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Published: February 24th 2011
My Bedroom
This is my lovely bedroom. It's quite spacious - the only slight problem is that there are quite a lot of spiders!!I've now been staying with my host family for 3 weeks and I have to say they are lovely!! My Nepali Mum doesn't speak much English at all so she just talks Nepali at me and I just copy her, often with no idea what I'm saying! But she always smiles at me, and comes out with 'Thank You' if I do something she likes. My Nepali sister is 23 and speaks excellent English, so in the evenings, we chat, and when the power is on, we watch films on her computer. My host father is also good fun - he speaks a bit of English, but still not a lot, but he keeps trying to make me try this really, really hot chilli - and there is no way I am after I saw how one of the boys from the next door house reacted!!
My school is also good. It is about a 10 minute walk from the house across some fields. The children are mostly lovely, although they can be very hard to control!! The problem is that often the naughty things they do make me laugh so I'm not very good at disciplining them. I am taking
The toilet and shower
The shower is hot - which is great. Again this is spider land - especially at night!! 3 classes a day, and in one week I teach 1 class 3, 2 class 4, 3 class 5, 6 and 7, and 2 class 8. My favourite class is class 8 because they understand me the most and are the best behaved!! (class ages are similiar to Uk).
So, a normal routine for me is as follows:
Wake up at 7.15am, get ready and go into the kitchen at 7.30 for a cup of tea. Then I sit and help/watch my Nepalese mother make the morning rice and curry (dhal baat). It is my job to peel any potatoes that we need. The family owns lots of land so they make so all the food we eat is freshly grown - and very tasty. At about 8.30 the curry is ready and I eat - I've got over the shock of having curry for breakfast and now at the weekends when I don't have it I get really hungry! Then I change into my Kurta for school, and at 9am meet the other volunteer who lives just round the corner and teaches in a school next to mine, and we walk to school together. Assembly is at 9.45, so
The view from the house
This is the view over the fields and the tap where I brush my teeth. I stand in the playground with the other teachers until then. Assembly just involves all the students lining up and doing some arm exercises and sometimes singing the Nepali national anthem.
Then lessons start - when I'm not teaching I generally sit in the staffroom planning lessons or marking work.
Normally I get home about 3pm (my favourite time of day!!) When Gunjan (my Nepali sister gets home from college) we often walk up to the botanical gardens, and once went to hear the afternoon prayers in the monastry, which was very atmospheric.
From about 6.30pm we join the parents in the kitchen (my Nepali father cooks every evening, which is very unusual) to talk or help cooking.
If there is power (which is about twice a week) we watch a film after eating, and then I go to bed about 10pm.
I really love the village I'm staying in, it is so peaceful after Kathmandu, and it is always nice to return to on a Sunday afternoon.
(Photos will follow when I find a computer that will let me upload them!)
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Pete Jones
non-member comment
So good to read your news
Hi Em - bizarre thought, but was reading your latest post whilst travelling on the circle line tube - two different worlds collide. So glad things are going so well out there and the family are so lovely. Take care. Finn knows what time it is where you are & when you're up and wgen you're asleep!! Lol, xxxxx