No Longer Traveling

A friend once said to me, "In Nepal, you do not plan your life. The situations and circumstances around you plan your life". I'm now coming to realize how true this is. Whether it's the buses without schedules that you may or may not catch, the coming and going of electricity that may change when things like phone & internet are possible, or the opening and closing of stores making it either easy or difficult to buy what you're looking for...it's hard to say with any certainty what you will be able to accomplish in any given day. But amazingly, most things seem to work out one way or another and it's refreshing not having details all planned out in advance. The Nepalis are not especially focused on time or schedules, which can be difficult when trying to figure out things like school calendars (most teachers aren't aware a holiday is approaching until just the day before), but now that I'm getting used to it I'm enjoying the increased focus on the present rather than future or past.

I've also become very much accustomed to eating with my hands. So much so, in fact, that I may have trouble re-adjusting again to my native utensil-using society, but I suppose I'll try to cross that bridge when I get to it. There's definite technique and a certain amount of skill involved, but it's starting to feel completely natural. There's the one method of sort of scooping together a ball of food on your fingers, holding it up to your mouth, and using your thumb sort of like a shovel. This is most common. But there's also the more challenging method of gathering together a handful of food, opening your mouth, and sort of tossing the food towards it from afar. The goal seems to be to leave as much space as possible from where your hand releases the food and where your mouth actually is. I've learned that this is best only attempted with dry items.

Everything at Vaishnavi School is also going very well. Much better than I could have expected actually. I had come here with the idea that a foreigner full of comments about how things are done "back in my country" and nothing but criticisms of any differences would not be well received. Actually, having written it like that, I think those are likely both still true. I've definitely tried to avoid giving off any impression that I think Canadian schools are far superior to what I see here in Nepal. But I was also expecting to meet a strong resistance to change. I was not expecting to be able to come here and change much at all about the way the school is managed. Instead I had set my goals on making connections with the students themselves and hopefully having a positive impact on some of them individually, having come in with a slightly different perspective than their other teachers. I'm very happy with how this side of it is going and enjoy the way the students have been responding, but I'm also very excited about the interest level of the head teacher (principal) and possibility of helping make some more significant changes at the school.

The head teacher likes to pepper me with questions about how schools work in Canada with everything from "do the textbooks have hard covers and get re-used from year to year?" to "is there sporting equipment available for students to sign out at break times?" and "how many students and teachers are there usually in one class?". He seems amazed by some of my answers that children have a whole period during the day for phys.ed and no, never does a teacher hit a child for discipline. He's been there for 22 years and watched class sizes drop smaller and smaller as the school's reputation came to be the very worst in the area, but for some reason just within the last 2 weeks has seemed to find a new motivation to turn it all around. After being hardly visible at the school in my first few weeks there, sometimes not showing up until the afternoon if at all, he's recently rearranged his desk to be more centrally located, instituted new rules whereby primary teachers must actually be in their classrooms during all periods instead of visiting each other or sitting in the staff room, photocopied a list of 80 strategies to create a child-friendly environment for every classroom, and is physically present throughout the entire school day. I'm not sure where the motivation came from all of a sudden, but can't help thinking my timing is perfect to be at a place energized by the spirit of change. It will be very interesting to see what can be done with the place!

All in all, I've been very happy here and amazed with how smoothly many things have gone. I no longer feel like I'm traveling, now I just feel like I'm living.

Assorted Notes on the New Life

I now have a bicycle, which means a lot more freedom and a very much expanded range of places I can go. I just got it within the week, but already it has allowed me to have 2 of the best experiences yet. It took me to Sanepa, where Rashmi (who taught me Nepali in Calgary and is very likely the most generous person I've ever met) grew up and her parents still live. I went on Wednesday, which was Father's Day and a school holiday, with fruit and baked goods. As the newly adopted 5th daughter in the family, I was very happily welcomed. I had a great visit with them and have possibly never been more stimulated than I was by the 2 hr conversation with Mr.Dhaubhadel after Mrs.Dhaubhadel had left for work.

My bike also took me to Kalimati on Friday, another school holiday known officially as Dar Khaane Din, but essentially a day dedicated to eating lots and lots before the next day of fasting for Teej. One of my fellow teachers had invited me to her house to celebrate. It was fantastic to talk to her and her 3 daughters, one of whom wants to be a doctor, one an engineer, and the other who cannot walk is confined to one room, sitting in one spot in front of the tv all day. Her mother had been living in a small village where there were no doctors and there had been complications at birth with 4 days and 4 nights of labour. In Canada, with our many facilities and care for the disabled, she could easily be a functioning member of society, but here in Nepal there is nothing for her, so she can't go to school or really even leave the house. Needless to say, she gets excited when visitors come.

I don't plan on riding much in Kathmandu itself, for hopefully obvious reasons given previous descriptions of the traffic here. But a bike shop can only be found in the very centre of Kathmandu and since nobody here owns big vehicles, there seemed to be only one way out. Actually, I have to admit I kind of enjoyed it, which I'm sure sounds like cause for concern for those family members who already think I may have been born without appropriate safety sensors, but I think I understand how it works. I was happy to embrace the chaos, as a good friend would say, and felt pretty comfortable working my way between all the cars, pedestrians, motorcycles, cows, dogs and potholes. And as an additional bonus, I'm sure when I return to my commute to work back in Calgary, it will feel as though I have all the space in the world with cars leaving wide (in comparison) gaps between us as they pass.

