Batase

Batase

The school

I finally managed to get to Batase School in Ghurkha district. It was originally meant to be the first school which I visited in Nepal but due to monsoons other things, well just monsoons actually, it had to be delayed. Now it took a long time to get here mainly has we had to travel and stop over night in Pokhara then get another two busses, so it was, in total, a wonderful 34 hour round trip on busses. Through very eerie fog, it was like being in bloody Silent Hill. I’d highly recommend it if you love being absolutely squashed for hours and hours.

I dunno what I'm doing here

Playing the 'bracelet game'

They can't wait to learn here
I'm sure they had their own lesson to go to though

I did eventually get there, albeit rather bruised, and it is a really nice place, I enjoyed it a lot. Contradictory to what I was expecting, after Mahendra had told me that everyone who visits never wants to go back. However, I was a little concerned about the large number of leopards and ‘aggressive monkeys’ that are in the surrounding jungle. They said that they rarely come into the village but the children who walk to school in the morning have to walk in large groups, hopefully with large sticks, to keep them away. For this reason they are planning on investing money into an illuminated pathway to keep the children safe.

Making a book for the twinned school

I didn’t get a lot of time to do lessons, apart from the 4 sessions I spent doing the twinning lessons, I managed one hour with Year 4 and 5 doing songs and games. Also, I wandered down one morning at 6am to see the college classes (as they run from 6am-10am) and ended up doing some teaching there for an hour or two. That was it on the teaching front, but you know what do you expect when I was only there for one day, I had to get back to Pokhara for Christmas Eve.

Today's pictures are brought to you by Purna Magar, MCWFN photographer and the Number 5.