This is the story of how we tried to get there, but didn't get there. So we went somewhere else instead. Me and Hedge in our wonderful deserted hostel in Pokhara So first of all, I'm writing this from home. In the Netherlands. I'm sitting here behind my computer with endless electricity and endless internet trying to relate to my adventures in Nepal, but it's a little bit difficult because everything is so different. If you walk around in the sun-scorched streets of my home town you find they are practically deserted of people, sounds and dirt up to the point that it's almost boring. But I'm enjoying nontheless to meet up with my friends, to go swimming all day because there's nothing else to do, and to eat all the vegetables and fruits I can get my hands on (also in the hope of reversing the development that my hair is falling out). But other than that I could say that I'm missing the people and children (who are also people, yes) of Nepal terribly and I'm definitely making plans for a come-back. But anyway. Changing in Lahan for the bus to Gaighat As I had so many wonderful stories to tell of the Udayapur children, my mum agreed that she wanted to go there too. Only for one week, because we have a flight to catch, but still---these mountain-children deserve a visit. So after two nights of acclimatizing in Pokhara (turns out my mum hates rice, so Pokhara was food-heaven for her) we were on my way. On a wonderful bus which I arranged myself which was going to bring us to Lahan, and then we'd have to get to Gaighat somehow by catching another bus. Now a problem with arranging a seat last-minute and not having any good connections with the buscompany is that you get rather poor seats. Which in this case meant: In the back of the bus (which means bouncy), next to a really bright light which wouldn't turn off, and with a leaking window. And that for twelve hours. Happily biding my time in the bus. With my umbrella. Now, personally, I can see the humor of these things, but at the end of the night you do get rather tired from flying through the air all the time (literally-I'm not exaggerating). So when, early in the morning, we all had to get out of the bus and walk for some unclear reason (my nepali isn't very good when I haven't slept well), we were a little confused. Turns out, a dam broke, and the river was flowing wildly, so the buses couldn't go on. Mind you, this was 6 (!) kilometers out of Gaighat (though we didn't know that at this time) and we were told that we had to wait until the water stopped flowing so fast so that the buses could drive through it. I went to ask someone else about the situation further on, and he, happily, told me that further on it was much worse (making his point by putting his hand way above his head to show the water level). This is where my mum and I got into a little bit of a struggle. Mum: No way I'm going through that river, I don't want to die. Me: But mum, it's all going to be fine, the people told me the water is going to go down in half an hour..they are fixing the dam as we speak. Mum: And you believe that? Still we would be driving through a river, even though it's not such a wild one anymore, and no way this is going to stop in half an hour. Me: But we drove though many rivers before, didn't you notice? Mum: Yes I noticed but I kept my eyes closed because I was so scared. Me: But we are so close to Gaighat, we can't possibly turn around now? At this point, it was raining heavily on our heads and our bus, which was going to take us to Gaighat, decided to turn around. There we were, on the edge of a road in a village without a name, without a bus and without any way of getting further-or getting back. The prospect of *getting* to Gaighat was getting rather bleak, and the prospect of getting there on time so that we could still catch the bus going up to Chisapani was getting even bleaker. If the bus was going at all, which was to be questioned, looking at the rain. In which case, a wonderful 4-hour walk up a hill was ahead of us. Which is all doable, with the right amount of willpower and craziness. But my mother pulled the mother-card. We were going back, no discussion. Why did I decide to travel with my mum again? (Just kidding mum--it would have been quite horrendous to walk up that hill with our backpacks in the rain). But kossari janni (how to go)--no bus, and I personally had no idea where we were. Hungry as we were, we went to eat at some chadpate stand at the side of the road before going any further. And this is where the real adventure of nepali hospitality starts:) Me in the village causing quite the attraction I happily chucked down some delicious chadpate (fluffed rice mixed with oil, taste enhancer, chilli powder, and onions) and ended up telling the lady of the stand our story. After which she invited us to her house. After which we got invited to another house. And another one. And we had lots of milk tea at each house. After which we got a tour of the local cement factory, of the village, of the local market, of---everything really. It was so wonderful, I knew many nepali people were hospitable, but this still came as a surprise to me. We were treated like real honorable guests, not the smelly, unwashed creatures that we really were (wearing the same clothes for 4 days-not a good idea). My mum making a kite for one of the girls The local cement factory We stayed there for one day longer, my mum talking english to the local children, me trying to keep up