Monsoon

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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!