Happy New Year!

Yesterday was the first day of Nepali new year, 2068. To celebrate, the whole family gathered for a picnic near a temple beside the Bagmati River, not too far from our house. In traditional Nepali style, this picnic involved a whole lot of food, much dancing, some tika, a moment for puja, a few games somewhat related to the likes of charades and duck-duck-goose though distinctly different, and, of course, a great deal of...

...hockey? Alright there may have been a little foreign influence on that last part, but I swear it was the kids who insisted on bringing our sticks and jerseys. Yes, we have jerseys.

It seems hockey has become the entire focus of my little nephew's life. I'm quite sure he's the only person in Nepal who can spell everything from Pittsburgh Penguins to Vancouver Canucks and he has quickly picked up the names for all the variety of penalties possible (not to mention become rather effective at putting them to good use). His questions are very specific and cover off every last detail of the game. After I told him about the type of water bottles players use, he poked a hole in the top of an empty Sprite bottle and spent the whole day practicing squirting water into his mouth. But mostly it all ended up down his shirt or sometimes, as he said, "nose going happened". So, as you can tell, I'm teaching him only the important things in my limited time here. Unfortunately, as can be seen in the photos with a Maple Leaf on his chest, he's a little bit confused about which teams are the good ones. I'm still working on setting him straight.

Earlier this week were some interesting meetings amongst other members of the local education community. We were discussing how best to develop government schools in the area. Public schools around here have quite the challenge to retain students because so many private schools have taken root and can promise English-medium instruction and higher rates of passing exams. Not all of them achieve their results in a wholly legitimate way. I've heard reports of some schools, knowing that on the School Leaving Certificate exams only class 10 material is tested and not any previous years, will skip class 9 subjects and teach the class 10 textbook in both class 9 and 10 to give the students 2 full years of learning specifically what they will be tested on. Yet there's no denying that most usually they are the better option if the parents can afford it. Even in those rare cases where they may be left with a small gap where all the information from class 9 is supposed to fit, there's a definite advantage in Nepali society to be learning in English and of course have access to facilities like science and computer labs. So government schools have started to struggle with dropping numbers of students each year, which is of great concern to many, and most of all the Head Teachers.

Sunday is the start of the new school year, and today was a final meeting amongst our teachers to set the daily routine and decide important matters like which class will be in which classroom. Things seemed to get heated on the topic of whether to provide tea to the students or not. Though it's possible I misinterpreted some parts of it. My understanding of Nepali drops dramatically when 3 people are trying to talk over each other all at once and as rapidly as they can. The biggest issue of contention, though, is surrounding school fees. The Head Teacher wants to abolish all fees and make the school completely free. I support him in this attempt to make education available for all, especially in a place where it's very common to send young children from poor families to work at a very early age. But, there's been a lot of pushback from the other teachers who don't think this is possible. In my view, it would be a great thing to put into action. Rather than spending so much time and effort trying to think of how to attract students back from the private schools, as discussed in the previous paragraph, I think being able to attract the students that currently aren't going to school at all is the way to go.

All in all, I'm excited to be entering into a brand new year (for the second time this year), and looking forward to all that's sitting ahead of me on the horizon. There seems to be a great deal in store for the immediate future, including a final 6 weeks here in Nepal, a month in Tibet, perhaps a brief couple weeks of traveling around SE Asia (though the more I think of it lately those couple weeks might be better spent at home for readjustment), and then back to work. It's amazing that all of that can be called "immediate" future now, as returning back home used to seem very far away. I guess that's just the way time works though. It passes. Life happens. The future comes.