a conversation with the parents, and one man even got up at 5 in the morning to stop the Kathmandu bus for us. I can only say, not getting there was probably better than getting there easily. After getting back to Kathmandu, crossing yet another broken bridge -which was quite scary because it was snapped in half- we decided we might as well go and visit the last Maya school, the Syangja school. It wasn't running at that time because of some land-issues but still, Syangja seemed like the place to visit. And it was. Me and Ram in some deserted house during our 'trek' up the hill It was like holiday, pure, delightful holiday. Eating mangoes from the mango trees, eating nespoties (a sort of pear), drinking milk-tea with Manjil's third mum, Nirmala aunty (Joypote is a high-cast village, so they don't eat meat -only goat sometimes- but they drink lots of milk and milk products) and taking walks in the beautiful surroundings together with Ram (the local teacher). It was sunny all the days that we were there, and maybe I was even happy that I didn't make it to Udayapur (where it's misty most of the time). Joypate is definitely a wonderful place, and I wouldn't have seen it hadn't it been for the troubles of the monsoon. Me and my mum enjoying another cup of milk tea:) Anyway, as I said I'm home now. 'home'. Because I feel home almost anywhere I go (I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad quality but it's there), and even being home, I can definitely say I'm missing my nepali home. In Kathmandu for the last couple of days we were shopping, sightseeing, and all those other ridiculous things you would expect tourists to do (except we never reached Thamel again, such a horrible neighborhood, ugh). We spent time with Sushila too, who showed us around wonderfully (and cooked us fish and roti, hurrah to my mothers hungry stomach), but in the end we still had a plane to catch. Was it hard to leave Nepal? Nah. It's not so hard to leave a place if you know you're coming back.
Ida painting the downhouse blue in Chisapani, Tanahu So here I am, in Nepal, thinking I'm as far away from home as I could possibly get, and then my mother comes by for a visit:). Although to some people that might seem like a horrible situation, I was actually the one who invited her to come---so I can't complain (also, she's reading this blog so my lips are sealed). Anyway, as now I'm officially my mother's tour guide, I decided to show her the places I know best---the Maya schools:). So after only one day of acclimatizing in Kathmandu at uncle's place I put her in a bus, and off we went, to school No.1: the Maya school in Chisapani, Tanahu (the east school is also in Chisapani, but then in Udayapur-it's a very common village name). You get no rest when your daughter is the tour guide (and your daughter really wants to get out of Kathmandu to spend some time with the kids). So anyway, to give her the full Nepali bus experience I described a few blogposts ago, I of course put her on the local bus from Damauli to Chisapani -which was loaded. I happily sat on top of the bus (I encouraged her to do so as well-but she declined) with the wind in my hair as my mother was slowly suffocating inside the bus while trying to balance on one leg for the duration of the ride because there wasn't enough space for both legs on the floor anymore:). Needless to say, she was very happy when we arrived at the school, and so was I. So seeing that I have only three weeks to show Ida (my mum) around, we decided to only stay at this school for one week. Now Manjil would never say no to having a professional teacher teach his kids (my mum has been a teacher for ---eternity), so he let me and my mum teach as a team. What to teach, though, we asked ourselves, if we are only staying for one week. You can make three guesses. French? Nope. Art? Nope. Computer programming---eh. Nope. We decided to teach the kids the marvelous skill of sign language. My mum worked with deaf people for some 6 years, and she taught me sign language as well, and why not pass on those skills? So now, after one week of teaching, I think I might be right to say that Maya Universe Academy is the only 'normal' school in Nepal where the kids know the sign language ABC. Here is a small video of Korina and Susmita doing the ABC in front of the art work that my mum and I also managed to finish during that week. (There's some strange sounds on the background but that's because it's right next to the toilet and the tap). Saphal drawing down the hand alphabet I'm very critical about my own teachings, usually, but about this week I have to say that it was absolutely brilliant. The kids were very enthusiastic to learn this new skill and after one 45 minute class most of them actually already got the hang of most of the letters of the alphabet, which is really really fast:). Because they were so fast, the second class we made them say: hi, my name is ... and the entire class had to answer hi, (name). It was a perfect class for someone who has had screaming children's voices all around herself for the last four months---thirty minutes of complete silence and utter concentration- the only sound detectable was the buzzing of the mosquitoes in the jungle. I didn't think it would be possible! But it was, and I have to say, I am very proud of what the children learned in this week. Muskan trying to write down aeronautical engineer which me and my mum just spelled out with our hands as a matter of a test:) Anyway, it