Our Travels

First Day Back

2012-01-17T15:52:00.000Z

Yesterday was our first day of school for 2012. It was a staff training day and as we gathered at 8 o’clock in the school courtyard we were greeted with doughnuts and lovely, warm masala tea. It’s a great start to the year on a cold morning as we great fellow staff who we haven’t seen for four weeks and find out about their adventures, and it was the first time for our 13 new staff to really start to meet the existing group. Word quickly spread that two of our teachers had got engaged the day before and there was a definite excitement to be back, despite the cold.

Our theme this term is "Excellence" and we enjoyed a session looking at the subject, including the obligatory team building game and our term verse of 2 Peter 1:5-7. Administrative meetings then took over for the rest of the morning as we handed out new timetables, went through arrangements for the mock exam week next week and the students reports which will follow the exams. During these meetings we heard the patter of rain on the roof. January rains, important as they can give vital extra power, but not always desirable as a cloudy day is a cold day. In a country with no central heating the cold can really hit home and every bit of sun at this time of year is important.

Our day had started with a little extra unexpected power, but then the bad news struck, we were now going up to 14 hours a day of power cuts. School uses a generator for power when there is none, but we only have four week’s worth of diesel and there is currently a fuel shortage in Nepal. If the situation doesn’t improve soon we are going to have to contemplate turning the generator off during the school day. Later in the day a member of the admin staff came to speak to me about gas bottles. We mostly use gas for cooking here and he was out and there were no bottles in any of the stores. Normally KISC has a good backup supply which staff can purchase bottles from, but even we are down to our last unused bottle and so we couldn’t sell him any.

At the end of our morning of meetings we joined with parents for our traditional Staff/Parent Prayer and Worship session we always hold at the start of the August and January terms. This is organised by the Parents and was a fantastic event yesterday. We sang praises to a great God, we joined in prayer for a whole range of things including a country that is much in need of prayer, our students, their families, our teaching training programme (EQUIP), our Nepali support staff – many of whom come from very difficult situations and much more. We ended with all the teachers stood at the front as the parents came up and prayed for us all. It was a great way to ready ourselves for the new term and hopefully a great introduction for the new staff to the blessings of KISC.

Then we got to share a wonderful lunch with all the parents who had come, cooked by our fantastic cook Sarita. The courtyard was full of staff, parents and a number of children who had also come in. The KISC community at its best.

As we worked on various other tasks that needed to be done to ready the school for the return of students word started to spread. Tomorrow would be a bundh (strike) day. A group of squatters who live along the river’s edge are going to be evicted and so they were striking. They would be blocking the main roads and bridges around the city meaning we would be unable to bus in our students who live away from the school. While this only affects about 20% of our students in the secondary and less in the primary, it’s not what you want for you for the first day of a new term to have a chunk of the school missing. But this is Nepal, these are some of the challenges and exciting things we are part of as we try to run a school in a country with so many needs. And I love it.

Good News

2011-12-10T14:46:00.002Z

A few weeks ago Dan had a meeting at school to discuss how KISC could manage without any new staff next term. It was a month until the end of term and there was no-one in the pipeline for January despite several key teachers leaving. The meeting ended with the conclusion that someone had to come. There just wasn't enough teachers or people qualified in the right areas to cover the teachers leaving. You could say things had got pretty desperate. Hence the topic of our last blog.

Later that day the secondary principal, Libby, an Australian, who has lived in Nepal for nearly 20 years came to see Dan. Her eldest child who has just qualified as a teacher would like to come out for a year to teach at the school (his old school) and would like to bring his girlfriend with him, who would also like to work at the school. Great!

Then a few hours later another couple of emails came in. The girlfriends friend also wanted to come out for a period of time, starting in January and someone else has heard of KISC through Libby's sending organisation and wants to come in January too! Then the next morning Dan arrived at school to find out that the girlfriend's sister had emailed the previous evening to say she would like to come too. 5 people in one day. Fantastic!

At the same time Judith (KISC's CEO) was in America meeting with our recruitment person who is based there and together they went to several recruitment fairs. These went really well and we have had over 20 applicants for people to come to KISC in the future, quite a few considering long term commitments. Since returning from the recruitment fair Judith has also had more classroom teachers applying, interviewed an experienced international school Principal and a couple of our existing staff who we were expecting to leave at the end of the year have told us they are considering staying longer. Amazing!

So God has been amazingly faithful. We have the staff we need for January and lots of people looking for the future. Now all we need is more space.

We have mentioned the need for space before. Now we have enough teachers for every Primary year in August we need another classroom, and we still need open space for the students to run around. A number of people have felt prompted in the past few weeks to pray for more land - through conversations, dreams, prayers... So God has been faithful, and we want to ask him again to be faithful. So if you are someone who prays please join the KISC community, here in Nepal and around the world, as we thank God for his faithfulness and ask him for the provision of some land to become available - and the finances needed to get it!

URGENT Staffing Needs

2011-11-10T03:52:00.003Z

There seems to be a common theme about our time here, which we've probably bored you with before now, but it's fairly crucial. Staffing.

Yet again we don't have enough staff for January. We need at least 2 of the following positions filled in time for January term, which starts on the 16th January. If you know anyone that might be suitable, or are interested yourself, get the message out to them to contact Laura Beth Webster at recruitment@kisc.edu.np, and get them have a look at our website.

If you don't know anyone, but do pray then please Pray.

Urgent needs for January 2012:

Maths teacher
English Teacher
History teacher
Science teacher

There are also plenty of positions needed for the next school year. For more details check out the vacancies page on our website.

Back "Home"

2011-10-30T09:04:00.000Z

We have now been back in Nepal for 10 days. Back in our home here in Kathmandu. We both felt as we left England that it had all been a bit rushed and maybe we were coming back too soon. But thankfully since we have arrived back it has felt very much like coming home. Samuel has certainly enjoyed “catching up” with his old friends, and Miriam seems to have settled very quickly, and has even started to settle into a routine, which is great at 8 weeks old.

And for us it has been good too. Dan has certainly enjoyed the first few days back at work. Starting to get back into the swing of things. Walking in on the first day was hard as everyone else was in full swing, and the work related questions came thick and fast forcing him to get his brain back into KISC mode very quickly. Becky is learning to cope with two children at home, she’s enjoyed the first week back, catching up with friends and trying to settle Sam back into his normal routine.

Of course it was hard to say goodbye to our family as they remain back “home” in England. We had a fantastic summer spending time with family, and seeing many friends too. Samuel certainly enjoyed getting to know his grandparents better and loved being able to play with them and have lots of time together – nearly as much as they enjoyed it. But for now, we are back to skype relationships with the family as we settle in back “Home” in Nepal.

Miriam Clare Parnell

2011-09-22T19:13:00.000Z

As most of our readers have hopefully heard, on the 4 Sept we welcomed into the world Miriam Clare Parnell. She was born in the Wallingford maternity unit, weighing 7lbs 14oz at 3.12am.
The last two weeks have been a lot of fun, a lot of tiredness as the 3 of us get used to being 4, and a lot of busyness as the prospect of returning to Nepal starts to loom large. Samuel has adapted very well to being a big brother and is very interested in Miriam and very keen for her to be part of all we do.

We are finding it is a lot different having 2 instead of just 1 as the times for rest when the baby sleeps are not usually an option as Samuel is up, and the time Samuel is asleep is often the time Miriam chooses to be awake.

We are now visiting churches again as part of our home assignment, starting this weekend with our home church of Toxteth Tabernacle in Liverpool. After that it’s just 3 weeks until we fly back to Kathmandu on the 17th October, so life is busy getting everything prepared ready for our return.

Thank you to all of you who have sent cards and greetings, the many cards now adorn our lounge here in Didcot. We know we won’t get to see very many of you before we return, but thank you for your thoughts and prayers over the last few weeks and as we prepare to head back to Nepal.

If you haven't already heard Nepal experienced a significant earthquake over the weekend. Thankfully, our friends there are all safe and sound, but there was some loss of life.

We have added a bunch of photos to Facebook. You don't have to be on Facebook to view this photos, so just click the links below. The two albums are pretty similar, although there are some different photos in each.

Dan's photos

Becky's photos

Reverse Culture Shock

2011-07-27T20:53:00.007Z

We arrived back in the UK a few weeks back and have been enjoying settling in and seeing lots of families. Samuel, particularly, is enjoying the attention of Grandparents. Thankfully we have been able to get a BMS house in Didcot for 3 months, which is right in the town centre, and easy access for the shops and families.
Coming back this time we’re really starting to feel like we’ve been away from England for quite some time and we’ve noticed a few things that are now strange for us, in the country of our birth.

Driving
Even though I don’t drive in Nepal I do ride my bike around Kathmandu, and am a regular car passenger. But I was still surprised with how aggressive I have become on the roads, not dangerously, but just not very generous, going for gaps that aren’t rightfully mine etc, just because you need to too survive on roads in Kathmandu.

Flushing
Two button flushes were certainly around before we left the UK at the beginning of 2008, but I have really noticed being back this time how they have now taken over every toilet in the land. I seriously don’t think I’ve pulled a handle on a toilet yet.

Petrol
I know this is kind of a hot topic, and I knew it was expensive, but I reckon it has now gone up more in the 3 ½ years we’ve been in Nepal, than the previous 11 years I was driving beforehand.

Music
I’ve not been fully up on the newest bands for quite some time, but at least I’d heard of most of them. Now the TV and radio are advertising and playing bands I’ve never even heard of. And not just the odd band, every single band seems to be new to me. Or is that just my age?

TV screens
Like toilet flushes these were certainly around plenty before I left, but again, the 30”+ screens have now taken over. I don’t think I’ve seen a CRT since being back.

Indoor shoes
I’m finding it really hard to walk into a house and not take my shoes off the second I walk through the door. And if for some reason I don’t take them off, for example lugging furniture into and out of houses, I feel very awkward wearing my shoes inside.

Internet
Wow, the internet is so fast! Download an episode off iplayer in less than 5 minutes, as opposed to 3-4 hours for an equivalent download back in Kathmandu.

Water
Flushing the toilet from the cistern, and not using dirty shower water. Showering in drinkable water seems such a waste. Being able to just rinse a cup or bowl and then use it straight away, rather than worrying if it’s completely dry, because back home, if it had unfiltered water still on it we’d be getting mighty sick.

I'm sure those readers who have lived overseas can sympathise with this!

Birthday Boy

2011-06-05T14:30:00.005Z

This week we celebrated Samuel's second birthday. It seems an incredibly short amount of time since we were in the hospital with a brand new baby and conversely it seems like he's also been part of our lives so long we couldn't imagine (or should that be can't remember) life without him.

It's also a special time as we await the arrival of his little sibling, who is due at the end of August. Next birthday, God willing, we will be a family of four, which sounds like a real grown up family!

Anyway, back to Samuel's birthday. We celebrated with a party with four of Samuel's friends and their parents in our flat. All boys. There was time playing with new toys (two minor meltdowns over who got to ride Sam's new trike), time playing games (one minor meltdown over the fact the music kept stopping in musical bumps), food (no meltdowns, although one refusal to eat) and then cake! (This made everyone very happy).

We live under the flight path for both local and international planes. Kathmandu International Airport is no Heathrow, but a few times each day we have the planes passing over our flat, and Sam loves pointing them out and going “Neeauun” as they pass. So we felt an Airplane cake was appropriate and Dan made a good effort (at least for someone with the artistic skills of a Sea Cucumber) and it was very much enjoyed by Samuel.

So year number 2 is complete, and Samuel is now on his way to 3, passing through the terrible two's, becoming a big brother, and hopefully becoming conversant in English and Nepali on the way.

Update on Needs

2011-05-29T13:32:00.003Z

Hi all.
Our last blog was written just over two months ago. Sorry for the long delay. Just wanted to update on our staffing needs.

Well since we last wrote we have been blessed with several teachers. The primary school in particular have seen many teachers come forward, and they are now in the position of potentially having too many teachers, as we actually don't have enough classrooms for any more classes, even though we have enough students. It's a good position to be in!

The secondary school are now looking well staffed for August too, although we still have a couple of needs. We have no Art teacher for August and so we are in desperate need of an Art Teacher to come for August. If you know of anyone do let us know. We also could do with an English teacher, although we can cope without, it would relieve a lot of burdens off several other staff. And we also need History and Study Support Heads of Faculties for January. If you know of anyone, send them our website link:
www.kisc.edu.np

Quite a Day

2011-05-29T13:31:00.003Z

This day happened to Dan a few weeks ago and we have been meaning to put it on our blog for a little bit, so here it goes.

7am: Breakast is interrupted by a phone call from the principal – a teacher is in hospital, she had her appendix out during the night. Another teacher stayed with her in hospital all night. The Principal is going in now and will be in school at 11. The other teacher is going home to bed and will be in about lunchtime.

8am: In school taking form class and then teaching my first ever RE lesson.

9am CEO pops her head into lesson and informs me that 3 members of SMT (Senior Management team) are going off site for our board meeting until after lunch and with the Secondary Principal in hospital, I and primary vice-principal are in charge of whole school, in case of emergency situation.

10am: I meet with our new ICT Systems manager to discuss current development issues including moving email system to Google. A quiet hour.

11am: Break time. Reminded by admin manager I have a 1.30 meeting with a potential parent who wants the British Education system explained, as they are currently in an American school. Then the site manager comes and informs me that we only have 12 days left of fuel for the generator and that we can’t get any more diesel due to a fuel crisis. Principal arrives back on site. I go teach as break finishes.

