Back to the village and the five month mark!

We’re now back into the swing of village life and getting use to being back at school again. I think when we first came back from the holidays I was actually feeling the most homesick that I’d been and I was missing Frank a lot and it was suddenly quite intense being back at school again, but we’re now back into the swing of life here and our one day weekend. We have a really nice new routine of cooking and sharing food with our host mother, or the person we share a house with (she’s only twenty-three) who is called Anita. She has a five year old son who we’re always playing games with in the mornings and afternoons. We also had a timetable change, which means that we’re now teaching more English classes (I’m teaching all 7 classes) every day and there hasn’t been any computer classes, which tend to be a lot more relaxed. Instead, now, we have all the younger classes in the afternoon which can end up quite chaotic - I’m lucky if class 1 (full of 5 and 6 year olds) does anything other than click my four colour pen as I’m trying to write some homework in their books (the fact that one pen can change colour really fascinates them, to the point when their clicking it whilst I’m trying to write). We also gave extra tuition for class 4 in the mornings for a few weeks, which meant that we didn’t have much time to do much other than sleep and teach so it all became quite tiring, particularly for the first week after a maybe too long holiday. We’re going to see if we can carry on helping with computer classes, since grade 6 and 7 haven’t been getting the practical computer lessons that they had before and they seem to really enjoy the practical computer lessons (not sure if it was just because exams were coming up that they didn’t have it, but we’ll ask and see). 

Update: exams are now over and the computer lessons have started again which is great. One of us will teach class three grammar and one computer - Ashvi and I will alternate.

It was both great and crazy to be back at school (definitely great to have a purpose again, and think of ways to improve lessons and teaching); back to the noisy classrooms where in some classes there is a constant hum of noise (or even students just humming) throughout the lesson no matter what you do and back to the various attempts to prevent students from fighting in your lessons (particularly with the lower classes). Teaching can also be so rewarding and satisfying when a good lesson has been completed so I’ve also felt moments of great satisfaction in the last few weeks. The nicest thing is that the students are so loving and even if they are noisy or rowdy sometimes (or a lot of the time), they will also give you so much love. At the moment, it is now exam week, so we’ve been writing exams and typing them up for the last few days, which has involved drawing pictures on paint and pasting them into word documents for the lower classes and thinking of how best to make the 30 marks the right level of difficulty for the students. Exam time means we effectively have another quite restful week, so today Ashvi and I were learning the national anthem and also thinking of what to paint on the class 2 and class 4 walls (every year the volunteers paint things in the classrooms; class 7 has a world map, class 5 a solar system, class 3 a clock and class 6 a Nepal map). I had the idea of doing a sea themed wall for class 2 and a jungle themed wall for class 4, so we’ll see if we end up doing this in the coming months. I’m really trying to get stuck in learning names at the moment and one day I managed to learn all of class 6 names (I realised I knew barely any) so I went round the classroom again and again until I got it right. I was worried at first that it was too late to ask for names, but the students enthusiastically helped me out and asked me several times again what their names were until I managed to get it right. I now know class 7, 6, 5 and 4, so after exams I’m going to focus on the younger class names.Something that was entertaining that happened at school one week before exams was when there was a school fire drill or education on how to respond to fires and earthquakes. One afternoon I was crammed in with a lot of students in the computer room, where we watched a video on fire safety (In Nepali, so I didn’t really fully understand it). The following day there was an actual fire practice, which in the UK you’d usually get students lining outside in rows in silence, but with this one it involved us lending a pan to the school so they could light an actual fire and then put it out with a wet cloth. This was all done in the school grounds and I found the differences in health and safety in Nepal vs the UK quite amusing; the very fact that fire practice involved actually lighting a fire in itself showing the contrast. 