was a very busy week but also a very happy one. One other exiting thing that happened was the harvesting of the rice! I really was hoping I would be able to experience the full circle of rice planting, and fortunately I could. So one day, while my mother was painting the downhouse blue, we went down to harvest those nutritious little plants. (pictures will come later, they are lost now). Basically we had to cut it and get out the rice on the same day, else wise the plants would get too dry and the rice grains would fall out while trying to transport them. So on the muddy field we placed one big piece of tarp, and in the middle of the tarp we put a big stone. And as the rice was being cut and bundled by some people, the others went on to smack the rice plants against the stones, so that the grains would get loose. It was a very exhausting method to get the grains out, but fun at the same time. The hygiene of it is questionable, as we were basically standing in the freshly harvested rice grains with our muddy feet, (and later we let the grains to dry under one of the beds in the school) but hell, we harvested and for me, the circle was finally round. Dipa Miss -a new teacher at the school (hopefully) and her baby
And of course I also showed my mother around the village, wich was a bit of a strange experience because suddenly she was the 'helpless' one, because she couldn't express herself. So I had to translate for her all the time, which was fun. It must have been kind of strange for her, because all those people knew me for a long time, so she was automatically referred to as 'Weike ko ama'-Weike's mother. It was fun for me, though, pointing at my mum all the time saying 'yo mero ama ho' -this is my mother-while my mother couldn't understand most the things we were gossiping about:P We walked around the village on the last day, having tea here, corn there, local pear at another house, and some honey tastings at the down shop- life is lovely in Chisapani if you actually are starting to know the people. Which, sadly, is also the moment I had to leave again. So now I am writing to you from Pokhara (which is also why i managed to upload the video-yay to good internet) and tomorrow me and my mum will head to Udayapur again for a short visit. Lots of love, Weike Nisha and Sabin playing chess and Asha, well, she is just being Asha Have you ever been so completely out of touch with the modern world that you have no internet, no phone, not even a lamp to read a book by? Just the light of the skinny winny candles that you can buy in the local shop to make your evening last a little longer than 7 'o clock. I'm sure you have. But for me, it was the first time that I was staying in a place so remote from everything. I spent the last month in Udayapur, another Maya school in yet another district (they are spreading quite quickly-3 schools now), in a little village which -coincidentally- is also called Chisapani. The nearest town, Gaighat, is 4 hours down the hill by bus but in monsoon season you never know whether the bus will be running at all. Remember the Udayapur kids I wrote about a few blogpost ago, who left to go back to their home after staying two months in the Tanahu school? Well, I went after them. It was a wonderful welcome. After riding the bus up for some 5 hours (the last bus which went up all the way, lucky me-especially since I brought loads of school books) I got out at a Chisapani, and I discovered that nobody was there. It was almost nightfall. So I put down my bags and was just thinking where the school would be, when I heard my name being called 'Weike miss!'. From afar I see Buddhap and Ramesh running my way. 'Weike miss you are going to my house, ok?' Buddhap says, 'we have a party tonight!'. They showed me the house were I should put my stuff and off I went, into the darkening night with Buddhap and Ramesh on both my hands. After a few minutes we passed another village, and Roshani, Kamala and Regina (who turned out to be neighbors) come running out of their houses to give me a lot of big overwhelming and very happy hugs. As I'm trying to struggle myself loose from all the loving children, I see Rikke, Becky and Ashis Dai, the two volunteers and current 'boss' of this school, standing a bit further away. Parties are there to be had, so a few minutes later all of us- the volunteers being led by the two children- set out for Buddhap's house. Which turned out to be two hours away, halfway down the mountain. What I walked into there was quite a feast. Music, local roxy (which was surprisingly sweet because it's made of a local fruit instead of millet) and pig meat. But pig meat doesn't just show up like you could buy it at the supermarket. Pig meat means there is a pig, and it must be cut. I was eager to see so I ended up standing in the room where they were preparing the pig, a little way against the wall so that the blood wouldn't be splashing my clothes. They tied him up to a pole with a rope, and shoved a piece of wood between its legs. One lady was playing an instument whose sounds were mixing with the screaming of the pig. Pling plink, oiiiiiiiink. Then, after sprinkling lots of water in it's ears (to see whether the holy spirit is inside---if he shakes, it is, if not, you should kill it some other day), one guy got a big khukuri (a local knife), lifted it high above his head, and after one big haw , the head rolled away. The pig was dead. Khattam. Awee, quite a sight it was. And tasty