12pm: Teaching Year 10 ICT

1pm: I return to school having popped home for lunch. 1.30pm appointment doesn’t arrive. Informed teacher maybe coming out of hospital today, which is particularly significant as she’ll be coming to stay with us for a few days while she recovers.

2pm: I’m busy running around school organizing cover and plans for school tomorrow as there has been a general strike (bandh) called. We still plan to open but will not run buses and vans, which means around 1/3 of students won’t be in and 4 members of the teaching staff.
Also start to make plans for generator. Realise that we will have to start turning off generator at 3pm to conserve fuel instead of running it after school to allow staff and students to do work. We also have to consider the possibility of turning it off during the school day during periods when there isn’t so much demand.

3pm: School finishes. Whole secondary school lines up on roof as normal for notices etc. I explain tomorrows procedures. It has a particular impact on the students in Year 11, 12 & 13 who are just days away from starting their IGCSE, AS & A level examinations and so can’t afford to miss a day of school. Those who live beyond walking distance will make arrangements to stay with friends who live closer so they can get in the next morning.

4pm: Dashed home from school, Becky off into hospital to relieve the person who’s there with our teacher. I’m bathing Samuel and then entertaining him.

5pm: I’m about to put dinner on for Sam when I get a phone call from Becky to say hospital bill is huge and they need another 46,000 rupees (about £400). I spend nearly half an hour ringing round people trying to get enough cash together (hospital doesn’t take cards) and find people able to take the money into the hospital to pay the bill so she can leave. Eventually do.

6pm: Sit down with Sam to eat our slightly later than planned dinner. After dinner Becky & the teacher arrive home from hospital minus one appendix.

7pm Sam is just in bed and I am reheating dinner for Becky so she can have some. Our patient is Skyping family back in the UK to let them know she is ok.

8pm: Sam has been asleep for an hour, our patient is also asleep. Becky and I share some quiet time together and watch a DVD.

9pm Pregnant Becky goes to bed, I stay up for another hour reading. Then off to bed for sleep, ready for another (hopefully slightly less) eventful day.

Urgent Needs

2011-03-26T09:34:00.004Z

Working at KISC we learn to live by faith when it comes to staffing. And God has always been faithful. Every year we wait patiently for the new staff to sign on and they always do. KISC has been going 23 years and always had enough staff to function, even though the majority are volunteers, supported by home churches and living thousands of miles from “home”. However this year the situation is more extreme than it has been for a long time.

We have several urgent needs to be able to run well next year. If you are a teacher, or you know someone who is, then please look at the list below and see if there is anything you could do to help, or pass it on to someone who might be interested. Teachers need to have some support, usually through a mission or from churches, although KISC can offer a little financial support, it’s not enough to live on. This enables us to keep our fees at rates that missions can afford.

We need for August 2011 (roughly in order of urgency)
• Head of English
• 2 Primary Grade teachers
• English Teacher
• Head of Humanities or History teacher or Geography teacher (preference is in that order)
• Primary Vice Principal
• Art Teacher
• Another Primary Grade Teacher and a Reception teacher
• Student support teachers (those who can help with students with learning needs including ESL students), both Primary & Secondary

And from December 2011
• History or Geography Teacher (opposite of whichever comes in August!)
• Head of Student Support
• French teacher

Please pray. Please consider if you could commit one year of your life to making a huge difference in the lives of some amazing kids, and as a result play your part in the work of development, and the spreading of the Gospel here in Nepal.

For more details or to apply click here.

BMS Day of Prayer

2011-02-26T13:54:00.005Z

Monday is the 2011 BMS World Mission Day of Prayer. So this afternoon a group of us got together at our house to pray. It was good to spend some time together thinking and praying for the work that BMS are involved with all over the world. We were guided in our prayer by resources from BMS’s own website, which you can download by clicking here.

It’s also a special couple of days as we know tomorrow churches across the UK will be praying for the work of BMS and on Monday the BMS offices in Didcot and others all over the world will also be joining in prayer. So if you want more information follow this link to the BMS Website.

BMS Day of Prayer 2011

A week at KISC

2011-02-03T15:01:00.005Z

Stealing an idea from another blog we read we thought we’d do a week in our lives. This time we’re with Dan.

Monday
In the Secondary school we have assemblies on Monday and Friday. This week was exam week for our senior students at KISC so our assemblies are always slightly disjointed as we try to fit 80 students into a room setup for 40 to take exams. However, the students gather round and sit on the edges of tables and we carry on regardless. After assembly I was running the Secondary Leadership Meeting, the “workhorse of the secondary school”. This week we were trying to finalise our assessment policy to cement changes that have been taking place over the last 2 and a half years. One of my key roles is in managing all the curriculum and assessment of the whole school, and while we are mostly a British Curriculum we try to be as truly international as possible to enable our students to study anywhere in the world after KISC. So setting up an assessment policy that enables that involves a lot of work and development.
The rest of Monday saw me teaching Grade 8, but a bonus free as Grade 12 were in exams.

Tuesday
Tuesday begins with homeroom, and I am the Grade 8 homeroom teacher. Grade 8 is the biggest year group in the whole school at 19 students, but of course that’s small compared to the UK.
This term we’ve been looking at slavery in PSHE, so I gave them this morning’s homeroom to work in groups looking at some of the tactics of the abolitionists in the 17th & 18th Century. Next week we will be comparing slavery of that time to modern day slavery. I actually had no classes after that as the rest were in exams, and so I had a productive day of work, doing some planning for my classes over the next few weeks. Tuesday evening is our house group where we meet with a bunch of other expats to study the bible and pray together.

Wednesday
Wednesday is always my teaching free day, so again it was a day of getting admin done, this time focusing on updating all our handbooks for the various different sets of parents and staff ready for next school year. At the beginning of March we will be asking the students to select their IGCSE and AS options ready for me to plough away at the timetable for 4 months. We’ve also decided to completely restructure the daily lesson times and move to a two week timetable, so I will have all that to factor into next year.

Thursday
Thursday was a slightly crazy day and went from a massive high to a deep low as the day went on, but it all worked out ok in the end. Since Christmas we had been having problems with some very important software, our whole school database. We have a very impressive system, which contains all our staff and student and parents details as well as all the details about the courses students are studying and their grades and reports. However, this wasn’t working and our technical ICT staff had been working all hours to try to fix it since the start of term, they had got it working in stages, over the week but crucially we still couldn’t get any outputs working. Having a lot of data stored in a computer with no way of getting it out is fairly useless. Finally, around lunchtime, we were able to print out some data and I was very happy. However, about an hour later we realised that the data it was pumping out was old and didn’t include any recent updates, including the reports a number of our staff had been writing. We thought for a while it had all been lost, but then thankfully it was retrieved and now we have a fully working system.

Friday
Friday often focuses on SMT (Senior Management Team) for me. This is made up of the heads of each section of the school and deals with all the big issues of the whole school. This Friday we focused on our staffing needs that are ongoing and we were discussing how we get “the right people on the bus” to enable us to continue to be the best school we possibly can. It was a good end to a busy week.

Some news articles on Nepal from the BBC:
Working by Candelight
Prime Minister at last

Happy Christmas

2010-12-24T08:03:00.005Z

We were trying to think of what to write for a blog this week, and the best idea we’d had was a traditional Christmas Family letter style blog. Till Wednesday when we had a fun morning out.

Kathmandu is getting very cold at the moment and so, with no central heating the evenings (at 5oC) are uncomfortable without a heater. We’ve been using a gas heater which had been playing up a bit with the flame shooting up a lot higher than it was supposed to, making us reluctant to use it. So rubbish at DIY Dan decided to investigate.

Changing the gas bottle worked, but on closer investigation I realised the gas bottle seemed to be leaking a little, but only when it was turned on. So I decided to change the regulator to see if that helped, it didn’t, the bottle still leaked.

Now the fun started while trying to change the regulator, as the plastic pipe going to the regulator was attached so tightly I couldn’t pull it off, so out came my trusty penknife to slice the pipe off (gas turned off by this point). To be honest I’ve always thought my pen knife was a bit blunt. My thumb proved otherwise…

And so, a dash up to Patan Hospital. Now I had picked the best time of the week to do the slicing, 8.45am on a Wednesday morning, as the Foreigners clinic is at 9am on a Wednesday. So we stuck our head in and asked if they did stitches. The two doctors and one nurse were having a quiet morning with no other patients in so they were happy to help.

Becky, being no fan of blood, needles and other such stuff, elected to wait outside the room while the doctors and nurse set to work. While trying to put anaesthetic into Dan’s thumb (right on the middle knuckle) Dan decided he’d had enough and passed out through the pain.

So Dan ended up having his two stitches done, while lying on the floor of the room, with two doctors a nurse, and now Becky in attendance.
And now for something completely different…

We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Wonderful New Year. May you know God’s Blessings as we celebrate the birth of His Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

Media

2010-11-16T11:39:00.010Z

Here are two videos we've enjoyed recently, to do with our life here, kind of...

KISC - "This Is Us" is a selection of photos taken around school by a professional photographer on her recent visit and put together with music.

KISC - This Is Us from kisc school on Vimeo.

This video has been put together by a good friend of ours and the voice over is from another good friend. We thought it was quite funny, not that we are advertising the organisation (International Nepal Fellowship) or suggesting that these gifts would make excellent Christmas presents, although of course they would.

The KISC website has also been updated and relaunched recently. To take a look go to www.kisc.co. There is loads of information about KISC on here, which wouldn't be interesting to most of our readers, but some of it might, particularly the galleries page. You may also want to look at the vacancies page, just in case you know anyone you might be interested in working at KISC.

Festivals

2010-10-07T08:08:00.009Z

“In honour of the auspicious occasion of Dashain Festival and Tihar Festival 2010 we are happy to present this offer of buy one BrandName Cup a Soup, get one free”

Monsoon is finished. The weather is cooling. The fields are green and the rivers are full. School is on holiday. The first kites are being flown over the housetops. The nights are drawing in. Festival season is upon us.

I saw the above offer in a local shop yesterday, and felt it was almost too good to turn down, but turn it down I did. However all the shops have banners of various sizes wishing us a Happy Dashain 2010 (or 2067 depending on how Nepali they are) and there are many billboards expressing similar wishes.

Dashain is the biggest Hindu festival here in Nepal and consists of 10 days of festivities where various things are celebrated and worshiped (including cars!) and is followed by a week of visiting family etc, a bit like the week between Christmas and New Year in the UK. So in total about 17 days of worship and festivities. It starts tomorrow but the first few days are usually quite quiet and schools and work continues until the bigger celebrations next week.

Tihar then follows at the end of the first week of November. Better known as Diwali this is the festival of light, and we blogged about it last year.

Although Nepal is now officially a secular country, Hinduism is obviously still the de facto religion. It can be a difficult time for Nepali Christians who don’t wish to partake in the celebrations and festivities as there can be pressure from family and community to join in.

We’re spending the holiday by heading of to Pokhara for a 5 days of rest and relaxation, and 3 days of trekking. Thought we’d give trekking a go with Samuel, to see how he, and his porter Dad, find it. We’ve not been to Pokhara since before Samuel was born, so it will be nice to go back, and spend some time away from the hustle, bustle and pollution of Kathmandu.

The photos on this blog were taken on a recent walk (and we confess none by us but by our skilled photographer friend, Catherine).

One Year On

2010-09-20T15:37:00.004Z

This week we passed the one year anniversary of our return to Nepal as a Family. Looking back over that year it has been an interesting time with some good times and plenty of challenges. We thought for this update we might highlight some of the more significant ones.

Vice Principal

Our return a year ago signalled the start of Dan’s work as the Vice Principal of the Secondary School. Although a lot of the main parts of his job description he was already doing before, such as the timetable, assessment and being a member of the SMT, it’s amazing how just having a title placed on you increases the amount of what we like to call “dukkha” that comes your way. (I’m sure no translation is needed).

We’ve already mentioned in other blogs and letters about the biggest challenge in that time has been being without the Secondary Principal for 6 months, however she is now back and Dan is enjoying being part of a principaled team!

Dan would say he’s enjoyed so much of the work that he has done over the last year and taking on the challenges of the role. It helps that he’s working in an great school that has some fantastic students, and really great staff too.

Motherhood

While Parenthood began a little longer than a year ago, it was the return to Nepal that saw Dan go back to work full time and Becky become a full time house mum. This brings with it extra challenges living in a city like Kathmandu with it’s lack of green space and activities specially designed for one year olds. However, it also brings with it a great community. Becky has built up a strong relationship with another first time mother of a baby just a couple of months younger than Samuel. She’s also been able to join a mothers prayer group, a singing group and frequented at least two other mums and tots groups from time to time.

Becoming One

Samuel has faced all the normal challenges of a 3 month old to a 15 month old and taken them in his stride. He has learnt to sit up, walk, start to talk and have lots of fun in the process. He has a good friend in William, the son of Becky’s close friend, and managed to see more of the world than the average one year old. As you can see from the photo above he's adapting well to the culture. Next month he’s off on his first trek!

Transient Community

The mission community is always changing and during this year we have said goodbye to some great friends with whom we built up good friendships during our first, Samuel-less, stint here. There are always people leaving Nepal, and of course arriving, but saying goodbye always seems much harder than the joys of the Hello’s. Also, the longer we are the harder it seems to build good new friendships, as in the back of your mind there is always the thought, we’ll just have to say goodbye to these guys soon. However, we do try to fight that and invest in new relationships and are thankful for the new people that are always arriving. The photo is from a get together with two other familes we had, one of which left Nepal last week.

