School Life: Experiences and Challenges

I think it’s just about time for me to write a bit about the actual work, we are doing here, during our volunteer period, as well, as write a bit about the Nepalese school system and what we experience day by day out of this.

Our first interactions with the school happened around our third week spent in Nepal, when we started visiting some schools where we could possibly work. Finally, we have been to four different schools – all with different backgrounds, atmosphere and expectations: from the elite-looking private school, where they were looking for third language teachers (beside Nepali and English) to the public school where the most important priority was to teach the kids English – especially creative writing. To understand the situation better, it might be important to know that in Kathmandu you can almost find a school at every corner – most of which are private schools. There’s no obligatory education here, only in the first few classes, and also the number of public schools provided by the government is not enough. Therefore schools here seem kind of a business to me: with different admission fees, different prestige and continuous competition between each other. Also, as I have observed is, while the official language here is Nepali, English language knowledge is pretty important to manage better in life – at least if one lives in the city. (In the countryside – as far as I understood – the situation is more complicated due to the more than 100 language spoken in the country and due to the fact that in the countryside, people often even lack Nepali language knowledge.) Despite that while in most private schools, education is in English, in public schools the teachers can choose whether to teach in Nepali or in English – which will result in better understanding of the subject, but weaker English knowledge as well. I think this kind of background setting can explain why we were facing different needs in different schools.

Later, as we started working at the field, we experienced more and more about Nepalese life, the school system, and realized more and more differences and similarities between the schools.

As for me, I finally started working in one public (Guheswore Public School) and one private (Societal School) school, besides spending weekly two days in the office as well. I found that spending time in the school is a great way to get to know more about Nepalese way of life, way of thinking and also a great platform to exchange culture, ideas, stories etc. One of the biggest different that I felt compared to the system in Hungary, is that in a way school pretty strict here: every day is starting with a morning assembly and by singing the national anthem, usually the students and the teachers, too are wearing uniform, the most usual teaching method is to make students repeat the material again and again and there’s not too much platform for the students to express their own ideas, feelings – especially if it’s different from the teacher’s own. Well, it’s true, that regarding this issue, there’s a slight different between the public and the private school: in my public school I experienced slightly more space for freedom and creativity. Because of these differences, you have to balance pretty carefully between adapting to local teaching methods and sticking to your own beliefs and trying to “provoke” the system by making the lessons more interactive and paying attention on individuals, too, not only the group.

Connected to the different background, different teaching methods and also our different native languages, sometimes it can mean quite a challenge to control the class, keep their attention while somewhere presenting a different attitude than the local teachers. Being alone in the class (with not too much teaching experience) where the students all speak a different language and you have no control tools in your hand (we are not giving marks, no punishments etc.), I think the only way to still rule a class, is to make the lesson as interesting, interactive and appealing, as possible. Another thing that might raise some challenges is related to the gender roles here, which are pretty different from the ones in Europe. In both my schools I realized that boys and girls hardly ever sit by each other – normally all the girls are in one side of the class and all the boys in the other side. When asking any questions, boys are lot more probable to answer and express their thoughts than girls, while girls often just look down when a question is addressed to them and just say quietly: “I don’t know”. Playing a game, when the kids had to group themselves according to different categories, I also faced the difficulty of mixing up girls and boys, because identifying themselves as a member of gender groups was so strong that it took some time to get them disconnected from these categories.

 Despite all these challenges, I have to add that working in the schools can be really-really rewarding: once you have caught their attention and taken the control of the class, the students are all very curious about anything, you want to teach them and are very happy and excited about having foreign teachers in their class.

The activities that we launch at the schools always depend on the schools’ and the children’s needs and interest. As for me, in the private school, the only request was to follow the children’s wishes – according to which we started learning a bit about Europe, play games about European countries, and make comparisons between Hungary and Nepal. Later, I would love to launch some awareness programs with the teenagers about for example discrimination or peer violence, as well.

