The end

Although we will miss the colours of Nepal, from the brilliant reds, purples, oranges, pinks, yellows and electric blues of the women’s saris, to the fuchsia pink and turquoise stripes on the goats and the bright green rice paddy, we will not miss the Holi festival. This has become an excuse for riotous young men to cover themselves and everyone they meet in brilliantly coloured powder, followed by squirting of water to ensure that the colour sticks fast. I have just returned from a quick outing to the shops – which of course were all shut tight to avoid the coloured assault, and managed to escape unscathed by cheerily waving and shouting “Holi shubhakamana” as I sped past on my bike. I did allow the little girl next door to daub a little colour on ‘auntie’s’ face when I returned home.

I will be sad to leave the English teachers a week before their training is complete, and David has already said a last goodbye to his teachers and children. The flat is gradually being emptied, as friends come to collect items of furniture. Durga arrived with two handcarts yesterday morning and carted off the big furniture, so we are reverting to camping out as we did at the beginning. We have had many invitations to farewell daal bhats; impossible to attend them all. The main farewell events were on Thursday. David arrived as Bal Rani at 9.30am as requested. Preparations were underway and the proceedings started an hour later. Many speeches were made, including one by David in Nepali, followed by presentation of gifts – a beautifully written and framed certificate extolling the virtues of Sir David Spinney, and a huge box wrapped in Barbie doll paper that he was instructed not to open until he got home. He was then anointed with a tikka by everyone (stripe of brilliant red powder on the forehead), covering head, hair, nose and shirt. Worse than Holi. He arrived at the ETC in the afternoon looking as if he had a nasty head injury. The trainers, head of Adarsha school and all my English teachers were formally arranged for speeches. We performed dutifully, but then in the interests of active learning, taught them a song with actions. We were given beautiful shawls, topi (Nepali cap) for David and bag for me. Then tikkas from 37 people. When we arrived colourfully home, we found there was no water, so continued to Hanna’s for a shower. When we opened David’s gift box, it contained a Nepali ‘harvest festival’ collection of fruit and vegetables – some of which we’ve enjoyed this evening but will not be able to transport home! The last of the furniture and household goods will disappear on tomorrow, and we leave for the airport on Saturday morning, much lighter both in body and in luggage than when we arrived.

There is so much we will missas well as Nepali friends: being woken by early morning temple music and the wailing of the imam, sunlight through the palm trees as we eat breakfast on the terrace each morning, children shouting ‘hello didi’ in the mornings as I cycle to work along potholed roads, the always fascinating and changing pattern of street life, ox carts patiently hauling huge loads along the road, watching the cows and goats amongst the children on the school field, the ragged boy who brings me tea in the afternoons, being given a sweet from ‘Mr India’s’ big jar, like a small child every time I buy anything, the mango season, chaat stalls wheeling through the streets in the afternoon, grazing water buffalo outside the gate when I arrive home, negotiating the cows in Main Road market in the evenings, masala dosas and chocolate ice cream on Fridays, chirruping geckoes, the daily evening challenge of the Himalayan Times crossword … and writing this blog.

We will be back in England on March 26.

Beginning of the end

Our all too brief idyll in India – a repeat of last year’s holiday, was followed by a week of workshops in Kathmandu. While volunteers from the Governance and HIV/AIDS programmes were residential in expensive hotels in the valley, impoverished educationists were billeted at the Pacific Guest House and walked to Thamel for breakfast each morning with our Nepali partners. Good to meet the new volunteers, and an excellent opportunity to share experience and successes and help shape the strategic plan for the next 4 years.

There had been few changes in Nepal during our break, but the newspaper announces load shedding to increase by 50%. 50% of 16 = 8. 16 + 8 = 24! Opportunities to watch our newly acquired DVDs will obviously be limited. The former King’s Palace has been opened at last as a museum, prompting the headline ’Narayanhiti open to hoi poloi’. Unfortunately the king took many van loads of potential exhibits with him when he left last year.

Attempts to keep us in Kathmandu until the strikes and problems in the eastern Terai are over failed; we would never have been able to come back, as the eastern Terai has been effectively ‘closed’ for 27 of the last 30 days. Lovely early morning flight in Buddha’s new big plane (48 seats); at home everything was fine but covered in a thick layer of dust. The big house opposite has been painted strawberry icecream pink, but nothing else haschanged. On our first night back, our evening was enlivened by gaudily decorated floats blaring out the soundtrack from Slumdog Millionaire followed by dancing youngsters. How dull England will seem!

Part of the new landlord’s family moved in upstairs on Wednesday. The priest came to do puja, with dramatic blowing on a conch shell all the way up the stairs and prasad (blessed food) for all of us. The plates, paper cups and other debris have been dumped outside the front gate. Chhatra and Tara have been here for a wedding so we have negotiated the removal of their and many of our belongings during next week. Durga has also been to select some furniture for his family and Karna will take everything else.

English training for a group of secondary teachers from the hills had started when I went back to work on Monday, and we now know each other well after a series of introductory games. I try to enliven some of the dire theory in the trainer’s guide with activities each day. Our rounds of saying goodbye have already started. Balkumari waited outside the training room on Thursday to ‘kidnap’ me and take me to her home – a long trek out into the countryside, where her son was waiting to show off his excellent English. I resisted her attempts to make me stay the night and eventually cycled home as the sun set, full of noodles and laden down with vegetables from her garden. David has been transporting boxes of resources to primary schools each day and enjoying his last few days in the classroom.

It’s the best time of year – warm (30^oC) days and cool evenings, but we have already shed the blanket. We are between the mosquito season and the ant season so we are relatively insect free. Fruit and vegetables still plentiful. More holidays in prospect – International Women’s Day on Sunday, Holi Tuesday and Wednesday.

Saraswati

The very hungry caterpillar has been a great success with ECD at two schools. The children love the story and all have made a caterpillar segment with their names, weight, favourite things. Its been a brilliant way of getting them to talk individually.

Primary and secondary training programmes have finished, with great celebrations, and we have started workshops for school based training. Some secondary teachers have done some interesting action research projects, with enticing titles like ‘stopping students fleeing after tiffin’. Many children do not reappear after the break, as they often work in the fields. One ingenious solution was setting up a committee to fine students 5 rupees (stick not carrot) – but it worked and over 200 rupees was collected and spent on a rubbish bin and broom to keep the classroom clean. Not very Nepali. I watched a group of 100 on Friday eating their tiffin – samosa, gulab jamon and banana – then tossing the cardboard plate, banana skin and other debris over the balcony, out of the window or onto the grass. This was followed by a hearty bout of throat clearing and spitting.

I have been visiting rural schools on the back of Durga’s motorbike. Several days were foggy and damp and we slid along buffalo tracks through fields of rice stubble to rural schools where teachers muffled up in scarves, jackets and woolly hats taught chilly students with ragged shirts and bare feet as water dripped from the tin roof. Poverty seems so much worse in the cold. On the way back from one school, we went to his parents, who have recently sold their land in the village and have bought land and are in the process of having a new house constructed on the outskirts of the city. The ground floor is completed; we found his elderly parents sitting on a pile of rubble on the roof, watching as women toiled up the rudimentary concrete stairs balancing piles of bricks on their heads, while men with makeshift plumblines assembled the bricks for the upstairs walls. Outside were the 2 family cows and a well planted vegetable garden.

By Friday, the sunshine had returned and we had a glorious day in the countryside. We sped along the highway past silent factories and busy brick kilns. The mustard fields are brilliant yellow, amongst wheat, maize and sugarcane. Kingfishers wait patiently on the bamboo overhanging the river. Oxen are ploughing the rice stubble and. women are threshing rice and drying pulses. Every house has its own Monet-like haystack. Eventually we nearly reached Rangeli, where Durga wanted to show me his old wooden house and former school, but there was a banda, with the road blocked by burning tyres, so we walked the last kilometer. We met many teachers from the training programmes, but no teaching was happening as the students were preparing for Saraswati the goddess of education) puja on Saturday. Brightly coloured flags were being strung across the school compound and a ‘temple’ prepared for a clay statue of the goddess. We had passed many of these on the road, being transported by rickshaw and buffalo.

Saturday morning – misty again as we cycled to Bokhari school with Hanna and the boys for their celebration. All the children and staff were there, with many ex-students and people from the local community. Two village bands were playing and local men had brought 3 goats for ritual slaughter by the Hindu priest in banana yellow robes. A classroom had been made into a Saraswati temple and we paraded through to do puja and receive our tikkas. Huge vats of food were being cooked for a village feast, followed by singing and dancing. Tomorrow we will follow the processions to the river where the stautes will be cast into the water. Lovely for all of us to enjoy the festivals while there is no improvement in the political situation. This week even the smugglers have gone on strike and there is no improvement in the power situation, inspite of the PM’s promises.

