Snack, or 'casa' in Nepali, is made and served everyday by the school caretaker. It's always a curry, usually potato and cauliflower (which I've since found out is called govi curry), which is eaten mixed together with chura, or beaten rice. I'm not a fan of chura, although others seem to love it. It's too dry and chewy for my taste. I'm not so sure about the govi curry, but I love the chickpea curry, pea curry, and mostly, noodles.
All the teachers eat lunch together, and its the main social time of the day. Caitlin and I don't often know what is being said, but sometimes someone will translate some for us. And of course, we are always asked if the food is tasty, and if the tea is hot. Every day.
After lunch is another free period, and then it's on to Class 5, our last lesson of the day. W've had this class the least - there was a period near the Jubilee where I didn't teach them for 2 weeks! They're also a great class; at an age where they can sit queitly, but still love the games we play with them. There's a few kids that stand out, but not as many as in my two other classes.
At thyis point the school day is over for us (it's now 3:20), so we head either home or to Gorkha, unless there is something going on at school. There have been farewell ceremonies, prize giving, quiz competitions, and even a joke competition. It's quite a busy school!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Teaching Update - part 2
The teaching part of the day begins after the break between periods 2 and 3.
When the bell rings it takes 2-3 minutes plus for everyone to get inside. The teachers don't start moving for at least that long. The first 5 or so minutes of the class is punctuated with repeated cries of "May I come, miss?". Over and over, because each kid says it individually. It's quite fun to see them go running for the classroom when they see me coming down the stairs, and they always look somewhat sheepish when they don't make it in time. The kids won't enter a room with a teacher in it without first asking permission, no matter what room it is. If you say no, they won't come in - I did that once to a kid who showed up 10 mins before class ended.
Period 3, in which I have class 3 and Caitlin has Class 4, is my favourite of the day. Every day when I walk into class I'm greeted with handfuls of red flowers. Sometimes they're even tied together with leaves to make a proper bouquet. By the time class is over my pocket is bulging with them. I've accidentally stained the inside cover of my textbook because I had nowhere else to carry them.
Class 3 is challenging, but a ton of fun. Everyone loves writing on the blackboard, so if I'm not careful there will be a full on stampede - I kid you not, kids crammed together to get as close as possible - when its time to fill in the answers. There are a few kids I need to pay particular attention to, like Munisa, who will fill in as many answers as she can instead of just one, and Ram, who gets so excited he runs out of patience and fills them in early. Overall theres lots of shouting a laughing, and its a ton of fun.
The kids are at the age of passing tons of notes in class, and the boys shot elastics at each other for a few weeks. Now they're on to paper airplanes, because I confiscated all the elastics. Kept my house in elastics too, we don't ever need to buy any!
Leaving the room is difficult, as the kids all want handshakes or high fives, and some like to hold onto my hand as long as possible. There's often quite the throng, and lots of yelling from the door of the room.
Immediatly after Class 3 comes Class 7, which is a nice change of pace. The classroom is much quieter, and everyone stays in their seats. They're just as much fun though, once you get to know them a little. We've been doing a lot of reading comprehension lately, and when someone puts an answer on the board, everyone tries to fix any grammar mistakes. It's fun to watch them discuss among themselves where the problems are. They love to hear us say 'no mistake', and ask it constantly. Caitlin thinks is because it sounds like 'namaste'!
The class has really come out of its shell over the past few weeks. At first they were hesitant to come to the board, and now about 1/3 love to do it, and compete with each other to get the right answer first.
There are over 60 kids in Class 7, the largest class Caitlin or I have - although Caitlin's Class 4's come pretty close! Everyone is so crammed in that you wouldn't think there are that many, but there definitely are. Marking their exams took forever! There are two rows of benches, one for girls and one for boys. The size of the class determines bench space per kid - in Class 7 there's 4 to a bench.
By this point it's 1pm, and we have another free period before lunch. It passes in the exact same manner as the first two periods. Caitlin and I are becoming masters at playing snake on her cell phone! And then its time to eat!