We recently visited a village on the opposite side of the valley (down a steep hill and up another one) to visit our German friend Issy, who we met in Pokhara. She’s working for a different organisation called Karma Flights (I mentioned it in the previous blog post) and since she’s staying in the village alone (which is definitely a brave thing to do) we wanted to hang out with her on her first weekend in the village. The village is called Arnakot and there have been previous Project Trust volunteers there in the past and there will also be new eight month volunteers there in a few weeks time. You can see it from Harpe, a tower high up on another huge hill. We left on Friday, following the Friday programme (which happens every Friday afternoon - each week there is something different; games, dancing, quizzes). The Friday programme that week was in out game, which involves drawing a circle on the ground and the someone shouting in, out - if you jump in or out at the wrong time you lose (the younger students are always shouting game kelni and wanting us to play this game in our lessons). After that was over we quickly headed off on the mammoth hill walk. We almost left it too late, because we only just made it to Arnakot by nightfall (I was beginning to get a bit worried when it started to get dark because we weren’t completely sure of the way, but we found it fine in the end). We were welcomed by a smiley Issy and a dal bhat which Uncle Jham’s wife made for us (the man she works with, Uncle Jham, I kept accidentally calling Uncle Kham, much to all the other volunteers later amusement). It was interesting to hear her opinions on village life, since she has been living in Pokhara for the whole time we’ve been staying in Nepali, which is where we met her. I thought she was doing very well considering she was staying by herself in the village, with no-one our own age; one of the many reasons I’m grateful for Project Trust - being able to share all your experiences with another person is really nice (love you Ashvi!). She’d been doing a bit of teaching, as well as monitoring children who are part of Karma Flight’s scholarship scheme; the children’s families receive money to help the children with their education and schooling. We slept in Uncle Jham’s newly build wooden house and Ashvi and I squished into one bed. The following day we all woke up and watched the sunrise at the high point of the village and we looked down on Harpe. After dal bhat and tea, she then gave us a tour of the village. It was really good to see Issy and I think she was also grateful for the company, so it was a day well spent. Being in another village feels a lot more relaxed than Harpe on Saturday because we don’t get the usual question “kaha jani ho” (where are you going?) which gets asked by almost everyone that we pass. Just before we left, we got to look around Arnakot school and the headteacher proudly showed us the solar powered computer labs and the library and then we had to hurry because it was getting dark and we still had to walk all the way down the hill until we felt we could find our way easily. This was definitely our first big mistake, leaving so late and expecting to be able to find our way easily because all we needed to do was walk down the hill to reach the valley, easy right? We found the first bit of the track okay, but between Arnakot and Devisthan there is a thick bit of forest, which we really didn’t know well at that point. We took the wrong track after we’d walked the first bit down the path and the path in the forest is easy to lose. We were misled by trees with what looked like arrows, but were really just a trail of trees that were being tapped for nectar or something of the kind. Once we’d gone the wrong way, the path after a while disappeared and we started following goat tracks down the hill (because we thought the only way must be down the hill), but it then started to get very steep. We made the decision (or I got Ashvi to, unfairly, because I was feeling stressed) to continue going down in the hope we would find the path. After the goats tracks kept leading to nothing and the hill kept getting steeper, we finally realised we definitely needed to turn back, but by that point we were well off track. We called our headteacher in worried tones (not really sure what that was going to do in hindsight) and we were told to go back to Arnakot. By that point it was really starting to get dark and in a worried state, we hurried back up the goat trails in attempt to find the path, which we did just before it got dark. I think we both learned a lesson from that walk; don’t leave with only an hour until nightfall - the forest at night is much scarier than during the day. Once we’d found the path, we were both very relieved and we proceeded to make it back to Arnakot, covered in tree spines, by torchlight. Issy welcomed us again and we hugged her feeling very relieved. We later that evening learned from Uncle Jham that tigers have been seen in that forest in monsoon season and that there have also been forest fires which burned down houses in Arnakot (lovely stories to hear about forests you’ve just got lost in). We were welcomed back into the cosy kitchen with a fire by worried Nepali grandparents, who assured us that it was very dangerous in the forest at night and that they were glad we had made it back. The evening was filled with laughter when I danced like Pulmati dances when she drinks roxy (I did one impression, then Uncle Jham and his wife asked me to do it again, then again, then again, then also the next morning - they found this very amusing). We went to bed feeling glad but also a bit apprehensive that we were going to have to do the walk the following morning and then get to school on time (it’s a pretty hefty walk and we also had the school key because we were meant to be doing class 4 tutoring that morning). We did make it back to school in time however (albeit tired from the stress and walking that had taken place that weekend) and got through the day feeling pretty hungry because we’d only had time to eat cooked noodles that morning. It all ended up okay in the end however, as is always the case in Nepal.

Even with the hard teaching, there have been some really positive things in the last month and again, when things have seemed difficult, fun things have popped up. We were invited to our friend Asmita’s house (they own a shop in the main row of houses - bus park) for her birthday one day after school, which involved eating cake and singing “Happy Birthday to you” again and again for fifteen minutes straight. There was cake, fruit and tikka and also dancing and it was fun to see a Nepali birthday party; I have a ten minute video which one of the students filmed after I started filming a bit of the party. We didn’t realise before that we were meant to give a gift, but luckily some students gave us some exercise books to give when we gave Asmita a tikka, so all was fine. Another positive thing that also happened during one week was making friends with Smirti, an English teacher who teaches in Devisthan. On the way back from Devisthan she told us to come round for some tea and since then we’ve been a few times and have enjoyed mushrooms and buffalo meat (Ashvi). She’s unusual in the fact she lives with just her husband in her house and that her husband isn’t working abroad, although soon he will go to Poland to work. 

I want to reiterate how great it’s been spending time with Anita in the evenings; it’s really made cooking a lot easier and we’ve had a lot of laughs. We’ve enjoyed many a roti and honey (or chocolate spread), which we bought from Burtibang and shared around, as well as many dal bhats and tarkari (vegetables) and again, Ashvi buffalo or chicken (one time Archan, Anita’s son, accidentally killed one of their chickens, so they had that was cooked one evening for dinner. We’ve also spent a lot of time in the evenings with two of our class seven students Rita and Sanjita and have been watching tv and films with them. Originally we were watching some English films that Oscar gave us on a memory stick; Fantastic Beasts, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Princess Mononoke amongst a few others. My data kept being used for Hindi series viewing too, so Ashvi and I offered to pay for the subscription for the TV which is a few hundred rupees for a month. Since then, we’ve sat in the TV room most evenings together with Anita and the other girls. Although I don’t understand Hindi films or TV, watching some TV did inspire me to learn some Hindi on Duolingo, although I haven’t been able to keep that up recently because I’ve been so busy with other things. It’s quite nice just sitting in the TV room anyway, which is what I’m doing as I write this blog, because Anita stays up later now so we hang out with her for longer and I can also read or do other things whilst sitting here. We also went to Burtibang with Anita and Rita’s mother before Christmas, where we bought the school dress (a pink tunic with trousers) to be sewn in Devisthan and some fluffy trousers to keep us warm in the cold months - it’s been really cold for a month or so now, so I’ve been wearing lots of layers - most days I’ll be wearing three or four jumpers after school, as well as thermal leggings and pyjama type trousers (also flip flops with warm socks - an interesting fashion which all village members partake in in the winter, important for keeping warm). We also ate momos in our favourite food shop in Burtibang, which sells sweets, ice cream and cake, amongst other things (very good for when we feel like a break from dal bhat). 

