To volunteer, or not to volunteer…
Well, we’re currently not.
Let me preface this by saying that the family we were placed with was really nice. We stayed with the headmaster of the school we were “supposed” to teach at – the headmaster was really nice and he and his son knew English. His wife knew pretty much no English; our Nepali sucked – but we managed with hand signals and the like. One of our favorite phrases “Thik Chha?” means Is okay? And you have to do this little head-bob – kind of like a bobblehead – well, I guess you’d have to be here…they do it here a lot…
The one thing John LOVES is Dal Bhat. They have it twice a day here. After living with the family for like a week he cringes now at the words. It’s really not that bad…rice, a curry, a pickle type thing…the part that kind of killed him was the soy. I’m not sure how it’s prepared but it’s not like tofu – very strong flavor – it’s hard to describe. And the problem is the part where once you touch something on your plate it’s only eaten by you. Oh, and it’s impolite to leave stuff on the plate. So if you hate something you eat it anyway. We got used to eating with the right hand thing and just using your hand pretty quick.
Anyway, we were supposed to teach. The first problem for John was that he was told there had been no computer teacher so he brought all this material on the basics. Well, they had a teacher and the kids all knew the stuff and she kind of did it on the fly. Like we’re talking, no curriculum – just making stuff up as she went along. So he didn’t know what they knew and didn’t know. Makes it kind of hard to teach a couple of classes when you have no idea what they know/don’t know. For me, I’m not sure if I just completely didn’t understand the volunteer position but I got the feeling after a few days that I was just going to end up hanging out with John in the computer lab (where he was fixing a couple of computers) because I got the distinct impression that the teachers just didn’t want me to go into their classes.
It’s such a strange system here. So you go along, merrily, in a government school (vs the more expensive boarding school) being taught in Nepali. Then boom – you hit college after Grade 10 – and everything is taught in English. Just like Africa. I don’t get it.
Anyway, we just decided to cut our losses and left Chapagoan (the town we were placed at) and just go trekking early. So we leave tomorrow for the Annapurna Circuit.
All in all, so far, this has been a great country. The Nepali people are super-nice and always smiling. Half of them look “Mongolian” and the other half look “Indian”. It’s kind of weird in one way to be mistaken for a Nepali (Sharika – the wife of the headmaster said that like once a day) – but, on the other hand, not like I condone it or anything, I was getting into tourist places for free. And can you say super-cheap! We’re staying in a place in the touristy area of Kathmandu with a bathroom, fan, cable TV for under $10. And food is as cheap as you want to make it too. But even if you want “Western” food it’s not that expensive.
Anyway, in a month, we head to Hong Kong for 2 weeks, then to Taiwan for a month and then to Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam until very nearly the end of the year. We’re thinking of trying to head to Europe in time for New Years – we shall see!
Tags: Nepal, RTW Trip
JohnCin
Leave a Reply