Day 4: Wow

You haven't lived until you've Gangam Styled in a remote village of Nepal.

If we thought yesterday was special, today can really only be summed up by one word: Wow!

Each of us will remember this trip for the rest of our lives, but today in particular can never be duplicated.

We started the day off climbing a "hill" to PLAN's district office where we learned more about the work that they are doing.  In addition to the school projects that Hobsons is sponsoring, we also learned about a new birthing center that is being built and a program called "Better Life Options" that provides a group setting for adolescent girls to learn and talk about reproductive health.  It has really been inspiring to see how empowered many of the women and young girls are in these rural villages.

Climbing the "hill"

The Plan district office staff

After the meeting, we headed down to the village's restaurant to sample some really authentic, local food.  We tried the staple of Nepalese cuisine - dal bhat.  The villagers were really impressed by us eating with our hands like the locals.  If you haven't eaten rice with your hands before, I highly recommend it the next time you are in a restaurant.

Lunch

Kyle's CocaCola power-chug

After lunch we headed to the second school that our donations are funding, which is a k-12 school (yesterday was k-8).  Similar to yesterday, we were greeted with a welcoming line that we walked through, and were adorned by garlands and tikkas.  However, THIS welcoming line had 500 students, parents, and administrators applauding us, all wanting to provide us individually with flowers, and playing music.  The line went all the way around the back of the school.  Covered in flowers and wide eyed at the end, all each of us could say was "wow" over and over again as waves of emotion just shook us.  If we felt like Super Bowl athletes yesterday, we felt like the President today.  Apparently, everyone had been standing in line for an hour so excited to meet us.  

Going through the line of students

We then met with the headmaster, teachers, parents, and construction supervisor to learn more about the school as the kids surrounded the building and squished up against the windows trying to get a peek of us.  We learned that the school houses 800 students with each classroom containing 80 students - talk about overcrowding in schools!  They cannot currently accommodate any more students and are having to teach some classes in a "rest house" - essentially a small open concrete room without chairs or supplies.  This is partially due to an earthquake damaging one of their structures last fall.  This is where Hobsons comes in.  Our donations are building a brand new structure that will house additional classrooms to open the school up to more students.  

The parents of this community were extremely supportive and the students so amazingly motivated.  We met one teenage boy who walks 3 hours EACH WAY to go to school everyday, along with a group of 15 other students from his village - and a number of other students do the same from similar villages.  The daily walk covers dangerous forest terrain that is inhabited by predators.  We all stood up and applauded this student's passion for education and it definitely made me feel a bit guilty about some of those 8 am classes that I decided not to get out of bed for in college.

We then sat in the center square surrounded by children for a 2 hour performance of singing and dancing that kids across the school had clearly been practicing for quite some time.  These kids were so excited to perform for us.  The entire experience was so beautiful, and even the heat couldn't distract our attention.  Some of the kids were really amazing dancers.  It was then our turn to dance, and we climbed on stage surrounded by hundreds of students and parents cheering us on.  Kyle's showcase of the famous American dance moves of "the sprinkler" and "the shopping cart" were particularly well received.

A performance by third grade students 

The audience

Afterwards, Sugath and Matthew helped out on the construction of the new building.  We then returned to thank the headmaster for a day that we will never forget and brought the huge pile of donations that were kindly provided by our colleagues back home, which left them overwhelmed with joy.  As we left, kids were following us down the road to wave goodbye.

The 8 of us might be a group of normal people back home, but today we were rock stars in the Sindhuli district of Nepal.

One thing we asked today is whether it would be possible to keep in touch with the kids via letters, which we may be able to organize via PLAN.  We think this would be a wonderful way to keep in touch with the town and to enable more staff at Hobsons to interact with the students.  We hope that you will be interested when we return.