The weekend before we left for Pyuthan to meet the other volunteers for Christmas, we decided to go to stay with the boys in Jhimpa with Issy. As always, with Ashvi and I, we probably left it a bit late to aim for the bus (which we didn’t actually know definitely existed, we’d just been told) which left at 4pm. It was Bishnu’s leaving ceremony, however, so we didn’t want to miss saying goodbye to Bishnu, the giving of flowers and the speeches - I even said something over the microphone in Nepali (along the lines of we will miss you, you’re great). At the end, all the students were throwing the flowers from the garlands that everyone had made all over each other which was a really lovely moment. With a little stress and a lot of sweat, we did manage to rush down to Devisthan in time for the 4pm bus, which of course with Nepali timings actually left at 5pm which meant we really didn’t need to rush. However, I didn’t want to risk it and there was no way I wanted to walk the three and a half hours to Jhimpa, thereby arriving in Jhimpa in the dark, only having to walk back the following day. We caught the bus fine and the bus picked up Issy along the way. I have to admit that Oscar and Kieran are great hosts and we were welcomed in Jhimpa by Kieran in a Christmas tie, Christmas music, fairy lights and mugs of mango powder and water which mixed together makes a tasty juice. I’m so impressed with how lovely their room was looking with all the fairy lights and decorations (we also bought some strawberry and rainbow fairy lights in Jhimpa and now our room is looking very cute although the rainbow set did break as soon as I tried to put them up) - they really came to Nepal in the deep end, since all that was left behind for them was a bag of rubbish, so they’ve done a really good job on making it look homely and nice. They’re unlucky in the fact they live behind the school and not next to or with a Nepali family, so they’re left a lot more to their own devices. They cooked up some great food that evening (I was also particularly hungry, given that we’d only eaten dal bhat early that morning and a packet of biscuits). Kieran got a fire going outside and we ate cauliflower fritters, soup and roti by the fire. I must’ve mentioned to them at least five times how much I appreciated the food and again in the morning and I told them that I would give them a top rating on trip advisor (they also let us sleep in their beds whilst they took the floor). That week also happened to be a week when there was a meteor shower happening, so we kept warm by the fire that evening and watched shooting stars (sounds almost cliche, but it was a really nice evening). The next morning we had puja and tea (a favourite of theirs in the morning), which is basically rice in a crispy form (so rice crispies without the sugar) which you add to a bowl of tea. That day we spent hanging out with the children of Jhimpa and playing with them, as we walked around the hillside (I ended up with tired shoulders after holding kids for a while). We ate oranges at a Nepali house just before we went back to the boys’ house to get ready to leave. In Jiwokola (I think I probably spelt that wrong), the town after Jhimpa, there’s a little restaurant that sells chicken momos, chowmein, a savoury kind of doughnut and chowmein (which apparently the volunteers before Oscar and Kieran had a routine of going to every week). It was definitely good to fill up on food before we left, since it’s a three and half hour walk between Jhimpa and Harpe, with the big Devisthan hill that you have to go up when you’re almost back. Since Project Trust had asked all the overseas volunteers to record Christmas videos, singing along to “I wish it could be Christmas everyday”, just before we started on the long walk we filmed ourselves in Christmas hats and glasses bopping along to the tune (we had a few Nepali people passing us as we were filming - they probably thought what a strange sight - a group of foreigners belting out tunes with strange clothes on). On the way back to Harpe, Issy, Ashvi and I walked along listening to a Ted Talk podcast which was downloaded onto my phone and I felt very content. 

On a side note from the walk back from Jhimpa, a few more things that will make Ashvi laugh:

1. I kept asking Issy what songs she was playing on the walk on the way back so when I asked her what the time was, she replied “Arctic Monkeys”. This set Ashvi off laughing for ages whilst we were climbing up the many steps up to Harpe (it can’t have been easy, laughing that much and also walking up steps at the same time). 

2. Another recent thing that set Ashvi off laughing was when she was buying eleven sweets for all the volunteers for a Christmas present. I tried to explain that they were a gift (I thought the shopkeeper would think it strange that we were buying so many sweets in one go), so I told her it was an uphranu (which I thought was gift in Nepali). Ashvi later reminded me that uphranu is jump in Nepali and upahar is gift, so I was effectively telling the women who runs the shop to jump.

In the week before we left for the Christmas trip to Pyuthan, we ended up having a few days off school since the school exams had just finished. We spent these few days just spending time with Anita and helping her out a bit. In rural Nepal, a common sight that you see is women and men carrying massive piles of grass on their heads. The grass is for feeding the buffalo and goat (Anita has one of each of these). Since we had time off, we offered to help Anita out with grass cutting, so we headed off to her area of grass maybe a fifteen to twenty minute walk away and used sickles to cut grass and leaves. It really made me appreciate how hard Nepali farmers work, since after a few hours of doing that I was tired and my hands and feed had little bites on them as well as tiny cuts. Whilst we were grass cutting, Anita at one point was halfway up a tree, hacking down branches with leaves on for the buffalo to eat. We carried all the grass back the traditional Nepali way, on our heads, and I had a go at carrying Anita’s load. Unsurprisingly, I could barely carry it it was so heavy. I enjoyed grass cutting that day, but I really appreciate how hard it must be to keep doing that every day. I was also very hungry afterwards and very ready to eat a lot of rice. The following day off that we had, I appreciated being able to relax in the sunshine and finish off my book (A Wild Sheep Chase). Another comment that occurred to me that day on the many positive qualities of the people here, is the way people share and help each other. Since people grow different vegetables on their farms, vegetables are shared around between people and friends; everyone helps each other out to get the things needed for good lifestyle - in Harpe you can’t buy vegetables so the only way you can get them is by sharing or growing them yourself. There’s such a strong sense of community in Harpe and I really love it. 

