Community

Towards the end of last term a KISC family invited their childrens’ teachers around for dinner. So, on a Monday evening 14 KISC teachers piled into the KISC van for the 10 minute journey to this families house.

Teachers and student together

The family are a Korean family and have a son and daughter in Year 8 and 9 respectively. The parents speak very little English but have lived here 14 years and so are fluent in Nepali. Therefore much of the conversation was done by those teachers who speak Nepali or via KISCs Korean teacher and the students themselves.

Before dinner we decided it would be a good idea to be able to say how much we were enjoying the food. So while all the family were in the other room preparing the meal we asked Scarlett, our Korean teacher how to say “delicious”. As the mother walked into the room to tell us food was ready she was greeted with the sight of 14 teachers of various nationalities all attempting to copy the Korean teacher with various degrees of poor pronunciation. At least we could all say it was tasty in Nepali!

Swapping Glasses

We were then greeted with a delicious spread of traditional Korean food, including some kimbob. This was rapidly devoured and second and third helpings encouraged and taken. After eating we all sat around talking in the lounge, with the students, their 3 year old little brother and the parents. Conversation took place in Korean, Nepali, English and French. The students laughed and joked with us teachers. We all took turns in swapping our glasses around, trying to find a teacher who looked at least semi-cool in the daughters striking and very cool white framed glasses. And the 3 year old ran around encouraging and enjoying attention from us all. Proving in fact you don’t need to have language to be able to communicate.

KISC is a real community. And one we love being a part of.