meat, I'll have to say. Me, Becky and Ashis Dai eating some sunghur ko masu (pig meat) But enough about parties and meat, how was the school, you ask? Well, the problem I have right now, after one month of no internet and no electricity, how do I start? One month is a lot of time to tell in one blog post, and to be fair, a lot always happens in a month's time. The school is wonderful. I was so happy to see these kids again, who I've lived with for two months in Tanahu, and they were (I hope, at least) also very happy to see me. But there is more. New admission 'happened' two months ago, so in addition to the 15 students that I already knew, there were some 30 more to get to know. And what students they are. If I thought that Tanahu children were 'rough', Udayapur children are even more used to hard work, and they are probably ten times crazier too. These kids really know how to make me smile. Imagine, I'm giving class, serious english class, and there's a slug sliming its way up the clay wall of the classroom. 'Look miss,' Nishan says,'I eat slug, ok?' and with one big gulp he swallows the slimy creature, after which he smiles at me broadly. 'Tasty?' I ask, and he nodds happily. 'Another one!' someone says, and as Nishan reaches for it to eat it I just manage to take it from his hand. 'No eating during class', I say. Another class. French class to the A-class. I'm teaching them sentences that might be useful for them. 'Je peux boire quelque chose?' (can I drink something?), Je peux aller a la toilette (can I go to the toilet?) when Komala asks: ' Miss, how do you say 'can I spit' in French?'. I look it up in the dictionary. 'Je peux cracher', I say. 'Madame, je peux cracher?' she asks me. Smilingly I answer 'bien sur' and she goes outside to spit a nice flume on the pebble street. Then, excited by this new word, all the kids ask me the same question, and after class the street is covered with all different shades of spit. Lovely. The B-class kids planting flowers next to their classroom I love these kids, I love teaching, but I'm sure that if I only write about how wonderful teaching is you will not be reading this blog very much (neither would I) so I will see what else happened. Thing is: There is no children boarding at this school, so after 4 o clock you're pretty much free to do anything you want. Anything. You can play chess. You can read a book. You can gather firewood. You can cut firewood. You can build something out of bamboo. You can write in your journal. You can drink roxy. You can cook dinner, or go to one of the canteens and have someone cook dinner for you. And, most of all, you can listen to the radio. Ashis dai and his radio are inseparable. After being in this village for the past three months or so he developed a routine of waking up with the radio, and going to sleep with it (many a night I heard him say 'hajur, hajur', to whatever the newsreporter had to say). By now, I know all the songs and advertisements of Kantipur FM. 'Turn on your radio, turn on your radio, the sweet sounds you hear everywhere that you go, on your radioooo'. Sometimes only books and radio wasn't enough and I would get a kick out of just leaving with some of the children after school and sleep at their houses. By now, I've slept at Buddhaps, Parbatis, Kamalas and Roshanis house, which is always absolutely wonderful and interesting, too. Parbati, for example, didn't even turn out to have a house at all when she invited me. Just a bamboo hut. I can sleep anywhere happily, bamboo hut or fancy hotel alike, but it just surprised me because Parbati is soo rich of mind, I expected her to be rich in means too. Me and my assumptions. Parbati's half-sister at the bamboo hut. Ramesh's mother Roshani and our new kitten, Marie Tiksa. Marie because Rikke's sister who just graduated is called Marie, en Tiksa because I don't want to call the cat Marie and I like walking around the village with the cat on my shoulder saying 'sabbhei tiksa, tiksa' (Everything ok, Tiksa) while she meows violently in my ear. Tug of war during sports day
Anyway, time to go, I will write more about Udayapur when I go there again in a week, with my mom who arrived in Kathmandu two days ago. Hello mom:) Internet. At last. Having spent the last month on the top of a hill in Sagarmatha, with no internet, no mobile connection (the tower was broken) and even no light inside the house but the skinny skinny candles they sell at the local shop and the smoky light of the fire we use to cook our food---I'm afraid I've been a little out of touch. But at least I had a view on Mount Everest. But before I tell you of all the adventures I've had in the other Maya school on the top of the hill, I will first talk about all the hours it takes to get there. In the bus. So here is a blogpost about the wonderfulness of nepali buses. Some statements: Manjil: 'Nepali people can sleep anywhere, under any circumstances' True. During my moderately uncomfortable nightly busride from Kathmandu to Gaighat the boy who was sitting next to me kept on falling asleep and placing his head very cutely on my shoulder or sometimes even-rather painfully-*toek* bumping my head with his whenever the road would be bumpy. He didn't know I have lice but que garnee. I think I've had at least 5 complete strangers sleeping on my shoulder by now in the bus, in situations where I would find it very hard to fall asleep at all. Nepali people drive dangerously Not at all. However, I also believe that in a