaching finished after period 2, when the male trainees decided to take all the students outside for musical chairs. I arrived back at the ETC to find that Durga had taken my suggestions about more variety of activities to heart and had prepared a very good role play activity for the English teachers in the afternoon. On Friday evening, a surprise call from Dinesh, back from 2 months in Qatar, where he worked in tourism, taking Americans and Europeans out into the Arabian Sea on a dhow and organising watersports activities. A huge culture shock for a young man who had never seen the sea. He loved it. The biggest challenge was coping with watching people eat beef at the beach barbecues. He will be sent a work visa and will decide if he is prepared to go for 2 years. There are currently 2m Nepalis working in Qatar – making up more than 20% of the population.
New democratic Nepal is still non-functional, as no agreement can be made and all parties are now threatening to pull out of non-existent government. The king has left the palace, and Koirala continues to make all decisions.
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