Next week to Kathmandu and then to India for a long overdue break in Kerala.

Hell's angels in woolly hats

Excitement at the ETC today as a fleet of motorcycles drove onto the field with blue flags waving. About 30 sturdy men in leather jackets and woolly hats with sprouting tops dismounted and headed towards the classrooms. Not menacing – just a delegation from the Teachers’ Union to announce a special meeting tomorrow. Schools will be closed of course. The government announced that all primary teachers who have finished 10 month training but only completed grade 10 at school (GCSE equivalent) must start grade 11-12 starting on Wednesday at 3 schools in Biratnagar. Sessions will run from 3-8pm. Most of the teachers are in rural schools. There has been no transport for over a week and no sign of an end to the dispute – and of course there is never electricity in the evenings.
Meanwhile, the whole of eastern Nepal has been at a standstill for the last two weeks because of protests by workers from the jute mills. Mill owners are unable to meet their wage demands as the mills have not been working properly for months because there is no electricity and no access to Kathmandu. No transport for days, and the border is also closed so no supplies can come from India. There is now no fuel, no gas and a shortage of food and huge losses in customs revenue. Today, according to the newspaper reports ”Agitators pelted themselves with stones”. Further power cuts have started; we are promised a daily ration of electricity from 10pm – 2am (asleep) and 2 – 4 pm (at work). The government maintain it is nothing to do with them and not their problem. We have friends in Kathmandu who live near a minister and have an uninterrupted power supply!
There are some bright spots. Rosie-the-dog is now encased in a cushion cover to protect her from the cold. We are gradually becoming immune to the gas fumes in the small back room. Work is enjoyable and productive for both of us. One highlight this week was while I was working with primary maths teachers, giving instructions in Nepali which Umapati translated into English. An interesting reversal!
Fog again on Sunday, but the afternoon was pleasant enough to tempt us out on our bikes. I have become adept at cycling wrapped in a blanket. We ventured south to the mills area, where we found a thriving community and silent mills. Wandered home through the villages with their collections of mud houses covered in drying dung patties for fuel, women sorting lentils and coming back from the fields with bundles of fodder for the cows outside every small dwelling clad in sacking to keep out the cold. The children are not so lucky, with ragged clothes and no shoes.
Teaching practice started on Tuesday with 93 teachers in 9 local schools. Several group returned to the ETC as the schools had decided to close ‘for the cold’. I visited 2 schools and sat in the sunshine with the teachers. At Balmandir there were 25 teachers and about 40 children present. No teaching occurred. On Magh 1, the second day of teaching practice we celebrated Maghi Parba, the official end of winter with another holiday and a return to glorious sunshine. We celebrated with our first swim for six weeks. Water very cold, but hot sun to dry off in. At Shankapur on Thursday, there were more goats than children in the classrooms.
On Saturday morning when I turned on my phone, there was a message from Umapati, informing me that I was expected at the primary teachers’ picnic, starting at 8am. I telephoned him; the teachers had been trying to contact me since 5am, knowing that I like advance warning of ‘events’. Plans for the morning put on hold and I arrived at the picnic site soon after 10, to find fires blazing, meat roasting, women chopping many kilos of vegetables and most of the men playing cards. The first round of snacks appeared at 11. Handfuls of beaten rice, puffed rice, spicy snacks, fiery vegetable stew, yogurt with a pile of sticky Indian sweets on the top. I managed a small portion, sitting cross legged on an old sack with the women. Lots of laughter and photographs, singing and dancing before the preparations for the main meal started. I escaped to go to market for Saturday shopping. Another adventure on Sunday as we went out for the day with Hanna, Luca (aged 3) and Uta, a young German eye specialist visiting the hospital here before she starts a one year placement in Lahan, 200 km west. We headed north to Dharan and then up to the hills to climb the observation tower on the hill at Bhedeta, where on a clear day there are fantastic views of the Everest range. It was not a clear day. Descended back to Dharan, where Hanna and family are planning to move in April, to look at some houses. One was on the massive site of the BP Koirala Hospital and Medical School. This was the former British Gorkha Military HQ, with large colonial houses, Capability Brown landscaping, a country club and a golf course. Nirvana Country Club had seen better days, but we had a pleasant lunch sitting in the sunshine behind a barbed wire fence looking over the golf course, where cows grazed on scrubby brown grass and a few stout Indian doctors on their afternoon off swung their clubs. Home via the ‘supermarket’ in Itahari.

Christmas and new year

The festive season has been marked here by another increase in load shedding and a lack of water, apart from a flood through the roof in the spare room. The upstairs door has been securely padlocked by the new landlord, so we had no access to find out what was happening. After a frantic hour trying to contact him, he appeared with our friend Dinesh and a plumber, who mended a burst pipe in the upstairs bathroom. Fortunately, there was little damage and David managed to dry out all his carefully prepared teaching materials that are laid out in ordered piles on the spare bed. This was shortly followed by the demise of our gas ring. Ravi’s brother, who spent an hour sitting on our kitchen floor dismantling and reassembling it, covering the marble with a lethal carbon and kerosene mixture, has repaired it.
Christmas Day started foggy and chilly, but a pale sun came through in time for breakfast on the terrace with our splendid dahlias. Schools were closed but I had a busy day training for primary English. ‘Learning English through activities’ is our theme, not without hazards, as most of the group are stout and in their fifties. Chhabilal pulled a muscle as he was ‘running to the board’ to find his word; Laxmi started to have palpitations and refused to ‘jump and down’ any more because of her heart condition. Manju wants to be my best friend. She is the most colourful, with her scarlet polo-necked sweater under a swirly orange and yellow sari, topped off with a fluorescent pink cardigan and an electric blue bobble hat.
Our best present was an invitation to Hanna and Josef’s for a hot bath / shower. Bliss; I had not had a bath since England and our last hot shower was in Kathmandu almost 3 months ago. After a traditional Austrian Christmas Day supper, we sang carols round the tree and exchanged small presents. An enjoyable evening and very dark cycle ride home. Back to Hanna and Josef’s for new year and games and fireworks with the boys. It is difficult for us to reciprocate their hospitality, as we are now confined to the candlelit small backroom to keep warm. The gas fire is working again, but the fumes are so noxious we have to turn it off before we pass out.
We have just embarked on the BBC War and Peace series from the 1970s. The sound and movement are not synchronised, its in a strange sepia tint and has Dutch subtitles. It is so dated – very stagy and overacted. The wigs are extraordinary and resemble the hairstyles of 70s football players. My hair does too, after 3 months without a visit to a hairdresser. We should manage to make the DVDs last until we go to India, as the laptop battery is very tired so we have to watch half an episode at a time.
Further increases in load shedding have started this week. On a good day we have 6 hours of electricity. Government administrative expenditure has increased 8 times since April – mostly on overseas travel for the new regime. The press has become more critical of the new government, and newspapers were interrupted for a few days this week after Maoists smashed newspaper offices and beat up editors. Headlines now focus on the power crisis and government plans to generate more electricity. The latest features plans for wind farms; however ‘the inaccessibility to identified project areas is a major stumbling block’.
Its now the beginning of the kite flying season. Small boys perch precariously on the rooftops with home made kites on the end of huge spools of string. A consignment of cheap badminton rackets has appeared in the market, so children are lashing ‘shuttlecocks’ made from rubber bands around on pieces of waste ground. More dangerously, they are using the railings of the central reservation on the highway coming from the airport as badminton net!

