Little things that make us happy.

For this blog, we turn back to schools and, in particular, classrooms. After all, that is why we're here.

First, though, a quick update:

We had our first overnight (infact, overweek) guests when Tansy and her 3 friends Lavinia, James and Ben, came to stay. Tansy is the sister of Lorna who, regular Blog followers will know, is one of Mel's ex-students who, bravely, accompanied us on the overland journey to Nepal. The 4 intrepid travellers are going, entirely overland, from the UK to India, working on organic farms for a few months, then going overland back to the UK. They called here to recharge and remind themselves what cooking in a real kitchen is like. We put this last wish to good effect by graciously allowing them to cook several tasty meals for us! This caused shock and controversy amongst our Nepali friends because in Nepali culture you NEVER expect guests to cook. Our 4 visitors also got in some training for their organic farming by attempting to resuscitate Mel's ailing tomato plants. We enjoyed having guests, especially such ecologically aware ones, and wish them well with their onward journey.

Unfortunately, there are no photos to show you of the above, because we have lost our memory-stick which contained all of our digital photos. As you can imagine, this was a bit of a blow. Luckily, we have all the information backed up onto CDs but still lost all photos from the last couple of months. We even broadcast an appeal on the local radio station and offered a reward to the finder, but to no avail. Still, to keep this blog interesting, here is a photo taken by other recent guests to Mahendranagar, VSOs Miranda and Marri. It shows one of Mahendranagar's bustling streets:
On the subject of Mahendranagar, we should inform you that we no longer live there! Now we live in a town called 'Bhimdattnagar'. This happened a few weeks ago when the government decided that all towns that were named after the discredited ex-monarchy, such as King Mahendra, were to be re-named, with immediate effect. Bhim Datta was a martyr from the time of revolution against the royalty.

We have been busy visiting schools. We were hopeful that, with few festivals this month, we would be able to get a good routine going but, alas, exam week and sports week have come along to slow things down. Nonetheless, we have both been giving training to teachers, Mel in schools and Steve to a collection of science teachers and also to some 'informal' education teachers. These are teachers with an NGO called RUWDUC. This organisation works with ex-kamaiya (basically, freed slaves) and some of the teachers work with 'out of school' children and others work with adult women. Steve has visited several of these classes and was very pleased to see that some of his ideas were being used. It is always pleasing to see teachers who are dedicated , cheerful and try to do their best, even in the most difficult learning environments.

This brings us to the theme for this week. We decided to talk more about classrooms. We have each chosen 3 photos (of the ones that weren't lost) to illustrate some things which give us cheer in our professional work. First up, Mel's selection:

"I have chosen this photo because it was taken in a damp, concrete classroom with no doors and nothing, not even paint, on the walls. Despite this, the children in this nursery class still have alot of fun and learn, thanks to their dedicated and imaginative teachers. "

"This photo shows a teacher whose class I observed. After the lesson, she asked me for advice on how to teach the next lesson. One suggestion was to use real objects for language learning. The next day I was delighted to see that she tried everything that I'd suggested. I was even more happy when I met her some weeks later and she told me that the class had enjoyed the lesson and asked if she could teach that way all the time!"


"This picture shows a young boy playing contentedly with a broken toy. Up to this point he had been very upset because of the appearance of a (very strange) stranger (me). When I asked the nursery teacher whether there were any toys for the children, she brought out a broken letter abacus and started to try and fix it. I pointed out that the children could happily play with the broken pieces, as this young boy proved, after wiping away his tears."

And now for Steve's selection:

" I chose this photo because it shows the condition of some of the classrooms. Despite this, the students are engaged in their dialogue recital and the teacher stands supportively by."

"Even more basic, this photo shows a class of young children in their 'classroom'. Many schools, such as this one, don't have enough rooms for all the children. Despite that, they continuue to come and this class were happy to be here (even more so when they knew I was taking their photo!). When the sun is very hot, the class moves under the tree that you can see behind."

