I was only in Ramechaap for one week, yet I feel like I've lived there an entire lifetime. I know that may sound strange, even verging on cliche, but it is the best way that I can describe how I feel about my time. But, I'll start from the beginning. After a 12 hour bus ride east of Kathmandu I reached Mantili/Mantelli (sp?). Apparently, Matt found some good google-earth photos of the area. I was in a very rural area just outside of Mantili in the region of Ramechaap. But don't be confused, Ramechaap is also a city as well as a region. After spending the night in Mantili, I hiked up what they call a hill in Nepal (really a mountain) for about two hours. My home stay family was very kind and loving, consisting of a grandmother, Deepak, a grandfather, Kesar, their daughter, Sita, and her son (about 3 months old), and their daughter-in-law, Gita, and her daughter, Cabita (about 2.5 years old). Both Sita and Gita are about 26 years old, and both of their husbands work in India. Gita was the only one who spoke English because she grew up in India and went to a private school, but she only spoke very very basic English. Although you may think that I learned all of the information I've shared so far from Gita, it was actually Deepak that I became the closest to, who through a variety of charades tactics and my extremely basic Nepali, was able to share with me the basics of the family I was spending my time with. Below is a picture of Gita and Cabita, her daughter.
Life in rural Nepal is HARD. The sun sets at 6pm and rises at 6am. There is no electricity. My family went to bed at about 8pm and woke up at about 3am in order to finish all that they needed to to survive. Most of their daily chores revolved around their animals. They had about 7 goats, 2 cows, 4 oxen, and one chicken. They grew a variety of squash and cucumber, guava, corn, greens (I think alfalfa?) and did I mention lots and lots of corn! The two girls did the harvesting of greens and corn, which is a back-breaking activity and is done in the heat of the day. Keep in mind that Gita is about 6/7 months pregnant and has a 2 year old child to look after while doing this activity. Sita has to go up and down from the fields to the house to breast feed her child throughout the day. Deepak, the grandmother wakes up at 3 and grinds the corn kernels from the day before into a mush that is cooked like rice. Keep in mind that I tried this and could probably only last for 10 minutes max--she does this from about 3am to about 5am. Kesar, the grandfather, has an infected foot that is swollen, yet he travels up and down the "hill" every day to go to the market. Every moment of every day was spent doing something useful. Since the only thing that I had the skills to do was de-kernel the corn, I did this most of the time that I had free. They used the kernels for just about everything, so they needed lots of it. My thumbs are now have calluses from my "work". Most of the time though, I felt like one more baby added to their family. One more person that needed looking after and that did not understand anything and needed help. I don't often feel this way, so it was a very unique experience for me.
While living with them, I always felt cared for and appreciated. We mostly bonded over the universal humor of toddlers and babies. Most of the Nepali I learned while living there was mostly the language they used with their kids, probably due to the repetition. So, I learned some really useful phrases like, bubu china, which means, I have no milk, which Deepak would say over and over while laughing at the baby when his mom was in the field.
School started at 10am and went until 4pm, although often the children would come to my house starting at about 8am and just sit next to me until we began talking in English. I taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade English. I was amazed at the difference between the English skills of 3rd graders (basically none) and the 5th graders that could not only answer questions about their lives, but could also ask some complicated questions of their own. The 4 other teachers there, including the principal, knew very basic English, about the same as the 5th graders. Below is a photo of my last day at the school, which happened to coincide with the first day of a holiday, so the school had a dance party. Yes, you read that correctly, we started school early to have a school-wide dance party, complete with a drum and singing. Below you will see the prinicpal on the left and one of the teachers on the right taking their turn dancing to the music.
The most difficult think for me to witness was their discipline style. For the first 45 minutes of the day, the students are supposed to be in their classrooms, but without any teacher at all. The teachers sit and talk in the office. Of course, without supervision, there were often disagreements and fights that broke out. And by fights, I mean, full on punching in the face, street fighting. Now, I've never seen much violence in my life at all, so to see 4th graders giving each other black eyes and pummelling each other to such an extent really rattled my core. The teachers, when they did see the fighting, would separate the children, would hit them, and then would send them on their way. In both the school and at home, I saw a lot of hitting of children. I also saw playful threatening with sticks, and actual threatening with sticks. Now you may be reading this and thinking how horrific this is...I think I would at least. But, it is important to know that the students DO know where the line is between the teasing and the actual threatening, and what is expected of them. Now, I'm not at all advocating for violence, but there were a few times that it did seem to work. Let me explain. Cabita, 2 years old, has access to all of the families animals all the time and sometimes cannot be watched by an adult. As a curious 2 year old, pulling on the tail of an ox, could kill her. The family did the best they could to baby-proof the area, but there was still one section that she could enter from. When she got close to that section and did not respond by their verbal commands, they would hit her. Now, I understand that if it works to hurt her a little to avoid being hurt a lot, that it may be worth it...they live in a very different environment with very different resources, and it seemed that they really were doing the best they could to live. Now, the school was different. I never saw that hitting once had a positive effect, not once. It was horrible to watch. I did what I could to care for the children and show them how not hitting is a better alternative. It was funny how without ever having verbalized my distaste for the violence, that the kids picked it up quickly and soon whenever anyone was fighting they would say, "no fighting" and look at me. Now, I don't think that I made a lasting difference as I was only there for one week, but hopefully I did something to help.
This photo is of my very first day at the school when they welcomed me by having each student come up and give me some flower petals and put some pink on my forehead, which as you can see, did not only end up only on my forehead. Also, found out later that it does not come off with water and was thoroughly pink-skinned for several days after, much to the delight of my homestay family.
Tomorrow I'm off to Bhutan. I may or may not have internet access until the 3rd of November when I come back. I hope everyone who reads this blog is doing really well!