Cold, dry and dark

At 7am on Saturday morning, Babaram sent a text message to David to ask him to do training for ECD facilitators on Monday at the DEO. Text is their primary method of communication, as Babaram refuses to speak English and does not understand David’s Nepali. So on Sunday we set off through the harvested paddy fields and wandering buffalo to Bokari to collect materials. We found the teachers sitting on benches on the field surrounded by children playing. A group of men were standing on the path having a heated discussion. They had brought huge padlocks and secured all the classrooms. An effective lock out. None of the teachers knew why or how long it was likely to continue. A pleasant cycle ride across country took us to Bal Rani, which was open and we were able to borrow Manu the bear, the butterflies and a play box. Other materials David managed to replicate during the afternoon. The government has suddenly changed the visa process and all David’s paperwork has to be redone. The chief of the DEO has been transferred, so there is no-one to sign the new forms. There seems to be the start of removal of pahadis (hill people) from senior government appointments in the Terai, and replacement with madhesi. Two additional days of school closure later in the week for Bakar Id on Tuesday and a local festival on Friday, but the ETC remained open and busy. ETC is devoid of permanent staff; Tulsi has gone to Dhankuta, Umapati is doing Life Skills training in Bangalore and Durga has gone to Laos on a VSO study tour.
Having enjoyed a lovely day on Saturday, with an afternoon at the pool, the fog descended on Sunday and we had our first cold day. It’s the season of goats-in-cardigans and cows covered in old sacks in the mornings. Rani’s milkman, who arrives on his bicycle each morning with fresh milk in old plastic water bottles in a jute bag suspended from his handlebars, now has his head wrapped in a scarf and scarlet leggings under his lungi. Thermals and blankets out from under the bed. A new power station, the second largest in the country, has just been completed; only 4 years behind schedule and at double the projected cost. Local people have prevented it opening because it was behind schedule……. Meanwhile load shedding has increased in length, so it is now 10 to 19 hours a day. Trying to keep computers, phones and emergency lights charged and water pumped is a real challenge, especially as we are usually at work or asleep when the electricity is on. Bread and ice cream making a real problem, and we rarely have an internet connection.
Colin and Ellen, friends from Ethiopia eventually arrived for a few days on Monday, having spent the morning fog-bound at a chilly Kathmandu airport. They are working in an international school in Kathmandu for 6 months and wanted to see a different face of Nepal. When they eventually arrived, we had a wonderful, if cold and foggy, few days. It helped that they had previously lived in Debre Berhan, a small hill town in Ethiopia. We breakfasted and dined by candlelight, survived low pressure cold showers, coped without our usual cheese supply and had a very flexible itinerary caused by transport strikes. We visited the ETC and David’s schools and eventually got to Dharan where the sun was shining and we found roast chestnuts and mushrooms in the market. Women in colourful clothes and elaborate nose jewellery congregate in Dharan from the hills to sell local produce.
On Wednesday we spent the day with Josef and Hanna, who had invited us to visit the eye hospital and see the plans for the new building. The current hospital, which was set up 2 years ago to assess need, is dealing with more than 500 people a day in an old hotel building. Families with bundles of belongings and many blankets were camped out on the grass. There was a steady procession through the different stages of assessment, consultation and treatment, with a sense of calm resignation from the many people waiting patiently. A basic cataract operation with a 2 night stay costs £7, but people who have no money are treated free of charge. After a vision check, patients are referred to technicians who make a preliminary diagnosis; some are referred to opticians and are fitted with glasses for about 50p; others require minor surgery; many have cataracts- one doctor carries out 150 cataract operations in a day; the hospital also does corneal grafts and retinal surgery. What to western eyes looked at first like a refugee camp, provided a highly organised and professional service, with literally hundreds of people having their vision restored each day. Josef has just leased some old portacabins that he is converting into basic dormitories with a toilet block and cooking shelter where families can stay. The wall surrounding the new site has been completed; the plans are ambitious and there are many political challenges ahead.

Winter approaches

The festival season has been replaced by the wedding season. Temple music starts at 4am, well before the imam at 5, often followed by a strident wedding band of drums and trumpets waking the bridegroom in a neighbouring house. The weather is beautiful, with warm sunny days and cool nights. Because it is officially winter, woolly hats, scarves and cardigans are worn by the men and blankets by the women. The air is full of dust; a combination of no rain since we returned in August and the beginnings of road repairs. Huge piles of sand and gravel have been dumped at the sides of the roads, so they now resemble a slalom course. There is room to manoeuvre a bicycle down the road to the ETC, but frequent diversions have to be made for motorcycles and rickshaws.
My month with secondary English teachers has just ended. The group is only 13, so I have got to know them well. Balkumari and Yasoda, the two women have become my special friends; their English is limited to grade 7 level, so they rattle on in Nepali. They are both in their mid thirties; Balkumari has two sons, and Yasoda one daughter. While Yasoda is slim and elegant Balkumari is large and jolly. I have been treated to several views of her Caesarean scars (horrendous). Last week she told me I had very nice teeth and asked me where I had got them! Rama, a retired head who has studied in Leeds and at the Bell language school in Saffron Walden worked with me for a week, which we all enjoyed. She now does community work, watches TV and eats!
Secondary training finished on Monday, with the usual examination, written in incomprehensible English. The paper featured multiple choice questions, very short answer questions, short answer questions and long answer questions. The following question only works for Hindus. ‘How do you convince people who say that English is cow slaughters’ [sic] language?’
I have spent the rest of the week doing primary English with Durga. He has surpassed himself, and we have run an activity based week. Having watched the groups sitting writing for the first 3 weeks, it’s a delight to watch them running around (they are mostly stout and elderly) and giggling. The ‘make a hat for your friend’ activity which teaches reading writing speaking AND listening skills in English reduced me to hysteria, as they wore their new hats over their already eccentric headgear.
The most dramatic incident of the week occurred at tiffin time on Thursday. I was standing on the school field in the sun eating an apple. Gita came over for a chat, leading her young heifer. As we were talking, the heifer mounted her shoulders, cannoning her into me and pinning us both against the wall. We were helpless with laughter and were stuck fast until some excited young schoolboys came to drag the cow off.
Two enjoyable evenings with the Schneiders. The first time we were welcomed by Josef and the boys standing in the road shining torches so we could find the house in the inevitable power cut. Having spent 2 years in a large house with pool in Zimbabwe, they are used to a more typical expat lifestyle, with ‘staff’. Hanna has taught Apsara to make European food as a change from dal bhat, so much to the boys’ delight we had an Austrian meal. They have decided to move to Dharan, near to the hills and forest, where there is a larger expat community, a better school for the boys and Hanna can start an MSc at the medical school. They expect to stay here until March. We were invited again for St Nikolaus Eve, which coincided with my birthday. St Nikolaus arrived laden with presents for the boys, a beautiful winter kurta for me and a chocolate cake from David. The latter caused some problems; he ordered it from the bakery early in the week. On Friday there was fighting between YCL and the youth group of the Marxists, so the whole town was closed. Karna phoned the bakery and David crawled in under the shutters to retrieve the cake.
We are still swimming in the afternoons at weekends, and have started cycle rides out into the countryside on Sundays. Last weekend we discovered a wonderful old Shiva temple in a village near to the Indian border. The entire village assembled to find out who we were and what we were doing; boys stopped flying their kites, girls with smaller siblings on their hips hovered shyly and the women brought their new baby goats to show us. The priest and the head man told us about the temple which is reputedly 2000 years old and the oldest in the area. There is a huge Nandi (Shiva’s bull) and several smaller Nandi shrines, where women were burning incense and anointing him with milk and marigold petals. There’s a large pond in front of the temple for ritual bathing and fishing, as well as for children to play. A gentle pace of rural life, with animals grazing, rice straw being brought in for the winter, new rice being threshed, and all the family working together. We spoke to several young people who dream of getting away for a better education and a different way of life.

Prabodhini Ekadashi

This week was Prabodhini Ekadashi, when Lord Devi is supposed to awaken from a four month sleep. So has the training centre, where we are overwhelmed by training after months of inactivity. Three groups of secondary teachers started on November 2, including an English group that I seem to have overall responsibility for. The notebooks for the trainees are from a new supplier. The usual tasteful Nepali scenes of mountains and temples have been replaced by a series called Classmate. The classmates depicted on the covers are scantily clad lovelies with long blonde hair and names like Avril and Bonny. Rather disturbing, but the teachers seem oblivious.
This week, I have been joined by Bindeshwor and Parmila in the English group. Bindeshwor attended some ‘master trainers’ workshops that I led – and is impressive; probably the best of the part time trainers we have. He arrives at midday, having already taught 5 English lessons in his school, followed by 3 Maths lessons in a private college. His degree is in Science. . Parmila treats the group like a class of 70 grade 9s. Beside her I feel decidedly shabby. She drips with gold jewellery, has a range of beautiful chiffon saris covered in sequins and sparkly high heeled mules. My limited collection of kurtas has suffered from 18 months of washing in Indian detergent and my ‘five-strap’ sandals now have only three. I lead parts of the training every day and am delighted to see a change in the teachers – none of them have worked with a native speaker before; some cannot cope much above grade 7 level, while some of the young ones are studying for masters degrees and are very able. Many of them arrive early in the morning so we can have ‘conversation’ before class starts; it’s wonderful to see their confidence grow. They are now starting to play ‘learning English’ games with relish and lots of laughter and are beginning to realise that their role is helping students learn, rather than delivering the textbook. Let’s hope it transfers to their classrooms.
Many of the 130 primary teachers who arrived on Sunday are elderly men who had hoped to escape training (this is the last year), but they have settled down and seem to be enjoying themselves. There are a few bright eyed young women too. Many are drifting from the 6am classes to 11am, so the later shift is now uncomfortably full. My days are busy, mostly with the English group, but with some input into Science (practical activities that do not require any resources) and primary training.
Meanwhile David is having a wonderful time with Manu the bear, who is now an honorary member of the class, with his own chair and name badge. In both schools, the ECD teacher has been really responsive and loves using the new materials he has made. A delegation from the DEO office has been to watch and he is now inundated with requests. At last!
Chhath was the last of the big festivals and we went to the river with Josef, Hanna and the children. A colourful and enjoyable evening. At home we are beset by a plague of grasshoppers, ranging in size from barely visible to chunky ones suitable for coating in chocolate. They are worst when the power goes off, when they flock to our emergency fluorescent lamp. At night they entertain themselves by jumping all over us and especially enjoy wandering through our hair. Perhaps they think its grass. David hoovers furiously each morning to get rid of the dead bodies. Especially important today as Josef and Hanna are coming for supper.