New School Year

2010-08-01T15:54:00.007Z

Tomorrow is the start of the new school year. We’ve had a lovely five week summer break, of which nearly four we spent in the UK. It was great to see loads of family, the photos on this blog are of Samuel and his Grandparents, and quite a few friends while we were there, sorry if we didn’t get to see you.

Regular readers will know that a key issue is always staff. As my role in the Secondary is managing the timetable and allocating all the staff; working out exactly how many we need and to do which jobs is one of my main concerns. Well we are delighted to be fully staffed for the start of this year, thanks to a number of new staff that are joining us for this year.

In the secondary we have a new Art teacher from Holland, and a teacher of junior Science who had joined us from India. We have a guy from Switzerland on his gap year here for 8 weeks to work as a teaching assistant. We also have a couple from the US who’ve come out with their 3 children. He’ll be helping teach some of the music and she will be one of the Primary class teachers. We’ve actually got 2 other new Primary class teachers, one in her 20’s and another who’s a bit later on in her career who’ve come from the States. The primary are also blessed with quite a few gap year students this year who are coming for one or two terms, including one I met on Friday who’s come out from Northern Ireland to do some PE and Art. But best of all (from my point of view) we have the returning Secondary Principal who’s back after 6 months home leave in Australia.

I was talking with her and the Head of the whole School on Friday about our staffing and while we are extremely pleased to have so many good new staff coming we also realised that we were the only 3 Mission members of staff who are committed for longer than the next two years. This is part of the nature of the school. So many staff come and go during each year it does make some things hard.

However, so many of the staff have a huge impact even in just a short space of time. One that springs to mind is a Northern Irish girl that came out to help with PE for 6 months at the end of 2008, but had to leave early due to a knee injury. Many of the students remember her well and are looking forward to her return in January 2011. Another is a couple who came from Australia in January, she is now taking on the role of Head of the English Faculty and he is about to run the school play this term. They are due to return to Australia at Christmas, but they will leave a significant legacy from just one year’s service.

Update

Opps. Forgot to mention one new member of staff in the secondary. A certain former KISC Geography teacher who is returning this term to teach some of the A-Level. Goes by the name of Becky!

Deadlines

2010-06-22T15:43:00.004Z

As you may have heard, the deadline for the constitution passed peacefully on the 28th May with a last minute agreement being made between the main parties to extend the Constitutional Assembly for one year.

There were three points to the agreement; compromises that the parties agreed to make in the coming days. However, nearly a month later we have not seen any move on these three points and so no unifying government has been created.

The main issue of contention seems to be that one party want the Prime Minister to step down. He has said he will do that once it has been decided who will take his place and how things will be handed over so as not to leave a power vacuum. He also wants the other parts of the agreement to be meet, but the other parties want him to go first.

So it seems to be at a deadlock at the moment, as the various parties discuss who might go forward for the post when it becomes available.

However, whoever the candidates are, a majority need to agree on who should take the post and there is no party with a majority and no coalition seems to be forming between any parties.

So all still seems a little unsure here at the moment and the constitution is still not moving forward.

In other news:
Samuel celebrated his first birthday a couple of weeks ago, and you can see he enjoyed the cake in the photo.

We’re still waiting for the monsoon to start. We’ve had a little rain over the past week or so which has temporarily relieved the oppressive heat, but nothing regular or heavy enough to make a real difference. A heavy monsoon has been predicted for this year which is needed to build up the water supplies in the reservoirs and for crops to grow so hopefully it won’t be long.

We’ll be in England for most of July for a short holiday and so are looking forward to escaping the heat for a bit, as well as seeing family and friends of course!

Noises of Nepal

2010-05-19T14:54:00.006Z

Sat having breakfast this morning I could hear a man walking up the street blowing a loud blast on his whistle at short intervals and it really hit home to me what a noisy country Nepal is. Every noise has its meaning and purpose and only a few bother you after a while, but it’s never quiet.

The guy with the whistle is the garbage man and his little cart, letting people know he’s coming to collect their rubbish. Accompanying him in the streets are the fruit and vegetable sellers, who call out the produce they have with them on their bikes as they wonder the streets, the mattress stuffers who have a very primitive box guitar which they twang to inform you they are coming and the plumber who wonders along rattling a all his metal work on a big ring.

As I'm typing this I can hear the flock of pigeons who live in our neighbours roof and the carpentry factory just down our lane with its electric saw. When I say factory I mean shack propped up against the side of another building on a small strip of land. We’ve never worked out how you get in their to order your furniture as there is a wall separating the lane from the land, which is also about a 6ft drop down from the lane. Deliveries pass the wood over the wall and down to a guy below. I also heard a minute ago the elaborate sounding horn of a truck out on the ringroad which is about 400 metres from our house.

When you are out on the roads your ears are dominated by the sound of horns. I know this isn’t unique to Nepal, but it took some getting used to when coming from England. The horn is used to let people know you are there, all the time. When going round corners, overtaking cyclists or pedestrians, coming to a junction, letting your chowkhidar know you have arrived home and can he come and open the gate or just because you like the sound of it, the horn must be used.

Power makes a noise here too as so the din of generators can be heard counteracting the 12 powerless hours faced by business. Then at home when the power returns we here the noise of the fridge turning on, which is greeted with the cry of “bhatti aayo” (power has come).

In the evenings when we are watching a DVD we usually have to pause it at some point as all conversation is drowned out as a jumbo jet takes off over our house. Then we go to bed and the noise doesn’t stop. Dogs bark throughout the night, regularly setting each other off, and the cats from the house behind us were screeching at 4 yesterday morning. Then at 6 we are woken (if Sam hasn’t done so already) by the noise of the bells, trumpets and choruses from the Catholic Church behind us as they start their morning worship and the Hindu temples all around as people raise their gods by ringing bells.

Teachers Needed

2010-04-14T14:25:00.006Z

Dan has returned to school this week having finished the Easter break. We had a fantastic 2 week break in Thailand. We got to go to Thailand as BMS organised a retreat for all the mission workers in Asia. We also had Dan’s sister with us for the last week of term and the first week of the holidays.

At the retreat there were about 40 mission workers who serve with BMS across 5 different countries in Asia. They do a wide variety of jobs, mostly focused around development work. There was a guy who is the administrator for an eye hospital and a lady who is training women in basic business skills. Plenty of people from Nepal who work in different projects such as one guy who is working with conflict resolution and his wife who is teaching young adults about sexual health and reproduction. A lady from Thailand who runs a foster home for disabled children and another lady who works with sexually trafficked women in Bangkok.

There were 5 families with school aged children and another 6 of us who teach the children of mission workers in different countries. And one message came from all of them. The need for more teachers. So much work is enabled by a handful of teachers who come and serve in these countries making it possible for the families to stay. At KISC we have around 160 students and the vast majority of these come from families of mission workers. Many of these workers would not be in Nepal without KISC, stopping much of the great development work going on in this country.

So if you know of anyone who is a teacher and fancies a challenge, suggest working overseas in a mission school. It’s not for everyone, but for us it has been such a privilege and we have learnt and grown so much from it. Doesn’t have to be at KISC or in Nepal, there are plenty of places around the world and plenty of missions that support this work. (But while we’re here, KISC is in urgent need of Primary Grade Teachers, a head of English, an Art teacher and a music teacher for August)

Death of a Politician

2010-03-24T14:16:00.005Z

This week Nepal lost one of its most significant statesmen in the form of Girija Prasad Koirala. He passed away on Saturday at the age of 85. He had been Prime Minister of the country a total of 4 times, including as recently as 2008 and was still heavily involved in the political process.

He was Prime Minister at the time of the Royal Massacre in 2001 and was credited with playing a big part in bringing the Maoists into the political process, forming the Peace Agreement that ended the Civil War in 2006. Just last month he had been working to help bring about a consensus as the politicians work towards writing the Constitution.

The Constitution is due on the 28th May, leaving less than 70 days now for it all to be agreed and written. Most days various interest groups are protesting in Kathmandu calling for a “timely writing of the constitution”. What emerges at the end of May remains to be seen, but if a constitution fails to arrive then the consequences for the country will be significant.

Winter Rains

2010-02-11T14:47:00.007Z

We awoke on Tuesday this week to find it dreary, overcast and drizzling. It was great as it reminded us of England. Winter has been mostly clear blue sky and sun all day every day, which makes outside nice and warm but very cold inside, especially in the evenings and at night. So it’s nothing like a British winter.

But Tuesday was proper British style rain all day. I was trying to explain to some of the students in my class how it was exciting for me to have “British” weather, but they didn’t share my excitement. Only the German student could understand where I was coming from. For the Korean, Nepali and Bhutanese students it was just bad weather.

As it was our first decent rain since the end of September it also prompted a little bonus electricity. As Nepal is entirely reliant on hydroelectricity, which at this time of year is a little short in supply a day of constant rain was a boost to the system.

The other bonus is that it’s cleared the skies and we’ve had fabulous views of the mountains the last couple of days. It’s a bonus as we weren’t expecting to see them again until October. Because of the pollution and weather the mountains tend to go into hiding for a few months from now.

Samuel of course doesn’t remember Britain or it’s weather nor is he bothered by the mountains or the extra electricity during the day. His current daily challenge is trying to get to the things we’ve put out of his reach. Through bum shuffling, stretching and face planting he’s able to move quite some way across the floor now. He’s trying to have a go at crawling too, but hasn’t worked out how to actually turn his leg and arm movements into body movement yet, although we’re sure it can’t be long.

New Year Walking

2010-01-07T03:05:00.006Z

We’d planned to spend Friday 1st January 2010 with some friends at a Guest House that’s part of Anandaban Leprosy Hospital (tlmnepal.org) about 10 miles south of Kathmandu. The plan was to get a bus to the hospital and then go for a walk in the surrounding area, then stay the night and do a similar thing in the morning before getting a bus back.

The best laid plans of course always come unstuck, particularly here in Nepal. Unfortunately a Valley Bundh(strike) was called for New Years Day so no buses would be running. Undeterred, well sort of, we decided to walk instead. Some friends have kindly gifted us a baby carrier backpack for Samuel which worked really well, although Dan was grateful that our friend Jon offered to help carry for some of the time.

So Friday we set out for a ten mile walk, thankfully along mostly flat roads. The road we walked along normally has 1000 trucks a day going up and down it as there is a big quarry near the hospital but because of the bundh it was absolutely void of traffic. This made for a really peaceful walk and we provided much of the entertainment as we walked through the villages with a 7 month old baby.

The guest house was lovely and homely and we enjoyed an evening of chatting and playing games before heading back the next day. We walked over the hills for about 5-6 miles to the next village when we got a bus back into Kathmandu. It was a great way to spend some time with our friends who leave Nepal at the end of the month to return to the UK and a great way to see in the New Year.

Happy New Year Everyone

Christmas Day in Nepal

2010-01-06T13:14:00.005Z

I thought for this blog you might like to know what Christmas Day was like for us here in Nepal, as it probably has many similarities and some differences to the Christmas Day you celebrated.

Samuel woke us up nice and early on Christmas Day, not because he was excited, but because that is what he does every morning. Soon after we had a breakfast of porridge and tea, the same as most days this time of year. Porridge is a must most mornings as it warms you up, the temperature here at the minute means you can see your breath indoors. We then opened our presents and soon after headed off for church – not that different to a British Christmas so far.

However Church on Christmas Day in Nepal is significantly different. It’s a day when many Hindu’s come to church as they understand it’s a special day, so most churches put on special “programmes” rather than a nice short Christmas service. Our church lasted 2 ½ hours, and included amongst other things a traditional Nepali dance.

However, some of our friends’ churches went on all day (although most of them didn’t stay the whole day). After church a nice big DhalBhat (lentils & rice) with vegetable and chicken curry was put on. We managed to resist the server’s efforts to give huge quantities to the Bideshi’s so as not to spoil our western Christmas dinner coming later.

Soon after we headed home and started work on cooking our Christmas dinner, for which we had 6 guests coming. We were aiming for a 4pm serving, a slightly strange time, but we couldn’t do it much earlier due to the length of church and size of dhalbhats that took up the morning and early afternoon. But then the power went off at four making the other option 8pm which seemed a bit late. However come about three thirty it was clear that the large oven we were borrowing to cook the chicken breasts and potatoes was still not much better than warm, despite having been on for an hour. We faced the prospect of a ruined dinner, but we managed to squeeze enough chicken breasts into our little oven and we decided boiled potatoes would be fine thereby enabling us to enjoy our Christmas lunch at 4pm as planned.

Christmas lunch was especially enjoyable for Samuel who was given a selection of vegetables to enjoy. We were both distracted with being hosts and the lively conversation and suddenly realised that Samuel hadn’t quite grasped the idea behind Broccoli. As you can hopefully see, very little ended in his mouth, he even managed to get some in his eye!

After lunch we had a ninety minute wait for desert as we needed the power back on to heat our Christmas pudding (steaming would have taken much longer we realised too late). We then enjoyed an evening of games, chatting and eating various desserts; we had a choice of Christmas pudding, Banoffee pie and mincemeat pie plus a selection of cookies, mince pies and other nibbles. Then at 8.45pm came the moment we’d all been waiting for. Unfortunately it couldn’t be found anywhere online to view it live, but we were able to listen live to the Queen’s speech. A few more games and trips to the pudding collection brought our first Christmas as a family to a close.

