volunteer diary
My Time in Nepal ....

School Experience

My time at the school was some of the best I have spent during my travels.
Both students and teachers went out of their way to accommodate me, and I was
Made to feel like one of the family."

"Physical education is something the children only have a cursory knowledge of, outside of football and early morning fitness they just don’t do any. Gradually over my stay we moved from basic stretches, hand/eye co-ordination Exercises and cardio vascular fitness up to running, marching and high speed Fitness games. The children lapped up every second of it, enjoying merely to be out of the classroom. Throughout the periods It was important to stress about health issues as well - why we should keep fit etc. Marching
gave me the chance to inspect the students pointing out dirty fingernails, Clothing etc."

"Prior knowledge of you subject is of great importance - The children are Relying on you to teach them new and useful things. If you are interested in a subject, maybe you enjoyed it at school, and you feel you might like to pass it on. Think first, do you really know enough to spend maybe an hour a day teaching it, bearing in mind that the Nepalese are incredibly fast learners, and something that we would take a month to learn here, they have figured out in a week. Not perfectly, but enough to get by."

"To be honest, I think that during my time at the school, I learnt more than the students did. The Nepalese are a magical people, and after coming from a consumerism based society where community spirit is all but forgotten. They have rekindled my faith in humanity."


If you want to know more about the programme and my experience send me e-mails
Alexander Norton Payne


woodybonesmalone@hotmail.com

10 Fore Street, Evershot, Dorchester,
Dorset. DT2 7NX


U.K.
Alex Norton

Experince in Nepal

Two weeks prior to my planned departure for Nepal, international news was highlighting an increased flurry of Maoist activity. Thus i was faced with a certain dilemma. I had to decide on reasons of safety whether to go to Nepal or not.
I decided to go ahead with my plans. So I arrived in Kathmandu geared up for my month of teaching, naturally safety issues were at the forefront of my mind, only to be quashed minutes into my stay. I thought that the first thing i would notice would be poverty and civil war, but it was the colour and religion of Kathmandu that really took hold of me. Women in bright coloured saris and signs of Hindu and Buddhist devotion swamped the narrow streets of Kathmandu. I was hooked.

The first four days of my programme was spent in a wonderful guest house VEEP had booked for me. In the mornings Harka, my Nepali language teacher would arrive. We poured over Nepali vowels, consonants and vocabulary. Foreign language has never been my forte but i did manage to pick up a little (most in the cuisine sector). After a leisurely lunch break in Thamel, a tourist land of incense, Surendra would meet me at the guest house to go sight seeing.
Then it was on to Godavari. The village I would spend the next month in. Now this was real culture immersion. Godavari is a small village in the Kathmandu valley. Scattered around rice fields are traditional mud brick houses. My family was lovely. It included Grandmother, Grandfather, their daughter and her two children. I did have to adjust however to Nepali lifestyle and habit. Eating with my right hand and showering in a longi under an outside tap became my new way of life.
School was a mere 1 minute walk from my house. The older grades were my favorite. They had never done creative writing before, so I decided to embark on that as my one month curriculum. We started doing descriptive writing which the kids found quite challenging. They were much better at emotive writing, les they get the two mixed up.
By the end of my first week I couldn't walk down the street without the often "Namaste" and "Where are you going?" Friendliness was abundant making me feel right at home.
Spare time was passed drinking tea in the local shops and playing cards with the he other volunteers. My Nepali brother taught me how to play carum and how to loose to an 8 year old game after game. The peacefulness and routine of Govavari allowed me to forget about the Maoist situation.
At the end of my one month teaching the principle told me he was proud of me as I had taught his students something new. However, little did. I know that I was the one being taught. Immersed in a completely alien culture and classroom, it is amazing what one can learn, not only about their surroundings but also about themselves and their homes. Not to mention my newly developed cravings for Dal Baat, And I thought I would never eat rice again once I left Godavari!

Sophie warren.
Melbourne, Australia September 2003
Email:- soph_warren@yahoo.com.au


Australia
Sophie Warren.