Work and play

A warm welcome back at work, especially as I brought information about VSO Link Tour for selected education partners to spend a week in Laos, looking at developments in teacher training and primary education. Durga and I prepared an application for him. Lots of enthusiasm for a ‘Training of Trainers’ day, to prepare for the next batch of training that will start on November 2. Very good training day on Friday – like the first day of term, when everyone comes back together and exchanges news. Good session, mostly led by Durga and Umapati. On Monday we repeated the exercise for the primary trainers; 130 primary teachers will arrive on November 9. After 4 months with no real work, we are overstretched and will run 3 groups from 6 – 11am and 4 groups from 11-4, with no days off. Many trainers will work both shifts.
David had a wonderful week focusing on ECD, with lots of story telling and play. He has produced some lovely materials that Shova is now using effectively and producing materials of her own. The children are responding so well and making great progress. On his days off this week he has used the ETC’s projector to help him produce huge animal pictures on chart paper from VSO using images from the internet.
Holiday mood has overwhelmed us again with preparations for Tihar. The market on Sunday was full of brightly coloured decorations, people stocking up on dried fruit and nuts – dates, sultanas, coconut, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, and buying thousands of small clay pots to make oil lamps. Many of the stall holders were painting their stalls and plastic covers. I bought green splattered carrots and yellow spotted aubergines. . A sudden change in the weather on Monday when moist clouds arrived from the Bay of Bengal and the temperature plummeted to 26oC, and we got out our winter clothes! Tihar dawned chilly and grey, but by the time we went to the market to see the banana trees placed outside the shops and the decorations on the sides of the street, the sun was out. Dogs and cows were adorned with garlands and brightly coloured tikka powder – mostly fuschia pink and turquoise. Abi has given Rosie (the dog – now a firm friend – no more yipping) a hair cut. Rani is having garden makeover.
A rare social event in the afternoon – last week we met Josef, Hanna and their 3 boys, aged 7,5 and 3, at the pool. He is an Austrian architect and is here for 4 years as project manager of the new eye hospital, which will be the second largest in the world! We were invited for tea – a delightful family in a beautiful house to the south of the city. We have decided to have a social life at last. In the evening we went back to the market to see the lights – of course there was a power cut; the gaudy electric bulbs went off so it was lit by thousands of beautiful oil lamps. Great cheers when power restored and the loudspeakers could start blaring out music again. Arrived home to find the family about to start their fireworks. A lavish display was put on with life threating enthusiasm by Abi, Ram (the driver and odd job man),and Karna, who had the time of his life. The box of 100 Chinese bombs was particularly terrifying. Pyel and Rani provided delicious snacks. Loud bangs and a flashing sky persisted until after midnight. Like living in a war zone.
The landlord has sold the house with us in it and is moving out on Saturday. Apparently the new owners will arrive ‘soon’ and move into our flat when we leave in March. This leaves Karna homeless. We have been to look at a number of rat-infested rooms with him, and have found a clean room with small kitchen and access to bathroom with a nice family a few houses away. Good to have him nearby so he can continue to learn to use the computer and practice his English.
Swimming with our Austrian friends on Wednesday; we were joined by Iris, a German eye surgeon, who arrived about the same time as us. All have worked in Africa before (Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Kenya), and are finding Biratnagar much more challenging. Candlelit evening with Durga and his daughters, with a profusion of sticky sweets before the dal bhat, and invitation to stay the night. We braved the firecrackers in the streets on our bicycles – at least there was more light than usual.

Another holiday

September 28. Back to noisy, smelly and incredibly wet Kathmandu. Dashain shopping frenzy brought traffic to a standstill on Monday so we walked the 70 minutes from VSO to the guest house in pouring rain. There is a new subeditor on The Himalayan Times, with pre-holiday front page headlines of ‘cops fleece sheep traders’ ‘water talks flow’ ‘ spirited drive against excess alcohol’. Three days of workshops with continual talk and VSO socialising left us exhausted, so we enjoyed a weekend relaxing at the Manaslu pool and a day with Colin and Ellen, friends from VSO Ethiopia, now working in Kathmandu for 6 months.
After successfully renewing our Indian visas, with great relief at never having to spend a tedious day queuing and being interrogated again, we started our holiday at 7am on October 7, when Himal arrived with a car to take us to the Seti River. We reached Damauli at 11am. The raft arrived at 1pm and the ‘chief rafter’ with life jackets arrived soon after 4pm. We were happy to get onto the river, in an overladen raft with a young Swedish couple and 2 Nepalis who seemed to know what they were doing. The river was very high after so much rain, so we sped along without much paddling, bouncing through rapids and white water until we pulled onto a sandbank as the sun was setting. We managed to get tents up before it was completely dark, surrounded by curious children, who had come down to the river to play and swim. A vast quantity of dal bhat was cooked over an open fire on the beach and we crawled into our tents at 8pm and fell asleep to the sound of the river. Woken early by the return of the children, walked along the beach covered in perfectly round pebbles glistening with mica and water. The morning’s rafting was beautiful, through deep wooded valleys with brilliant malachite kingfishers darting into the waves. Some BIG rapids, where we were all in danger of falling out and it was impossible to obey Sala’s shouts of “faster, faster” in our attempts to hang on. Himal met us at the end and we drove to Pokhara and the lovely Sacred Valley guest house. A terrifying storm in the mountains knocked out the electricity and we had a wet and chilly dinner. Fortunately it was calm and clear, if dark, when we arrived at the airport at 5.30am the next morning. The airport gates were firmly padlocked, and we joined some elderly Tibetans hopefully twiddling their prayer beads waiting outside. Eventually the gates were opened and by 6.20 we were airborne in a tiny plane flying below the Annapurnas with spectacular views of wooded hills and valleys and snowy peaks above. Breakfast in the cold early morning air of Jomson, looking at the mountains. A gentle 2 hour walk along the Kali Ghandaki river bed brought us to the ancient settlement of Kagbeni. Inevitably, we met some VSOs on the way, descending from Muktinath, the destination of many Indian and Nepali pilgrims. The landscape is stark and arid, with huge sandy mountains towering above the river, and green cultivated land below. Having left our bags at the friendly Paradise guest house, we walked up stony paths through small fields of barley and maize, grazing horses and mules, apple orchards dripping with fruit from golden to green and crimson. We ate our first hearty trekker’s lunch at the guest house rather than the Germ In Bakery, then Himal helped us gain access to the monastery where 9 Buddhist monks are living. The ancient Buddhas, masks, wall paintings and other decorations were beautiful, dimly lit by butter lamps. David was allowed upstairs to a special ceremony, where traditional musical instruments and chanting from Tibetan scriptures was in process. A huge rough mud wall led into the ancient walled city, at first apparently deserted, but gradually people emerged from behind old wooden doors and windows, animals stamped and snorted, munching their fodder behind closed doors; other animals were out grazing before being brought in for the night. Huge yaks, tiny dzopas, mules and ponies, furry dogs stretched out in the sun, children playing with home made toys. Splendid architecture, with characteristic Mustang red ochre, black and cream paint, prayer walls, wheels and flags at every turn.
The next day we walked down the valley to Marpha, the ‘apple capital’ of Nepal. Solid white painted stone houses, roofs piled with wood ready for the winter. A vicious wind starts at about 10am every morning, whipping up the dust, but the sky was brilliant blue with huge peaks of the Nilgiris all around. A comfortable lodge featuring apple cake, apple pie, apple crumble, apple fritters, apple pancakes, apple jam, apple momos, apple cider, apple brandy – and even apples. Delicious. The next day we continued mostly downhill through pretty villages to a ‘luxury’ lodge at Kalopani, with splendid views of Dhaulgiri and the Annapurna range. Our final very long and blistering walk took us to the hot springs of Tatopani. There is allegedly now a ‘road’ from Pokhara to Jomson, which will bring access to markets for the farmers, but have a negative effect on tourist lodges. In reality, there is a dirt track, frequently washed down the mountainside by monsoon landslides. We had been assured we could pick up transport back to Beni, and the next morning we found a dilapidated bus and climbed aboard for a nerve-wracking 3 hour journey. The ‘road’ runs along the edge of the Kali Ghandaki, the deepest gorge in the world. I had the misfortune to be sitting ‘gorge side’ and for most of the way there was no firm land visible from my side of the bus, just sheer jungled slopes down to the swirling waters far below. The Nepalis soon started shouting “plastic, plastic” – a request for bags to be sick into. At one point we all left the bus as the track was too narrow for all 4 wheels at once, but it hopped swiftly across on three wheels, luggage swaying precariously on the roof. Eventually we arrived back safely in Beni, where we got a taxi that hurtled us round the hairpins back to the calm serenity of the Sacred Valley in Pokhara, where we found Colin and Ellen having tea and cakes. A relaxing day, before the long bus journey back to the traffic of Kathmandu, where we caught up with work, said goodbye to Purna the Education Manager who moves to London in December and a had a final delicious supper with friends before returning home.
October 17. Biratnagar. Eastern Terai at standstill with banda that has already lasted 3 days. Managed to get ourselves and all our stuff into 2 rickshaws for an extortionate price. Karna was working on our terrace, as Chhatra and Tara were upstairs and many people downstairs. No water. No electricity. Flat bike tyres. Our bicycle repair man couldn’t pump them up because he had toothache – “come back in 2 days”, so we borrowed the pump and did them ourselves. First oranges of the season in the market, but no cheese.