Meanwhile, at the public school, the expectations from me were more concrete: they asked me to work on the kid’s English knowledge, learn about letter and essay writing, as well, as prepare some conversations for them. Finally, I followed these instructions with the upper classes (class 7 and 8, aged around 14-15), while with the younger ones (class 5 and 6, aged 10-13) we concentrate more on stories, in order to improve their English, as well as understand some of the morals of for example Aesop’s Fables. It was also a very interesting experience to guide some activities when they had to finish an uncompleted story or make their own stories. It showed to me for example, how clear they are about right and wrong and how much they are trying to solve all kinds of conflicts in a very peaceful way. For example the ending of a story about some too proud animals that were caught in a hunter’s trap, except for one, was that the one will obviously help the others and they will all be very ashamed of the way they behaved before and about the way, how they didn’t care about each other. Another story was about some guys fighting over a girl, who finally started talking and understanding each other’s point of view, at the end deciding to be rather friends and not care about the girl anymore.

9 Days of Playing a Tourist

This month we decided to combine our free days with weekends and public holiday, so that we can have a little break from Kathmandu and work as well, and for the change, instead of trying to adapt Nepalese lifestyle as much as possible, now we wanted to play a little tourist for a few days – by visiting Nepal’s most touristic place, Pokhara and doing a five-day-long trekking in the Himalaya range as well.

Day 1: Kathmandu to Pokhara

Our adventure started with the challenge of getting from Kathmandu to Pokhara. By challenge I mean that this is a place where it’s even possible for a bus to take a 200 km distance in 8 hours or more! Well, in a way, we were prepared for this, in a way, not. There are lots of ways to get to Pokhara from Kathmandu: by little plane – which is pretty much unaffordable with our pocket money here – , by tourist bus, microbus or local buses. Well, we chose a “middle way” and decided to take a microbus, avoiding the goats and other animals in the public bus, but not going for the comfort of the tourist bus. Also, according to the reviews the microbus was supposed to be faster than the tourist bus. Well, it might be true for some of them, but we weren’t this lucky... After getting up early in the morning – which after living here more than a month, is not a challenge anymore – , finally we got on our bus at 7 in the morning – not knowing yet, that we will be still going in circles for an hour around Kalanki (one of the biggest traffic junction in Kathmandu) looking for other travellers to fill up the bus. Later, while driving up and down among hills and little villages, we experienced the same several times: since any time somebody got off the bus, we were waiting for new people to fill up the bus. During the sequences of sleeping and waking up (because of the hot, the lack of air and long waiting times), I slowly started to understand why we were the only non-local people on our bus. It seems, we were still not the masters of playing a tourist. :) At the same time of course this way of travelling is a type of adventure too: meeting new Nepalese people, having lunch at a restaurant not so much designed for tourists and making fun about Nepali time, where any amount of time is just a rough estimation. We realized this again (after so many times while being in Nepal) when after the driver saying that Pokhara is only 2 hours away (“no Nepali time, for sure”), 2 hours later, it was still 2 hours away.

Well, after the 8-hour-long microbus adventure, we finally arrived in Pokhara, just in time to have a glimpse of this peaceful city situated on a lakeside, by the feet of Himalaya mountains and also to get ready for the trekking starting next day. Although before leaving for Pokhara, we already spent an afternoon in Thamel looking for all the necessary equipments (proper backpack, trekking trousers, and T-shirt, ponchos for the rain, tablets for the water, mosquito cream etc.) – and at the same time having lots of fun with shopkeepers chatting and bargaining which we are getting better and better at – there were still a few things to arrange in Pokhara. First of all, we met our guide for the trekking, and got our ACAP permit and TIMS card – the two obligatory documentation that you are supposed to have when entering the Annapurna Conservation Area. By the way, regarding this issue, now looking back, I wouldn’t recommend travellers to have a guide on this route (Nayapul-Ghandruk-Tadepani-Ghorepani-Thiketunda-Nayapul), since the way will be pretty obvious and it’s quite difficult to actually get lost around here.

Well, anyway, after arranging everything, we still had a little time to enjoy the peace of the lakeside and get ready in mind for the Himalaya adventure starting next day.