Teaching Update - Part 1
Now that school has been going on for over two months, it's time for an update. Our days at school follow a pretty similar pattern, so what you read here is pretty much how each of my days go.
Although school officially begins at 10am, Caitlin and I arrive around 9:45 for assembly. The kids line up by year, one row of boys and one of girls for each year, and do a mini-calisthetics program before singing the national anthem. I have no idea what they're singing, but I can repeat verbatim entire portions of the anthem.
There are 8 periods each day, each one 40 mins long. This is typical of Nepali government schools, all of whom run from 10-4 each day. The only difference is the exact times of each period, which varies slightly by school.
On the walk across the courtyard we are greeted by kids from almost every class. 'Good Morning', 'Namaste', handshakes and high fives fill the roughly 100m from the gates to the stairs, and then along the walkway to the staff room. Handshakes (the kids are obsessed with them, and equate a handshake with good) and high fives are almost exclusive to the younger classes, while all years say hello.
Unless a teacher is absent and a class needs to be covered, we have periods 1 and 2 free. We spend the time planning lessons, chatting, reading, playing random word games and staring out the window. Pretty much, we're bored. On nice days we take chairs out onto the walkway to enjoy the sunlight.
For the first six weeks or so there were about 10-12 student teachers. This meant there were always lots of people at the end of the walkway where the staff room is. It is quite a central location, teacher-wise, and there was a constant stream of people going by, an English teacher stopping to chat, or other teachers stopping to test our limited knowledge of Nepali. We're still getting better, but can still only handle the pleasantries.
Now that the student teachers have finished it is much quieter. The teachers are teaching the classes themselves now, and have much less free time. We've even found ourselves alone int the staff room!
Leading up to the Jubilee out headmaster, Mr. Ram Babu Shrestha (I love that name) was so busy he was almost never around. Now he's at school every day, so we see him quite a bit. He's a lovely man, and really makes an effort to ensure we are happy. Hopefully with his slightly less busy schedule we will be able to spend some time with him.
Although school officially begins at 10am, Caitlin and I arrive around 9:45 for assembly. The kids line up by year, one row of boys and one of girls for each year, and do a mini-calisthetics program before singing the national anthem. I have no idea what they're singing, but I can repeat verbatim entire portions of the anthem.
There are 8 periods each day, each one 40 mins long. This is typical of Nepali government schools, all of whom run from 10-4 each day. The only difference is the exact times of each period, which varies slightly by school.
On the walk across the courtyard we are greeted by kids from almost every class. 'Good Morning', 'Namaste', handshakes and high fives fill the roughly 100m from the gates to the stairs, and then along the walkway to the staff room. Handshakes (the kids are obsessed with them, and equate a handshake with good) and high fives are almost exclusive to the younger classes, while all years say hello.
Unless a teacher is absent and a class needs to be covered, we have periods 1 and 2 free. We spend the time planning lessons, chatting, reading, playing random word games and staring out the window. Pretty much, we're bored. On nice days we take chairs out onto the walkway to enjoy the sunlight.
For the first six weeks or so there were about 10-12 student teachers. This meant there were always lots of people at the end of the walkway where the staff room is. It is quite a central location, teacher-wise, and there was a constant stream of people going by, an English teacher stopping to chat, or other teachers stopping to test our limited knowledge of Nepali. We're still getting better, but can still only handle the pleasantries.
Now that the student teachers have finished it is much quieter. The teachers are teaching the classes themselves now, and have much less free time. We've even found ourselves alone int the staff room!
Leading up to the Jubilee out headmaster, Mr. Ram Babu Shrestha (I love that name) was so busy he was almost never around. Now he's at school every day, so we see him quite a bit. He's a lovely man, and really makes an effort to ensure we are happy. Hopefully with his slightly less busy schedule we will be able to spend some time with him.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Power Cuts
Power cuts and load-shedding are part of daily life in Nepal. People work their lives around them, and after a while you stop noticing. In the mountains a power cut can last anywhere from 1-2 seconds to several hours. When it's shorter ones there tends to be lots, but you never actually have any idea of how long the power will be out for.