Ants eat pasta

The post monsoon cupboard clean out, disposing of all the rancid spices, revealed a bag of what had once been pasta that had become transformed into a thriving ant colony. Tiny ants now superseded by snails multiplying under the kitchen sink and a gecko the size of a Komodo dragon, but even this is no match for the huge spiders that lurk in the bedroom at night. Compensated by the arrival of swarms of fireflies, lighting the bedroom with twinkling stars. Woke up and imagined I was in heaven. A surprise storm on Tuesday morning cooled the air; I feared for David who had left home laden with a full rucksack in his bicycle basket, nine almost-life-size cut out animals on his carrier, 2 large framed charts under his left arm and his brow mopping towel in his right hand. He arrived at school just as the winds and lashing rain began.
On Tuesday evening we were invited to the Eastern Star hotel to have dinner with the VSO delegation from Kathmandu, including a Tory MP – the sole Conservative representative of VSO’s VolPol event to mark its 50th anniversary, and presumably to ensure government funding for a few more years. He fitted the stereotype. 11 MPs are currently visiting VSO projects in different countries, and supposedly having a ‘volunteer’ experience; his has been more of an embassy experience. On Wednesday we helped facilitate a review workshop for NGOs and their communities at the misnamed Sagarmarta (Nepali name for Everest – it is of course completely flat) Party (no sign of one) Palace (certainly not). Very interesting to work with a group other than education; the MP slept through most of it, possibly due to his wine consumption the previous evening and we bundled him into a rickshaw to take him back to the airport in the afternoon. Transport was difficult as it was the day for worshipping machinery. Buses, trucks, lorries, tractors, cars and rickshaws were taken to the temple to be blessed, have huge tikkas applied, and be festooned with garlands.
Most of the local factories have been forced to close because of the power shortages – more than 12 hours without electricity some days, and no schedule so it is impossible to plan. We try to keep our laptops and phones charged and the water tank topped up when we are home, but some days its impossible. When the power is on, it is usually only enough to produce a brown flicker in the light bulbs. We are loving our new supply of DVDs – have just finished Middlemarch and Cranford, often getting up in the middle of the night to finish an episode when the power comes on. We feel immersed in 19th century England – and indeed the conditions of some of our neighbours are not unlike the poor depicted there. Karna, now confident in negotiating his way round the computer, discovered Cranford yesterday, and is now very confused about what England is like.
Suddenly a 4 day workshop organised by a local NGO roused my colleagues from their torpor; after half an hour of planning they disappeared for the rest of the day. I met them at the NGO Federation at 8am on Friday tucking into a hearty breakfast. The workshop is targeting teachers from very poor Dalit communities near the Indian border, and follow up support will be provided. The lack of proper planning was evident, so we had a shamefaced debriefing at the end of the day. By Sunday things were going well, with some of the best training I have ever observed. On Monday, a bright young man from Save the Children, who are funding the initiative arrived for the final day – another useful local contact. We spent most of Tuesday ‘debriefing’ and planning for how we will change our approach for the primary training that starts at the ETC after Tihar.
Durga is being remarkably pro-active and we have been off into the countryside on the back of his motorbike visiting some of the headteachers who were trained before the monsoon. The travelling is wonderful, if precarious. On the highway he is no respecter of speed humps, and once off the road we bump along increasingly narrow tracks through bright green paddy fields and lush banana plantations, negotiating cows, buffalo, chickens, ducks, women carrying huge bundles of fodder and tiny children playing in the dirt. Blue mountains in the distance. Looks idyllic, but the reality of life in the villages is grim. Flimsy houses of bamboo and mud, dilapidated school buildings with dirt floors and no resources, but some bright eyed teachers trying their best. Children, as ever, are curious and delightful.
I read in the Guardian Weekly today that the average British family spend 34 minutes a day shouting at each other. Include the dog and multiply that by 10 and you have an approximation for a Nepali family. Especially when they live downstairs. We have discovered that they are very rich, own three cars, and want to buy the whole house from our landlord. They have just installed a generator, so now the 2 televisions are on from dawn til late. We are in delicate negotiations about who should pay the electricity bill for the month that we were in England.
On Sunday September 28 we go to Kathmandu for a VSO workshop followed by our Dashain holiday, rafting down the Seti river to Pokhara before we take to the hills. There is a general air of festivity already, with more street stalls selling trinkets, children with balloons and firecrackers, and the setting up of huge bamboo swings. The barley seeds will be planted on Tuesday. Our colleagues are starting their annual family gatherings with singing, dancing and much feasting on everything except fatted calves.

National Education Day

It is sometimes hard to remain positive about the improvement of state education in Nepal. Schools were closed to celebrate National Education Day, following three days holiday for festivals last week. Purna arrived from Kathmandu for our annual review on Monday and spent a frustrating day chasing staff at the DEO and now has a better understanding of the problems that David has faced. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings he attended schools with David and was delighted with the progress he saw. David’s teachers had worked really hard and did their best to impress. My turn was on Tuesday afternoon; Tulsi was called to a meeting as Purna arrived which delayed us, but Durga and Govind gave copious feedback. They told amazing stories of what they feel what has been achieved – including a first class pass for Deepti (Govind’s daughter) in her MSc. When Tulsi returned he held forth at length about the factors hindering change. Both David and I have set an agenda for the next six months, with a strong recommendation that we should not be replaced here. Sad, but given the situation and constraints under which we are working, it is not good use of a finite resource. We left late, and our departure was further delayed by a visit to Umapati who had just returned back from hospital after the removal of his gall stones. We were ushered into the bedroom where he was reclining like an emperor on rather grubby pillows, splendid in snowy white kurta pyjamas, watching television. We were obliged to shout our enquiries about his health. Nirmala appeared with lemon juice and the gall stones.
At last Durga has decided we can do some monitoring visits, following up recently trained teachers. He has approached the autocratic R N Bhattarai, headteacher of our adjoining school with a view to developing a model school – great in theory. We developed a monitoring form for training follow up and questions for a focussed discussion with the 7 primary teachers at the end of the morning. There are 7 primary teachers. I was 20 minutes into an observation of period 1 when Durga came in to say he had seen every one else and we could go. I persisted and watched whole lessons with different teachers for the rest of the day. At the end of the second day I had seen everyone at least once, so have some ideas about what would be helpful. I am trying to dissuade him from calling a staff meeting to announce that they must make a model school. Durga’s next plan is to evaluate the headteachers we ‘trained’ before the monsoon. We have been to visit my friend Bina at the girl’s school, who tells him proudly that she now does MBWA (management by walking around). At least she does the walking around. Expect we’ll assess all the headteachers in Morang by the end of next week. Another box ticked. I stayed on for the rest of Friday morning watching BEd students. The Science teacher, in jeans, a T shirt with a penguin on it and a baseball cap, managed a traditional lesson on viruses. I sat at the back of class 10, looking at 68 almost identical shiny black plaits. Outside strong sunlight shone on a beautiful green view, with tall palms, darker spreading mango trees, lush brilliant green rice paddy. Small brick houses with kaleidoscope lines of washing in red, pink, yellow, lime green, purple and turquoise. The English teacher was wonderful, with lively, interactive student-centred teaching. When I talked to him after his lesson I was delighted to learn he is being taught by Bedu, with whom I have done a lot of training. There is some hope!
The introduction of our empty yoghurt pots to David’s nursery class has caused great excitement and a 50% rise in attendance. Hours of fun making towers and bridges. Stacks with tops on and without tops. Stacks of tops without bottoms. Patterns on the ground with lines of pots. Trading pots with one another. Working in twos and threes to make bigger towers and watching them fall over and everyone chasing the rolling pots to add to their store. Friday was further enlivened by one child bringing in a baby goat called Gita. Most of the time they have nothing. They work on an open porch on the concrete floor outside two classrooms sitting on big mats VSO bought.
The weather is heating up again, as apart from the occasional thunderstorm the monsoon seems to be over. Youngsters are catching bullfrogs in the rapidly drying swamps; the night time chorus has subsided and has been replaced by cicadas and mating dogs. My computer has been infested with tiny red ants again. They scurry out from between the keys when it heats up and manage to transfer themselves to my underwear. They bite. Fortunately the laptop has responded well to a liberal spraying of Baygon. The electricity cuts increase every day; sometimes we are off for more than 12 hours. Our local hospital continues to operate by candlelight.
A dramatic end to the week. After a wonderfully peaceful (but electricity free) Saturday – Karna had gone home, the family disappeared about 7am, the dog slept – our bell rang at 8pm. There was a man on the porch, asking for the key to downstairs, saying he had to stay the night. We told him that the family were away and we had no keys. With our limited Nepali we did not know what to do next, but explained that he could not get in. He leaves and returns with a crow bar and attempts to break the padlock. By this time we are safely behind our metal gate, The hammering went on for sometime; the dog fell silent ……. more ringing. Another man with some English appeared and reported that they were supposed to provide security as the family would not be back from India until the next day. Eventually they left, locking the front gate behind them and locking us in - for security.
Tomorrow is National Children’s Day and another school holiday of course. The government has announced that there will be 100% literacy in two years.