To update you all on my recent literary adventures (sorry if you’re not interested), over the weekends and weeks I managed to finish “A Wild Sheep Chase” by Murukami as well as “Factfulness” (which Oscar lent me) by Hans Rosling. Murukami’s book was very good and I found him very witty, although it kept making me think of sheep for the following few weeks. I would also recommend “Factfulness”; it gives a really good perspective on how we get a lot of things wrong about the world. He shows how people are a lot more negative about levels of poverty and education, amongst other things, than what is really the case. It was interesting to read about the way he documents income levels, particularly since I’m currently living in a rural area of Nepal. I’ve also just finished a book called “Palpasa Cafe” which is a book which covers the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the downfall of the royal family through the story of a painter. It was very interesting to discover more about the effect that the Maoist insurgency had on rural areas of Nepal, since I really didn’t know anything about it before and the book was particularly enhanced by the fact that I know what it’s like to live in a rural village in Nepal, so I could relate to the descriptions of village life.  

After the little post exam break, we had a few days of school before we headed of on our Christmas adventure, where we did some creative Christmas paper banner making with the students. That Friday, Eli came from Pyuthan to meet us so he could show us the way on the way back, so we wouldn’t get lost. He turned up in the middle of our Class 5 lesson at about 11, which we weren’t expecting since it’s a pretty hefty walk from Arka to Harpe (it took us most the day when we went the other way). After school was finished for the day (Friday’s a half day, so we left in the middle of the Friday programme which was a balloon popping game this time) we headed down to Devisthan to get the bus which leaves at four to Jhimpa. We were going to Jhimpa for Deuli, which is a Hindu festival in which goats are slaughtered for religious purposes (I’m not actually really sure what purposes specifically; I’ll have to look that up). Bethany and Lauren had come from Rukumkot earlier that day, so we also met them in Jhimpa. It was good to catch up with them, since the last time we had seen them was when they’d only been in Nepal for a few weeks. It was definitely interesting to see Deuli in Jhimpa (despite the fact that two of us don’t eat meat) and on the Saturday after a breakfast of biscuits, puja and tea, we all headed up to where the goats were being slaughtered to see most of Jhimpa’s residents all milling around and watching, eating chatpatty (a snack which consists of rice crispies, chillies, dried noodles, onions) and dancing. Where the goats were being killed, there were a bunch of men dressed in white who were jiggling around to drums and they were apparently jiggling in order to let the spirits in. The executioner would lift up the axe and cut the heads of the sheep, the men would jiggle and then the head would be chucked onto a shrine. It was definitely a sight which I haven’t come across before. After watching this for a little while, we went to eat some chat patty and then went to sit on the hillside to relax and bask in the Jhimpa afternoon sun. The chatpatty was very spicy (given that you put raw chillies into it and there was quite a lot in my portion), I went down to find some water and ended up talking to a girl a bit younger than me who goes to school in the nearby village. It was nice to speak and practice my Nepali and she ended up sitting with everyone for a while. We then joined in with some dancing and drums and did the Macarena, to the people watching’s interest, since many got their mobile phones out and were filming. It’s always interesting to go to Nepali festivals and there are many Hindu festivals throughout the year that I’m looking forward to celebrate. They’re something that the whole village and community gets involved in and there’s always a good dance to Nepali music to be had.

After going to Deuli in Jhimpa, we needed to get back to Harpe so we could leave for Pyuthan the following day, so we packed up our stuff and headed off. I convinced everyone to get some food, so we ate chow mein then headed off in the dark towards Harpe. We arrived pretty late in the evening, since we went from Devisthan to Harpe via the road rather than the path, which takes quite a bit longer, so four hours later we were back in our room in Harpe and we stayed up belting out tunes to Eli’s UE boom and eating his granola sent from home. The walk was a long one and we set of early the following day, through Rajkut (where we stopped for some nice samosas and biscuits) and onwards. The walk is actually a really beautiful one and we actually hadn’t been on the road past Rajkut before, so it was also interesting to see where that lead to. After passing Rajkut, there’s a massive hill that goes up to Darling, but once you get to the top there are some really beautiful views of the Annapurna range. Once we were about halfway up the hill there was a little shop that sold chow chow which they cooked for us, although the shop owner wasn’t there for a while so we hung around for a bit, hopefully waiting (we were all pretty hungry by this point). You got free tattoos along with chewing gum there, so we all had a bit of a laugh putting the tattoos on each other; Lauren and I ended up with them around our necks (which we both kept forgetting were there, so kept also forgetting that we probably looked pretty strange). We managed to hop on a tractor for part of the way up to the Pyuthan valley; we flagged down the tractor and got in the back of it alongside some empty barrels; journeys are always fun in Nepal. It was a long trek to get over most the hill walking - Eli described each part of the journey in schlepps (there were 5 schlepps) and just before the fifth schlepp, once we were over the massive hill into the Pyuthan valley and down through the jungle, we stopped to sit down and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine which was really beautiful; the view of the valley was also lovely. I felt so content walking through the trees on the way down; there was a warm sunshine peeking through the trees and the hillside felt really autumnal, particularly with the smell of the air and crispy leaves. We got to a clearing after the trees and sat and relaxed. Oscar had brought the mini gas stove along so we used my water bottle to heat up some water which we had with hot chocolate and coffee and Eli also shared his granola from home with us which was so good, particularly after eating barely anything that day and also walking for hours and hours. After that, we only had a little way to get to Arka, which was where we were staying the night, and we walked towards Arka and towards the setting sun with the trickling river beside us. The night in Arka was a good one; after leaving the drunk bus drivers behind and leaving Bethany’s husband behind (she and a man got “married” downstairs after we had our dal bhat), we had a jam and dance back up in the hotel room and we also cut Eli and Kieran’s hair (I was pretty proud of my effort for a first time hairdresser and after Eli gave Kieran a bald patch Bethany managed to patch up Kieran’s hair a bit). It was a fun night hanging out with the volunteers and running on little sleep we got up the next day Puja headed and Christmas ready, on a sunny Christmas Eve. We took the bus down to Thulabesi before heading up by foot to Puja. On the way to Thulabesi, we saw a body bag which was about to be burned; there are always unexpected sights to be seen in Nepal - bodies in Nepal tend to be burned by the river with a small gathering of people watching and Thulabesi is by the river in the valley. Thulabesi is the meeting point for the Pyuthan volunteers and it is a village all on one road really, with a few shops that sell things like samosas and fruit and there are also a few hotels. Ashvi and I, on a quest to find sweets as presents ended up wandering up and down a few times trialling the different sweets at each shop. It was a warm afternoon, considering it’s cold season in Nepal, so we swam in the river - there’s a really nice spot with a dam that’s good to swim in. The river was pretty cold, however, and I think I stayed in a bit too long (for about twenty minutes or so), so when I got out I couldn’t get warm again until we started climbing up the hill to Puja. I also felt really lightheaded and strange on that walk up (maybe I was a bit dehydrated). As we arrived at Eli and Liam’s house, we all got on our Christmassy dress (I borrowed Kieran’s elf hat his parents sent him and others wore Christmas glasses and tinsel) and we brought the Christmas cheer to Puja, playing Christmas music as we arrived to meet the Pyuthan volunteers.