We're actually quite lucky in the mountains. Although our cuts are scheduled and can last any amount of time, we have power fairly often, and usually in the evening. In Kathmandu the power cuts are 12 hours per day, and apparently often in the evenings. The trade off though, is that with a scheduled cut you can plan cooking rice for when the power will be on, instead of it being half done and the power cutting, which happens to us once in a while.
Outside of cooking rice, power cuts don't affect our lives very much. You just do everything by torch and candlelight instead of overhead light. With the possibility of it cutting at any moment, once it starts to get dark you always know in the back of your mind exactly where your headtorch and all the house candles are, to the point of easily being able to find them in the dark. We can all make our way to the kitchen from any part of the house, find a candle, light the stove, and light the candle from the stove, all in the pitch dark. And we haven't even eaten that many carrots!
Power cuts are such a part of Nepali life that mobile phones come complete with flashlights. I've even found a lighter with a flashlight on it!
Some nights I live in my headtorch, reflexively turning it on and off as the power does the same. I don't really even notice it any more, just turn it on and continue what I was doing. When the power goes out, conversation doesn't even pause, just continues like nothing happened, while one person goes and finds a light. Actually, we don't really look for lights anymore, as one person inevitably has one on them.
Some people, particularly hotels and restaurants, have generators, although some private homes do as well. Usually they're only turned on when needed, so when the power goes off there's a little while of dark before the lights come on again. Still, I don't really notice, and prefer when the lights are left off and just candles used.
The roof is a great place to be in the evening when the power is often going on and off. When it is on, you can see the lights of Gorkha across the valley, and many lights interspersed among the trees near the roof. When it goes off, the whole world suddenly goes dark, and then lights up when it comes back on. It's almost like the world is coming back to life.
We're actually quite lucky in the mountains. Although our cuts are scheduled and can last any amount of time, we have power fairly often, and usually in the evening. In Kathmandu the power cuts are 12 hours per day, and apparently often in the evenings. The trade off though, is that with a scheduled cut you can plan cooking rice for when the power will be on, instead of it being half done and the power cutting, which happens to us once in a while.
Outside of cooking rice, power cuts don't affect our lives very much. You just do everything by torch and candlelight instead of overhead light. With the possibility of it cutting at any moment, once it starts to get dark you always know in the back of your mind exactly where your headtorch and all the house candles are, to the point of easily being able to find them in the dark. We can all make our way to the kitchen from any part of the house, find a candle, light the stove, and light the candle from the stove, all in the pitch dark. And we haven't even eaten that many carrots!
Power cuts are such a part of Nepali life that mobile phones come complete with flashlights. I've even found a lighter with a flashlight on it!
Some nights I live in my headtorch, reflexively turning it on and off as the power does the same. I don't really even notice it any more, just turn it on and continue what I was doing. When the power goes out, conversation doesn't even pause, just continues like nothing happened, while one person goes and finds a light. Actually, we don't really look for lights anymore, as one person inevitably has one on them.
Some people, particularly hotels and restaurants, have generators, although some private homes do as well. Usually they're only turned on when needed, so when the power goes off there's a little while of dark before the lights come on again. Still, I don't really notice, and prefer when the lights are left off and just candles used.
The roof is a great place to be in the evening when the power is often going on and off. When it is on, you can see the lights of Gorkha across the valley, and many lights interspersed among the trees near the roof. When it goes off, the whole world suddenly goes dark, and then lights up when it comes back on. It's almost like the world is coming back to life.
Gorkha Museum - Saturday March 6
After shopping for khukuris on Friday afternoon, we had dinner at the Gurkha Inn, and spent the rest of the night relaxing just outside the door of the house in Gorkha.