Friends and neighbours

A very smooth journey back to Kathmandu via Delhi. The only casualty was one of David’s cans of varnish, bought to protect the already flaking paint on his beautifully crafted blocks for the nursery children. The entire contents of the bag, fortunately the small one, are now varnished. Its only the underpants that are likely to be a problem.
How easy it is to make the transition from the tranquillity of Bradford-on-Avon to the density and diversity of people, chaotic traffic and stench of diesel and rotting garbage in Kathmandu. The weather is depressingly similar; low cloud, grey skies, drizzle and heavy rain, but at least 10oC hotter. The traditional and modern sit easily side by side. As we drink delicious Himalayan coffee in our favourite Lazimpat café with our muesli, fruit, yogurt, toast and mountain wildflower honey, surrounded by young Nepalis with their laptops using the wifi to check e-mail, the egg seller arrives. She’s middle aged woman in red sari with splendid gold ear and nose rings with 24 egg trays each holding 2 dozen eggs strapped to her back. Free range of course. Rafi buys 2 trays.
We are warmly welcomed back at the VSO office; what we intended to be a short visit to announce our return turned into a whole day, as Purna and Rima wanted to talk about plans for the next few months. Rima’s maternity leave is imminent, and Purna starts his new job at VSO London in October. Lots to be completed before he goes; we find ourselves agreeing to do all kinds of things.
On Friday Purna and I went to NCED (National Centre for Educational Development), the lead organisation for teacher training, to meet Bishwanath, the Deputy Director. We want to build the relationship with VSO and try to establish a clearer role for volunteers in the development of teacher training. A wide ranging and at times difficult conversation produced no real outcomes. The future of teacher training and the role of NCED and the ETCs is uncertain. An adventurous return journey to the VSO office as the road was completely blocked. The taxi driver knew a short cut – of course. After 10 minutes struggle uphill on a dirt track, we hit a swamp in which a truck and a car were already stuck. With the help of stones, pieces of wood and lots of shoving we eventually moved them on, getting splattered with mud in the process. Our taxi driver got us through like a rally driver and kindly stopped at the water pump where the village women were washing themselves and their clothes so we could wash off the worst of the mud. Back at the VSO office just in time for the monthly education meeting, which generated lots more work to keep us busy until Purna arrives for a review meeting on September 8.
On Saturday August 30 we arrive at the airport with tickets for the 10:30 flight ‘home’. There is no 10:30 flight, and we are not listed at all. After a lot of patient smiling, the helpful man at the Buddha control centre manages to find two seats at 12:30. The domestic airport is always fascinating, especially out of the tourist season, with a diverse Nepali population returning to their villages with sacks, boxes, bulging plastic bags, huge suitcases and an occasional goat. Men and women in colourful embroidered clothes, with high cheekbones and weathered faces squat chanting with Buddhist prayer beads; Hindus sport elaborate tikkas from the temple for a safe journey.
When we eventually get airborne, the mountains are obscured by heavy cloud, but we are able to see the extent of the terrible flooding caused by the collapse of the levees of the massive Koshi river. 60,000 Nepalis and 4.5 million Indians in Bihar have been displaced and their rice crop lost. The Nepalis have been evacuated to Inaruwa, 20km from Biratnagar, but Inaruwa itself is now under threat of submersion. VSO is co-ordinating relief efforts with other international organisations and NGOs. The government appeal is likely to be less successful, as the newspaper headlines report that the money, food and other supplies ‘disappear’ . The floods have also brought down the towers supplying electricity to large parts of the country, and Biratnagar had none at all for two days. Now it is ‘occasional’. From cuts due to drought to those caused by too much rain in about a month.
As we got off the plane, we felt as if we had been muffled in a large, wet blanket, and we arrived home to find a white dog chained to the gate, a car wearing a plastic mac in the drive and festoons of washing. The children next door were fishing in the swampy water beside the house and shrieked greetings when they saw us. We met Pyel, a girl of about 16 and her mother, Rani. Neither admitted to speaking any English, but we exchanged smiles, greetings and introductions. We were alarmed to see that our water pump had been disconnected in favour of a picture of Shiva with flashing lights. The dog goes yip yip yip yip yip …….
Our flat seems to have survived the monsoon well; the mould, dead cockroaches, termite colonies, spiders’ webs, gecko poo and accumulated grime responded well to the hoover and the mop. The damp patch on the kitchen ceiling may take longer to fix. The plants are well, and there is enough basil to supply Jamie Oliver’s new chain of restaurants. The cows and buffaloes are sleek and fat from feasting on the lush vegetation. We walked to the market as our bike tyres were completely flat and our favourite man with pump takes the day off on Saturdays. Shopping took longer than usual as we had to greet everyone and recount tales of merry England in our rusty Nepali.
Normal life was resumed on Sunday; bikes given a makeover, cooking done, ice-cream made, Karna back from school to tell us all his news. We are dismayed to hear about the ‘teaching’ which consists of a series of different teachers coming to the class, writing on the board for 45 minutes, then going off to another college.
Having counted 19 people aged 75 to a few months old downstairs, the numbers supported by the extent of the washing lines and assorted vehicles (car, motorbike, 5 bicycles) we were delighted to discover that there are only 4 permanent residents – Pyel aged 16, her brother Abhishek, 13 and their parents, with several domestic servants, their children and a car driver. Pyel has got over her shyness and both children chat to us in excellent English, reflecting their privileged education at St Joseph’s. Unfortunately this has exacerbated the water crisis, especially when the car is being washed using a hose attached to our water tank. 24 hour power cut on Thursday / Friday stopped the water completely.
Daily swimming in afternoon sunshine has been a pleasure and a way of keeping clean. Particular excitement when a rat was discovered in the pool on Thursday and Shyam with a net, a mechanic and 2 chefs armed with metal spikes managed to hook it out of the pool. Instead of the expected clubbing to death, they tossed it over the wall. Expect to meet it again soon.
Tracey (Country Director) took us to dinner on Thursday evening; she is in the east visiting disability projects. Our friend Dinesh is back from Kathmandu and stranded as Kathmandu is currently only accessible by plane because of the floods.
Back at work
David has managed 1 ½ days in school this week, planning his schedule for the next few months. The other days schools were closed for the Teej festival. He spent those days using the remains of his varnish.
I arrived at the ETC on Monday, deserted except for Lalmani sitting on the steps in his vest and pants reading the newspaper. Gradually my colleagues arrived; they have had no real work since I left in mid July. Durga’s only excitement was a week’s visit to PLA (Maoist army) cantonments in the eastern Terai to set up an education access programme for young and not-so-young soldiers. Several itinerants seem to arrive for a mid morning sleep on the training room tables under a fan.
Tuesday was brightened by the delivery of small Hindu texts, so Tulsi sang most of the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit to us for the rest of the day. I have been taking staff photographs and making news boards – a big success. The logistical exercise of putting up photographs would make a fascinating time and motion study; this has prompted a general tidying up and an agreement that we will prepare the rooms ready for the new round of training (whenever that might be).
New carpets have been put down in all the offices; the carpet has been waiting in the storeroom for 5 years, so is a little mouldy around the edges. Having got new furniture and a new carpet, Durga has decided to do something about his office walls, which are covered in lists of training participants starting over 20 years ago. His name is there in 2047, the year his 18 year old daughter was born. The lists are of course riveted to the walls. Bhakta was brought in to remove the top nails, balancing on the tops of the windows. Durga had the foresight to turn off the fan to prevent a beheading. Concerted attacks with the claw hammer have brought down huge chunks of plaster – all over the new furniture and new carpet. It has made removal of shoes before treading on the carpet an irrelevance. I note that the brick that is used as a door stop has been covered in my ‘Old Macdonald’ song sheet.

