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Published: November 3rd 2008
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ECCA Camp
The ERC main meeting room and dorms Since the last time I wrote I've spent very little time in Kathmandu. I started working full time with ECCA and have spent some time getting to know the teachers and students at the Yasodhara Buddhist school. I have put together some preliminary coursework for the students and teachers and have taught a couple days of classes. It's kind of fun, I was pretty nervous at first but everyone is really nice and the class size is small so it's less intimidating. Not really knowing all that much about computers made this work a little intimidating but since there were questions as basic as how to open a program I seem to be confident that I can manage the first couple of weeks of this course just fine.
Only two days into my teaching though I was pulled away by my program leader of ECCA to go away to a village outside of Boktapur to attend a Nature Camp. So the way ECCA works is that they have a program called a Nature Club in various schools throughout the Kathmandu Valley. The kids are fully in charge of the clubs in their schools but they can ask advice and count
ECCA Camp
A view from the roof of the main building of the cafeteria building at the top of the hill on support from the Nepali local volunteers, who help out at ECCA, whenever they need it. ECCA holds Nature Camps twice a year and each camp has two sessions; one set of 50 kids come and attend for the first two days and then a new set of 50 kids come for the last two days (all between ages of 13-16). So the program for the first session was for the kids to discuss the activities and projects that they have been working on or completed in the past 6 months at their schools and in their communities, they are supposed to discuss things that worked well, challenges that they faced, what they were able to overcome, where they had difficulties, etc. This way they have an opportunity to share ideas and gather advice from the other groups with the final aim of the camp being to do planning for the next 6 months with predictions as to what outcomes they expect, where they might face challenges, what resources they will need, etc. Good life skills as well I guess since we all still have to do that at work and it was really great to see how motivated these
ECCA Camp
The kids getting ready for their first session of camp kids were! They really do have real concerns about the environment they are living in as well as the health and sanitation issues they face. The second program was focused on skill development where the kids were receiving training on things like writing formal project proposals and report writing skills; once again very useful life skills to be trained in. During this second program Stephen (one of the other Canadian volunteers who works with ECCA) was supposed to do some first aid training (that was his project for his time here, to develop a course for them). Since he was doing this in English and since he needed to train the Nepali volunteers first, I helped him out with it. Good thing that I have many first aid courses under my belt because it made it easier to do demonstrations. The kids really liked this part of their camp, I think, because it was interactive and it gave us a good opportunity to interact with the kids a little more since the language barrier often made that difficult. I had a lot of fun at this camp and it's always a welcome change to get out of dusty Kathmandu. The
ECCA Camp
A view during the morning hike Environmental Resource Center (ERC) was built about 5 years ago with the support of overseas volunteers and it has a gorgeous setting. It is built onto the side of a hill so the three buildings that make up the ERC are staggered between a terraced garden and with each building having a rooftop deck to relax on. We went on hikes every morning and were even able to see a view of the top of Everest! That one definitely didn't turn out in pictures, but it was incredible. The ERC uses solar energy for water heating and also stores solar energy so that when load sharing occurs the building still has lights to ensure that programs are not interrupted. There are full time care takers as well and they do all the cooking. The reason they made sure that this camp is so self sustaining and incorporated services is because they rent out the buildings to anyone who would like to use them, for conventions or teamwork camps or anything which then provides extra income to ECCA to further benefit their other projects.
So we returned to Kathmandu and spent one full day there before 7 of us from
ECCA Camp
The kids at the summit of our morning hike the volunteer house took off to go to Chitwan for a quick 4 day trip. This past week was Diwali and Tihar which is a week long celebration so once again all of our volunteer placements were closed and we took advantage of that time to see some more of the country. After being immersed in Nepali mountains for the past month you tend to forget about just how varied the landscape is. We headed over to the jungle and the flatness of it all and difference in vegetation made it feel like another world. This area is mostly inhabited by the Tharu people who still live in a very traditional way. They make the most of everything nature has to offer and even use cow dung to make bricks for their roofs, as reinforcement for their hut walls, and as cooking fuel. They also still cook indoors so this tends to cause their homes to become quite smokey as ventilation is limited which in turns repels mosquitoes at night so even though this is a malaria rich area, the Tharu people have very low rates of malaria. We spent our first full day doing a lot of walking in
ECCA Camp
Golden fields on the mountains - Mustard flowers the jungle. We started off with the typical jungle jeep ride and even did some riding on the roof of the vehicle as well. The jungle walk was pretty interesting since before we entered the jungle area we were given a thorough warning as to what to do in each situation if we were to encounter tigers, rhinos, bears, and monkeys. We did find monkeys, but they were at a safe distance, and we found deer, but that was mostly it for our walk. I saw some amazing birds though as well as technicolor butterflies and visited a crocodile breeding center. The last animal we visited near the breeding center was a tiger. She was a beautiful animal but was currently in a large jungle pen since her mother had killed 3 people and this girl was one of the cubs who now has a taste for human blood. She lashes out towards humans, even when we are near her forest pen, but her man-eating mother is still out there! A night of traditional dancing followed before heading off to bed. The next day was all about elephants! We went out on a jungle ride on elephants for a couple
ECCA Camp
Corn fence of hours and we saw many rhinos this time. We took a swim with an elephant as well and played with her for a while as well. Later in the day we had a canoe ride down the river to see the crocodiles resting on the shores, this was a little nerve wrecking since our canoe was soooooo close to the water and since the crocs were so close to us. We finished our day off with another jungle walk but for some reason once we were a little ways into the jungle our guide did a 180 turn and led us out. That's pretty unusual since we never usually cross back by the same way we came and he later told us that he could smell that there was a tiger close by and that's why we turned around! Maybe it was the man-eater....I doubt it but it's still pretty cool to think we were close to a live tiger.
When we got home to Kathmandu it was the last day of Tihar and some of the kids (from one of the orphanages that a volunteer here works at) came over to sing and dance with us in
ECCA Camp
Kids practicing first aid and me teaching in the background exchange for money and treats (which is what they do during the celebration, kind of like trick-or-treating I guess but with a little more effort put in on their part). It was a super fun evening and the kids taught us all some pretty sweet moves.
Time for me to get to some real work now though since the month of festivals has ended...
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