Happy Christmas

2009-12-19T14:21:00.007Z

Christmas time in Nepal is not quite like the UK, as you can probably imagine. For starters we’ve only really become aware that Christmas is upon us in the last 7 days. Not like the UK where cards where appearing in some shops before we left back in September.

In the last 7 days we’ve had the Kathmandu Chorale, a choral group made up of mostly ex-pats, give their annual Christmas Concert, the British Embassy Christmas Carol Service and KISC’s Christmas Carol Service. They are already forming part of our Christmas tradition here (indeed for more information on them just look at last December’s blog).

This year there is also the threat of a nationwide, general strike by the Maoist party. They are in the third phase of the protests about the actions of the President back in May. The strike they are planning will initially be for just 3 days, but if their demands aren’t met they are saying it will continue indefinitely. This means that there is the possibility of everything being closed for quite some time if the strike is as serious as some believe it might be. So yesterday we went out and stocked up, including everything we need for Christmas dinner.

Changing tact completely Copenhagen has dominated the news everywhere this last week or so. You may have seen on the news that the Nepali government held a Cabinet meeting at Everest Base Camp a few weeks back, with the aim of raising awareness of Climate Change; flying everyone up there in helicopters for a short meeting. They’ve also taken about 400 delegates to Copenhagen. The words footprint and Carbon spring to mind.

Of course it is the poorer countries, like Nepal, that are likely to be most affected by changes to the climate. We saw evidence of this last year when trekking in the Himalayas we saw a Glacier that had retreated quite some way, compared to photos of just 50 years ago. However, we know it is also many of the poorer countries that are the worst polluters as they strive to catch up with the west in terms of development. But change is happening so fast in places like Kathmandu policies and procedures aren’t put in place to moderate the development and protect the environment. We see that daily with streets thronging with traffic pumping out thick black fumes and the outskirts of the city littered with hundreds of brick factories making the bricks to keep up with the city’s unregulated growth and adding plenty of their own fumes to the atmosphere.

Anyway, Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Dan, Becky & Samuel

General News

2009-11-22T15:10:00.005Z

We’ve been meaning to update our blog for a little while now, but keep struggling to think of a good topic. So this time the update will just contain some general news.

This week Samuel has started on grown up food. Well if you can call carrot mashed up and mixed with breast milk, grown up food. He seems to be taking to it okay so far, although he’s not had too many delicacies so far. However we’re aiming for smoked salmon and caviar soon. He’ll need to learn to get a bit more in his mouth before we actually try that on him. The faces he pulls when he tries new flavours are quite something, but he gobbles it down fairly quickly.

They’ve gone away over the last couple of days, but over the previous few weeks we’ve had some truly spectacular views of the mountains. October/November is usually one of the best times of the year to get good views of them and this season has given us some of the best views we’ve ever had. I think we’ve especially enjoyed them recently as we now have a flat where we can actually see them from inside and also immediate access to the roof which gives us a great panorama.

We are now half way through the second term of the school year at KISC and everything seems to be going well for Dan as he works away there. However the Secondary Principal goes back to Australia for 6 months in 2 weeks, which will mean a lot more work for him. Becky has settled in well to life as a full time Mum and has already joined a number of mums and tots style groups. Some good friends, who also had their first baby in the summer, have just returned to Kathmandu. The wife of the couple and Becky have been out together this week which caused even more interest than normal.

Tihar

2009-10-25T12:16:00.006Z

Last week saw the Hindu festival of Tihar, better known as Diwali outside of Nepal. This is the festival of lights, so it kind of feels like Christmas with everyone putting up lots of lights inside and outside their houses. They also set of lots of fireworks and bangers, which tend to be very loud, but thankfully never disturbed Samuel.

The festival lasts for about 5 days and includes one day of worshipping the dogs, so they put garlands and tikka’s on the dogs. There is another day where they worship the god of wealth and as part of this they paint a path with red clay from the money box out onto the street. They then decorate the street end of the path and often light the path with tea lights. This festival is surely the best for burgulars.

It is a much happier festival than Dhosai which was at the beginning of October and Nepali’s seem to really enjoy the celebrations. There were numerous parties going on in many of the houses nearby, including one where the (bad) Karaoke went on until 2 in the morning. We were not impressed.

As a family we are starting to feel very settled in our flat and are starting to make it feel more homely for us. Just yesterday we moved all the furniture (inherited from the previous tenants) in our living room around to get a layout that is just ours.

Two weeks in

2009-09-29T16:31:00.007Z

We've now been back in Kathmandu for 2 weeks and felt it was probably about time we updated our blog. Time has flown, but also it's starting to feel like we were never away from Kathmandu. It has been great seeing friends, catching up on news and just spending time with people we've not seen for 5 months. The welcome and help we have recieved has been great, both at the airport (see photo), with settling into our flat and even having meals provided for the first week. It has reminded us about the great community atmosphere here which is one of the things we've loved about living as ex-pats.

Samuel has seemed to cope fine with everything that has been thrown at him so far. It's a lot hotter than in the UK, despite the Indian Summer you're having, but he's been fine with that. But it's also all the things we got used to before, but are very different to the UK, he's taken in his stride. Things like the traffic, the attention recieved from the locals and the dogs barking as we walk along the streets. The Nepali's are enjoying him too, they are quite used to Bideshi's (foreigners) walking the streets, but to see a Bideshi with a baby causes much pointing, staring and quite a bit of poking and silly voices. Much like the time he spent with his Grandfathers!

Time to Return

2009-09-11T15:12:00.006Z

Well time is rapidly running out on our stay here in the UK. Our suitcases are partially packed and will probably face being repacked several times before we leave on Monday. Many goodbyes have been said, but some, most notably those to Samuel’s grandparents remain.

We have had a great time here in the UK but we are also looking forward to returning to Nepal. Of course the main event of our time here has been the arrival of Samuel. He has coped remarkably well with our attempts at parenting and is thriving in all ways a child can at 3 months. Of course I am slightly biased but we think he’s great. He was just telling us yesterday how keen he is to get to Nepal and meet everyone there.

This Sunday we had a Service of Dedication for Samuel which was a great event. Many of our family and friends were able to join with us for this special event, including four of Samuel’s five Great-Grandparents. We really enjoyed the service and it was a great chance for us to refocus on what we are doing and why we are doing it, both as parents and as we return to Nepal.

So now all that is left is packing, more packing, goodbyes, a wedding on Saturday and then some more packing. It’s going to be busy.

The foreseeable future

2009-08-05T14:00:00.009Z

It has been a while since we've updated our blog, and our time since then has been devoted to looking after a certain young man. It's been amazing to see how he has grown and developed over the last 2 months. It's been an exciting and challenging time for us dealing with him and all his demands.

Samuel hasn't been our only focus of the last 2 months. Dan's sister Hannah was over from Australia for 2 weeks at the beginning of July and it was great to spend some quality time with her. We've also had a number of family events over the summer, meeting up with various family members and showing off Samuel.

In the middle of July we were able to get away for a weeks holiday with Becky's parents. We stayed in a little cottage in Ringwood, just outside the New Forest and we had a wonderful week. We spent our days wondering around the forest and along the coast. It reminded us what a beautiful country it is we live in and it was great for Samuel to be able to spend plenty of time with one set of grandparents, who also provided some helpful respite for the parents.

And then the week after the holiday we attended interview for BMS. As many of you reading this will know we've been considering for some time about committing to Nepal for a longer period than just the initial 2 years we went for. Well the interview was for the position of long term workers with BMS. We were accepted and this means that once our initial 2 years is up (at the end of this year) we will transfer from BMS's mid-term program to their long term program.

What does this mean in practice? Well it now means we are committed to Nepal for the foreseeable future. The official minimum is 4 years, which takes us to 2014. Beyond that we do not know what the future holds for us, but we figure that's far enough away to not worry about it too much now. For now it's just a case of getting ready to return to Nepal, which we are due to do on September 14th.

Samuel Timothy

2009-06-05T15:17:00.005Z

As you may well know this week we celebrated the birth of our first son. He was born on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 at 10.11pm and weighed 8lbs exactly.

The labour was long, Becky was having contractions for 4 days and we spent all day Wednesday in hospital. Arriving at about 8am and having a long wait till he finally turned up.

He is now home and Mum, Dad and baby are starting to settle into life as a family. Having our own private midwife certainly helps though. (Becky's mum is a midwife).

We shall be adding more pictures to facebook over the next few days (which you can still see even if you're not on facebook). For now there are a couple here to see.

Dan, Becky and Samuel.

Back in England

2009-05-06T11:27:00.005Z

We’ve now been back in England for a month. It’s been a busy month catching up with lots of people and getting ready for the imminent arrival of a baby.
It has been great to see many of you; and those we haven’t seen we will hopefully see sometime soon while we are home.

We have spent a week in Liverpool catching up with friends there, and were also able to go to Wales with our church’s weekend away. The photo on the right is our caravan’s effort into a photo competition, for which we won a Chocolate Orange Selection tub. Sorry they’ve all been eaten. We have also been visiting grandparents, all very excited to be great grandparents soon!

This last weekend we were at the Baptist Assembly in Bournemouth, a good opportunity to catch up with people from BMS world mission and also others that Becky particularly has known for many years from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka days. Dan enjoyed the stories of Becky’s childish antics.

We have also spent a considerable amount of time wondering around shops such as Mothercare and Babies R Us looking for baby things that we will need. This was a little overwhelming at first as we realised we had no idea what we needed. However, we did get our heads around things eventually and think we now have most things ready. We have even packed Becky’s hospital bag and last night went to our first antenatal class, taught by Grandma to be; Becky’s mum! As of today Becky is 37 weeks pregnant and so the baby is classed as full term now and could come any day.

We moved into the BMS house yesterday which we will be staying in for the rest of our time here in the UK. If you’d like to know the address then let us know. We will try and continue to keep you updated using this blog while we are home, and will let you know when the baby is born and put up some pictures .

Rain

2009-03-18T15:25:00.005Z

Tonight it rained. For the first time since the beginning of October.

Drought has been affecting 2 significant areas of life here. The first is power which we have already mentioned in our blog recently. The second is of course water supply.

Water supply is always a bit hit and miss here even in the middle of monsoon. If you have any significant number of people living on your property you probably don't get enough through the main city water line, unless you pay the right minister a bribe, or live near someone paying a nice bribe.

For most people water only comes down the line for a short period of time each day and you have to pump the water from the main line into the property. Of course with only having 8 hours of power a day the chances of the water coming past on the main line coinciding with when you have power are significantly reduced.

We have friends who live in properties that are so short on water they haven't been able to shower for over a week, or wash their clothes for a few weeks.

You can order in tankers that bring water from streams outside Kathmandu, however their is now only one stream in the valley that still has enough water to supply these tankers. So no new orders are being taken, and current orders are having to be reduced. School usually has 4 or 5 tanker visits a week and is now down to half that, which when we have 200 people using the site daily poses problems for flushing toilets and washing hands. So far we've been okay but it has the potential...

So this is why everyone here is so pleased it rained tonight. Not that one evening shower solves all the problems of course, but it does mean that the season for rain is coming and the situation will hopefully improve. Until this time next year.

Nepali Wedding

2009-03-07T04:59:00.008Z

Mid-January to Mid-March is wedding Season here in Nepal and last week we were privileged to be invited to a Nepali wedding. In fact it’s not actually that much of a privilege as traditionally in Asia the person hosting the wedding has to invite basically everyone they know. So much so that we have even been invited to weddings of people we’ve never met before in our time here.

However the wedding last week was a special wedding as it was the wedding of a colleague from school; our IT technician, a man who Dan works quite closely with. Nitin is 28 years old and had been introduced to his new wife through his Uncle. The week before the wedding Dan and the other ICT guy at school took him out for a stag-do! It involved about 10 staff from school going out for Momo’s, a Nepali favourite and Nitin’s favourite food.

Nitin actually got married down in the village his wife’s family come from, about 3-4 hours drive from Kathmandu. The marriage ceremony itself is normally a much smaller event than the marriage celebration which takes place a few days after the ceremony. It is to this that the world and his wife are invited.

Traditionally at a Nepali wedding the bride is supposed to look unhappy, so as to not offend her family as in Nepali culture it is viewed that she is leaving her family to join his. However it’s a good job that the groom is not subject to the same requirements as Nitin is always smiling. Although he’s not smiling as much as normal in this photo he did carry a big grin for most of the wedding. Keen readers of our blog may recognise the other guy as Ryan who we mentioned back in June when his wife had just given birth to their third child.

Talking of children, Becky and bump are doing very well. She is now into her third trimester and growing by the day. The baby is very active and as far as we are aware healthy. It’s now only one month until we return to the UK and we are starting to pack up our house. It doesn’t seem long ago that we were doing likewise in our house back in Liverpool.

By the way the second photo was taken on a recent walk with a group of friends. Not sure if we shall update our blog again before we return so if we don’t we are due back in the UK on the 4th April. We are currently trying to arrange meeting up with people, so if you’d like to meet up with us then do let us know and we’ll try and book you in. We’ll also use the blog to keep people up-to-date with baby announcements etc while we are back.

See you soon…

Load Shedding

2009-02-05T15:20:00.006Z

Well it has been a while since we last wrote, and actually there isn’t that much news. We’ve been back at school for four weeks now. The last few have been very busy with the whole school doing exams which we had to mark and then write reports for all the students. Thankfully that is over now and we are just getting on with regular teaching stuff. For Becky, they were the last set of reports for some time! Just 8 weeks until we return to the UK. Becky is growing by the day and definitely looking pregnant, as you can see in the picture on the left, now with a very active little one inside her – lots of kicking!