Winding down

Variable weather from very hot and sticky to cool and wet. Electricity comes and goes. Water reduced to a trickle some days, but the new pump is wonderfully efficient. Most of the schools have closed for the monsoon break, so David is busy preparing teaching schemes for when he returns in September.
The last week of ‘proper’ work before the summer break was busy and enjoyable for me – I completed the last week of the English training; a delightful group of teachers to work with, and of course very easy to work in English all the time. I also managed to spend some time with the primary teachers as they finished off their portfolios. They are still spending huge amounts of time and effort producing beautiful ‘artistic’ pictures (peacocks made from stuck on sequins, rabbits with cotton wool fur, glittering flowers) and look confused when I ask how they could be used for teaching and learning. The reality is that they will join the piles of decaying and dust covered efforts produced by previous generations of trainees. I attended the ‘closing ceremony’ after 2.5 months of training. 4 ½ hours of speeches, followed by singing and dancing and tearful farewells.
Yet more training started on Sunday – a 5 day workshop for science teachers organised by Nepali Academy of Science and Technology. The purpose is to help them make physics materials that they can take back to their schools for practical demonstrations. On the first day they attempted to make electric bells from a power pack and assorted metal strips. After 6 hours of concentrated work, some managed to produce a scratching vibration. They all have excellent scientific knowledge, but so little ‘hands on’ experience. Advice such as ‘try connecting the red wire to the red terminal’ was gratefully received. Day 2 was more hazardous as they attempted to demonstrate Ohm’s Law. The training room was festooned with pieces of wire at head, neck, knee and ankle height, as 30 participants attempted to use the single power socket in the training room. Amazing that we are all still alive.
Three months after the election has seen no change. PM Koirala continues to make all decisions; he announced his resignation 3 weeks ago, but is still PM because only the head of state can accept his resignation. Following the deposing of the king, there is no head of state until the new government elect or select one ….. they have not yet decided how the process should work. And if Koirala becomes the new president, as Nepali Congress want, will he accept his own resignation? The CA has attempted to meet every day, but have not yet managed to conduct a session as dissenting factions with conflicting and increasingly ridiculous demands disrupt proceedings by shouting and chanting. Daily newspaper reports fluctuate between ‘breakthrough imminent’ to ‘no breakthrough in talks’.
A boring last week of finishing off paper work and reports for NCED and VSO, enlivened by lots of people dropping in for a chat. We ate excellent daal bhat at Durga’s house on Tuesday, followed by surfing Nepali TV channels, featuring political news (no news) and Nepali love songs. At 7:30 he asked if we wanted to stay the night, so we realised we had overstayed our welcome. We have been laden with gifts to take to his daughter in London. As the moon was obscured by thunder clouds and there were no street lights we got lost on the way home and became entangled in a wedding procession and the usual Pamplona-like stampede of cows and bulls to feast on the day’s debris at the market.
Govind’s attempts to find a suitably educated match for his lovely daughter Deepti have at last been successful, although he is financially crippled by the 5 lakh dowry (more than 3 years salary). After a week of wedding events, we attended the party on Friday afternoon, panting after our colleagues on their motor bikes to a ‘party palace’. Deepti had disappeared to wash her hair. We sat in a line on plastic chairs for 10 minutes, waiting for the daal bhat to be ready. Before we had finished shovelling rice into our mouths we were summoned to deliver the ‘ETC present’ – yet another rice cooker. A wet haired and exhausted Deepti reappeared; we did not meet her new husband. Within 5 minutes we were back on the bikes and cycling home.
Karna is researching places for his +2 programme (equivalent of sixth form), with long discussions with us each evening and advice from my colleagues. He is taking entrance tests for several different colleges. Term starts next week and we want to get him ‘settled’ before we leave for Kathmandu.
To Kathmandu on July 14, where we will meet our landlord. We think he is trying to sell the house and will not return to Biratnagar. A few days of VSO work and meeting friends before flying to England. Blog will resume when we return at the end of August.

Happy ducks and croaking frogs

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.

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.

To the hills

On Friday evening to Koshi campus with Durga where he is doing his MEd teaching practice in Applied Linguistics. I am his audio-visual aid. After a hazardous journey on the back of his motorbike in a high wind, we arrived at the campus – an assortment of tin and bamboo roofed rooms around a courtyard. The students, second year BEd English were delightful; the session was highly interactive, with lots of examples. When I emerged, the third year students had set up chairs under a shady tree ‘for conversation’. They have never had the opportunity to talk with a native speaker before, so we talked until the sun set. I will go again.
I have also been enjoying reading Deepti’s masters thesis on control of snail pests in eastern Nepal. It reminds me of A level projects by diligent girls. We spent a morning together discussing possible improvements, but it’s difficult without knowing the expected standard; she wants me to go and meet her supervisor.
We have developed a new system of rubbish disposal, after several weeks of being woken at an early hour by the boy with the cart who comes daily and rings the bell just in case we have anything to get rid of. Leaving the bags outside is an option we tried, but found that the goats got to the rubbish first and scattered it all over the road. We now hang the bags on the metal spikes on the top of the gate. It resembles the Tower of London after a beheading.
The water situation continues to be dire. Chhatra’a sister has now had the pump removed and taken the motor away. With Karna’s help, we have contacted the plumber who did the original work on the house; he has phoned Chhatra in America and has agreed to do the work. He arrived on Monday at 7am and Tuesday at 8am with workmen, but Chhatra’s sister will not supply the materials. Meanwhile the rain falls steadily and sometimes torrentially as a result of the cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. The weather is pleasantly cool.
May 20 Buddha’s birthday was a public holiday, and the headteachers demanded a day off after an exhausting day of action research with me, enlivened by teaching them the hokey cokey. The primary training continued. A noisy evening with temple music on one side and a rock concert on the waste ground at the end of the road on the other.
At the weekend we managed our long planned visit to Ilam at last; we were invited by two enthusiastic teachers we trained last October, but transport strikes and ‘trouble in the hills’ had made the journey impossible. We met Surya, the head of the ETC, at Tulsi’s son’s wedding and he was very keen for us to visit his training centre. It seemed a good way to combine business and pleasure. On Wednesday, the peace following the election was shattered by storms, strikes, burning tyres and police curfews, but Thursday dawned peacefully and we had seats on a bus heading for Itahari before 7am. East along the Mahendra Highway for 3 hours to Birtamod where we changed onto a microbus heading up to Ilam, another 3 hours away. When it was stuffed to bursting point we began the ear popping climb through spectacular wooded hills, causing the girls in front of us to throw up. The top of the ridge was shrouded in mist with thick bamboo forest, abundant cardamom plants and tea gardens. A rapid descent to cross the mighty Mai River, before the final ascent to Ilam. Ilam has been described as ‘the Darjeeling of Nepal’, but apart from the presence of tea there are few similarities. We checked into the Green View Guest House that overlooks a tea garden, ascending a flight of stone steps to a room with two wooden beds with thin cotton mattresses, warm quilts, some camouflage material over the window and a small bathroom with running water. We decided to attempt to locate the ETC ready for our official visit on Friday. As we walked out of town following directions given to us at the guest house, a young man came hurtling down a precipitous slope shouting “You are Deborah; I have seen your picture; can you help me with my action research?” He had just finished a training day and wanted to share his ideas, so he led us to the ETC across a ditch, followed by an undignified scramble up a muddy cliff, where Surya was delighted to see us. The primary teachers were just finishing their day of PE training with some military looking exercises on a small patch of flat ground, and we contacted our friend Rajendra and arranged to meet later. The primary teachers led us back into town and we wandered north and suddenly bumped into Pankaj, the bright eyed young English teacher from our training who I had tried to contact by e-mail to let him know of our arrival. He was so excited and took us on a tour of the town, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him. He has done extraordinarily well; his family are from a small village 2 hours away, where he attended the village school, achieving high enough marks to study for his BA in English, followed by a MEd in Kathmandu. He now teaches +2 (sixth form), does some training at the ETC, runs a communications shop (photocopy, fax, phone. computer) and is a ‘radio jockey’ on the local FM station. It is a bit more than a one horse town; the main street was busy with trotting ponies carrying milk churns from villages in the surrounding hills to the cooperative dairy. Ilam is the centre of cheese production, as well as tea. The main street is lined with shop houses, many with wooden balconies on which plant pots with a spectacular array of geraniums, hydrangea, foxgloves, and fuschia were balanced precariously. An extraordinary number of shops sell women’s sandals.
Rajendra and Pankaj met us in the evening over our daal bhat to help us plan our visit. On Friday morning we returned to the ETC for the final session of a workshop, and we toured Adarsha, Pankaj’s school and Makendra Campus where Rajendra teaches degree students. Then to the Education Office to meet the new DEO; Hari is a charming man, who studied at the Institute of Education in London and in Denmark and Japan. Prompted by Surya, he organised a trip by DEO jeep to Mai Pokhari, a sacred lake for Hindus and a conservation area on Saturday.
Saturday dawned bright and clear with glorious views over the hills, dotted with tiny villages. Rajendra and Pankaj joined us for breakfast, and by the time the jeep arrived around 11:30 the sky was overcast and the mist was swirling through the trees. We rattled past ponies taking their empty churns home and soon came to the end of the tarmac. The next 8km, only possible in 4WD took a bone shaking hour, the rain pelted down and visibility was reduced to 3m. The driver and Hari assisted the windscreen wipers to help find the way. It was impossible to see the lake when we arrived, so we dashed into a wooden tea shop and sat on benches in semi darkness while the rain pounded on the tin roof and fog crept in through the broken plank walls. Our stay was enlivened by plentiful tea and conversation with a group of very wet female students who had come to the lake to celebrate the end of their exams. After an hour, the mist gradually lifted and the rain stopped, so we ventured out into a dripping green landscape and were eventually rewarded with stunning views over to Darjeeling and a pale glimpse of sun. The lake is beautiful, with splendid water lilies and surrounded by pine forest. There are 9 small bays around the lake, each with religious and ecological significance. While our friends did puja, we searched for warty newts and admired the rhododendrons. A young boy accompanied us so we did not get lost, while his brother stayed to roast maize over a fire and his cheerful granny ground it into corn. On our last evening we were joined in the restaurant for our daal bhat by a young deer, apparently a resident on the third floor, and then by Rajendra and Pankaj with presents of tea and photographs to take home.