country where you have to drive on unpaved roads on the edge of very very steep cliffs with landslides blocking your way, there is not really any way to drive safely. Ashis told me a -not very comforting story- about this big big rock that was blocking the road after a landslide, and when the people came to break the rock into tiny pieces to level the road they found out that under this rock was a steel plate, and under this steel plate was a bus, completely flattened, with the corpses of the passengers also leveled to the ground. Thanks Ashis, you really know how to make people feel at ease during their busride. I have always felt very safe in the hands of nepali busdrivers, who seem to know exactly when to stop, to honk, or whether its a good idea or not to take over in the middle of a turn (it usually is). I am really really amazed how they pull it off though, driving without any accidents through inhospitable terrains, often driving for 12 hours on end without taking more than 20 minute break for some dahl baht or a 5 minute break for some chia and then moving on again. It makes me think about how Dutch busdrivers are forced to make a one hour stop after 4 consecutive hours of driving. And it makes me think that it's maybe really not at all that safe:P However, I do believe that in the hands of a Dutch busdriver in Nepal you'd die way quicker than in the hands of a nepali one. You probably wouldn't even make it out of the driveway. Nepali people are very patient Yes. Definitely. More than me, at least. 'The bus will come at 11' ' oh no, I was wrong, it will come at 2' -sitting in a very very sweaty roadside cafe, already having had 2 drinks, having finished my book and having taken a nap as well, and still it's not even noon- let's just say I'm growing some reserves of patience while I'm here. On the way up from Gaighat to Rotha (some 4 hours up an unpaved track) we had to stop and get out 3 times overall; one time because a tyre broke and had to be replaced-everybody was waiting patiently as the conductor boys struggled with the tyres; one time because there was a landslide making the road too small to go accross-then all the men from the bus worked together to pile rocks and make the road wider again; and one time simply because we were stuck in the mud. I'm really impressed with how badly the people wanted to take the bus up, waiting for hours just to get an hour further up the hill (which would take the same amount of time walking). The texts painted on buses are hilarious True. It paints a very funny and slightly macho picture of being a bus- or truckdriver, when on the back of the bus or truck it is painted, in colorful letters: black viper; knight rider; summer of '69; king of the road; make peace, not war; SEE YOU (written enormously large); One mistake: game over; (there are also often paintings of burning footballs for some reason); and of course 'Sound to pass' which everybody does happily. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Now grab your hands. The circle you see is your personal space NOT. The perception of personal space is very very veeeery different from the Netherlands, where we usually keep at least a meter distance in public places. Here it is completely normal to have your body fully squeezed against another person in the bus, even if that person is a man. Often this is because the buses are too full and too small, so that if all the spots are filled you are sitting with your legs in between the legs of the person across from you. Sometimes, when sitting on top of a bus for example, you might have to interlink hands to prevent yourself from falling off-or to save others from falling. In return for this close contact, it is perfectly okay to give your bag-or baby, for that matter- to another person to keep on his lap when your lap is full or when you are standing. Kind of handy. Now some tips to people strange to nepali buses.
Kids putting prints of ferns on Jisu's hands-fern powder is the best (Two internet cafes and a few hours later I am again at the beginning of writing my blog post- I hope it works this time) This week, we painted the school. When I suggested the idea to Yoon (who leads the school when Manjil isn't there) he said 'ok, why not turn this week into art week'-and so we did (zo gezegd, zo gedaan). It's as easy as that. As long as pay for the paint, because money is as always a little short. It's the beginning of the school year anyway and there is lots of space for creativity in the curriculum at this time. So we decided that in the morning, we would have art, and in the afternoon theater (two really cool volunteers from France, Corali and Simon, gave that). So we painted And we painted Goma doing a chicken-local punishment-in the classroom while painting (she was talking Nepali in class) Until the painting drove us a little crazy. And after that, we painted some more. I asked the kids to design a flag for Maya school, one which would really represent what it means to be at Maya. Grade three (the Tigers), who are really smart, all drew hearts and flowers and it was really boring. Fortunately, grade two (simba), had a lot of artistic geniuses. They started off with hearts, but then i rolled my eyes and sighed how unoriginal they were, after which they came up with: Flying Santa Clause (Ashik), a big picture of Manjil Sir's screaming face (Shreejana), and Yoon sir on a motorbike (Kushal). Although all were great, we chose the latter. After which we painted