Load Shedding

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

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

"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!

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

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

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

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.