Anyway I’ve entitled this update "load shedding", as we have had a lot of it recently. Load shedding is what they call the scheduled power cuts here. Most Nepali electricity is from hydroelectric schemes, and so when the water runs low they can’t generate enough power. This winter has been particularly bad for a number of reasons; the amount of rain was low the last year and so the reservoirs were not filled up, bureaucracy and political instability over a number of years has also led to existing power stations not being properly maintained so we’ve had one or two that have broken down. Then, as a result of floods at the end of the monsoon last year the power lines that bring extra power up from India were washed away and not fixed.

So all this culminated in us having up to 16 hours a day without power at the worst point. We had 4 hours of power during the day and 4 hours in the middle of the night, so really only 4 hours of power a day. As well as the obvious problems this brings (such as teaching ICT for Dan) it also leads to water shortages for washing and drinking as all our water is pumped up to the roof using an electric pump that has to be manually switched on, usually about twice a day. So if there is no power for most of the day it means someone has to get up in the night to pump it up. Thankfully our landlord sorted this out so we're not up in the night, although it is a noisy pump so it is hard to sleep.

We’ve started to get used to this now and just have to plan our days around it. School has a generator which is used for large amounts of the day, however this is expensive to run and cannot run all day as it overheats and so people have to coordinate their power needs and plan ahead, especially if you need photocopying or want to watch a video with a class. At home it means making sure laptops are fully charged so we can run off the batteries when power is out, and also planning what nights we have power so when we can use the oven to cook and when we only have the hob.

It is amazing how quickly you get used to it though and when I look back to living in England I realise how much I took electricity and even the regular hot water supply for granted! Still we’re looking forward to the treat of 5 months with no load shedding and long hot showers!

Tansen

2009-01-03T11:14:00.007Z

A very Happy New Year to you all from Kathmandu. We're now back here having been away since Boxing Day making the most of our time off school. We decided that this holiday we would go to a more remote part of Nepali away from the tourists. So while we did spend some time in Pokhara, we also travelled to Tansen about 120km South West of Pokhara.

Tansen is a medium sized (for Nepal) town that sits atop a ridge overlooking a valley known as the White Lake. This name was in evidence each morning as we looked into the valley and saw a white lake of clouds that looked lovely and picturesque. Tansen is well known throughout Nepal as it was the site of one of the first Mission hospitals set up here when the country opened up in the early 1950’s. In the past people used to come from all over the Western side of Nepal, and parts of northern India to be treated there. While there are now many more hospitals around it is still a popular hospital with a very good reputation.

We were staying in the guest house next to the hospital, which is mostly used by short term workers who come out for a few months to help out. The guest house was lovely and the home cooking by the cook was exceptional. Good quality western food. We spent most of our time lazing around, reading and going for wonders around the town.

Acting as our guide to Tansen was Khim, our Nepali friend who works with us at KISC as the school administrator. Khim grew up in a small village about 10km from Tansen and then moved to Tansen itself when he was 15. He finished his schooling and went to college in the town and then worked at the mission hospital, mostly as a language teacher for a number of years before he moved to Kathmandu. Wondering around the town with Khim was a bit like being in an episode of “This is Your life”. He seemed to know so many of the people, particularly those living near the hospital, and in a culture where most people spend their life outside their front door we never got far without Khim being asked how he was, or how his mother was.

A number of his family still live around the area and one day we walked past the village where one of his sisters lives, so we popped in to say hello. Nepali people, particularly those outside the main cities are very accommodating and welcoming, and Khim’s sister was no exception. Upon arriving she instantly offered us a cup of chiyaa (Nepali spicy tea where the milk is boiled with tea and spices) and proceeded to go and milk the buffalo in order to make us the tea. Her next door neighbours were also excited to see us and Khim in particular and sent their children off to the next house, just down the hill to pick some oranges from their tree to give to us. (The chiyaa was excellent by the way).

The next day we decided to pay a visit with Khim to the village where he grew up. Khim, now 33, reckons he hadn’t been back for nearly 10 years, and as we started to walk up the hill from the road to his village he was surprised to find they had now built a road up to the village! As we struggled up the steep hill, Khim bounded ahead pointing out his school which was on top of the next hill. He used to have to walk for an hour and a half to get there each morning, all the way down one hill and up the next.

Upon arriving in the village we went from house to house saying hello and greeting the people who had been his neighbours 20 years ago, but still remembered him and his mum. At nearly every house we were offered Chiyaa and Dhalbhat, although we only accepted chiyaa twice. Upon finally reaching his house, quite some way up the hill from the centre of the village we met the distant relative who now lives in the house. She was delighted to see Khim and they spent some time catching up and filling each other in on family news. She told us about a landslide that last monsoon had taken out her stables, killing 3 goats and her buffalo, basically her means of survival. She had had to take a loan to buy a new buffalo nearly bankrupting herself.

Back down the hill we got talking to an old friend of Khim’s who showed us the school the village now has, built a few years after Khim left the village. It was far too small for the numbers of children they get every day and so they had attempted to build an extension, but run out of money before they got to the roof. The school also lacks any toilets. Khim’s friend is Chair of the School Management Committee (Nepali equivalent of the Board of Governors) and had been trying to raise the money to roof the extension for quite some time.

The Government pays for a few of the teachers in the school, but not enough for the number of children and nothing towards resources, such as books, pencils or buildings. It was amazing to see what humble beginnings someone like Khim, who has become very successful as an adult, has come from. However there is a desire amongst the village to move away, most houses were occupied by grandparents, looking after the farm land and the children, as the middle generation have all had to go to places like India or the Middle East to earn enough money to survive. Just as we were leaving we noticed high up in a tree a cable TV box that supplies the TV for the entire village. The children growing up in this village see the fancy cars and the wealth of the west and all they want to do is escape this life.

Merry Christmas Everybody

2008-12-22T10:42:00.008Z

"Joy to the World the Lord is come,

the earth receives her King;

Let every heart prepare him room,

and Heaven and nature sing"

Well ‘Tis the season and all that. Although this Christmas is certainly slightly different to those back in the UK. However the international community out here in Kathmandu certainly makes plenty of effort to help it feel more like Christmas.

Over the last 2 weeks there have been plenty of Christmas events going on to keep us busy and in the festive spirit. Which is quite difficult at times with the enforced power cuts now up to 63 hours per week (that’s 10 hours for 6 days and 3 hours on our good day).

At school our main Christmas celebration was a Carol Concert on the penultimate evening of term. About 300 people came to an excellent service which featured many kids showing of their talents again. We had a number of dramas focused on the first Christmas from the perspective of those involved on the outskirts of the tale, such as the innkeeper’s wife and one of the Shepherd’s. We finished school on the 12th December which was an emotional day as we said goodbye to a teacher who’d been at the school for 6 years (she was the second longest serving member of the international staff).

The next day saw the Winter Concert of the Kathmandu Chorale. This is a group of mostly foreigners who put on concerts in the summer and the winter. The Winter Concert is obviously the one to attend as there was standing room only in a hall that fits well over 300 people for the afternoon showing and the evening was still full. The attendees included ambassadors and diplomats! A number of our friends were involved in the Chorale which involved giving over one evening a week since September, and singing Christmas songs for 3 months!

The British Embassy has also hosted two events in the run up to Christmas. Last week saw the Christmas Lunch which was a slightly surreal event as about 60 people sat in sun in the garden of the Embassy Club, and enjoyed Roast Turkey and most of the trimmings. Then Santa turned up in a Rickshaw! The weather at the minute means if the sun is out you can sit in it quite comfortably in only a t-shirt, but the minute you go in the shade or it starts to get dark you need quite a number of layers.

The second event was a traditional Nine Lessons and Carols service last Wednesday evening. It was hosted by the British Ambassador himself and after the service we were even allowed into his own garden to enjoy hot Rum Punch and Mince Pies. It enabled us to see just how the other half live as the Ambassador kindly left all his lights on and curtains open so we could see how nice his house was.

This year is a special year for Nepal, and in particular Nepali Christians as it is the first year that Christmas has been declared a public holiday. Many churches are putting on special events to celebrate the birth of the Messiah. We shall be involved in one such service at our church this week.

So to close, Merry Christmas to all our readers and a Happy New Year, we hope you have had a good one and that as we remember God giving us His Son you will be able to look forward to a good 2009.

We passed!

2008-11-22T09:58:00.010Z

This last week saw the visit of the inspection team from America who came to accredit KISC. The 2 inspectors were both American ladies who live & work in the middle east. Unfortunately for them the weather turned last weekend and this week has been a case of getting the jumpers and fleeces out of the cupboards ready for our winter.

They spent most of their time at KISC in meetings discussing everything that goes on with staff and students and proved to be very perceptive and asked questions that really challenged and hopefully will help us in the future. Their conclusion was that we more than deserved to pass. In fact one of the inspectors said it was one of the best schools she'd ever visited. She couldn't believe that we do all we do on the budget we have, as we are the poor neighbours compared to the other two international schools in the valley.

One big benefit of winter drawing in here is the views. For most of the year since we've arrived the mountains have been hiding away behind smog and clouds. But with the cooler weather they are really showing their beauty. So we are enjoying the ride to and from school at the moment with the spectacular views.

Life otherwise is carrying on as usual here. Just 3 weeks left until the Christmas holidays, hard to believe that here when there is no sign of anything Christmassy anywhere. I imagine those of you in England are sick of the Christmas songs already! Becky is now into her second trimester and is feeling a lot better. She wasn't getting sick, but was getting very tired, so is relieved to see the end of that.

Riding the Elephants x 2

2008-11-02T11:32:00.009Z

Well it's been a little while since we've written an update and in that time we've managed to make it down to Chitwan twice.

The Royal Chitwan National Park takes up nearly a 1,000 square miles in the southern part of Nepal and is quite a popular tourist destination. It's about 100km south of Kathmandu and in a part of Nepal known as the Terai. The landscape here is so different to the rest of Nepal it really has to be seen to be believed. We've spent the last nine months here surrounded by hills, never being able to see the horizon, but down on the Terai the flat stretches as far as the eye can see in 3 directions, and the hills to the north are often hidden in the haze (although we did get one day where the hills and mountains, nearly 200km to the north came out for sunset).

The first time we went there was with Dan's Mum & Dad. They were here for just over two weeks in all and had a great time. We've uploaded a load of photos from their stay with us onto facebook, so you can view them there. The place we stayed with them was deep inside the national park and to get there from the main road you had to drive for 45 mins down a dirt track, then get a canoe across a river that was probably close to 200 metres wide, then ride a jeep through jungle for 20 minutes, before climbing atop an elephant for the last 20 minutes into the resort. If you look through the photos you will see that we managed to see a group of rhinos one morning, up close and personal, along with many other animals, but unfortunately the big one, a tiger, escaped us. However we did come across a set of tiger prints no more than 5 minutes walk from our resort that were only a couple of days old.

Our second trip came this last week as we headed down to Chitwan again with a group of children from school. Every year about this time the Secondary school disperses around the country for Activity Week. The different grades do different activities, trekking, community work, outward bound resort, work experience and for the oldest group a holiday (usually abroad). Becky's form group went to Chitwan, and as Dan's were split amongst the other trips as helpers he managed to go with Becky. The resort we stayed at this time was in a very different part of the park, in fact it was just outside which did mean we had a few more mod-cons, like electricity. The kids had a fantastic time, without any major incidents. We did have a baby elephant sit on one of the student helpers, but apart from a bit of shock they were fine.

This coming week is just a normal week in school, but in 2 weeks we have a big inspection of the school, a bit like ofsted, taking place. It's by a group called MSA (Middle States of America) and it gives us accreditation in the US. If we pass it means that American colleges and schools recognise the education that we give as being up to standard. We were accredited 5 years ago, without problems and we have had to do a lot of work as a school to prepare for this inspection. We're expecting it to go off smoothly, but there is a lot of pressure on a number of key staff, particularly Judith the CEO of the whole school. If you pray, then please do so for this important event.

As usual, I've written another long update, so well done for reading it all! If you scroll down a bit further (or click to look at older posts) you should see some school photos we uploaded to the blog last week.

School Photos

2008-10-24T08:43:00.004Z

This week was school photo week, so we thought we'd show you some of our school.

This is Becky's grade 7 class (that's the equivalent of Year 8 in the UK, 12 &13 year olds)

This is Dan's homeroom. They are Grade 11 (lower sixth in UK)

This is the whole school, from the Reception class at the front to the 18 year olds at the back, and everything in between

And finally the Secondary school, doing their silly pose. They also did a sensible one but we thought this one looked good.

Go Go Go Joseph

2008-09-29T04:48:00.008Z

This weekend just passed saw the culmination of 8 weeks of term for our students and for most of them it was an extremely busy term. We mentioned in our last blog about the students preparing for Joseph and the end of term also saw the production being put on.

The production was a joint venture between Lincoln, the American School, and KISC. While the majority of the students, the director, producer and musical director were all from KISC a number of Lincoln students were involved, including Joseph, and their venue was used to show the production. Unsurprisingly the American school is certainly not short of a few quid and their school theatre was up there with professional theatres. The backstage area had to be seen to be believed. Mind you no penny was spared by either school in putting on the show, and the quality of scenery, props and costumes was very impressive and most importantly everyone who came to see it was blown away with how good it looked.