Saturday morning the six of us headed out to the Gorkha Museum, which is situated on some very nice grounds (grass being quite rare here I can get a bit excited when I see some) just above the buspark. We went with Dinesh again, which was great, as he was able to explain quite a few things to us.
The museum is located in a 19th century Newari palace, built in a square shape with a courtyard in the middle. It's an impressive building, built entirely from dark brick, with dark wood trim.
As far as museum exhibits go, it was pretty lacking. There is a decent size collection of artifacts, which was fun to look at, but not much signage. I didn't often have much more than a general idea of what I was looking at, so it was great to have Dinesh there, as he was able to explain lots.
This was particularly good when we were in a hallway filled with weapons. Having just bought khukuris the day before, it was fun to see the same knives on display, and there were some big ones!
Gorkha is famous because it was the home of Prithvi Narayan Shah, the prince who united all of Nepal in 1768. It hasn't really capitalized on this in terms of tourism yet, but as an important place in the history of Nepal, being able to read the history of the region over the past 400 or so years brought some perspective to what PNS did. It makes his accomplishments all the more impressive.
Along another hallway is a row of paintings, depicting important events and people from the history of Gorkha region. They were all done by the same artist, which was pretty obvious as the style was all exactly the same. They were quite good, showing the weapons in action, style of armour, and even some with more everyday events. In one, depicting a king with his two wives, both wives had the exact same face. That was a little weird.
By far the best part of the museum was the grounds. There is a 2-level yard, and sitting on the top level we had a beautiful view over Gorkha and the valley beyond. It set the pace for the rest of the day - unhurried and peaceful.
Saturday morning the six of us headed out to the Gorkha Museum, which is situated on some very nice grounds (grass being quite rare here I can get a bit excited when I see some) just above the buspark. We went with Dinesh again, which was great, as he was able to explain quite a few things to us.
The museum is located in a 19th century Newari palace, built in a square shape with a courtyard in the middle. It's an impressive building, built entirely from dark brick, with dark wood trim.
As far as museum exhibits go, it was pretty lacking. There is a decent size collection of artifacts, which was fun to look at, but not much signage. I didn't often have much more than a general idea of what I was looking at, so it was great to have Dinesh there, as he was able to explain lots.
This was particularly good when we were in a hallway filled with weapons. Having just bought khukuris the day before, it was fun to see the same knives on display, and there were some big ones!
Gorkha is famous because it was the home of Prithvi Narayan Shah, the prince who united all of Nepal in 1768. It hasn't really capitalized on this in terms of tourism yet, but as an important place in the history of Nepal, being able to read the history of the region over the past 400 or so years brought some perspective to what PNS did. It makes his accomplishments all the more impressive.
Along another hallway is a row of paintings, depicting important events and people from the history of Gorkha region. They were all done by the same artist, which was pretty obvious as the style was all exactly the same. They were quite good, showing the weapons in action, style of armour, and even some with more everyday events. In one, depicting a king with his two wives, both wives had the exact same face. That was a little weird.
By far the best part of the museum was the grounds. There is a 2-level yard, and sitting on the top level we had a beautiful view over Gorkha and the valley beyond. It set the pace for the rest of the day - unhurried and peaceful.
Shopping for Khukuris - Friday March 5
The weekend of March 5-6, Amy and Kirsten went to Bandipur, while Caitlin and I stayed back in Laxmi as we had been invited to our headmaster's house. In the end he cancelled as he was too busy, but we had a nice weekend all the same. We went up to Gorkha on Friday afternoon, and spent the night.
Friday afternoon we went shopping for khukuri knives with Dinesh, a teacher at Julia and Ed's school. A khukuri is the traditional Gurkha weapon, carried into battle by Gurkha soldiers. Gurkhas are soldiers from the Gorkha region, who fought alongside Prithvi Narayan Shah to unite all of Nepal in the late 18th century. Incidentally, its also the name of a brand of rum.