It was great to have everyone together (all twelve volunteers) at Eli and Liam’s house and there was a lot to catch up on. Sadly, Vivienne was going back to the UK straight after Christmas so we were glad we decided to all meet up just before she left. Liam became a mass caterer over Christmas since there were so many mouths to feed - I was very impressed by his catering that stretched to feed twelve people. We had a great dal bhat cooked by Liam on Christmas Eve, then later that evening at midnight we sang Christmas carols outside, accompanied by Eli’s guitar and a bit of my flute playing too (to one of my favourite Christmas tunes “Walking in the Air” from the Snowman).

Christmas morning dawned and we all had a lie in (lie ins are very rare in Nepal, particularly in Harpe when you’re woken up by a) needing to go to the toilet and b) when Mohindra, the 16 year old who lives next door, starts playing really loud music on the speaker at approximately 5am in the morning). Liam was a star and cooked us all omelette and sour dough - Eli and Liam have found a way of making bread in a pressure cooker by making a starter for the dough made out of flour and water (maybe some other things, not completely sure) and leaving it for a few weeks before making dough with it and it’s very tasty. Apparently Vivienne can do a great cake made in the pressure cooker too, although we never got to trial her cake. We all sat out on the balcony on Christmas morning which was really lovely; Liam and Eli have a balcony on the second floor which fit all twelve of us sitting in a row, so we got some nice pictures of the whole Nepal squad. I think one of the highlights of Christmas Day was the present giving; everyone had made little presents to be given out. I made little bookmarks out of wool inspired by Ashvi and Ashvi made little hearts filled with rice which you can put on a pan and use as hand warmers. Other presents included little salt dough decorations from Bethany and Lauren, fortune tellers related to Nepal from Oscar and Kieran, lots of sweets and other little things as well as some cool presents from Eli and Liam. They both made a Nepal version of Monopoly, called Monepali and it was pretty cool; they’d done place names relevant to all the places we’d been as well as situation cards of situations we’d been in. They also made a book of Nepali songs that are sung in the village, including some favourites “Panko Pat” and “Goji ma dam chains” (meaning there’s no money in my pocket). It was lovely that everyone had put in such an effort, and the Pyuthan volunteers also did a lovely Dutch Christmas tradition as requested by Vivienne, where they all wrote poems for each other and the poem becomes the wrapping for the gift. There was a lot of chocolate and sweets to be eaten that morning, both that had been sent from home to the volunteers and from Thulabesi so it was a morning filled with eating and relaxing. We even had a Christmas tree outside that had been made by the Pyuthan volunteers, made from twigs and decorated with baubles and tinsel sent from home. It was a really nice day overall and also very relaxing. We got several of Liam and Eli’s Nepali neighbours coming along to visit to have some sweets and most of the day was just spent at the house. Significant events of the day included the killing of a chicken for dinner (I didn’t watch, but the chicken ran around headless after being beheaded by Oscar) which the Nepali neighbours prepared for us. We also went up to get some phone signal in order to call our families and school had just finished by then so we danced along to some music, watched by lots of Nepali school children. In the evening we all sat around the fire and ate some delicious food prepared by Liam and Alannah; the vegetarian option was rice and pesto with another side dish of soya beans, as well as pasta and some tasty spinach (called saag in Nepali). After coming inside after the fire had died down, we started playing Monepali before we got to tired and decided to go to sleep. It wasn’t the most traditional of Christmas but it was time well spent with the other volunteers, all of whom are lovely. 