We contributed by giving less homework for a term, and helping out backstage on 3 of the 4 nights. As you should be able to see from some of the photos the sets were quite large and

so it needed a few people to shift them. However most of the backstage work was done by students not in the cast and they lived up to the same professional standard as those students who gave a great performance on stage. A DVD of the show will be avalibe for the rough equivalent of £2.50 so if you'd like a copy then let us know (although postage will probably be the same again). The funds should help cover costs and raise money for KISC and Lincoln.

As mentioned above it is now the end of term and we have a 3 week break for the festival of Dhosai. This is the biggest Hindu festival here in Nepal and next week pretty much the whole country shuts down. It's a bit like Christmas. We have Dan's parents arriving this Wednesday and they are staying for nearly 2 weeks. We're really looking forward to seeing them and showing them some of the country, including parts we've not made it to yet. Our next blog will probably include some photos and details of the fun we got up too.

While Dhosai is a great time for Nepalis who get to spend time with their families it is also a difficult time for many here. The main reason is the cost. We all know how much extra Christmas costs, but here in a country where most people are poor and survive day to day, with no concept of saving, the extra expense of this festival must hurt. Unfortunately these expenses have to be met as if you don't meet them then you may well be shunned by your relatives or viewed to have bought bad luck on your family. One way to help this is that most organisations pay double for this month to enable employees to be able to afford things. We've done this with our Didi and milkman, but there are many people who live of the land and their own produce, for them this isn't an option.

The other people for whom this time of year is difficult are the Nepali Christians, particularly those who have recently become Christians or those whose family are all Hindu. While it will still be a great time to holiday and spend time with families, a lot of pressure will be put on them by family and friends to take part in all the rituals and sacrifices that they no longer wish to be part off. As such our church has spent a lot of time helping those new Christians prepare for this festival time and we would ask you to remember them at this difficult, but potentially enjoyable time.

Flooding

2008-09-11T13:25:00.008Z

You may have heard about some serious news that has affected this part of the world recently. The terrible flooding in India and Nepal which has happened as a result of monsoon and poor maintenance. The number of people stranded and affected by the floods is well into the millions, mostly in India but plenty here in Nepal. There are still apparently people stranded on top of buildings where the boats haven’t got to them yet and even those rescued will face about a nine month wait until they are able to have somewhere to live again. Most of the houses will have just been washed away as they’re made of little more than mud and straw.

While there are organisations here that are trying to help, the concern is that the aid just won’t get to these people, because of various people/organisations incompetence. It was incompetence that saw the flooding start and I’m sure it won’t be the last time that incompetence affects these people. To read a news article on the BMS World Mission click here

Without wanting to sound self-centred the knock-on effect for us is that the power cuts, which had gone down to 4 hours per week, are now up to 30 hours and already high food prices are expected to rocket soon as supply disappears from this region. The reason for the power cut change is because the floods have taken out one of the cables that brings 70Mwatts up from India. As all of Nepal’s internal electricity supply is hydroelectric normally the power cuts disappear in the summer and only reach 30 hours in the late winter, just before the snow starts to melt. We could be in for a long winter.

On a more positive note the students at our school have been very involved in extra curricular activities recently. This term the school is putting on a production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. The rehearsals are 3 nights a week for 3 hours after school and about 60 of the 80 secondary students are involved. Alongside this we’ve recently had 2 big sporting events. About 3 weeks back we had a Triathlon to raise money for the victims of the Chinese earthquake earlier this year. Each year group entered a few pupils for each of the 3 events, running, swimming and biking, in a relay effort. As well as this we recently had a school Interhouse Swimming Gala and many students were also involved in an Interschool Swimming competition. This involved training for several weeks on the 2 nights per week they aren’t doing Joseph rehearsals. And they still find time for school work!

Monsoon

2008-08-17T10:45:00.006Z

The weather in the UK is never predictable, as I'm sure you don't need me to tell you; so living in a country where you can predict almost to the day that the rains will stop is slightly odd for those of us of British origin. However that is the case with Monsoon here. We were told this week that the 30th September is the official date for the end of the rains, but that sometimes it goes on for a few extra days.

Once it does finish, that's it for rain till the winter rains which are supposed to be around January time, although they were much later this year. It's weird to think that we won't have any rain for 3 months or so given the situation now. Everyday it rains, not all day of course, but if we go 24 hours without it it's unusual. Often it's been quite good and just rained at night, which has the added bonus of keeping all the street dogs quiet as they seek shelter, enabling a better nights sleep for us.

While the rain does vary from British style drizzle to tropical style torrents we've learnt one key thing; if you go out without an umbrella or raincoat you can guarantee what it will do. Last Saturday evening saw the biggest downpour we've had since being here. Our house fills most of the compound it's on, but there is a paved area which goes all the way around the house. Well as a result of the huge deluge in such a short period this paved area was turned into a moat, trapping us in our house.

Thankfully our flat is up two small steps and the flood waters only made it to the top of the first step, so our flat stayed dry. However we knew of two houses that weren't so lucky and our friends living in those houses saw quite a bit of flood damage. One friend said she was sat on her bed reading when she noticed her bin was starting to move across the room. In another house the flooding was so bad the dog had to actually swim through it to get to dry land. We've been reassured since that downpours like that only happen about once every year, so hopefully we won't see another one like that this Monsoon.

We've now been back at school two weeks and have really enjoyed it. Actually being on full timetables, having a form and being one of the slightly experienced members of staff, showing the new guys the way has been really good. It has been busier though, particularly for Dan who spent quite a bit of the summer organising the timetable; then mistakenly assumed that after the first day of term that would be it and no changes would need to be made.

We hope you are all having a good summer and enjoying the unpredictable English weather. Thanks for all of you who've been in touch, we do enjoy hearing news from England (or Ecuador as we did this week), apologies if we're sometimes slow to respond but we do appreciate the updates.

Jomson Trek

2008-08-01T05:18:00.003Z

Well our summer is now nearly over and we are starting to get ready for the new school year.We broke up just before the end of June, and start back on monday.

We had a very lazy first week here in Kathmandu, before heading down to Pokhara in the second week. We spent a good few days there before we attempted to fly to Jomson. We were heading to Jomson because it is on the north side of the Annurpurna mountains and so in a rainshadow. However, we were told that due to the bad weather caused by the monsoon at this time of year flights are often delayed or cancelled. We were booked on the second flight of the morning and so got up at 4 in the morning to go to the airport for five where we found the gates still locked. This set the trend for the morning as we waited, usually patiently, for things to happen.

When we did get inside there was no-one to check us in, and when someone did arrive we were not allowed to check in as the first flight still hadn't checked in - even though there flight was due to leave 20 mins previously, not a good sign! Once we had finally checked in we were directed to the airport cafe for breakfast and a couple of hours later a plane arrived. However, we quickly realised it was not ours. It took off again after a very quick turn around, headed for Jomson. A short while later when it returned with the same passengers as it had not been able to land and so all planes were cancelled and we were sent home about 9.30. So we all headed back to our hotel beds for a nap hoping that we'd be able to do it all again tomorrow! So we learnt our lesson and went a bit later the next day - we were now booked onto a different airline as ours had no space. However to cut a long morning short we did finally get to Jomson! Yay!

Jomson and the surrounding area has some stunnning scenery. As I said earlier it is in a rainshadow and so the landscape is very barren, but around the villages there is a lot of green where the locals are using irrigation for farming. We were with a family of 4 and two single girls. We took it at a very leisurely pace, walking to our next stop in the mornings and then exploring the village and surrounding area in the afternoons, if we wanted to.

The lodges where we stayed were all very Tibetan in style and did very good food, alot more homely then the places we stayed on the ABC trek, as many of them were actually people's homes not just lodges which were only open in tourist season as before. Have a look at our photos on facebook to see more of the scenery and our trip.

Since being back we have both been in and out of school a bit preparing for the new school year. We have also been relaxing too. We are off to a nice hotel for the weekend now to enjoy the end of the holidays and to celebrate our wedding anniversary which is next week. Dan planned it as a surprise and told me last night!

Hope you are all enjoying your summers and have a good break at some point too.
Dan and Becky.

The Good Life

2008-07-06T09:09:00.005Z

I'm sure most of you will have seen one of the countless repeats of "The Good Life" on BBC2 in recent years, that's if you can't remember the original broadcasts. Tom and Barbara would not be considered so strange here in Nepal.

Most of the country is relatively self sufficient and even here in the Kathmandu valley this lifestyle is in evidence. This time of the year is planting season for rice and most of Nepal is planting the crops that will sustain them for the next year. Two weeks ago our reprographics man at school took the week off to plant and this appears to be a common action for many people who have jobs in Kathmandu.

Many people that live in Kathmandu still have family who live out in the villages somewhere. The photocopier guy at school travels in everyday from his village on the rim of the valley, but many more people come from all over Nepal for work. My Barber who has a shop at the top of our street has a wife and eighteen-month old son who live in a village down in the Southern Flat area of Nepal, an area known as the Terai. Every now and then the shop is closed for a week or so at at time as he goes to visit them.

Our "Didi" (maid) who does a little cleaning and cooking for us lives with her husband in Kathmandu, but they have two children (nearly of adult age) who live back in their village several hours drive from Kathmandu. She heads back there regularly to visit them and other members of their family.

One of the shops at the end of our road, where we purchase most of our vegetables, is run by a young couple who have recently had a baby. Their shop is open everyday from early in the morning to late at night. Like Tescos 24 hour stores this is to enable them to make as much money as possible, but for very different reasons. The baby has a basket just behind the counter and both the husband and wife are nearly always there.

Doing what is needed to earn enough money or grow enough food to survive is the first priority for the vast majority of Nepalis. Most shops are open 365 days, the average person doesn't appear to take holidays, except to plant crops or visit family far away. Describing it as "The Good Life" though seems incredibly inaccurate.

A normal week in Kathmandu?

2008-06-25T04:21:00.010Z

We thought we'd regale you with a few tales of life here in Kathmandu this week.

On Friday some good friends of ours had their third child. The husband, Ryan, runs the ICT department with Dan and his wife Chandra has been the Primary PA until a couple of weeks ago. Chandra had quite long labours with her first two children, born in the states, but this one was so quick that she delivered in the corridor while they waited for a bed to become available in the delivery room. This turned out to be quite a blessing as it meant Ryan could be there for the delivery as men aren't normally allowed into the delivery room. We went and visited them on Friday evening with Pizza (as the hospitals here don't provide food)and were able to have a hold, we're fairly sure it was the first time either of us had seen a baby less than a day old since our little sisters were born!

The last couple of weeks have seen several bunda's (strikes) by various groups which have a big effect on the day to day life of the average Nepali.

Last week we had a bunda in the whole of Patan (the part of Kathmandu we live in) which means no traffic was allowed on the roads. Often informal road blocks are put up by the people who have called the strike and vehicles caught on the roads are attacked. Anyway this is not unusual and happens reasonably regularly. So we carried on as normal and thought nothing of it, until we found out the reason for the strike. The government minister for forestry had locked a local official from Patan in a toilet for an hour and a half! His reasoning was because he thought the official was involved in corruption of some sort. So beware if you are ever tempted to get involved in some kind of corruption we now know what to do with you!

Most of the recent Bunda's have been to do with the rise in fuel prices and we're currently in the middle of one that's been ongoing for the last 4 days. With tomorrow being the last day of school we have a big graduation ceremony at a Radisson Hotel on the opposite side of Kathmandu. We're praying that we will be able to all get there, along with all the stuff we need so that we can end the year on a high note.

The second thing that has happened is that we heard last Wednesday that a group of students at a university here in Nepal were protesting. The reason being... they had not been allowed to cheat in their final exams (as is normally the case). We were told that a few years ago there was a photo taken of the students in these exams hanging out the windows of the exam hall copying their answers out of a text book which someone outside was holding up for them. Apparently cheating in many exams is extremely common and widespread.

Finally, since I last wrote about the one laptop per child school I've had loads of people write about how interesting they found it. I have now found a page on wikipedia which the people running the project at Bashuki school are keeping updated. So if you want to read more about this individual school look at the following link.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Bashuki_Journal

One Laptop per child

2008-06-08T12:22:00.007Z

Some of you may have heard of the one laptop per child scheme which was set up by Mary Lou Jepson. Her aim was to build a laptop that could be used in the most extreme environments, run on solar power, have Internet access and all for $100 or less. The first version she built cost $180 and is being pioneered around the world. They have also recently developed a new one for about $70.

Currently in Nepal there are two schools pioneering the project. The teacher training programme attached to KISC has been working closely with the scheme in developing Nepali resources for the laptops and helping in the training of the teachers in one of these schools. Nepal is the first country to start developing resources for the laptops based on their own curriculum.

Last Wednesday (4th June) I had the privilege of visiting this school with 2 other BMS workers, David Browell one of the teacher trainers, and Andrew Kohn the other Geography teacher and Secondary Principle at KISC, as well as our Grade 6 class (year 7) who will be my homeroom next year.

The school is on the edge of Kathmandu valley on a ridge with only a very rough road up along cliff edges most of the way. So after a fairly hairy ride up there we went into the school and spent some time playing games to help the two groups of children mix. We had 12 children while they have about 30 in their year 7, and a lot of other children from years 8 and 9 too as they were curious to meet these foreign children.

It is a very poor community with many of the children missing large parts of the school year as they have to help with the planting and at harvest time. Many walk over an hour to get to school, including most of the teachers who walk an hour and a half up the hill after the bus journey to get to the end of the main road.

