Bhalebas

Bhalebas

So I have been very busy of late, visiting different schools and villages. Starting with, easily the best named village so far, Bhalebas. I spent three days in this village. It is a great little village with some of, without a doubt, the friendliest people I have met so far; especially the teachers. The school is a lower secondary, Year 1-8, with an attached nursery. It has a library, donated by room to read, which is highly frequented not only by the children but also by teachers and local villagers. Additionally, there is a series of activities on a weekly rotation for the children to partake it. It is also used by the older children of the village as a kind of youth centre with a volleyball court. In which I failed miserably when playing a game between the local teenagers and the teachers. I was on the teachers side and twice as tall as some of the other team, but still managed to mess it up whenever I had the ball.  I managed to get some teaching done in most of the classes focusing mainly upon discussion between the children about peoples’ expressions and what they love/hate.  The children were great here, they were vey interactive and could articulate rather well in most cases.

The village is extremely close-nit. Everyone seems to get on with each other and they all share in developing the village. They have a programme in which when there is building work to be done every member of the village has to help out for a few days; otherwise they get fined. Apparently nobody has skipped their duty yet. There is also the brother of the school head master who owns 34 looms and seems to employ every woman in the village on a part-time basis. He was a proper character, I never managed to get a photo of him, but I will next time. He was always topless and wore a giant pink scarf to match his bright pink hair; he also didn’t seem to have much work to do himself he was either in the cafe or driving his tractor up and down the roads. I went for a ride in it one night, I’m telling you a tractor is the way to travel. You feel invincible.  On my last night there a wedding was taking place, which is was due to go and watch. However, being ‘Good Friday’, as the teachers called it, we were somewhat delayed and missed the entire ceremony. Good Friday is named such because Saturday being the only day that teachers have off they tend to party a lot on Fridays. This caused them to delay our departure to the wedding; we also decided to take a sort-cut through some jungle, much to my protesting. In here they all got lost and we missed the entire thing. However, we made it to the after party, if a little late. It was a very good party I, as usual, was coerced into doing a lot of dancing because I was a guest in the village. I had to spend most of the next day in bed due to too much Roksi, they seemed to have ran out of cups at the party, so were instead using bowls to drink out of. The bowls lead to me drinking a lot more than I thought as they were constantly refilled and you had to drink some quickly to avoid it being knocked all down yourself. I don’t think I need to say that it is impossible to refuse more food or drink here. It was a good party thought and I am looking forward to going back to the village.