Day 2: Nayapul (1070 m) to Ghandruk (1940 m)

After getting up early just so that we could still have an amazing breakfast of homemade cheese bread at our guesthouse (Oju Guesthouse – great place, I highly recommend!), we met our guide in the morning and started our almost 2 hour long bus trip to Nayapul – situated only 40 kms from Pokhara. Finally, we had a special guest on our trip too, since our guide’s wife accompanied us as well, completing our group of four (Stella, my Spanish friend, me, Dan, the guide and Tara, the wife) for the next five days. Although she didn’t speak too much English, through our half Nepali, half English conversation –combined with some activity – she became a very good company during our trip.

When we got to Nayapul around 11 am and took our first steps of the altogether 58 km long trekking route, we had no idea about what was waiting ahead of us. The first day’s trek started with a road leading slightly upwards – although which due to the terribly hot weather still meant quite some challenge to us. Fortunately during the trip we got to know some very tasty, a bit raspberry-like, yellow berries (aasauli) which worked as great refreshment on the way, while –  to my greatest surprise – our guide took out some umbrellas against the sun (who would have thought that “professionals” walk with umbrella in the mountains? :)). On the way we passed small villages, corn and rice fields, saw drying hay and women carrying huge piles of them... After several hours of walking we stopped for a short break to have a life saving orange juice – and also, we had to realize that in the mountains all the prices won’t be the same as we are used to anymore – a typical dish of dal bhaat, which normally you can get for 150 rupees will cost you around 400 rupees!!

Well, it was only after the break that the real climbing started. So dear travellers, here comes the most important information of this trekking route: be prepared for the steps!!! What we didn’t know is, that from here on, we didn’t only start to climb up and up, but the whole way lead through endless stairs to the top of the mountains – on the way passing by small villages again where elderly women with huge packs and children as well were walking up and down showing no sign of feeling tired. At the same time while we were struggling with all the steps, we saw buffalos, cows, mules and goats all over the hillsides. Meanwhile the hot midday was followed by an afternoon shower – that later became the usual part of the daily schedule – and after climbing some more steps we slowly arrived to our final destination of the day in Ghandruk just in time to see the sunset over the mountains.

After all this unbelievable day, the best part of the evening was an interesting conversation with the fellow Canadian guests at our guesthouse (Peaceful Lodge) and the realization that we finally had about 12 km and almost 900 m of elevation behind us. With this thought on mind we already fell asleep at 9 pm – which also became the usual schedule for the rest of the trip. 

Day 3: Ghandruk (1940 m) to Tadepani (2680 m)

On the next day, we got up early (5:30 am) to get ready for the sunrise. This also became our usual habbit during the trekking route: getting up earlier and earlier to welcome the first rays of the sun peaking out slowly from behind the mountains. This morning – although I was already amazed by the view the previous afternoon – I realized that we have seen nothing from the place the day before: in the clear air of the dawn, behind the hills (that I thought were mountains) huge, snowy peaks appeared, reaching to the sky. While walking up and down in the village, listening to the mantra of some Buddhist monks nearby and taking millions of pictures of the sun rising from behind the peaks, I slowly started to actually realize that we were really in Himalaya mountains.

Since the day before we heard that there was also a small Hindu Temple about half an hour of walk from our lodge, I decided to take a morning trip there. Well, again the half an hour of walk lead straight upwards via endless steps and steps – but still, the hike was really-really worth. I could see the village of Ghandruk waking up: people driving their animals down the stairs, having their morning chat with the neighbours or I even saw a woman milking a buffalo. On the top a small temple was waiting for me – but what was even more stunning for me, was the view from the top of the hill where the temple was situated. From here I could clearly see the snowy mountains in the distance, so finally I decided to spend some quite time here watching the mountains and even trying to practise some of the tai chi steps we just learnt from our friend the other day.

After coming back (and again catching the atmosphere of the morning life of the village) to take my first breakfast in the mountains, we finally started our hike of the day to the village of Tadepani. This day’s walk was a lot lighter than the first day: although first we started again with our steps (from which we continues to have the view of the neighbouring mountains), later our way lead us into the shadow of the forest, where sometimes we could find jungle-like landscape, other times we were passing by small rivers, bridges and waterfall. This day it took us only 4-5 hours of walk to get to our final destination, meaning that we had a full afternoon there to have a rest, enjoy the view and explore this tiny village where people were drying strange kind of vegetable leafs and horses were carrying stones up the hill for a new guesthouse being built.