It was great to see our very privileged children who are from 8 different countries themselves getting alongside the Nepali children and learning from them. I think it was a great opportunity for both groups of children to learn from each other culturally, and a great opportunity for us all to see such an exciting programme taking place and working effectively to improve the education and opportunities of a very poor community under the dedicated hard work of their teachers.

Big News

2008-05-28T07:03:00.005Z

Today is a surreal day. Nepal is all over the news, world wide. We have a special day off from school and the streets are quiet but happy.

It is the first day of the new Constituent Assembly which was voted in last month. Part of the agreement that led to the election was that the first item on the agenda of the Assembly would be the abolition of the monarchy.

As I write this I am listening to the BBC World Service with a reporter live from the building the assembly is meeting in. Typically for Nepal it has been delayed for a couple of hours as all the parties involved are trying to thrash out the last few details.

To commemorate this day it has been declared a national holiday, and while we don't normally observe those in school (as they have about 90 a year), it was felt that today would be a more significant day. Bund's (strikes) are called often and people block the roads and stop movement, today is nothing like that as the atmosphere is much more open and happy, some shops are open and there are also a few vehicles moving around.

By this evening Nepal should be the worlds newest Republic and could well have some sort of President. Whether this happens we shall have to wait and see.

On a more personal note we had Becky's Dad here to stay last weekend. He has work this week in Calcutta so decided to pop up and see us for a few days. It was great having him here and spending time with him. As he's been in Kathmandu more times than he can count we didn't do any of the touristy things we did with Dan's sister, but it was a great opportunity to catch up and spend time with him.

May Madness

2008-05-17T05:49:00.006Z

Sorry it has been a while, but we just weren’t quite sure how to follow our last update!

It has been quite a busy month since our last blog update at the end of our holidays. We are now fully involved in life at school. Becky has now taken on all the Geography teaching, and will continue to do all of it except for half the A’level which she will share with another teacher next academic year. Dan is still not doing a lot of teaching, but the list of other things he is doing keeps growing. He is currently very involved in the external and internal exam planning, as well as learning how to do the timetable for next year. He is also involved in writing some of the MSA report (which will give us accreditation in America) which we have to submit ASAP and then we will be inspected in November to renew our accreditation.

We have both been involved in electives on a Friday afternoons. Pupils don’t have lessons, but can opt to do one of various electives. Becky has been taking a group swimming and Dan has been taking some to play football. Some of the other options which other pupils are doing are American Football, Jazz Ensemble, Film Making, Screen Printing, Table tennis, Dance etc. So it is a great opportunity to get pupils doing something extra to the curriculum and to develop their talents and interests in new areas.

We have also found a church which we think we would like to settle in. It is a Nepali church and so the first few times we went along to the Saturday service all in Nepali! However, just a couple of weeks ago they have started an English service on a Sunday. So we have now also been to that a couple of times and really enjoyed it.

Last weekend we had Dan’s sister, Hannah here to visit. She “popped in” on her way past from England to Australia. So she was here from Friday till Wednesday just gone. It was nice to be able to show her around where we live, and also gave us the excuse to do some of Kathmandu’s touristy spots which we had not had a chance to do yet.

She also got the opportunity to experience some aspects of real Nepali life. So after braving the taxi journey from the airport we had to go and collect her bed which we had bought of someone leaving. Not many people here own cars or trucks so a lot of moving is done manually. See picture!

That evening we decided to take her out for dinner despite the rain, which later turned into a torrential downpour, we got an electric tuk tuk, the cheapest form of transport at about 6p per person, but it didn’t cope too well with all the rain and kept breaking down so we ended up walking part way. Thankfully the rain had died down a bit by that point.

The highlight of her stay, for her at least, was the chance to do a flight over Everest. We didn’t join her on this as we were hard at work in school, but judging by the photos it was an impressive experience.

Yesterday we attended a first birthday party, as a friend of ours baby turned 1. Today Becky is hosting her first ever baby shower for an American friend who is due in a couple of weeks and tonight Dan is off to watch the FA Cup Final, in the evening!

Trekking

2008-04-19T06:53:00.008Z

Well we’re back from our adventure. We had an amazing and very tiring time trekking. We were away from Kathmandu for about 12 days in total. Kathmandu to Pokhara is an 8 hour bus journey, depending on how long it takes to get in and out of Kathmandu (we queued for 3 hours to get across one junction when getting back), although it’s probably only about 100 miles. So we spent the first day of our holiday sat on a bus.

Pokhara itself is a large town with a very touristy bit known as lakeside, unsurprisingly by the lake. It’s quite nice, as it’s much quieter and more relaxed than Kathmandu. We were able to chill out here for a day and a half before starting our trek, during which time we bumped into a large number of teachers and pupils from our school who had all escaped at the first opportunity.

Our trek involved a nine day walk, 5 and a half up and 3 and a half back down. Although separating the up and down so distinctly was certainly not our experience. We quickly learnt that going downhill in Nepal always involves some uphill, and vice versa. However after 5 days of mostly uphill walking, the seven of us who were aiming for Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), our 3 porters and our Nepali guide, Sam, arose at 5am to trek the last 400 metre accent to ABC.

Once we arrived at ABC the views were absolutely stunning. We’d all spent the preceding 5 days taking more and more photos as we grew closer to the mountains and the views improved, but they were all outdone by the pictures we were able to take that morning at ABC. The photo at the top is of our group there.

ABC is in a glacial valley and is surrounded by the peaks that make up the Annapurna range, including Machupucure, which is commonly known as Fish Tail (no prizes for guessing why). Even at 4,100 metres we were still only just half way up the tallest mountain, Annapurna One, which at 8,075 metres is the tenth highest peak in the world.

As we were returning back down-ish the mountain we started to hear news of the election. It had occurred on day 4 of our trek but as we were beyond the highest permanently inhabited town by that point we saw absolutely nothing. It had gone relatively peacefully and smoothly. The news that surprised us most was the initial results were suggesting a big victory for the Maoists. This is being confirmed as more and more results come in and it looks like when the final results are counted they could have a decent majority. If you’d like to know more about the election and what the results entail for the country check out the BBC’s very good coverage on their South Asia section.

So we’ve made it back alive, fitter than when we left and only half eaten by bugs and leeches! We survived despite avalanches (thankfully all at a safe distance) and the potential of falling of cliff edges (no mean feat, as any who know our respective sense of balances will appreciate) and altitude sickness (nobody in our group showed any significant signs although we did see a number of people being carried back down). Now it’s back to school on Monday.

Dan & Becky AKA Experienced Trekkers.

Dans Photos

Beckys Photos

Please take a seat

2008-04-02T15:24:00.002Z

I hope you are prepared for a shock as any of you who have ever sat next to us in church will appreciate this next piece of news is quite surprising. This Thursday morning the school is hosting its Inter-House Music Festival and both Becky and Dan are singing in it. We’re part of our houses (Go Black House!) set song. Basically all the pupils and some volunteer teachers in the house have to perform a set song and we turned up at the first rehearsal not really sure what was going on and expecting to supervise and were given the words. Before we could stop it, it had run out of control and we were officially part of the Black House Choir. Dan’s really enjoyed and even been practising at home, to Becky’s annoyance. Hopefully we won’t offend too many people’s ears on Thursday.

Friday is the last day of term in school and we have a two week break before the last term of the year. We’re taking this opportunity, along with a number of the other teaching staff to head up to Pokhara, the main tourist town outside of Kathmandu. Becky’s been there before, 4 years ago, but for Dan this will be the first time out of Kathmandu valley and we’re both glad of the chance to get out of the city, the valley and into the mountains. We’re going to do an 8 day trek with the aim of reaching Annapurna base camp. The Annapurna range includes some of the highest mountains in Nepal (although not Everest) and the trek should involve taking in some good views. How much of a rest it will provide us with before our first full term at school is as yet undecided.

While we’re away Nepal shall be hosting its first General Election for a number of years. They’ve had an interim government for a few years now, since power was handed back from the king and next Thursday (10^th) the country has its chance to elect a new government. The build up has been quite uncertain and for a long time many people were unsure if the elections would definitely go ahead, however with only just over a week to go now it looks certain they will. There is obviously concern as to how they will go and how people will take the results. Please remember the country over the next few weeks. We shall be well out of the way, half way up the mountain when the elections happen so you won’t hear from us for at least the next 2 weeks.

The photo at the top is off a poster explaining the procedure for voting in the elections. It’s supposed to be clear even for the illiterate, but we couldn’t quite work it out either. We’ve added a load more photos to face book the link is below.

Dan & Becky

Dans Photos

Getting down to work

2008-03-19T14:17:00.003Z

We have now finished our language and orientation programme completely and are starting to get involved in school and finally get back to teaching, feels like a long time since we’ve done that!

We spent a week at the end of our language programme staying with a Nepali family with the aim of practicing our Nepali, and also learning about the culture. This was a really enjoyable week. We were staying with a relatively wealthy Nepali family. There was mum, dad and two sons. The eldest is 24 and in America at university so we didn’t meet him. The younger is 15 and at school. He spoke quite good English which helped us when we got really stuck with our Nepali! The mother decided to adopt Dan as her son to replace her eldest while he is in America.

We were still in school during the week, so we spent our evenings there, stayed overnight and then after breakfast each day went to school for the day. This was good as it meant we had a break during the day, I think it would have been hard work trying to talk in Nepali all day every day. As I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know our Nepali is still very limited even after 8 weeks of lessons! One evening they took us to see their Hindu temple. It turned out that the temple they visit regularly is called Pashupatinath, and one of the biggest and best known in Nepal, as it a well known cremation site. It was interesting, but also quite strange to watch people cremating their family members. They have big platforms alongside the river where the dead are put on large funeral pyres and burned while their family and friends watch, and across the river there are holy men who perform rituals by ringing bells, dancing and chanting to help the dead onto the next life.

We are now in school full time, and starting to take some lessons. We are both going to be working alongside current staff instead of taking over as they leave which we had thought was possible. This is good as it allows us to provide continuity for the children as we work alongside the current teachers and take over some classes when appropriate. Dan will be in charge of the ICT curriculum and doing a large bulk of the teaching in his department, as the other guy is more skilled at managing the school system. Dan will also be responsible for timetabling and exams and will therefore also be on the Senior Management Team. Becky will be running most of the Geography as the current Geography teacher will be taking on the secondary headship role from after the summer holiday. We are glad to be getting back to it, and enjoying teaching very well behaved and enthusiastic pupils.

Since writing the above this morning I have had an interesting experience, so thought I'd tell you about it. As you may know cows are considered holy in Hinduism, so are often allowed to wonder round the streets freely, often near the temples as they get fed there. Anyway this evening I was up in Kathmandu with two other girls from school doing a bit of shopping. We were walking down a narrow lane which was heaving with people, with busy shops down both sides when I heard people shouting behind me. I turned around to see the lane had cleared and running straight down the lane towards us was a huge bull! So as you expect we dived into a shop next to us with everyone else as it charged passed behind a man who had obviously antagonised it! Quite scary, but to all the Nepalis apparently quite amusing.

This Friday is a Hindu festival called Holi. You may have seen it on the TV as it is the one where they throw paint powder at each other all day. So this week the children have been practising their aims by throwing water balloons at passers by from their roof tops. Fortunately I haven't been got despite a few near misses, but Dan was got yesterday evening on his way home from the shop. Being Good Friday school is closed anyway so we are planning on staying indoors as apparently foreigners do get targeted. We will try and watch some of it from the relative safety of our roof top.

We shall be thinking of you all this weekend as we remember and celebrate the sacrifice that Jesus made for us all. Happy Easter!

Dan & Becky

Shortages

2008-03-02T10:51:00.001Z

A lot has happened since we last wrote. Life is moving along fast here and it already feels like we’ve been here ages. We’ve settled into our house really well, and have nearly finished our Nepali lessons, which means we can get back to teaching again!

One thing that has been really noticeable on the streets the last few weeks has been the petrol queues. Very little petrol and diesel has been getting into the city due to strikes in the Terai region. This is the strip of Nepal that runs between the border with India and the start of the hills. Most of Nepal’s natural produce comes from here and anything that doesn’t comes through here from India.

Last weekend the headline in the paper read “172 fuel trucks cross the border” which indicates how much of an issue this was. The fuel trucks needed armed escorts and the regions they drove through were put under curfew. The queues in Kathmandu have been miles long with people waiting over night, and even parking up their cars while the stations are shut, leaving them and coming back later to inch forward every now and then.

It’s not just petrol though; kerosene which most of the poorer Nepalese use for cooking creates queues almost as long. You pass a long line of petrol cans all tied together on a rope to stop others pushing in as people mill about waiting for the kerosene to arrive. There is also currently a three week wait for Gas canisters which are used for cooking and heating, although the weather is getting warmer now.

The shortage of fuel and problems in the Terai has meant that food prices have risen and shortages were predicted. The prices are still well below English prices, but for the poor this is little consolation as they are stretched even further. However there has been good news in the last few days as an agreement has been reached between the interim government and the parties representing those leading the strikes in the Terai.

Water and power are also in short supply. This has nothing to do with the problems in the Terai. It is partly to do with the lack of rain this winter (and last monsoon in the summer) as all of Nepal’s electricity comes from Hydroelectric dams. This means we currently have 8 hours of power cuts every day, 6 days a week. Wednesday is our best day as we have power all day. Our school survives using a diesel generator (although as the first part of this blog suggests this hasn’t been to reliable in the last few weeks) and our landlord uses an inverter (basically a big car battery) to supply us with a light or two when it gets dark. Again this is not an option for the poor.

