Laharepipal

Laharepipal

I also managed to get two days at Laharepipal this week, I was meant to be going there two weeks ago, then a week after but due to visa issues and really low child numbers I couldn’t go.  Now Laharepipal is a really poor school they have nothing. There are no teaching resources - not even paper or pencils, the teachers are very rarely paid, there were no medical supplies at all but I’ve sorted that, about three quarters have uniforms but most are in a dire state and, also, the teachers often have to go around Tansen asking for money to feed the children – and I’m talking about just bread and tea. Now not all schools give children food but at least the children have breakfast or can bring some food with them. However, here though the families are so poor the children rarely ever get breakfast, most only eat once a day. So a bit of food in the day makes a lot of difference to their ability to learn. A lot of the children come late to school because they have to clean or act as servants in other people’s homes. This is mainly the reason why when I went I took three huge bags of oranges, some bananas, a load of tea and sugar, and 10 loaves of bread. The problem is here they don’t have any cooking facilities so they can’t make a huge pan of curry or something on the cheap. Furthermore, as they have to scrape the money together on a daily, well normally not every day, basis they can’t buy in bulk and get a discount. Fortunately, their twinned school, St Pauls primary, have sent them £830 which should keep them in food for a good while and get some children a uniform. I know that a uniform doesn’t seem that important but when you think that is will be the best clothes the children own, it makes sense.

 
I managed to get the twinning letters done though and I took the school a load of sports equipment which they went mental for. Additionally, I had to give them some money to tide them over for the week food-wise and for the exams they are taking next week, the school didn’t have any money to print the exam papers for the children. One more thing, the blackboards here are dismal, you can’t write on them, so I spent the afternoon with some of the teachers painting them. Hopefully, next visit I can actually use them. 

Araybhangjang

Araybhangjang

A lot of schools are closed this week for winter holiday so I want off to a new school in Araybhangjang, well I’ve been here once before actually but only for a lesson. It’s a higher secondary school and offers +2 (like our collage but you can only do business or teaching). The school is good and the level of the teachers education is high, many have masters and almost all of them have B.ed’s; however, it is a government school so that is what you would expect.

I managed to get three days there and taught class 3-10 and class 12. I’m sure you wanna know what I taught so here you go:

·         Year 3 – prepositions, including little preposition posters and naming animals;

·         Year 4 – prepositions, including little preposition posters;

·         Year 5 – fruit and vegetables and the ‘I went to the market game’;

·         Year 6  – fruit and vegetables and shop role play, and bingo;

·         Year 7 – asking other people about what they want to do when their older and why;

·         Year 8  - countdown game up to 100, and asking other people about what they want to do when their older and why;

·         Year 9 – countdown game up to 1000;

·         Year 10 – expressions and reasons why magazine people could be feeling like that, apparently it is usually down to their boyfriends/girlfriends;

·         Year 12 – we spend 4 lessons across two day having a debate about should people eat meat, I had to spend one lesson explaining the concept of debate, two on preparing arguments by going through research and the final lesson actually having the debate.

Christmas photos

It's your lucky day you little chickens, I've put some Christmas photographs up on the Christmas post.

Photos courtesy of Balazs

Here are some photographs courtesy of Balazs, the Hungarian/Norwegian photographer who came a few months a go. If you didn't see the other photos they're really good. Go have a gander on the previous post.

The copyright for these photographs belongs to Balaza, and are reproduced here with permission.

These are just a few you can see a lot more by going on Facebook and finding his page thing, the name is Photo By Varga

Visa

Some helpful tips for getting a visa extension in Nepal.

1. Do not cross the India border without a valid Indian visa, nobody will stop you. However, you will be arrested, fined and thrown in jail. 
2. Do not try to buy a Indian visa at the border, you can't. They are only available in Kathmandu or Pokhara. 
3. Do not try to extend your Nepali visa at the border, you can't. That is also only possible in Kathmandu or Pokara at a cost of $2 a day. Extension is only possible for two months at a time, although the sign outside clearly states that 'visas can be extend from a minimum of 15 days to a maximum of 150 at on time'. However, you can come back two months later and do it again. 
4. Don't forget to take passport photographs to the immigration office or you will have to spend hours waiting in a photographers to get your picture taken, while the guy behind the counter very slowly  Photoshops a picture to remove someones neck creases. 
5. Don't forget what day you are leaving the country. The immigration people don't like 'guessing'. 
6. Don't take a taxi to the immigration office. Nobody knows how to get there.
7. Don't send your taxi driver away when you arrive at the immigration office. There will be no taxis outside when you want to leave. 
8. Don't try to walk to lakeside from the immigration office. Bikes, cars and oxen will try to run you down for walking on the roadside. 

Christmas

Christmas

I got back into Pokhara in the afternoon but went to Rim’s family house first (Mahendra’s wife). It was really nice there she even had some balloons, Christmas beads and a little Christmas tree. O yeah and a really tasty cake, which I appreciated a lot, as I love cake and cake in Nepal is, well, perhaps awful isn’t quite a bad enough word. It was a really good evening though we had drinks on the roof and ate cake and pasta. The pasta was awesome instead of pasta sauce Rim fried the pasta and veg in soy sauce. I’d highly recommend it. After that I went out to some of the bars in Pokhara with Rim’s brother Dhan. It was a good night. 

Form Christmas day I spent the day on a very long and slow bar crawl spending most of my time reading. However, in one place there was a group of American girls who said I can’t spend Christmas alone, so invited themselves to sit down. They were nice and, bizarrely, had Cluedo with them. I stayed with them for a while them went for a Christmas dinner of a very tasty vegetable burger. I wasn’t very hungry because when you drink in happy hour you always get something free, like popcorn, crisps, chips, nuts, etc, so I was rather full all day. The good thing about Pokhara is that there are always a lot of tourists to chat to. I spent the evening going on another tour of bars and meeting the Americans again. Then in the tradition of Christmas went sleep about 10 o’clock.

Anyways I’m back in Tansen now but schools closed again for another holiday. But I’m of India after New Year to renew my visa, which should be good.

Fishtail on Christmas eve evening

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.