Village life in Nepal

Typical life in Village
Despite my joy at a few city luxuries, I’m having a fantastic time in the village. It’s a pity the time is so short. On one hand, I’m dying to see my family and friends again but on the other, I’m only just settling in. I have a nice sleepy routine going on. I wake every morning around six thirty (yes, really!) and potter around doing a whole load of nothing, reading my book and sipping chiya (nepaali chai), until breakfast (always daal bhaat) at about 9ish. Then, school at 10ish (all of 2 classes, oh the weight of this workload!) and then kaajaa (lunch – literally translated it kinda means ‘eat n go’). I’ve slowly convinced my lovely family that I am not, in fact, a calf to be fatted and if they don’t stop feeding me I will literally be rolling home! So now I have just some delicious fruit for lunch (bananas and mangos) which I buy myself in the nearby market. Fruit is expensive enough but at all of 90c for a kilo of mangos and a dozen bananas it’s pittance for us Europeans.

After lunch every day, I have taken to going for walkies around the valley. The valley is very beautiful, the climate is ideal and every walk is a new and varied experience. The other day I met a few kids picking mushrooms who were very nice and chatty and absolutely mesmerized by my hair and skin. I was forcibly pulled to the ground so they could touch my hair and root through my bag – not in any dodgy way as the kids in the village are very innocent, but just out of sheer fascination. I finally escaped with nothing lost but a lovely French plait gained! Yesterday, I headed the same direction again and was met by the same kids and their friends who ran at me at full speed, knocking me to the ground in their sheer excitement. I had my camera this time which they had a ball with. I have some very funny pics courtesy of my new little friends so I can’t wait to see if they turned out.

All the kids in the village are like that – super friendly and all excited just to say hello. Every day I pass by a rooftop where three little kids sit playing and every day they jump up and down with excitement screaming ‘Namaste, Namaste!’ If I happen to pass the hundreds of kids emptying out of the school, it’s a deafening stream of greetings and they’re somewhat chuffed to say that they know me from school. You’d think they’d be bored of me by now! And there are actually very many volunteers here from all over the world so we foreigners are not that exotic. Still, it’s a sleepy, quiet kinda life so I guess little things are quite exciting there.

After keeping myself occupied for the afternoon, I join the neighborhood kids on our front porch for homework club. The kids were too shy to ask for my help at first but now they are all very happy to work with me. I bring out my drawing paper and colours after the homework is done and we all have great fun drawing pictures until the sun goes down (quite early at about 7ish). Then a little more pottering around until dinner (also daal-bhaat) and finally I go to bed at an amazingly early 8:30ish. Despite the fact that both breakfast and dinner are always daal-bhaat-tarkari (lentils-rice-veggies) I’m still not bored of it. The types of lentils and veggies are so varied and there are so many spices and cooking methods that it’s always a little interesting. I get great cookery lessons (along with veggie farming lessons), the best being two nights ago when aamaa cooked a Nepali-style risotto thingy the traditional way – on an open fire in the corner of the room. I tried to get a few pieces so I hope they turn out ok.

There is so much more to tell but it won’t be long now till I’m home. I’m really going to miss my home here and my lovely Nepali family. for more information you can contact with her.

Jane Courtney
Ireland
E- mail: jane.courtney@dit.ie , janec@o2.ie


Ireland
Jane Courtney

Experience a culture in great nature!

Takeing a shower in a lungi outside at a public tap, experience the difference between your  left and right hand, eat twice a day a delicious dal bhat (traditional Nepali food) and help your amaa (mother) in the paddyfields. This is more or less how my first five weeks in Nepal looked like.

After a week Nepalese training, I was ready to teach at a private secondary school in a village called Mahadev Dada, close to Godavari. In the surroundings of mountains and fields I taught English to children between eight and thirteen years old. Each morning started with the national anthem. Even though I have had my Nepali language classes in the first week, just singing the beautiful melody of it is much easier. However, my little speaking of Nepali ended up in five big cup of milk tea and at least fifteen biscuits in a monk's own room in a monastery near the village. The teaching to the children made for me the way for running whole afternoons with the children, playing 'hide and seek' till it became that dark that I really couldn't find them anymore. 