Day 4: Tadepani (2680 m) to Ghorepani (2874 m)

Still after the sunrise in Ghandruk, the dawn surprised me in Tadepani: here we were already waking up at 5 am without an alarm clock to possibly see the mountains early in the morning and again, we were really lucky with the clear weather – even despite the cold morning, it was really worth waiting for the sun to appear from behind the snowy mountains.

To gain some energy after the cold of the morning and before the day’s hike, this morning I got to try a Tibetan specialty: fried bread – a bit reminding me of doughnuts – , with real honey from Himalaya so after this, I could look after the challenges of the day with full energy.

Well, regarding this day’s hike, don’t let you confuse the low height difference between Tadepani and Ghorepani! We started the day with some step leading downwards about 400 m, just so that after we could climb up again even higher – and repeated this several times during the day. It was this day that we improved our Nepali knowledge with two very important words for the day: “okalo” – meaning up – and “oralo” – meaning down. 
It’s also amazing, how much the weather can change here in a very short time: while once it was sweating hot, by afternoon the usual rainfall arrived bringing so cold air with it that even in pullovers and rain ponchos, we were freezing.

Well, after all these challenges of the weather and the landscape, we finally arrived in Ghorepani (to Super View Lodge) in the late afternoon, just in time to still be able to wander around the village before the usual evening rainfall, this time even followed by a double rainbow! Not to speak about the very best part about our trekking route: It happened in Ghorepani, that after almost two month spent in Nepal, we got to take our very first real hot shower!!! I would have never thought that we would have to climb almost to 3000 m high to enjoy this experience!

Finally, we spent the evening drinking delicious milk tea by the fireplace, but didn’t forget to go to bed early (already around 8 pm!) getting ready for reaching the highest point of our trek next morning.

Day 5: Ghorepani (2874 m) to Poon Hill (3210 m) and Tikhedhunga (1500 m)

Next day, we got up at 4 am, to start our almost one hour long trek to Poon Hill, so that we would be still in time for watching the sunrise there. Already being prepared for the cold in the morning, this time – in the lack of a jacket – I already put on four T-shirts, a pullover and a rain poncho which seemed to be a perfect combination for climbing the steps in the cold and dark early morning. It was quite an interesting experience to see all visitors of Ghorepani getting moved so early in the morning and taking the same distance to Poon Hill all together, resulting in having about 200 people on the top by sunrise. On the top of Poon Hill (after paying 50 Rupees for entering the area), you can find a teahouse and a small lookout tower from which you can have a 360 degree view of all the mountains around, especially Annapurna range. Again, we were pretty lucky, since thanked to the rainfall the day before, we had a clear weather and a magnificent view of all the snowy mountains – some of them even higher than 8000 m! After taking a resting and picture time up on the top, we slowly walked down from Poon Hill and had our breakfast of Tibetan bread (again) on terrace of our lodge facing straight to the mountains. You can imagine that after all this, it was pretty hard to leave this nice village of Ghorepani, but our way already lead us downwards. And down and down and even more down... During this day – while passing through peaceful villages, as usual – , we finally descended  from Poon Hill 1700 m, reaching to the village of Tikhedhunga situated at 1500 m!

Well, this time we weren’t as lucky with our accommodation as all the other days before... Although by first sight it seemed pretty romantic that our lodge (Riverside Lodge) was built literally over the river and painted full of mandalas inside, later we had to realize that this setting has quite some disadvantages: just like that although they again promised us hot shower, finally we only got to take a slightly cool shower in the company of quite a few spiders – the biggest of them almost as big as my hand! I have never in my life seen this big spider, except for the zoo! Later we discovered that the situation in our room wasn’t much better either: several kinds and sizes of insects were walking peacefully up and down on the wall. Well, after ordering a milk tea that we got quite burnt, we decide to follow our usual routine of going to bed at 8-9 o’clock, hoping not to see any more insect company in the dark...