A khukuri knife is long and slightly curved, and wider (towards the inside of the curve) at the tip than at the base. The shaft is quite thick, and is sharp on one side, the inside of the curve. Near the handle is a notch, to allow blood to drip away without going on the hand of the wielder. Those we saw had engravings on the shaft; it either said 'Gurkha army', was a geometric style design, or had a picture of a bird. These were primarily ornamental knives, battle ones wouldn't have intricate designs. One of Hari's knives has a engraving of a peacock, with the front and back of the bird on respective sides of the blade.
Khukuri knives range in size from 2-3 inches to two feet (the longest I've seen, there could be larger). The cases can be either plain or quite ornamental, with gold coloured designs and Nepali coins. The plain ones tended to be black, with perhaps a pin attached.
Looking at the selection (which became progressively wider as more and more knives just kept appearing from somewhere) was a lot of fun. There were all different sizes to choose from, with both wooden and bone handles. The combination of choosing size, handle, sheath and engraving meant you could make a knife fairly customized.
Khukuris are still used today. Animal sacrifices are done using them, and they are an important part of the history and culture of the region. One day at school, Druba, one of the English teachers, brought one out to show us. He just pulled it from his bag like it was the most natural thing in the world!
Oh, and Chris, Happy 19th a few weeks early.
Friday afternoon we went shopping for khukuri knives with Dinesh, a teacher at Julia and Ed's school. A khukuri is the traditional Gurkha weapon, carried into battle by Gurkha soldiers. Gurkhas are soldiers from the Gorkha region, who fought alongside Prithvi Narayan Shah to unite all of Nepal in the late 18th century. Incidentally, its also the name of a brand of rum.
A khukuri knife is long and slightly curved, and wider (towards the inside of the curve) at the tip than at the base. The shaft is quite thick, and is sharp on one side, the inside of the curve. Near the handle is a notch, to allow blood to drip away without going on the hand of the wielder. Those we saw had engravings on the shaft; it either said 'Gurkha army', was a geometric style design, or had a picture of a bird. These were primarily ornamental knives, battle ones wouldn't have intricate designs. One of Hari's knives has a engraving of a peacock, with the front and back of the bird on respective sides of the blade.
Khukuri knives range in size from 2-3 inches to two feet (the longest I've seen, there could be larger). The cases can be either plain or quite ornamental, with gold coloured designs and Nepali coins. The plain ones tended to be black, with perhaps a pin attached.
Looking at the selection (which became progressively wider as more and more knives just kept appearing from somewhere) was a lot of fun. There were all different sizes to choose from, with both wooden and bone handles. The combination of choosing size, handle, sheath and engraving meant you could make a knife fairly customized.
Khukuris are still used today. Animal sacrifices are done using them, and they are an important part of the history and culture of the region. One day at school, Druba, one of the English teachers, brought one out to show us. He just pulled it from his bag like it was the most natural thing in the world!
Oh, and Chris, Happy 19th a few weeks early.
The roof at night
- looking out over the valley towards Gorkha, the lights of the town strung along the mountainside
- cars snaking along the road between Laxmi and Gorkha, I can follow the progress by the headlights
- the noise of the road in the background, the noise of the farms in the foreground
- dogs barking, crickets chirping
- sometimes a neighbour on their way to the bathroom, along the path past the haystack
- buffaloes stomping and snorting in their shed
- music coming from the houses along the road
- groups of people talking, laughing and singing as they make their way home
- clear skies, bright moons and tons of stars
- random large bugs landing all over me
- the world lighting up and going dark as the power comes on and off
- my favourite place in the house
- cars snaking along the road between Laxmi and Gorkha, I can follow the progress by the headlights
- the noise of the road in the background, the noise of the farms in the foreground
- dogs barking, crickets chirping
- sometimes a neighbour on their way to the bathroom, along the path past the haystack
- buffaloes stomping and snorting in their shed
- music coming from the houses along the road
- groups of people talking, laughing and singing as they make their way home
- clear skies, bright moons and tons of stars
- random large bugs landing all over me
- the world lighting up and going dark as the power comes on and off
- my favourite place in the house
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