it together with Simba class Yoon, the kids, and the famous Maya flag And of course, Weike wouldn't be Weike if I didn't choose to hang it up in the highest tree:) Of course, apart from painting a lot of other things happened. But I like to paint, so I like to talk about painting. Um. I made pancakes. I started to learn nepali writing. I made pancakes whilst learning nepali writing. Yoon left to Kathmandu to again arrange his visa (he's a friend of Manjil's from South Korea who just never left Maya school) and I was left to lead the school together with Manjil's mom, haha. Making the schedule in the morning, leading the morning circle, and of course teaching (English and art now that George has left us as well). With only 4 volunteers we are starting to get a little overworked (sometimes there were twelve) doing construction before and after school, and teaching during the day but at the same time it's kind of necessary that the new classroom will be done before monsoon really starts. We can't teach the kindergarten kids and the Sengja A kids in the same classroom all the time-gets a little distracting. Also, we (by we, meaning Rabindra Dai and Soubas Dai) found a bees' nest and we took it out of the tree into our own bee hive. After three hours of trying to find the bee queen (and Rabindra being stung at least thirty times), we finally managed and we had our own bee colony which we happily hung, where else, in one of the classrooms. For one day. And after that one day, the bees were sick of all the noise and commotion around them and they left again. But at least we got to eat the fresh bees' honey which is-I can hardly express it-heavenly to say the least. Yum. The bee's honey which we cut up into tiny pieces and shared with all the kids
Anyway, lots of love, write you next time. Weike (Ramaylo-my Nepali name. Which means Funny. Of which I'm not sure whether it's a compliment) Roshani, Nisha and I seeking shelter from the storm inside the main building All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go, I am standing here outside your door, I hate to wake you up to say goodbye... This week was all about goodbyes it seems. The 15 Udaypur kids (East school) who had been living with us for the past 2 months left yesterday, back to their own school which fortunately can continue to exist. With them, the kids took Manjil and three of our volunteers; Dainora, Rike en Becky. Which leaves at our Maya school only George, Milena, Kim, Wenmay and Neville as the volunteers, of which Milena, Kim and Wenmay will be leaving in two days as well. Que garnee. On top of all this leaving, Dora has gone to Kathmandu for further treatment of her yellowness-which is quite serious so she will be heading home to Germany by Friday. Nina went with her as her beautiful German nurse. Nina with the Udaypur girls at a poetry festival in Tanahusur Now I am sitting at the downhouse and the neighbor shopkeeper asks me 'saati, khoi?'- where are your friends? I answer that a lot of them have left now and she invites me over for some tea at her place. While sitting on her porch together with her husband, mother and other neighbors they say ' we are your friends now'- I have the sweetest neighbors:) On 1st of May we had a spontaneous sports day with the entire school, because Niki Miss was jokingly complaining in the morning that the entire country had the day off and we didn't. So half an hour before school started we made up 15 competative games to play and the Mayalimpics were born, a new tradition for a new school. Roshani doing an amazing jump at hurdles Kamala being very supportive of her team-in permanent marker Soubas Dai with his beautiful smile It was a beautiful week of goodbyes, this week. We gave the Udaypur kids so much attention-I really feel like they were my children (they also all called me momi) and it's really strange now that they have left. We watched movies with them, fixed their clothes, lice combed their hair one last time and on Thursday night we had one big big party with banana pancakes and chocolate milk and dancing around the campfire which left them high on sugar and cocoa for the entire night until about 1 am-at least they were (hopefully) sufficiently tired to sleep in the bus. Parbati with her friendship bracelet Manjil made all of the local kids write love letters to the Udaypur kids and vice versa, which led to a lot of giggling and some true confessions of love. Some very intense ones. Parbari wrote to Pushbin, of course-what will they do without each other-something like this: for Pushbin (Somehow all the letters they wrote ended with ok bye, ok buy or other variations-it's the latest trend) On the last day we all stood in a circle with the Udaypur kids, gave them some booklets with pictures that Becky had printed out for them and hugged them goodbye. I yelled 'Ok bye' after them as they walked down the hill with their bags, ready for 15 hours of puking in the bus. George, Milena and I looked at each other, being now the only 'senior' volunteers-and we realized that everything will be ok. Now we finally have time to give attention to the Senjay kids who also arrived last week and we have been horribly neglecting because of our goodbye rituals. Also , I am taking up the plan to paint the school for the next two weeks as a surprise to Manil when he comes back-the art classes will be very practical from now on. I hope Maya is ready for this. Elisha-one of the new kids who will now be my new children.