Day 6: Tikhedhunga (1500 m) to Nayapul (1070 m)

Despite of the evening’s experiences we still seemed to survive the night and finally started our light, 3-3,5 hours of walk of our last day.

Although I thought that this day wouldn’t keep too many surprises for us anymore, later I had to realize that I was wrong: even after leaving the huge mountains behind, we still got to follow a beautiful river most on our way, while we were also passing by high waterfalls and nice farms. When I saw a white horse running by the river and the feet of the hills, on the green field, I had the feeling that we are only missing the prince from this fairy tale...

Well, after the previous days, the four hundred meter height difference between Tikhedhunga and Nayapul seemed almost flat walk, so finally we got pretty early (11:30) to Nayapul, finishing the whole circle of the five-days trekking and being pretty proud and happy with our achievements.

We were even happier when getting back to Pokhara, we realized that the prices got back to normal too – so we found that the best way to celebrate all this was by getting some tasty samousas for 15 Rupees (!!!) each, having a lazy afternoon, and enjoying the evening in one of Pokhara’s nicest bar, Busy Bee with some live music and Nepalese beer. 

Day 7: Chill out in Pokhara

Well, it wasn’t on the trekking route, but only next day, when I realized, how much energy I was actually using in the previous days – resulting in a little after-trekking-sickness. Due to this I had to accept that my body needed another half day of rest...

Still – after receiving our flatmates, who at the meantime where travelling in Nepal’s famous national park, Chitwan – we had an amazing and peaceful afternoon, spent by the lake. Of course, we didn’t miss the experience of renting a boat either. It turned out that in the middle of the lake, you can even find a tiny island, with a small Hindu temple on it, called Barahi Temple. From the island, and the lake itself, you can get a pretty nice view of the combination of the lake and the hills around. 

Day 8: Pokhara sites

On our last full day in Pokhara, we decided to see as much of the city as possible. At the same time, I have to learn it here again and again, how important it is to sometimes lean back, not worry and +let the universe provide you what you need”. Well, following this rule, finally we spent the day with our “local guide”, a newly met friend from the trekking route, who we accidently bumped into later in Pokhara, as well.

After taking the local bus to the centre of Pokhara, we first visited a half underground waterfall, called Devi’s Fall and later moved to the other side  of the road, to see on of Pokhara’s several caves, the Gupteswar Mahadev Cave. Walking down in the cave, you can see a small Hindu Temple, but if you walk along even more, there’s another surprise waiting for you: you will see another pretty nice and big waterfall by the small light peaking in from outside between the rocks separated by the water.

Later, after chilling out for some time by the road, watching the people sitting around or passing by, and waiting for a maybe non-existing bus to take us up to the World Peace Pagoda (situated on the top of a hill over Pewa Lake), finally we teamed up with a Nepalese group (also waiting for the non-existing bus) to take a microbus together to the feet of the stupa. From this we only had 5-10 minutes of climbing till reaching the stupa itself that was decorated with golden sculptures presenting different scenes important in the Buddhist culture and also that had a beautiful view over the lake and the surrounding hills as well.

Walking down from the stupa the day was crowned by some icecream taken on the street, chilling out by the lake, as well as later having some real fresh fish (!!!) in one of the lakeside’s restaurants.

Day 9: Pokhara to Kathmandu

Learning from the experiences of the way to Pokhara, as for coming back to Kathmandu we decided to finally act like real tourists and come back on a tourist bus. While the tourist bus only costed us 150 Rupees more than the microbus, here we finally had room for both our legs and luggage and also, instead of 40 degrees, maybe it was only around 30 degrees in the bus and even together a change of a tyre on the way, the trip "only" took us about 7 hours.Well, finally we didn’t regret this choice, even though this way we missed the people, coming to give you blessing for the road (in return of some money), as well as the people selling cucumber and fruits on the road.

Finally we returned to good, old Sanepa in Kathmandu, bought or usual vegies in our usual shops, also realizing that here we were no more tourist anymore, but we were at home.