The showers here are very cold. At first I tried to pretend this was refreshing, but it's hard to stay convinced of that for long. Especially on the chilly, rainy days, and I'm sure this will become downright impossible once it's winter. Maybe "invigorating" is the word I should be aiming for. But there's also hardly any water pressure, so it's about as comfortable as having a handful of ice cubes dripped over your head for an extended period of time.

Sometimes there is electricity here and sometimes there isn't. People talk about it much like we talk about the weather at home. "Batti aeyo", "batti gayo" (light came, light went). Load shedding is the term they use for it. Because there isn't enough power for everyone living in the valley, it is shut off for a couple hours at a time each day, but I've been warned it will get worse in winter. When these couple hours will be varies, but most often manages to cover from about 6:30 to 8:30 or in other words, from the time it gets dark and you'd start needing lights on in the house until after all the cooking and eating is done and people here start to settle towards bed. I think it also shuts off for a couple hours during the day, but being in a school with no lights I've never noticed.

So, nothing that requires electricity is ever used here. It's not reliable enough. It's unfortunate because Nepal itself has a huge amount of hydroelectric potential. Enough to meet all its own needs easily and to cover much of China and India as well. But no one will build new projects because there is no functional government to approve / develop major projects, it would be very capital intensive, and there is always the risk of the Maoists causing delays and disruptions as a political ploy. It's hard to imagine serious development here without a steady electricity supply to begin with.

This is sort of the general feeling I am getting about the country as a whole. A great deal of potential trapped behind a tangled mess of political, cultural and economic barriers. The spirit and desire for change is here amongst the people, but there is still much to be worked out.

Government School

Life in Kirtipur continues to be going well and is ever-interesting. The Lonely Planet guidebook for Nepal describes Kirtipur as a "sleepy" village of 9000 people. I can only assume the author visited exclusively in the dead of night when everyone was, in fact, asleep. By day it is very much alive and active with people out walking, motorcycles honking, small shops in the bottom of lots of houses, and people working at the sides of the streets day in and day out. Even some nights, such as last night, not much sleep happens, as the drum-beating and cymbal-clanking can continue very loudly and very lately in the streets. Last night they were celebrating the birthday of the Hindu god Krishna, which was actually the day before, but why have just a one day festival when you can celebrate for two?

The work / school week here is 6 days long with only Saturdays off. I'm planning on suggesting the Encana-style 1st and 3rd Friday policy just as soon as I can work out how to say it in Nepali, though I'm not expecting it to gain much traction. No matter, the days are shorter, usually 10am - 4pm, and a "Saturday off" really is a Saturday off rather than just a "chance to do more work without as many distractions" as they tended to be known in Regulatory.

I'm happy with the school I've been placed at, which is just a short 5 minute walk (on dirt trails between rice fields) from where I live. There are many private schools in the area, where anyone who can possibly afford to will send their children, and our school collects the remaining children whose families cannot. The private schools teach every subject in English, except of course Nepali, but government schools like mine teach all subjects in Nepali, including usually English because the students don't understand enough English to get by without a full Nepali explanation. Even the grade 10 class has lower English comprehension than the 6 year old I live with. He's in kindergarten at a private school.

The building itself is basic and run-down, though highly energy efficient (it uses none). We don't have lights and rely on sunlight coming in through the doors and windows to read and write with. Luckily there are a number of smaller, unplanned windows to provide just a touch more daylight where bricks have fallen out of the walls. There is one classroom per grade, from kindergarten to grade 10, with about 12 students on average in each. Old benches in rows attached to equally old desks and a blackboard are all that sit within the rooms. Unless, in some cases, there may be a mess of scrap wood sitting in the corner. No teacher's desk. No colourful, inspirational posters covering the walls. But lots of bright, smiling children.

Much of the way it is at Vaishnavi Secondary School gets explained with a shrug of the shoulders, a shake of the head, and the words "government school". I must've got this from at least a dozen people on my first day alone. The resources, the learning environment, the commitment of the teachers...all seem somewhat lacking from what I've seen in my first couple weeks.

Unfortunately, all of this is very clearly apparent to the students themselves, who often give me the same "government school" answer to explain why the school gates are still locked at 10am with only the students milling about and no one else in sight, or why their teacher didn't show up that day without notice. What's remarkable to me, and very inspiring, is how despite such low expectations and obvious lack of resources, most of the students are all very eager to learn, especially English. Teacher or not, they are there in class every day waiting to be taught something new. Some have begged me to please come to their classroom to teach when they found out what I was there for. The older ones especially understand that English is a possible ticket to get into higher education and do something of interest to them rather than fall into the same rough lifestyle their parents lead, breaking their backs to barely scrape by.

In short, it is exactly the kind of place I want to be. Amongst very deserving children and with lots of room to provide support in a place where not a lot of it is often found.