In the mornings the children wake up at 8 and usually do more homework or
study something or other. Something i have been amazed by is how much work
the children are made to do- an hour or so after school of homework for all
of them (even the youngest) and then quite often they are given extra
handwriting for another hour or two- yesterday they all had to copy out a
detailed leaflet on paragliding that the Uncle had found for them, and i am
also encouraged to give them as much maths/social/science/english as i am
finding physically possible! They are all very hardworking and this
definitely pays off as i have been astounded by how intelligent they all
are. Their english is extremely good and their work exceeds what i would
expect english students of their age to know, however they are completing it
with ease as their second language along side heaps of Nepali work. Their
maths is also amazing- a 9 year old yesterday blew me away with his ability
to multiply 13x15 in about 2 seconds, embarrassingly before i could tell him
if he was correct or not. The 5 year olds can spell long words in english
and read them as well, their writing is really neat and they take a lot of
care over it- they are only in nursery class! It's all very impressive and i
am pleased to hear that they are all coming first or second in their
classes.

After homework in the mornings the children change into their uniforms and
line up ready to walk to school, they all look so clean and smart in their
blue uniforms, the girls with their hair neatly plaited. 5 minutes ago they
wore the same dirty clothes as they have worn most days and now they appear
looking so smart, the oldest few have only just been bought school jumpers
and so look smarter than ever!
After walking them to school for around 9.30/10 and the chorus of' 'goodbye
auntie!!' at the school gates i have free time until pick up at 4pm. My
plans were to explore a bit more of Pokhara beyond lakeside after my tour by
the Denmark girls however as i headed off i met someone i knew from
the lodge and was invited to go and drink rice beer with him and his friends, this turned out to be a fun afternoon however i'm stil not so sure about the taste
of the rice beer/yeast so didnt have much myself..:S
I returned in tme for picking them up from school and we headed slowly
back to the home. One of the boys stopped at almost every shp on the
way back buying sweets..it is still a mystery where he gets his money
from as they are not given any pocket money-being the loudest and
cheekiest boy of the lot however, we are sure that he has some sort of
business going at school or is just the school bully!

Back at the home its homework and other handwriting until one of the
daily powercuts comes as a relief and the children all run outside to
play and fetch candles. Depending on the length of the powercut and
how boisterous the children are being outside, they sometimes have to
continue with their work using only candle light. The powercuts happen
daily and are usually a couple of hours long , somethng i am beginning
to get used to.

The next day was a half day and so we picked the children up at 1pm
and after changing out of their uniform headed to the park. They call
it the park but its really a large piece of grass near the lake, which
isnt really flat at all so there was no playing football or anything
like that, instead they decided to go fishing! There are lots of pools
of muddy water which i was certain did not contain any form of life
but patronisingly agreed. 10 minutes later i was shown a bottle of
what they had already caught- 5 or 6 little fish and a fairly large
one! i was amazed and even more so at the fact that they were fishing
using their hands, rolling up their trousers to stand knee deep in the
wtaer and using some old netting they had found and a coke bottle they
had also found to keep their catch of the day. very impressive!