And also-in one month I will be leaving to the Udaypur school as well-when Dainora leaves there I will be the one taking over the art classes at that school (and French)-so no permanent goodbyes-yet. Though this one was intense enough. Ok, bye. Me putting on my basket to get some water at the tap And then there was this guy with a fancy camera who took some pictures of us, which I gladly stole from him. When you click on the pictures they *should* get bigger, if you want to look at them more closely. The adventures this week, as concise as possible because as always no time and I have to write before there is another power cut-a race against the clock: #1 Dora was sick all week-and she still is. She was yellow, very very yellow and has now been spending at least a week at Manjil's mother's place in Damauli with some sort of liver infection, unable to move or to eat. She looks like a Simpson, except also her eyes are yellow. #2 With Dora being sick, we had to all think of what to do with the 25 children who were usually under her care (the monkey class and the hippo class), I did this together with Tilu, Kim and Sekuntala, which was great and exhausting at the same time, especially on the days that the children wanted to climb out of the window. #3 In this class there are children ranging from 3 to 7 years old, and it took a week before Amen (a 3 year old boy) stopped crying incessably in class-or anywhere really-poor boy:) #4 I gave a singing class to the simba class, and when the song proved to be a bit too difficult to them, Kushal suggested 'you sing, we dance, ok?' so this is what we did. I love these kids. #5 Twelve new kids arrived from the East Maya school, which also is under threat of being closed down. They will now also live at Maya school for the next three months while Manjil and others are trying to save their school. Maya school also adopted two boys from Kathmandu. For ever. Such a strange thought. #6 The new kids from the East school had very very veeeery many lice, like their hair was some kind of squirmy black grassland, so we had to cut the hair of some of them quite short-which looks actually elegant on the girls. Maybe I should cut my hair too, because the lice are building a nice village on my head as well. SHAVE IT ALL OFF! Bald Weike, what a sight. #7 Then we jokingly told the girls who were already living with us that we would cut their hair too (in their sleep), which resulted in a lot of girls crying literally all afternoon and at night they all went to bed with a towel around their hair, haha. Childhood traumas in the making. #8 One night all the volunteers practied parts of the New Zealand Hakka (some kind of aggressive dance they perform before a football game) until 3 'o clock in the morning, and the next morning for the morning games we did the dance in front of the children, and we won the game for the first time in history-they were so impressed, ahem. These kids are very difficult to beat though, in our defence. 'Kamata Kamata Korre Korre, Timata Timete Hurre hurre. A Hupane, a Hupane, A hupane hupane Mafasa Fitere Fititera!' #9 I am finally managing to have very short and shallow conversations in nepali. But when I go shopping and I ask 'Koti paisa ho' (how much is it) and when they answer in nepali I usually get a little lost and just give them a big bill so that they won't notice that I actually have no clue about nepali numbers above 20. I love screaming HOINA (no!) when the children are naughty, with the meanest intonation I can come up with. Nepali is such a beautiful language :) #10 Not only am I learning nepali, my English is also nepalizing. I catch myself saying 'eeschool' instead of school, and 'same same' and just generally speaking with the kids intonation. So bad, but funny at the same time. #11 For the next weeks the weather forecast is 35 degrees celcius every day so I hope I will survive until the next blog post. Fortunately in the shop next to the downhouse they sell burraf, which is frozen milk mixed with sugar and massala, a very strange yet refreshing mixture. # 12 Wanting to buy burraf but having no money is very sad and problematic but because my sweet sweet daddy was playing with my internet banking my card is now blocked so I didn't manage to get any money out last week. Fortunately now I tried with my credid card and that still works. Stop looking at my bank statements Theo, I still have enough money!. Don't worry-money doesn't move very fast here. One burraf popcicle is 5 NRs. Which equals 5 eurocents. Party time. # 13 At full moon I couldn't sleep all night so I spent the night staring at the moon, walking to the uphouse though the jungle, trying to sleep on the balcony there, failing because of musquitos, waiting until sunrise and then walking back to the downhouse to try and sleep some more. Sleepless nights can be very exciting with animal sounds in the forests and mist covering all the mountains. #14 Those musquitos are an adventure in themselves. Those bloody, bloody musquitos. Die. With this cheerful ending I will end this post, write you guys next time! Walking around in rainy Damauli Parvati, the perfect student Me and the Monkeys doing our morning ritual of goodmorning songs Deinora smurfing the stones to smurf some steps Neville looking like a smurf Headmaster with no shoes-talk of the village 'Eating time' -me running to my breakfast of Dal-Bhat
