Two weeks in Dolpa... what an experience.
The bus ride from Kathmandu was not as long as expected, a mere 12 hours to Nepalgunj (which the other volunteers, Hillary and Mackenzie, and I have dubbed "Purgatory" for its oppressive heat and humidity) and then a half-hour plane ride into Dolpa. It is a stunning flight: the little 12-seat passes between steep forested hills and past stark snow peaks, then lands without losing any altitude on a high strip of grass just barely long and wide enough to be a runway: the only airport in Dolpa, the largest district in Nepal. The village of Juphal lies just below the airport, clinging to the steep mountainside at 10,000 feet, 5 days from the nearest road. Several thousand feet below runs the Bheri River in a steep, narrow valley that is as dry, pine-covered, and beautiful as Colorado. When the clouds part, snow peaks show their white noses to the west.
In this town of 1,000 people, prayer flags flutter from tall poles and men lean on intricately carved and painted balcony railings. The bells of a pony train tinkle from the main path, a rooster crows, children shout to each other as they kick around a soccer ball. The wind carries the smells of wood smoke and pony dung, which is refreshing after the cacophony of smells that filled the streets of Kathmandu. Up here in the mountains, the air is fresher and cooler, days are slower, there are no motorcycles or even bicycles to harass walkers.
Tarak Shahi met us at the airport and took us to his parents' trekkers' lodge, where we stayed in a very comfortable room; "very comfortable," in this case, means whitewashed clay walls, sporadic electricity, running tap downstairs, squat toilet rather than hole in the ground, no bedbugs, and not too many giant spiders - my standards of cleanliness and comfort have drastically changed since coming to Nepal. (Actually,, in my eyes, a squat toilet is preferable to a Western one. With a squat toilet, you need not worry about touching any unclean toilet parts, and the utter lack of toilet paper is made more bearable.)
My daily routine in Juphal looked like this:
5-6am: Wake up, write in my journal or read as the fog clears out.
8am: Breakfast of tea and chapati with jam.
9.30am: With Mackenzie and Hillary, begin walking down the impossibly steep hill to Dolpa Educational English School, about 5 minutes, then wait with the children until assembly.
10am: Assembly. The 60-70 students stand in straight rows as the principal calls out "Attention!" "At ease!" "Turn left!" etc. and the teachers make sure that all students have clean hands, teeth, and uniforms. They sing the national anthem, recite a prayer, and march back inside.
10.15am: First class begins. We taught all subjects (except Nepali) to Nursery class (age 3) up to class 2 (age 7 or 8). I mostly taught math, and one class of "Rhymes." It was extremely difficult, since only the older kids understand enough English to communicate, and my Nepali is limited to counting to 10, asking your name, and "basni!" (sit down!).
On the first day, the principal assigned us to classes and then pushed us out the door, saying, "Go teach." The first half of each class consisted of merely ascertaining what the students were supposed to be learning, and trying to figure out how to control them, let alone discipline them, in a foreign language. The normal teachers were of little help, in part because they did not speak very good English and in part because they didn't know any better than we did. They expected us to bring in some flashy American teaching methods that would revolutionize their school (or perhaps just lure more parents into enrolling their children at a prestigious English school that had Americans), and it was difficult to explain to them that we couldn't do that, especially not within the existing Nepali teaching style, which relies on copying and memorization rather than concepts and creative learning. In spite of all that, though, the students were very sweet, and it got easier with each passing day to make teaching fun and effective.
1.15pm: After four morning classes, we hastened back up the hill for tiffin (lunch) of dal bhat - rice, watery lentil soup, mushy curried vegetables. Occasionally we were treated to a steaming bowl of ramen soup. The food was less than ideal, since the lodge's cook had left to accompany a big trekking expedition. We all felt undernourished and thus treated ourselves to one small handful of gorp a day (it had to last us two weeks), a few coconut biscuits every three days, and a Frooti mango juice - mostly sugar but maybe a touch of vitamin C - once a week.
1.45pm: The three afternoon classes begin.
4pm: Afternoon assembly. The best students in each class are asked to stand in front of the school and recite a lesson, tell a joke, or sing a song. We taught them a few songs, like Old MacDonald and The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and they loved to dance.
4.30pm: Up the hill to the lodge, where we rested after our exhausting day at the school. Tarak would often ask us to help him with a computer problem or tutor his 5-year-old son Sogan; other times we would walk around the town or play with some of the kids from the school.
8pm: Dinner of dal bhat.
8.30-9pm: Bed time. The electricity was often out, so we would read for a few minutes by flashlight before falling asleep.
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