The days following Christmas were also great, involving wandering round Puja, going to the school and spending some more time relaxing. We played a Boxing Day game of murder (can’t remember the actual name), but when you’re given a place, name and object and you have to catch them with the object and then they’re dead (you then sing “you’re dead and you know you are”). This was pretty funny; I was out almost straight away because I was helping someone else murder their person when I was given a pillow by Alannah and hence I was out (she had to give me a pillow in the upstairs room and there I was). Later on we went up to the boulder field (or that’s what the Puja volunteers call it), which is a field full of big rocks which looks onto the valley. We relaxed there, did a mini wrestling match (in which Oscar waddled and chased me, making me really scared and so I ran away from the wrestling) and played house rules bullldog which was also very funny. In the evening we all played dungeons and dragons which Eli and Liam had organised beforehand, although before we’d got to the end most people were sleeping or not playing anymore. I really enjoyed it and am definitely feeling playing again another time soon. The day after Boxing Day Vivienne, Alannah, Stephie, Adelaide and Liam left for Kathmandu so they could have a weeks holiday before saying goodbye to Vivienne, so we said our goodbyes and then it was only Ashvi, Eli, Oscar, Kieran, Bethany and I left over. It was Bethany’s birthday on the 27th, so we prepared some good food for her (not dal bhat) whilst she was upstairs sleeping (she was very ill so only briefly got up for some food, which sucked for her, since it was her 18th birthday). We had out some balloons up, but she quickly returned to bed, looking very ill. We slowly rose and at about lunch time we went to visit Eli and Liam’s school in Puja. It was interesting to see the school in progress and see the differences in schools. Theirs is bigger and goes up to a higher grade and also has a much more male dominated set of teaching staff; I think we’re very lucky in the fact we have a majority women working force, which is due to a lot of men in Harpe going abroad to work. It was fun to meet all the students and we danced with them to some classic Nepali tunes and did the Hokey Cokey, then later played some football. It was fun afternoon and the kids were all very lovely and excitable. We had a look in their library and also talked to the teachers in the staffroom for a short while. Afterwards, we met the legendary “Red Priest” who has a temple next to his house. He gave us oranges and tea and wanted us to be in his music video (he already has one uploaded on YouTube). Some more people turned up and wanted to film us too - we were performing the Macarena, our new classic group dance (these were the Brahmin members of the community which is the highest caste and apparently they all hang out together in a group). We were about to run away before I realised I had forgotten my phone (I’d left it on charge) so we ran away a tiny bit then had to come back which was funny. That evening I cooked a dal bhat (which was very tasty, if I do say so myself) and we all had some roxy and sat round the fire. It was a really nice evening spent with everyone, although it was sad that Bethany had to spend it in bed on her birthday. Things only got worse for her and the next morning she fell down the stairs and broke her arm on the way to the toilet. She now had a fever, a bad tummy and a broken arm and we still had plenty of walking to do ahead of us. One thing I wanted to add about Nepali people or Nepali children is their being very comfortable with you, to the point where they squeeze your spots for you. An adorable girl in class two called Bipana started squeezing my spots that morning and later on in Harpe I’ve also had a child squeezing my spots. People also quite freely comment on the fact that you have spots on your face when they arrive.

We left for Arka on the 28th, beginning our journey from Puja back to Harpe. This journey took a lot longer than expected, due to everyone getting ill (apart from Lauren and I). We managed to get a cheap jeep from Thulabesi back to Arka (which was lucky given that we’d missed the bus and were told there wasn’t definitely a bus to Arka the following day). Arriving in Arka that evening was quite amusing, since we turned up pretty late and the hotel owner in Arka was nowhere to be seen. We had a look around the rooms to see if there were any beds free and found out that there were only a few, and these were dotted around in different rooms. We needed somewhere to sleep that night, so we wandered round the nearby houses a bit, seeing if there was anyone we could ask. The first house said no so we went to the other hotel opposite the one we’d originally looked around to see if we could stay in there. We walked into a few rooms that smelt of smelly feet, before finding the owner who went to the hotel we had stayed in before, which we’d already looked in. He wasn’t even this hotel’s owner and we watched him outside whilst laughing a lot, as he opened the door of a hotel room and tried to move some drunk bus drivers into another room. It was very funny to watch him lift up the covers of a bus driver and move him out of the bed, only for the bus driver to come stumbling drunkenly back into the room two minutes later. In the end, we all ended up sharing the room with the bus drivers and sharing the beds in that room. We use the term “manche” which is people in Nepali and we use this term with other words to describe people, much to our amusement. These men were smelly manche, since the room smelled quite bad of smelly feet (although we probably smelled just as bad, in fairness). Before going to sleep we played the name game, where you’re on teams and write a load of names down on paper which are then ripped up and then you have to describe them to your team mates (the girls won, more because Oscar had written loads of names which were impossible to guess, so we got 5 points every time one came up). 

The following morning, we said goodbye to Eli and we began our walk to Harpe, which took us three days to complete (having only taken one day on the way there). Bethany was very ill, and her arm wasn’t in a good state so we went at a very slow pace. We were then helped out by a Nepali man, who told us that we weren’t going to make it over the massive hill that day, so he let us stay at his home in Saagbari which means field of spinach (we hence ate a lot of Spinach and rice - three portions!). We slept outside that night only under a wooden roof, but they gave us enough blankets to still be warm - I was wearing so many clothes. After carrying Bethany’s bag all the way up the massive hill as well as my own, we still didn’t make it to Harpe and we didn’t have enough money to afford the jeep and the ATM happened to be shut that day so we had to stay another night in Darling, which is about a halfway point between Puja and Harpe. In Darling we didn’t get blankets and I had only my sleeping bag and the wooden floor with a plastic sheet on it to sleep on, but I still slept pretty well (you get used to sleeping in not the most comfy of places in Nepal). Since we dragged out the walk so long, we got to spend New Years Eve (Kieran’s birthday) in Burtibang and celebrated with him by getting cake from the vegetarian shop which sells sweets and other nice food. We also spent a good portion of the day in the hospital with Burtibang. I think from seeing the Burtibang hospital I got a better perspective of the quality of health services in rural areas of Nepal, which are really not very nice. The hospital seemed quite dirty and it just seemed very basic. Bethany was also diagnosed with the wrong problem; she was told after an X-ray that she didn’t even have a fracture, but after sending a photo of the X-ray to a friend back home, she was told she had maybe even two. Later on, she then went to Kathmandu and was told her arm was broken and it might need to be re-broken to put it into place and she is now in the UK getting it fixed. All in all, I feel sorry for Bethany, particularly since this all happened around her birthday. Kieran’s birthday was nice, however, and after a car ride with 7 people and bags (where Ashvi sat on my lap and I barely had any space to breathe) - we forgot to mention to the car driver that there would be two more people than expected) and after a walk up from Devisthan (he definitely couldn’t drive us all the way) Ashvi and I stayed up into the New Year eating twelve raisins and making twelve wishes for 2019. 