After helping my neighbour with cutting the grass, she spoke to me about her arranged marriage within a month. Even though she has to move to the living place of her husband, she says that she is happy with it: 'It brings money, no love'. According to some village members the arranged marriage is still the norm in traditional Nepal.

The castes are sometimes difficult to understand for outsiders. My host family explained me a lot, sometimes with jokes as 'Newari people don't have toilets'. In general there are four different castes and my family belonged in the second one. As a foreigner I belong in the last caste. 

Above all, Nepal is the country where you want to get lost in the great mountains to find one of the many different Nepali cultures. 

(Ieke de Vries is a Anthropology and development studies student from the Netherlands. During as sabbatical year she travels around the world. For more (Dutch) stories and pictures; have a look at http://ieke.aroundtheglobe.nl/).

 
Be a Nepali 'guru'
 
Get into the world of children, parents and teachers. Teach English at a secondary school in - for example - Godavari. This school, where they begin each day with the national anthem, has the children who are willing to learn.

Even that I am not an English speaking person myself, it wasn't that difficult to sand in front of a class with about thirty children. They are interested in volunteers and I was interested in them. Just speaking English with them was the priority of the classes. I thaught them English by playing games, telling stories or talking about grammar. I thaught them English, they thaugt me Nepalese.
 
Teaching in a Nepalese village is a great opportunity to improve your own English grammar by teaching it. Besides that it's also a great opportunity to learn more about the Nepalese culture and the Nepalese language.
 
Besides the teaching itself, the children can take you with hou for a play like cricket or badminton. They can tell you more about daily life in the village. They always have a lot of energy, so run into their (school) life!

 


Netherlands
Ieke de Vries(2009)

Nepal Volunteering Experiences

I recall the image of a young male leaping from a crowd to vocalize his resentment at the Kings autocracy. The time was Jana Andolan ii, and the photo came courtesy of the Sydney Herald. I cannot deny that the image lingered in my mind, and that my sense of time was provident, arriving in Kathmandu the day after the war was declared over. Kathmandu was ablaze with horns, like the conscious and excited beat of a city in a fever. To each side i had to dodge a vehicle, and weave through tremendous crowds, religious bells tolled and in all, i was sure the city would split. 'Welcome to Nepal,' they called. 'Welcome to the most optimistic of times'. Kathmandu was certainly public.

I did not linger long in this increasingly modern city. Soon, after meeting with the charming and mild mannered VEEP representative, Surendra, I moved to Godowari to take my place as a volunteer. What contrast! What truth in life! The passing horns were replaced by the gently pat of fleet footed children on a dusty roadway, followed by a puttering bus, both divided by the tin-like ring of a singular bicycle meandering past. Although startled by the change in setting, some days i am reminded of the cities proximity. Whilst not wholly the cities fault, mist and smog creep into the valley and stand by mountain side as though delinquent youths by an alley wall. The disappointment, however, of this sight is always affirmed by the fertile paddy fields that stretch out beyond my placement school, attesting that while the smog will be blown away, the luscious crops will come.

Once I was initiated with the school staff and children it soon became apparent that the children would not shy away from asking about my origins. Like any volunteer, as a stranger, i arouse curiosity. They asked many questions, in delightful English, that soon enough i felt less like a foreigner and more like a friend. Of course this is not necessarily advantageous as a teacher, and a volunteer: kids the world over are prone to fits of attention deficiency. But ultimately, the children here are bright and instructed by a carefully thought out routine which ensures that they observe a general standard of behaviour. Not a single child cherishes the prospect of time with the principal. So very normal!

The questions asked of the volunteer are difficult. How, in a short time, is one to embrace the childrens abilities and further their english ability. I have been based at the school but a short time, but so far the most distinct point impressed upon me is to allow their imaginations to work; to fire, when necessary, those imaginations that remain dormant. It all sounds incredibly idealistic, but in the short term i have not been able to truly know how the students work. Repetition; brainstorming; mental pictures; and dialogue are all necessary, aswell as a flexible manner. They ask frequently to play, the challenge is to allow them to do so creatively. That appears the key.

Nepal has been instructive, and boisterous from the start. A pleasure in a country of gentle, peace loving people.

Jason


Australia
Jason Amit Raj

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