Our mountainside breakfast spot
About an hour outside of the city, we decided to make an unscheduled stop at Bhaktapur City, one of the 3 former kingdoms of Nepal which is extremely well-preserved. The city had a number of beautiful temples and very intricate woodworked windows, including a peacock window which is the most famous in the city.
Bhaktapur City
New hats!
Three highlights from the stop:
1. We stopped by a rest house where elderly women were congregating and learned more about some of the ankle tattoos that they had. Apparently, women with these tattoos were more sought after in marriage because suitors felt that if a woman could withstand the pain of the needles then they would be able to withstand any later pain in life.
2. We walked past another temple/rest house that was being used as a classroom and were invited inside to meet the children. The single room held 20 kids in grades 2-5. The kids were able to practice their English on us by asking our names, where we were from, and singing songs in English that they have learned. We've all been singing the words "Hello teacher. How are you?" For the rest of the day.
3. As we were walking down the street, we noticed a mob of people starting to run up to a truck, placing buckets and oil canisters in a line. We watched in awe for a couple of minutes as we learned that the trucks contained cleaner water than that in the city and that villagers would line up like this 5 times a week. Wow, do we ever take water for granted. I know that we made a conscientious effort to drink every last drop of every water bottle for the rest of the day. I would encourage you all to think about this when you leave a half empty bottle in the trash, or if the water is running while you are brushing your teeth. Our guide even mentioned that he shuts the water off in his shower when lathering and will only turn it back in when he is ready to rinse off.
After the Bhakatapur visit, we decided to have another adventurous lunch to eat like the locals. Anthony Bourdain, eat your heart out - or should I say, eat your chicken bladder out. Before I give you some of the menu highlights, which were surprisingly quite tasty, I am going to caution those that are eating while reading this that you might want to come back to the blog in a few minutes or scroll past the next few lines :).
Today we ate:
Chicken bladder
Fried goat lungs
Water buffalo tongue
Goat brains
Elise enjoying the delicacies...
We did also stuff our faces with momos - which are traditional and delicious Nepalese dumplings made with more commonly eaten fillings -chicken or buffalo.
Post lunch we headed back to the PLAN Nepal office for a de-briefing and to write letters that will be delivered to the schools that the students and teachers will all read as a group and will then respond to. As a group, we are also planning to collectively share our pictures and then turn them into photo albums that we can send to the respective schools. Knowing how excited they were when they saw the pictures on our cameras, we can only imagine the elation they will feel when they get a tangible book to always remember our visit by. Don't worry Hobsons team, we are planning to create books for you all too.
We reflected on our experience with the program staff and talked about what an inspiring and amazing site visit we had. We also asked some questions of the team and learned a bit more about some of the challenges they face and the foci of their work.
Due to retention issues in upper level students who leave to work and a lack of access to school materials, they are currently focusing their efforts on early childhood education across the country and teacher quality/training to help set a strong foundation that will hopefully increase retention in upper grades over time. There is also a newer focus in vocational education, particularly for adolescent girls being saved from trafficking. One fascinating item we learned which continues to showcase student empowerment is that school teaching strategy is now focusing on students' strengths rather than areas of weakness to encourage attendance via a nurturing environment rather than one that embeds fear. As well, students are involved in the school management committees that oversee the schools (similar to school boards in the US) and have a lot of say in the direction of the schools. Youth committees will even establish school codes of conduct and reporting mechanisms for that, including appropriate behavior for teachers (I.e. tardiness). Not only is this such an amazing opportunity for the students to shape their education, but it also provides them with some really wonderful skills in community organizing and program planning that can be utilized throughout life. I know that in the US, we can certainly learn from the Nepalese in this regard.
Only until recently the Nepali government changed the graduation grade from 10-12, and students are still given a graduation exam at the end of year 10. Right now 40% of students fail the exam and are held back. If they only fail a couple of subjects, they can retake the exam in a year. Those that fail tend to be from public schools, where education quality and teacher preparedness suffer. Surprisingly enough, we learned that 75% of the government budget goes to education, most of which to teacher's salaries.
As you might expect, there is a lack of textbooks and class materials in Nepal. In speaking with the communications manager at the PLAN Nepal office, he mentioned that on a site visit last summer he had asked the kids if they had ever seen a microscope. They answered "yes" and when he asked where, they said "in our textbook." In fact, at our first school site where we are building a science lab, we asked what types of labs they will be doing. Since they do not have electricity or microscopes, the only lab materials they can currently use are magnets. As you can imagine, there is an extreme digital divide in Nepal like there is throughout the world. If the schools were able to get electricity and cheap technology resources of computers and Internet connections, they would be able to teach so much more and provide access to reading materials to more students. PLAN Nepal is hopeful that some corporate sponsorships may be available in the future to help in this regard.
Today was another unbelievable day and we can't believe our journey is almost over. Tomorrow is our last full day and is packed with sightseeing as well as an extra special event that we planned last minute - so we hope that you will all check in tomorrow to find out where we are going next.
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