"Another shot of an outside class. It is often the nursery age children who end up outside as the rooms are given over to the older, 'more important' grades. These children don't care though. Who needs walls, blackboards and plastic toys when you can pretend to be a tree?"

That's all for this time. We hope you enjoyed our selection. No doubt there will be more on schools and children in future blogs. Don't forget to send any questions or comments.

Putting the cycle in Carbon-cycle.

Welcome once again from sunny Nepal,

You can guess, from our long absence from your computers, that we have had quite a busy month. Highlights have been;

Purnaji, our VSO manager, coming to Mahendranagar to talk to all the movers and shakers involved in our work here. We had a workshop at which the 'VSO vision' and our future working plans were explained and negotiated with the Education Office staff. Some interesting feedback came out of this and we hope that a stronger and more profitable working partnership will result.

Both of us dashing around, both far and near, to decide on potential schools for closer co-operation over the coming year and a half. We saw some examples of interesting and well run schools to act as good role-models, as well as quite a few schools that will benefit from being modelled to (more on this in an upcoming blog). The reason for dashing was:

Heading off to Kathmandu for a couple of weeks for language refresher classes, education workshops and a security workshop. It was good to catch up with the VSO staff and other volunteers after 4 months in placement. We were, however, very lucky to leave when we did as a day later the roads were swept away. For more on this and the reason why we chose to make the journey by bus instead of air, see below.

Dashain (Nepal's longest and most important festival) saw us making the most of the week-long closure of schools and offices by doing the 'tourist thing' and visiting Pokhara and Chitwan wildlife park on our way back. Here are some Dashain festivities in Pokhara:

More of the above in later postings I'm sure. For now, on with this blog's theme which is (and anyone who knows us will have suspected that this was coming!), the environment.

It has been a wet year. In Britain, we hear, there have been floods (again) and several people have died. In Nepal also, the monsoon has been getting longer and more intense than in the past. Two sets of rivers have burst their banks as a result. One river, in the east, made international news as it caused vast swathes of flooding in India as well as Nepal. The other set of rivers were here, in the far-west, and flooded our district. On the day after we left for Kathmandu, a 1km stretch of the main high-way was destroyed and several of the communities, where the schools we work in are located, were swamped. Unlike the floods in Britain, the floods in Nepal and India have resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of homeless. Many of the rice-paddies were covered in sand and made useless, which is now threatening famine.

As in Britain, much of the destruction could have been prevented if homes and farms had not been built on flood-plains and if much of the water-absorbing forest had not been cut down. Here, the problem has been made worse by the fact that the flood victims were amongst the poorest people, with little choice but to live on the riskiest land in the riskiest houses.

Another factor, though, is becoming more and more obvious - climate change. The world (and particularly the richer portions of it) continues to burn coal, oil and gas and to drive cars, fly in planes and buy plastic at a faster and faster rate. As a result, the world (and particularly the poorer portions of it) continues to suffer weather related disasters at a faster and faster rate. Asian and European floods, African and Australian drought and North American and Asian hurricanes are some of the visible results from the last month alone.

Although none of this should be new to you, what may be new is the Nepali answer. Although cars and motor-bikes are becoming more and more common, the traditional methods of using cycles (and other human powered vehicles) continues. Cycles are used instead of many larger, more expensive and more polluting vehicles in the 'west'. Here are some examples and there are more in the album:
Milk lorry:

Dust wagon:


School-bus:

Purnaji (our education programme manager mentioned above) has been going one step further and has launched a cycling promotion campaign in Kathmandu. His awareness raising, 'No Petrol-No Problem' T-shirts and cycle rides are starting the fight back against petrol. As you can guarantee, we (along with other VSOs) have been only too eager to help out. Here are Purna and Mel in a shot taken by a petrol attendant:

It is ironic that for decades, Nepal and other 'developing countries' have been trying to become more like the 'developed world'. It may yet come about that, with dwindling oil stocks and rampant climate-change, the wasteful western countries will need to copy Nepal and similar nations in order to develop. Here endeth the sermon!