The sad thing is that Nepal has one of the greatest potentials in the world for hydroelectric power, but just hasn’t got itself organised to tap that potential, mostly due to an inadequate infrastructure.

Dan & Becky

Nayaa Ghar

2008-02-13T07:52:00.009Z

This means new house in Nepali and this weekend we got one! We moved into our new flat last Saturday. Up until now we’d been staying in a nice, but small, transit flat. So we had been looking for a new place and now we are there.

The new flat is much bigger and nicer than the transit flat. It is about 15-20 minutes walk from school which is a bit further than the previous one but we figure it will help us keep fit! It is the ground floor of a house belonging to a Nepali couple. The wife’s brother is the husband of our Nepali teacher which is how we found out about it.

It is a one bedroom flat, with a lounge, kitchen and separate dining room. The rooms are nice and big, and it has carpet throughout which helps it stay warm in the winter. We are really happy to have found it as it is very nice. It does have a warm shower, which is a bonus here.

We are now well settled in to our language training and feel like we are starting to make progress. We can talk a little about things we have done and will be doing, we also have enough to go buy fruit and veg and even barter if we feel up for it!

We are also starting to get involved in things at school. Becky is off on a field trip the week after next and Dan will be teaching the primary children ICT for a couple of weeks as their normal teacher is away. He is really looking forward to trying to teach 5 year olds!!

Photos are being added to the pages on facebook from time to time, Becky now also has a set of photos on there:

Dan's photos

Becky's photos

Dan & Becky

School

2008-01-29T13:09:00.000Z

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.

Hello From Kathmandu.

2008-01-18T04:49:00.000Z

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

We've arrived

2008-01-10T10:25:00.000Z

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

Tonight we fly

2008-01-08T12:25:00.000Z

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

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-18T19:53:00.000Z

Well this may be our last post from the UK for quite some time!

We finished here in Birmingham last Thursday. We are still here though til this Friday (21/12) as we have more space to do all our packing. So far it just looks like a bomb has gone off! Hopefully it will look like we've had a bit more progress by tomorrow evening as we leave Friday morning!

It has been a good term here which we have enjoyed, but we're also glad to be getting going now! Although the reality of it all is starting to sink in, and is quite scary. We've been really blessed with some great people to train with here at IMC and we will miss them a lot - but hopefully stay in touch.

We will spend about a week with family over Christmas, then we're in Liverpool for a bit over new year and then on the 5th and 6th of January as we have a commissioning service at the Tab (our church in Liverpool) on the 6th.

Then off on the 8th in the evening. When we get there we have 8 weeks language and orientation training before we actually start teaching. We're looking forward to this as it will give us time to acclimatise to a new way of life - but i think we will be itching to get back into the class room by the end of it.
We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas with your family and friends and a Happy New Year too. Dan and Becky.

Good News

2007-11-21T16:15:00.000Z

When we last wrote KISC (Kathmandu International Study Centre) was having a few issues, but since then we have had some good news. The school achieved it's legal status recently, as before it was only temporary and hadn't been approved by the new government. Now it has more capability to apply for visas and do various other things which a temporary institution wouldn't be able to do.

We have also heard they have found a new site, which is available to move onto in January, in time for our arrival. Although this hasn't been confirmed yet. When we first get out there we'll be living in a hostel owned by the school, before finding our own flat.

We're currently working hard on assignments and are starting to organise our stuff. Working out what we need to take, what we want to take and what don't need. It is already looking like a 'fun' job! We only have 3 weeks left here now and it seems pretty scary that it'll all be over soon and we'll be off.

Other news is that one of the couples who were supposed to be coming to Nepal with us have found out this week that they no longer are. They were supposed to be living in the south of the country but for various reasons they won't be. It's obviously been a bit of a shock for them, but there are some other options open to them elsewhere which they are looking into. It means that they probably won't be going out in January as planned, unless something else gets sorted very quickly.

Last thing is that BMS World Mission (the agency we're going with) website has been relaunched. If you'd like to take a look then go to http://www.bmsworldmission.org/ and if you click on people and places you should be able to find us, although the info is very limited at the moment! You can also use the website to find out a bit more about what they do if you want to.

Dan & Becky

Dates

2007-10-22T10:47:00.001Z

Since we last wrote not a lot has changed for us. We are now well into the course at Birmingham and have settled into assignments and lectures again as if it'd only been 5 minutes since we were last studying. Although we do have much more recent experience than many of those studying with us.

However the future is now starting to look much clearer. About 2 weeks ago a couple who teach at the school in Kathmandu we will be teaching at came to the college and we were able to have quite a long chat and ask some of the many questions that have been on our minds. We found out many things we didn't know, for example Kathmandu is on a fault line and is quite a high earthquake risk! We will be teaching mostly American and Korean children, even though the school is English and uses an English curriculum.

More concerning is the news that the school has been given until the 20th December to vacate the premises it is currently in. It has only been there 2 years having been kicked out of the last place in similar circumstances. Obviously this has direct consequences for us as when we arrive in January we have no idea where the school will be, or even if it will have a new premises. If they find nowhere else then they will use hotels in the meantime, but obviously it is a big concern for those at the school at the minute.

We have also been contacted directly by the school and have organised our language and orientation training. This will begin on Monday 14th January, and will take 2 months. Part of it will involve living with a local Nepali family for a few days to give us the opportunity of seeing how they live and practising our language. We are quite nervous about this although it should be a great experience.

As a result we have also got a provisional date for leaving the country. It looks like we will be going out on the 8th January, although this hasn't been confirmed yet. It should be hectic few weeks, with Christmas, New Year, our commissioning service in Liverpool on the 6th of January, then flying out, starting language training, and in amongst all that celebrating Dan's birthday!

A really positive aspect of life in Birmingham is that 2 other couples who are training with us will also be going to Nepal, and one of these will be in Kathmandu. Although they won't be teaching it will be great to have another couple who we already consider friends moving there with us.

The final thing for now, is that as part of our work with BMS we have to publish a regular prayer/newsletter. We are putting together a list of people to receive this at the moment. If you would like to be on the list then please let us know.

If you want to publish comments or responses then feel free, if you don't have a google account then just use the anonymous option and sign your name on the message you write (it won't appear straight away as we have to authorise it!).

Dan and Becky.

A new home

2007-09-21T17:24:00.000Z

We are now here in Birmingham and this last week we have been settling into our new home. We arrived on Monday and have a nice little flat, including a very small living area. We felt very fortunate to have been allocated this as not everyone has a flat, some just have two en-suite bedrooms.

IMC (International Mission Centre) is set in lovely grounds and is a great old building. This week has involved learning our way around the maze of corridors and finding out about all the facilities. We've also been getting to know the other people who will be training with us, some, like us, who are here till Christmas, and others who will be here the whole year before going overseas indefinitely.

The most enjoyable part about Birmingham so far has been the food! Lunch and Dinner are prepared by an amazing cook. The food she produces is some of the best I've ever tasted, and she does it twice a day! I think we shall be rolled out of here at Christmas several sizes larger.

Last week we read an interesting story on the BBC about Nepal, especially interesting for any of you planning to come visit. You may well know what I'm talking about, but if not check out the story following this link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6979292.stm

Dan & Becky

Boxes, boxes everywhere

2007-08-28T16:52:00.001Z

I'm not exaggerating either. Our house is full of boxes. Thankfully very soon these will all be transferred to our parents, and we're sure they will be delighted.

Our long, wet, summer is drawing to a close. We've managed to keep ourselves busy, mostly organising stuff for moving, however with less than 24 hours till we move everything out it still seems to be all last minute and rushed.

This evening we are off to a farewell BBQ with our church housegroup. Then tomorrow we will fill our hired van and transport all the stuff we have accumulated over the years back to our Mums & Dads. I'm sure it will only seem like yesterday they managed to get rid of it all. We then have only a few hours to get back up to Liverpool with our van or they will charge us an exorbitant amount for late return.

We leave our house for good on Friday, handing over the keys to the two girls who will be renting it. We are staying in Liverpool for the weekend, a farewell meal with friends at our favourite Curry house and then a goodbye meal at church on Sunday.

We then return to the south and have a week with our family before a week on holiday in Portugal with our two little sisters. Then we head for Birmingham and the start of our training.

It still seems a long way off, but in 3 weeks from now we shall be living in Birmingham! We were talking the other day about how strange, and sad, that our days in Liverpool are coming to an end. I've been here 9 years and Becky 6. As long as either of us have lived anywhere. I've now managed 9 years in Thetford, 9 in Grove and Liverpool has completed the set. Hopefully it won't be 9 in Birmingham too!

As Liverpool celebrates it's 800th birthday today, it seems fitting that the celebrations are rounding off our stay here. It's been a great city for us both, we came not knowing the other and leave on a joint adventure.

Dan & Becky

Leaving Work

2007-07-29T21:17:00.001Z

Hello again. Thought it time we update you all on our adventures - even though they are barely started.

We've now both finished work. We won't teach another class for 6 months! It's weird to think that we won't be going back to our respective schools in September, I guess it'll really start to sink in about then that we are making big changes. Mind you if we were going back in September we wouldn't have got such nice presents from our friends at work.

Knowing my fondness for a certain football team my form brought me a huge Norwich flag which they all signed and a Norwich football. We also received many other gifts that will remind us of our work there.

We're now working our way through the summer. I'm keeping busy marking coursework and this week Becky is helping out at our church Summer Kids Club. It means she's dressing up as a pirate for the week!

Things are beginning to fall very smoothly into place. Becky's car was sold with minimal fuss and no need for advertising. Hopefully mine will follow suit in January. Our finances are starting to take shape too. We've set up a bank account that allows for free withdrawals abroad, slightly better than £1.50 every time with our current bank! We are also in the process of setting up a Stewardship Account, which will allow anyone who wishes to support us financially to have the money gift aided. Those of you who would like details about this then just make a comment to this message(we won't publish it) or email us.

Next week we celebrate our second wedding anniversary, which appears to have come round staggeringly fast. It will also see a sad day as we will be giving away our cats. Never thought I'd say that but it's strange what effect 2 little cats can have on you when you live with them for 2 years! Still, they are going to a good home!

That's all for now,

Dan

Birmingham

2007-06-17T16:51:00.000Z

Thought it was time that I added my voice to this blog since Dan has started it off.

Last Saturday (9th June) we went down to Birmingham for the day to see where we would be when we go down in September for 3 months training. We met 2 of the people who run the training as well as some others who will be doing the training with us as they also prepare to go overseas.

While we are there we will have classes each morning, and then some study time each afternoon. We will be doing a variety of courses on the Bible, Christian doctrine, other religions, mission, cross cultural preparation, BMS, practicalities of moving and living abroad and so on.

The training centre is all in one building, where we will live, eat and study. We will have a small en suite room to ourselves, food is fully catered and there are quite a few communal facilities such as a lounge, computer room, gym and library. We are really looking forward to the change from normal life for a term, seeing it as a break from work and a great opportunity to prepare for going abroad. However, we are a little concerned about the lack of private space we will have there, but it is only for one term and I'm sure it will be character building!!

In the last week or so we have found 2 girls from our church here in Liverpool to rent our house, and a friend of mine (and her boyfriend) from uni has agreed to adopt our two gorgeous cats! Which is great news!

Becky.

All official now

2007-05-12T15:52:00.000Z

Well there's no going back now, both Becky and myself have had our replacements appointed. It's brought to us a clear realisation that we are out of here!

I think I've found this harder as I'm more established in my school than Becky. We have both enjoyed strong departments and a good group of friends which we will miss.

We've also realised we're going to be missing at least 3 weddings while we're away, probably more, my Mum's 60th birthday and of course Norwich City's assault on the Championship title next year and their successful qualification for the Champions League the season after. We're definitely disappointed about this (not the football, the other things), but also recognise that this is all part of the sacrifice you have to make to have this amazing opportunity.

We've also been reassured that we're making the right move in the past few weeks. Everything is slotting into place relatively smoothly. Whenever we seem to hit a problem or a snag the solution is quickly apparent.

We are still looking to rent our house. We have some interested parties, but nothing certain yet, so if you do know anybody that is looking to rent a very nice, fully furnished 2 bedroom house in South Liverpool then get in touch!

We're going down to IMC in Birmingham in a few weeks. This is where we'll be living in September. It's a chance to look round and get a feel for what life for 3 months might be like. Hopefully we'll also meet some of the other mid-term people we'll be training with at the same time.

Dan

A brand new start

2007-04-21T11:50:00.000Z

Hey, it's here, the one you've all been waiting for!

We've decided to set up a blog to keep people uptodate with us as we prepare, train and go with BMS to Nepal.

I guess theres not much to say at the minute, if you're reading this you'll already be aware of our impending move. Just to go over the details for you:

In July we'll both finish at our schools in Merseyside. In September we'll move to Birmingham to train at the International Mission Centre in Selly Oak. Then after 3 months of being students again we'll fly to Nepal in early January 2008!

We'll be teaching at a school called Kathmandu International Study Centre, or KISC for short. Check out the website www.kisc.edu.np .

We'll try and use this site to keep you up to date with what's going on with us and hopefully include some photos so you get and an idea of what our lives our like in Nepal.

We hope you enjoy reading this blog.

Dan & Becky