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Published: July 22nd 2009
Rice Padies
View from my room at Castle HotelTuesday 21st July
Now I know I said I would post something on Tuesday but by the early evening the thunderclouds were looking very threatening and before a long a tremendous downpour began which went on most of the evening and night so I didn't fancy going out again. I got back to the Castle just in time to bring in my shirts which I had washed in the morning and had been hanging out all day. It's supposed tio be the monsoon season but it has apparently been very patchy this year (in fact for the last few years). Normally it would rain heavily every day. There was a bit of a shower when I was in Kathmandu on Sunday evening but on Monday there was no rain at all so it has been much hotter than normal as the clouds and rain do give a cooling effect.
Anyway, to get back what happened on Tuesday ... Phil turned up at 10am as planned and took me out to visit a few possible placements. We went first to a secondary school not too far from the Castle; the school was still closed for the holidays but is due
Suspension Bridge
We had to walk across here to get to Bhalam village to open on Sunday (the teaching week is Sunday to Friday) so we could only look at the grounds. Most Nepali schools are "private" to some degree. There are a few "government schools" but the quality of them is very poor so almost anybody who can afford something sends their kids to a private fee-paying school. However these range from ones which are subsidised by various organisations and have quite low fees to the "better" schools which cost a lot more. We next went to see a small orphanage (16 kids) to pick up the guy that runs it and then went to one of the supposedly best schools in Pokhara where the orphanage kids are sent because they qualkify for a scholarship and also somebody is subsidising them. I was introduced to few of the teaching staff who also showed me their text books - I looked at English, Mahs and Computing ones. They look like some very traditional 'O' level text books from the 60s or 70s (well the Maths ones and English ones that is!) and the maths one certainly did cover some very traditional geometry, trigonomtry, algebra etc. I had said I would like to get
Pokhara Centre
B.P.Chowk in the centre of Pokhara an idea of what a teaching session was like so I was invited to sit in on a computing lesson. I would have preferred something liek English but because they had been told that I was a computing teacher they seemed to think that was what I would want to see. With me, the POD rep, the orphanage guy and a senior/deputy of the school it was probably a bit overpowering for the poor teacher, especially since the small classroom was quite full and the boys had to shuffle up a bit to make room for us all! The kids were sat at simple wooden bench desks and the teacher proceeded to teach DO ... WHILE loops (they teach QBasic) with chalk on the blackboard - I wasn't actually sure whether there were some computers somewhere in the school. It felt a bit awkward and I was not sure that this was what I had wanted to come to Nepal to teach! We left that school and finally went to visit a small village school a bit outside Pokhara where another POD volunteer was working. To get to this school we had to walk across an amazing steel suspension bridge,
Phewa Tal
The lake at Pokhara from the top of Phil's Inn Hotel about 100 feet above the Seti river valley. This was more what I had imagined it would be like - about 60 very young village kids in about 5 classrooms in a concrete block.
After these visits we went for lunch in the centre of Pokhara and Phil and I chatted about where my services would be most useful. We both agreed that the school we had visited first was most appropriate as I did not feel that comfortable coming all this way to teach the more privileged kids in the better school. Becasue the more privileged school had seen glad to see us, and since the first one we saw was closed until Sunday, I suggested going in one day this week and teaching a lesson there so that they could see a different style of teaching and talk to me about it afterwards. We agreed that I would teach the 12-1 lesson on Friday because lessons finish at 1pm on a Friday then the teachers could stay and talk to me afterwards. After lunch we went back to Phil's place - he runs a hotel and toursit shop in Lakeside - wher we had tea and I
Tal Barahi
The Hindu temple on an island in Phewa Tal had a look at a laptop he had which was playing up. I suspected that it was simply cutting out periodically because the fan did not appear to be working and it was overheating. I ended up staying there a couplke of hours chatting about edication, politics, computers etc.
After a bit of browsing around the shops in Lakeside again, I went back to the Castle and had an evening meal with the family who run it as outside the heavens opened.
Wednesday 22nd
It was quite hot asgain this morning but with more cloud cover than yesterday so I decided to take a "rowing boat" out on Phewa tal, the lake in Lakeside. It was aheavy wooden boat, looking more like a rowing boat, but all you get is one single-bladed paddle so you sail it like a canoe. I booked 4 hours but packed in after 2 and a half as I was shattered! I did paddle to a little island which has a Hindu temple on it.
Well, that brings you up to date - I am now seeking somewhere soft to sit down and sheltered from the sun so I have popped in to an Internet Cafe.
Mike x
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DaveA
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Just got your 1st 3 blogs all together today 22/7 about noon BST. I'll show them around. Did you get the mobile working? I don't need to make contact - just wondered.