Annapurna Sunrise in Pokhara It took me many years of waiting and travelling across half the globe to get there but now I finally am where I belong: in the Seventies. Last Sunday in Nepal we celebrated new years, so now I am living in 2070, I bet it will take a while before you can say the same:) Now, what is happening in the future? Forget about all your silly theories that climate change will have flooded half the earth, or that aliens will come and destroy/enlighten us: life in the seventies is very similar to 2013, though it is much closer to nature than in 2013. And it is a little more chaotic and unpredictable, which I enjoy. Let's start with the week I spent in Pokhara, the last week of '69: simply put, I was sick all week. Change of environment, change of climate and change of food (no Dal-Bhat every day) apparently does me no good. The only day I was able to move without wanting to vomit we went on a walk to the sunrise point about two hours away from the city, and there you could finally see the snowy mountains without them being covered in a misty haze. We were supposed to meet a friend up there and stay at his place, but due to chaotic circumstances (turned out he didn't live on top of the hill but an hour away from the sunrise point in the middle of the jungle) we found ourselves stuck on this sunrise point with no money or place to sleep. What to do? Que garnee? Sleep under the stars, of course. We managed to somehow borrow two blankets from a restaurant (though they might have been the blankets of one of the owners sons) and made ourselves comfortable on the top of the hill: some chocolate, a nice candle, and a reasonably good night's sleep at the top of the hill (except George kept on stealing my blanket) . And the next morning we had an amazing sunrise which made it all worth it: the sun rising above the Annapurna hills. Dora and I enjoying the sunrise After seeing the sunrise we went down again and I continued my routine of being sick all day (we couldn't stay at our guesthouse anymore because it was starting to slowly slide into the construction site below so we had to be evacuated)-kind of comfortable, lying on a mattress in a hippie bar with a fresh pack of ice on my head trying to break my fever, haha. It was almost enjoyable being sick in such a luxurious environment :). Nevertheless, I decided to return home early because I felt that the mountain air in Chisopani would do me good-and as soon as I returned home, I was better:) I guess I was just homesick. Dora at Freedom Cafe in Pokhara Back 'home', we celebrated new years with the entire village, eating food and of course dancing into the night. It seems that here, there is always something to celebrate-we move from festival to festival and inbetween we try to give some classes. On Monday, half the children didn't show up for school because it was the first day of the new year. Who did show, however, were the new admission kids--sooo many! And they all were put either in the kindergarten class or in grade one (the Monkeys and the Hippos) which means that now there are 25 children in those two classes! This is about half the school and Dora is the main teacher so I decided to help her out. We moved to a different classroom (a lovely bamboo one-much better than the dark stone one they had before) and started planning 'Doraland'-a Montessori-like environment for the little ones so that they can also entertain themselves and we don't have to teach them all day, haha. Enfin, the rest of the week we tried to have school but more holidays showed up: on Thursday there was a holiday, I think-in any case the village pig was being cut so all the village came to see and get some pork meat, because everybody had been waiting for ages to taste that pig's juicy meat. Of course we also joined the festivities-where the meat goes, I go-I must be the worst vegetarian in the world:) so we had some Roxy, some pork (which was mostly just pure fat-like eating a labello stick. The men dividing the pig up into equal pieces Becky enjoying her piece of fat-she loves it Friday I thought that there would be school, but it turned out to be another holiday, so only 4 kids showed up .We decided to take them and the 15 Sagarmatha kids who are staying with us on a little school trip to the festival in Tanahusur, a village 3 hours away from Maya school. So up and up the hill we went with our bunch of crazy children, taking breaks wherever there was a fruit tree, a swinging tree or a piece of shade. Parvati swinging on the improvised swing during one of our maaaany many breaks. When we finally arrived at the festival-which in this case was very much like a nepali style fun fair (kermis) everybody was so exhausted that all we could do was to sit down and eat, which we did:) And after one hour it was threatening to rain (jej monsoon) so we had to take all our little chicks down again. Pushbin and Parvati (behind him) in one of their many tickle fights-looove is in the air
Anyway, time to go, djam djam. I will try to write again next week when there will be normal school again, hopefully. Though when it's raining there is no bus going to Damauli- so we will see. Lots of love from chaotic Nepal. Rabina and bubbles
Right now I am in Pokhara until Saturday and I have time to write some postcards, so whoever wants a postcard from Nepal--please comment with your address so that I can send it to you:) It takes about hum hum hum time until it arrives so if you're thinking of moving in the next three weeks, give me another address:) You can also send *me* a postcard, haha that would be so funny, the address is Maya Universe Academy, Zone Gandaki, District Tanahu, Village Byas-4 Ratamata. There isn't really a mailbox at Maya school, but the postman in Damauli apparently really likes us so he would be willing to walk two hours up the hill for us. Love, Weike |
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