One of my goals for 2019 was to start going running. Since we live next door to the school, it can sometimes feel lie I don’t get out enough, so I thought that by running I would get to explore more of the village and also get some exercise in during the week. So far, I’ve been for nine runs and I’ve realised that there are no flat runs that you can go on from our house. We live on a steep hillside, so the options are either running down and back up or along and then up some other hills; it’s very good exercise. The last few days my Class 7 students who also hang out with us a lot called Rita and Sanjita have come with me which has been nice, especially since they know the roads around Harpe better than I do, although they seem to walk then run then walk a lot more than I do, and also go for longer. One morning was really beautiful because it had rained the night before, so the higher hills around us were snow covered. I actually thought originally on my run that they were mountains I hadn’t seen before, but then I realised that they were the hills that surround Harpe. I’m excited to keep running and keep getting fitter, and also to keep exploring more of the surrounding area, although it has to be said that it’s hard getting up before 6 every day I want to go on a run. I feel like I’m a changed person, going to bed at 8 or 9 in the evening, then getting up at 5.30/6 in the morning. 

There are many festivals and celebrations which happen in the village, some of which include weddings, births, birthdays and first rice eating. We recently went to several of these events. So far we have seen the latter three, although we are yet to go to a wedding. We saw a birth party a while ago, before Christmas, where we danced to music played on the drums. More recently, we went to Anita’s friend’s son’s first rice eating day, which involved massive pans of food, eating sel roti and dancing. We were originally meant to go to another first rice eating with Sanjita and Rita, but Dinu said it was too far and Ashvi was also quite ill (coughing a lot and tummy problems) so we couldn’t go, but luckily instead there was another first rice eating happening in Harpe. I thought the mass producing of food was very cool; they’d bought pans from Burtibang and they’d cooked massive quantities of food on a big fire, which they served out to all the guests. I also had a dance, which I do love doing in Nepal. I’m quite sad we were late back from Christmas because we missed a Buddhist festival called Lhosar and there was lots of dancing and volleyball and I was going to take part in the dancing competition. We did have a good time celebrating Kieran’s birthday, however, and Christmas was definitely worth it. We also went to another birthday recently; Asmita’s cousin Laxmi, who is in my Class 6. This was equally enjoyable as the last birthday party, where we ate cake, fruit and danced. Celebrations are always special in Harpe.

Weekend activities since Christmas have also been lovely; going to Dinu’s house (our headteacher), then Burtibang the following weekend, then Jhimpa the weekend after that and this weekend we’re planning to visit the new Project Trust volunteers in Arnakot. Ashvi and I are also excited because our friend Issy from Germany is coming back to Arnakot on the 28th January so we’ll get to see her again very soon. In Burtibang, the Jhimpa boys, Ashvi and I all visited the Jhimpa boys’ friend who works at a bank in Buritbang. He served us food and we all had some drinks too, which was fun. It was good to relax a bit and spend a day away from the village and the food (mushrooms and dried meat for the others) was all very tasty. We also got to have a go riding alongside Bipul on his motorbike, which makes me want to get a motorbike even more. Motorbikes are the method of transport that is used a lot around the villages because they’re cheaper than cars and also cars struggle on the bumpy roads that join towns and villages in rural Nepal.

There is never time to be bored in Nepal, since whenever you feel like it’s going to be a normal week, events or things pop up to surprise you. Last week turned out to be an exciting one, with several unplanned days of holiday. Firstly, there was an afternoon off one day because it was the last day of the Nepali calendar, then the next day was a Hindu festival called Makar Sankranti. For this festival Anita made selroti and Ashvi made a kite, because in Gujarat this festival is celebrated with kite flying, and I lay in the sun for a good three hours. The daytime sun can be quite warm in the winter, and this day happened to be particularly warm, so I enjoyed lying in the sun for a few hours; it was very relaxing. We tried to fly Ashvi’s kite but it wasn’t windy enough so it didn’t really work, however it was a nice day spent with Anita around the house. Other things that happened that week were a book ceremony, as new books were brought to the school library, as well as Peter Wilson, Shanta and Matt coming from Project Trust, so we also had a welcome ceremony for them. The books were brought by Karma Flights on behalf of a charity called “Education for Life”. Again, there’s the Karma Flights link again and charities all working together that it is interesting to see. Ashvi and I had actually met one of the girls who came to Harpe school for the gifting of the books in Pokhara, so it was nice to see a familiar face again. The new books arrival was particularly exciting given that we’ve just started doing a library club every day. We start at 9.15am in the morning and teach a different class every day of the school week. It was exciting seeing the new books come, knowing we could put them to good use, because before we started our library club, the library remained locked most of the time. I’m also planning to do reading sessions with my Class 4 last period every day. There was one woman who was leading the book ceremony who used to go to school in Devisthan, and she and I chatted a bit about other work she was doing. I was interested to hear about other work that she’s done in relation to menstruation and menstruation huts in the far west of Nepal. Some of you might have seen on the news that a woman and her children recently died in a fire in a menstruation hut when she was trying to keep her children and herself warm. It is actually illegal in Nepal now to send women to menstruation huts, but apparently it still happens in the far west of Nepal. It was inspirational to hear this woman from Devisthan saying how she’d been on a book giving project and then saw the problems in relation to girls that existed, so she planned a scheme to give out menstrual pads to women in those areas. 

