Days 62 and 63 - Chovar village, Nepal

Day 62 – His

 

This is our second induction day at Quest volunteers. It began pretty leisurely at the Shanker with a hotel breakfast and a get up late. We were due to be collected late so no rush. Sure the guy arrived pretty much on time – well for Nepalese time. We have been told time and time again about Nepalese time. It is anything from 10 minutes to one hour after anytime you set. So as we had organised a 10 o’clock pick up we were sort of expecting the pick up to be around 11. As it happens it was only half ten. We were shuttled to our new hotel by the Quest guys and rushed out to the quest main office before we had time to take in much apart from the fact that our new digs were pretty hostel like.

The day at Quest was pretty much like yesterday  - a long day reading through their induction manual and having basic Nepalese lessons to try and give us some preparation for the total immersion we were expecting as part of our volunteer experience. We actually left the Quest offices around four that afternoon a bit unsure what we had done in the day. Some of the strangest things seem to take time. We walked back to our new hotel and little more than have dinner and fall asleep.

 

Day 63 – His

 

This morning we were due to be picked up at 11. So we showered and went out for breakfast. My greatest moments are not in the morning, especially when i haven’t had coffee. Patti, on the other hand, says this is true of her but it is in fact not. She was collected, calm and cool as she led us through the maze of streets that is Thamel and directed us unerringly to a small cafe we had discovered some weeks back for a breakfast of Lassi, a drinking yoghurt, coffee and toast. Half an hour later I was feeling very much more alive and Patti led us back through the maze to our hotel. I seriously wonder how she does this. My mind was just a fog. Easy prey to any street trader. Luckily, that time in the morning there aren’t that many of them and we got back without having to purchase a cashmere scarf, homemade violin or painting of Vishnu.

We packed in good time and were waiting in the street for our pickup for about half an hour – enough time to fend off at least ten offers from taxi drivers and rickshaw riders to take us on a tour. The guys arrived pretty much on time – i am beginning to have doubts about this Nepali time thing and an hour or so later we met our host family. What can one say about the village we are in?  If you were to imagine what a Nepalese mountain village would be like draw it out and have it printed in a children’s book then covered it with sugar you would have a good idea of this place. It is almost a cliché of itself. There is a tiny square that most of the houses cluster around with a temple right in the middle. At the edge of the village is a monastery – that is now a nunnery and gangs of village dogs, ducks and children run around the little streets happily playing and barking. There is a fair amount of litter but generally it is the clean, sweet, kindly place that everybody thinks is the ideal spot for children to grow up in.

Everybody here seems to regard everybody else as some kind of relative. Mostly it is sister or brother but because of my age it seems brother is inappropriate so given the choice between grandfather rob and uncle rob they seem to have settled on uncle rob and I am not unhappy with that.

Settling in with the host family was a quick affair of introducing us and then whisking us off to the school where most of our volunteer work is going to be. They have a handy spot for Patti – teacher. And that is no real surprise. I think they are a little more unsure of what to do with me. At first they had me look over the construction site that is the new school building. But, seriously there is very little for me to do there as they are still at the stage of forming the steelwork and pouring the concrete. It was finally decided that i would do some work to help renovate the dilapidated building they are currently in. So tomorrow the plan is to go round the building and work up some kind of schedule of works and then try and get some of the work done. Patti on the other hand gave such a brilliant lesson for a lesson she was in fact supposed to be just observing that she has become something of a legend around the school already and the vice principal is supposed to be team teaching a class with her tomorrow but he is clearly in awe of her already. This should certainly be an interesting few days.

 

Day 63 – Hers.

 

In addition, to mum, dad and two sons (one aged 14 who speaks good English and translates everything for everyone and one aged 16 months who is a lively little spark – into everything), there is also another volunteer staying with our host family.  Steve is a twenty-one year old Australian who is teaching English - without any training or experience, poor soul – so when he asked me to start off his lesson with class 5 (Actually he had already asked another teacher to take them  - he finds them a handful!), I jumped right in.  It was great fun – I hope my lessons with classes 9 and 10 tomorrow are as good. - - I feel a bit of pressure of expectation now....

Sanju from Quest lives in the village and was pleased to be home after 5 days of seeing to things in Kathmandu.  He showed us around the village and took us to his family’s cafe for coffee.  He then took us to tour the Buddhist nunnery where a very shy and embarrassed young nun gave me some flowers – ‘Flowers for you,’ she said, and then scampered away giggling with her friend.  It was very sweet.

We settled into our new home and went up onto the balcony where we chatted with Steve and tried to keep the little one from hurting himself as he played with the most dangerous things he could find and tried to squeeze through the balcony railings.  Eventually we were joined by the whole family, chatting and laughing so loudly that Sanju came back over from his house across the square to see what the commotion was.  Mum (Her name is something like Camilla) and her younger sister said that they wanted to know what cream I use on my face.  I showed them my little pot of birthday Olay – and in the end gave it to them....They now want to see if they can get it in Nepal.  Mum also told me (via Yeman, her son) that if she could get her husband to do the cooking, she would like me to give her English lessons.   Meanwhile, Rob was plied with homemade ‘rice wine’ and in return entertained all the ‘lads’ with descriptions of his various experiments and inventions – I think he is now going to try to teach them to make transducers or something.

After a fabulous dinner – on the floor of the kitchen with emergency lighting, eating with just your right hand - of dal bhat and spiced chicken, we chatted a bit more – and watched some local musicians march by 3 times circling the temple for the festival - and then headed to bed.  I’ve got lessons to plan and resources to make – so I’ll be up for a while yet it seems.