Tuesday 29 January 2008

School

Having been here 3 weeks now there are so many things that we could tell you about. To make life easier on us, and to keep some content for a few months when things seem normal we'll try and focus on certain things each time we add a post to our blog. It seems sensible to start with the reason we are here.

KISC (Kathmandu International Study Centre) is a school setup for the children of missionaries here in Nepal. The school has been going for about 20 years and has grown a lot in that time. It's also had to cope with many changes of site and a high turnover of staff and pupils.

If you click on the link below you can see on the photos that the hall is yet to be finished. The basic frame of it was dismantled and bought from the old site, so it is just a matter of filling in the gaps! The school now doesn't have much open space so the PE department are eager for it to be ready so they will have some more space.

The main teaching block was a carpet factory before, with each floor being open plan, so they have had to put in walls to create classrooms. We think the admin block must have been offices for the factory. It's amazing to see how they have adapted what they had into a fully functioning school with good facilities.

The school day runs from 8am to 3pm. We have 2 hours Nepali each morning and an hour in the afternoon, so quite an easy day at the moment. It has been good to be in school though, as we are getting to know staff and enjoying the school meals put on for staff each day!

To view photos of the school:


Schoool photos


I'm planning on uploading some more photos to the general Nepal album, so you can check it out regularly to see if we've added more.

Friday 18 January 2008

Hello From Kathmandu.

Sorry for the delay in keeping in touch - we have had a bit of trouble getting onto our yahoo email at school and home as the network doesn't like it! We have been able to read some of the messages that people have sent - so thank you for those. We will hopefully get it sorted and reply next week sometime.

We've had a good first week here, settled in and enjoying ourselves. We are staying temporarily in a small flat, which is built as part of the KISC hostel which is used for boarding when needed. at the moment it has a lovely American family in it who are teachers at KISC too. The flat is directly behind the zoo, so we can hear Lions roaring regularly, and see the monkeys too - which are really noisy! They howl a lot!

We began our language lessons this week - we have 4 days a week, and one day cultural, so today we are off on a tour of Kathmandu. Should be interesting! There are 8 of us who are new at the school, two other couples - the husbands will both be teaching, and their wives doing other things, and 2 single ladies - both about our age.

Yesterday we spent about 4 or 5 hours at the airport and cargo building collecting our freight - in the end we got it without much hassle at all which was great - we were expecting it to be expensive and a lot of hassle - but it was just lots of waiting around!

Thanks again to those who have been in touch,

Dan and Becky.

P.S. If you'd like to see some photos, try this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25669&l=a0049&id=725531985

Thursday 10 January 2008

We've arrived

Just a quick one to say we are here. We had a good trip and arrived yesterday. We've settled in quickly to a small flat and are getting to know the area. We shall give a proper update with lots of news soon.

Dan & Becky

Tuesday 8 January 2008

Tonight we fly

Well this is it! After nearly 10 months of waiting the day is finally here. As Neil Hammond from the Divine Comedy put it:

"Tonight we fly
Over the houses, the streets and the trees -
Over the dogs down below;
They'll bark at our shadows
As we float by on the breeze.
Tonight we fly
Over the chimney tops, skylights and slates -
Over the hills and far away!
Tonight we fly
Over the mountains, the beach and the sea
Over the friends that we've known,
And those that we now know
And those who we've yet to meet."

We're all set now, our cases are packed, we had a good nights sleep, with dreams of arriving somewhere new and exotic. We are nervous and excited and many other emotions too. This evening we shall go to the airport with our families and say our final goodbyes.

It's been a great few weeks of seeing lots of friends and family and saying lots of goodbyes. Thanks for all your comments and well wishes. We know we'll be in your thoughts and you shall be in ours. We shall update this again once we arrive and let you know how we are settling in.

Keep in touch we want to hear all your news.

Goodbye!

Dan and Becky