That same week, on the Thursday Eli and his friends arrived, so Ashvi and I prepared cooked chow chow (noodles), curry, dal and rice for them to have when they got to Harpe. We wanted to be welcoming, since the other times that Eli has come it has been a bit of a mess, and also Peter and the other Project Trust representatives were coming the next day so we wanted it to be clean for them too. It was interesting to hear Eli’s friends, Jacob and Leila’s experience of Nepal so far, since they were only here on a visit. It sounded like they’d had some crazy experiences, and had done a big amount of walking too. The evening that they came, the goat gave birth to two baby goats which was a special experience and also very lucky for Jacob, Leila and Eli that they got to see it because it’s the first time we’ve seen something like that happen in the village. It was really lovely, all crowded round the goat shed as it gave birth, and we all had a long chat and laugh with Anita too. We then stayed up late playing music (me on the melodica and flute and Eli and Jacob alternating between the guitar and ukelele) and talking, which was fun. The following day was the arrival of Peter, Matt and Shanta Raj, the Project Trust representatives. We went into school briefly before going up to bus park to eat dal bhat together. After a nice chat with them, we went down to the school for their welcome ceremony, in which we were all given flower garlands and listened to speeches given. I gave a tiny speech and we also watched our students doing some traditional Nepali dancing. All the students were excited to meet our friends, and we all did a bit of dancing and singing at the end of the ceremony. There was a little meeting in the library afterwards about progress and impact that the volunteers have on the community and it was interesting to hear the teachers perspective on it all; now with the third set of volunteers they understand our English much better than they did with the first two volunteers, Sophie and Xanthe. I think, ultimately, the impact is seen the more years that there are English speaking volunteers in the village and this was also discussed between the teachers. I really hope that Project Trust are able to keep sending volunteers to Harpe for this very reason. After the ceremony and everything was over, we got on the jeep with Shanta, Pete and Matt to head off to Jhimpa to meet the boys. The Project Trust staff are doing a tour around all the projects to check we’re all doing okay and that we’re working well with and within our communities. We ate dinner with everyone that evening, which was a laugh, and lots of jokes and inside jokes were shared around the table and with Peter. We then went back to Jhimpa and chilled out around the fire; one thing I do love about Jhimpa is the fires that the boys build outside - they’re very relaxing and you also get a really nice view of the stars along with the noises of the river from just down below. It was definitely nice but also strange to see the staff from the UK. We had individual interviews with Peter where we talked about the successes of our work so far and how we were feeling about everything. I definitely feel proud that I’ve made it to five months and I’m still doing well. I feel like I’m always learning here, but also really enjoying the village lifestyle. 

I think some of the biggest highlights of recent times definitely include the times we spend together with Anita in the evenings. We really have a Nepali family to hang out with in the evenings and we have lots of laughs and chats with Anita. It makes you realise that you don’t need a massively vast vocabulary in another language in order to have interesting conversations and a good time. One evening that was very lovely was when the past volunteers sent Christmas gifts of chocolate and different gifts for people in the village, which we distributed for them. It’s just so nice to have a close Nepali friend in the village, and having Anita also means that we get more varied Nepali food, for example “shukshak” (dried spinach) which we wouldn’t have eaten otherwise. We have so many lovely evenings with Anita and her son Archan, and have also helped Archan out a bit with his English homework (involving writing the ABC). I am also settling more into school too and there are still more things that I would like to achieve in terms of school. I’m really pleased with how the library club is going, and we also bought volleyballs from Burtibang which have facilitated volleyball playing sometimes in last period. My next goal is to make some phonics cards for class 3 grammar in the afternoons, so I can teach them how to read in a more basic way, since the normal ABC really doesn’t help how to learn to read. I would also like to think of some more creative ideas for class 1. I have got a homework chart going for class 6, however, which has meant they’re actually doing their homework which is definitely a positive thing. I think every day you learn more about teaching, and I do try to always keep thinking of things I can do to improve as a teacher. Some things that still amuse me are the students love for stars, particularly with class 1 and 2, but sometimes even the older classes. Something they do is count their stars in their books then compare the numbers of stars with other students. I definitely give out well over one hundred stars into books ever week. Today, a student made me laugh because she was so excited about me drawing a massive star in her book, and the bigger it got and the more outlines that I did, the more excited she got. Something else that’s also new with school is that I’m the new drum player in the mornings. They do a military style warm up in the morning, with stretches and marching, and since I showed an aptitude for banging the drum in time, I’m now the new drum player in the mornings, which I find kind of amusing. 

I remember before that I was writing my blog in my room in monsoon season, when it was raining outside, and this has come in full circle again; I’m again writing my blog in my room whilst rain is pouring down outside. This is rare for winter season; it’s been dry and hasn’t rained for months, but it is pouring down now with thunder to accompany it. The rain makes it very cold in winter, so we had a half day today, hence why I’ve had time to finish off my blog post. (Classic Nepali to call of school for a “cold holiday”)

Something I’m excited about is that my friend Charlie from home has booked flights to come and see me at the end of March which is when the final exams end, so I’m looking forward to showing her around the village which has become a big part of my life so far! I have now accepted that my blog posts just seem to get longer and longer and also more descriptive, so if you’ve got to this point I am impressed. Hope it was worth your time! Sending love to everyone back home and goodbye for now. x

End note: the water pipes have broken or something like that so there is currently no water at the tap near us or any taps near us so we had to walk today to get water which was definitely an interesting experience; I managed to spill water all down my back, trying to carry the jug on my head. I think the water will be back soon though, so it’s all good.

This blog is a personal blog written by Orla Fawcett, therefore the views expressed in this blog are those of Orla Fawcett and not those of Project Trust.