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Does such a thing as a normal day exist? In theory the children go to school 6 days a week but, with religious festivals, 'Martyr's Day' and strikes, they have been at home more days than at school. A school day is more structured. We play with the little ones and then, when the school bus disgorges its load, there's a snack to be had and homework to be done. Non-school days are less structured; dare we say chaotic.
The structure of a school day comes from being able to separate children into small groups with dedicated activities. Muna cut out paper shapes so we helped her develop this into origami. So we had the usual strings of paper children holding hands and then cars nose to tail in a Kathmandu traffic jam, and so on. Abi and I taught Sabina to say 'square' which, apparently, is a difficult sound for Nepali mouths to form. Ss kk w ay rr. Sabina is delighted when she eventually gets it consistently correct and can say squeeze too. Our books of games, snakes and ladders, ludo, etc., take up time and the children can play these happily by themselves. I'm appointed captain of the England cricket team, to play the Nepalis. My team is Sarsoti, who can bowl dead straight 90% of the time, Dhiraj who, despite having no feet can catch every ball that comes within 20 yards of him, and me. Those who know my cricketing abilities will have instant fear for the honour of England but we perform well, mainly because, for obvious reasons, runs don't feature in the scoring. The aim is to get the batsman out. In fact, to hit balls hard is 'not cricket' as somebody has to go and get them, usually me.
A day when they're all at home is very different and hard work. By the time we get there the children noisy and rushing about, ie. acting like children. They all want to be involved in everything. Two local ladies and a young man come in most afternoons for an hour or two to help with homework but when there is no set homework they are swamped with children who want to do words, numbers, matching shapes and everything else at different ability levels at the same time. We have bought a lovely top quality boxed set of 4 Noddy Jigsaws for 385 rupees (£3.20!). I got it from the taxi, trying not to wake Krishna, and asked 6 of the children to come to the other, free, table to do 2 of the jigsaws, leaving the Nepali ladies with a manageable group. But once the others saw what was going on the whole pack descended on the jigsaws. Twenty hands pulled at the pieces, dismantling parts already assembled, snatching the box to see the pictures. The 2 ladies were left alone at the other table. The jigsaws were finished and I insisted on putting them away so the ladies could continue their work. To leave them there would mean all 4 pictures being muddled up, pieces lost and the box broken. We feel mean but we're learning.
Imagine leaving 29 Berkhamsted children, 6 - 16, alone from 7am to 6pm, with no mobiles, electronics, TV or video, just a few board games. Would you be as well behaved as our DNC children by the afternoon? I think there would certainly be a lot of whingeing which is always totally absent at DNC. Or is that a cruel injustice?
Kath was helping the local lady on the homework table. Laxmi wanted Kath to help her fold her clothes. The older girls decided they are interested in doing some embroidery. The Indian lady who comes in to cook does sewing in her spare time, to sell her embroidered pillow cases, so Kath and the girls spent some time talking to her about sewing.
Despite what we said in an earlier blog, the children do have more games, even teddies. But they hide them away and don't tell us about them when we ask. They seem to be treasures to be got out at special times. This is where the games we have bought have gone and if we didn't take the Noddy jigsaw away with us that would be hidden too.
We took one day off and went round Durbar Square, the world heritage site in the centre of Kathmandu. A lot of interesting temples spoilt by the only pushy touts we've met here. We missed the appearance of the 7 year old child goddess but we found an embroidery shop and a 99rupee store. Kath stocked up with her embroidery equipment and we got scissors and Frisbees in the 99r store.
Another day and Shanti is at the school. She goes four times a year to receive the children's reports. And you thought meeting teachers to hear about one child was bad enough! Just how much does this marvellous woman achieve? With so many children she can only hand out the written reports which result, as you would expect, in both joy and tears. Kath delays the sewing class because one or two of the older girls (the 'glamour girls' from an earlier blog) are upset. We've only known the girls for a couple of weeks but it's worrying to think what will become of them in Nepal if they get poor final exam results. And they know it too.
At another time I went off and found Pushte sitting alone downstairs and sat down with him for a chat. He told me that he is the only 'child' taking final exams this year and this summer he must leave his home of 9 years. Last year eight left together, seven now live in a flat in Kathmandu and one with her parents. He is concerned about what he will do alone. When I asked why I've not seen him recently he explained that he leaves for school at 5am and has extra classes in the afternoon so doesn't get back until 6 - 6.30pm. One Nepali benefactor is paying for his schooling and the extra classes. He wants to go to college and study computer animation but there is no college that offers a good course in this subject. So he will have to do Art (but perhaps doesn't have a great aptitude for this). Or maybe IT. How can I advise him? My view was that, unless he goes to Bollywood, there are few careers in animation. If he does IT then perhaps he could specialise in animation and there would be better general career opportunities. I don't know enough about the situation to push my ideas on him so we discussed the pros and cons of the various options and the career opportunities. Perhaps his benefactor would be the best man to help and advise.
Typical days. All the children seem happy and can amuse themselves remarkably well. They're used to it. Carefree little children but older ones, like all youngsters, have underlying concerns about their futures. They have the advantage of an education till 16, at least. The Nepali education system is pushing out lots of educated children but where are the jobs for all of them, most of all for 'our children'?
Kath and I leave the children and head back to a good meal and our flat. We wonder what we've achieved. We suppose that writing it in our blog highlights what we've done but it seems spread so thinly and so transitory.
ps. Despite the photo we have not climbed Everest. Wifi is so poor that we timed out while trying to download one photo so we chose a standard one.
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