Mother's Day

We arrived home on Monday evening to find water pouring from the roof. Predictably none in the taps in our flat. A hose pipe was shooting a healthy jet of clean water across the roof from a feed pipe coming from below. It took some time to work out why this hose going nowhere had suddenly started spouting water. Eventually realisation dawned. The hose used to connect a metal pipe to the outside tap on the roof. The water pipes were the strange pieces of metal we found inside our flat that had been used to force the padlock. Quite why the water supply to the roof seemed to have resumed when there is no water anywhere else is yet to be understood. Tried to call a plumber, but too late in the day. Then the storms that have been pounding Myanmar arrived with torrents of rain and high winds. An eventful evening and night, with the bedroom lit by sheltering fireflies.
It had been a lovely day at the ETC, with some much improved micro-teaching in the morning, and a special presentation for Nepali Mother’s Day in the afternoon. I, of course, am now haamro aama, and was serenaded and festooned with jewellery. The bracelets are so tight I am unable to get them off and swam many lengths of the pool with 16 red and gold bracelets tinkling. I left my bindi stuck to the changing room wall, where I suspect it will stay for several months.
David, having managed to do some team teaching last week, arrived on Monday to find the staff and about 200 children about to set off into the countryside with a huge red and yellow banner to attract more children into school. They roamed the lanes and villages Pied Piper-like, collecting tiny children on the way. Yet more name cards to be made and laminated.
My primary group has been joined by one of Lalmani’s goats – a frisky young kid with a bell round his neck who loves jumping over the chair struts and rubbing against teachers’ legs. He was chased out as he tried to chew through the power cable, thus avoiding roast goat for khaja break. Every day the training gets a little better, with more preparation and more variety. I have a set of alphabet cards and number cards that I use for different simple activities suitable for children that we use every day, similar to the activities that David is trialling in schools with his teachers.
A day out on Friday. Anil (the sophisticated and efficient administrator at the ETC) introduced me to his sister before the election; she and some friends have started a kindergarten in Itahari, and wanted some advice. Although we are not the best people to offer advice on nursery education, we promised to visit. We caught the bus, while Anil, who understandably does not trust Nepali buses, went by motorcycle. His map was easy to follow, and we arrived at the Blooming Kindergarten at 10:30am. We were garlanded and presented with flowers by tiny children in pink checked shirts and chatted to Srijana, Smriti and Manju in the office in a mixture of English and Nepali. They have 50 children aged 2 ½ - 5, and are desperate for more training. We have found training providers and hope they will be able to find some locally. We were really impressed by what they have achieved with bright airy classrooms, beautifully decorated, lots of toys and play space, tiny tables and chairs for more formal work. We were of course given their full repertoire of English and Nepali songs before joining them in a classroom, and best of all, playing on the floor with the little ones. School finishes early on Friday (1pm), so Srijana had arranged transport to local places of interest, a landscaped picnic area in the countryside and a sculpture park – a wild garden where an artist makes and displays Hindu and Buddhist figures. This was followed by lunch at another resort spot and the presentation of gifts. Anil sped back to Birtanagar, while we returned to the centre of Itahari and the Gorkha Department Store – the nearest thing to a proper shop in the eastern Terai. After a bit of retail therapy, we found pineapples, not seen in Birtanagar since September, in the market and caught a speedy but more hazardous microbus, complete with Barbie doll stickers, back to Biratnagar. To our delight, there was water in the flat, so we had a proper shower.
Karna, the charming Dalit boy who used to work for Chhatra and sleep here, has returned; he appeared one evening last week, hoping to find Chhatra and Tara back from America. He has finished his exams (School Leaving Certificate) and is currently working as labourer to save enough money for the next phase of his education (equivalent to sixth form) which starts next month. After a series of daily e-mails back and forth to America, Karna has moved into a small room of the upstairs flat tonight, ‘for security’, and to clean the flat and tidy the garden before Chhatra comes home. Its good to have him back.
Taking advantage of the new transport strike free Nepal, on Sunday we went with Joseph to meet Etienne in Dharan, for our VSO regional meeting. This is our last meeting, as Joseph returns to Uganda in June and Etienne finishes in September. We decided to head up to Bhedetar, at 1500m, where it is cooler and there are spectacular mountain views on a clear day. It was not a clear day, so we continued north to Dhankuta. We ordered lunch at the best hotel in town and walked along the ridge during the one hour wait. Joseph’s roast chicken arrived looking like something rubber from a joke shop, while the rest of us stuck to vegetables. Later we walked through the small town, with some traditional old houses with intricately carved windows, surrounded by excited school children – black and white bideshi were a real novelty.
We arrived back in Dharan after hurtling the 50km downhill, freewheeling most of the way to save fuel, just in time to catch the last bus back to Biratnagar. We were lashed by ferocious winds and joined by market traders at the end of the day. At Itahari, at least 100 women and children boarded the already full bus, with the remains of their day’s produce. Unfortunately most of it was fish, and although the crates were heaved onto the roof, the smell lingered on. David described it as being inside a mobile lunatic asylum. We arrived back in Biratnagar as the first huge drops of rain fell and sheets of lightening flashed across the sky. We sheltered under a shop awning until the shopkeeper decided to pull down the shutters for the night, so set off for home, wading over our ankles in water. My hands were so wet I could not slide the bolt to the gate, then realised that it was padlocked on the inside. How carefully Karna is looking after us! I was about to ring the bell when there was a huge thunderclap and the power went, thus preventing the bell from working. David was about to attempt to heave me over the wall when the power returned and we were able to rouse a very embarrassed Karna.
Work has suddenly become incredibly busy. The schools are still in start stop mode, but David’s grade 1 class that started with 20 students, now has 95. I am much in demand by all the trainers to ‘help’ with their sessions, which usually means planning the activities for the day. Sometimes I am given clues about what might be useful so I can do proper preparation. There are currently 2 primary groups, life skills training and one month headteacher training. Secondary English, Nepali and Social studies starts on June 4.
And on the waterfront, the day after the water supply to the house resumed, Chhatra’s sister arrived with a team of men and a tube well was installed in the back yard. Two days later, her husband came with another group of men and removed all the pipes ….