The weather would come under the description of oppressive because of very high humidity (best guess is that it just stays at 100%). Combine the humidity with the heat and you've got uncomfortable conditions. The air has just hung over us with the anticipation of rain at any moment, but it has done that less than we thought it would.
We have driven in mountains more time than not. The narrow roads did not allow us the opportunity to just stop for photographs. We will just have to remember the views in our minds.
The contrast of mountain to flat road is startling with more and larger communities and the congestion that is part of it all. The cows and goats amble across the highway with no concern for oncoming traffic because cows are gods and no one wants to hit them. Traffic weaves around the animals or comes to a sudden halt. Honking horns of all types does nothing to deter the cow or whatever from seeking to cross the road. For a complete mental picture add the walkers, bicyclists, pedicabs, motor scooters, motorcycles, cars, trucks, mini busses and big busses all trying to pass one another at the same time in both directions. Watching from the back seat one sees the full expanse of the ahead suddenly become a wall of traffic moving right at you and just as you are about to close your eyes to avoid seeing disaster every thing has shuffled itself back to a single lane as you become the same moving wall of oncoming traffic to the folks in the other lane! Which, FYI went from a vehicle width to nothing in a matter of seconds.
If you were to ask us what one color would describe this part of Nepal we would have to say "green." All the vegetation is green and the greenest of all is the rice which is so vibrant it would appear to be illuminated from within.
Now for the Eden Garden school and our impressions of that school. We were met once again by enthusiastic children who all wanted a piece of the action. Hello, what's your name? Where are you from? Are you social workers? They called David "uncle" and Marty was "grandmother." These are terms of respect! Children think nothing of asking you your age, so when Marty was asked, she asked the little girl of 10, how old did she think she was. The response was 40-45. When Marty said, that would be nice but I am 70 the children gasped and responded that, "that's old." To a 10 year old any where in the world anything over 50 seems to be old.
It was at this school that we were able to sit and have an extended conversation with the principal. This is something we had not done before.
Our principal allowed us to ask pretty much any questions we wanted, and we did. We talked about how politics can influence education. Number of required student days for the school year (180), however, because of all the festivals it takes close to 230 days to reach that number. His office was lined with trophies and certificates that the student teams had been awarded for such things as soccer, volleyball, classical dance, and badminton. He was proud that he even had a girl's soccer team even though they were the only team and had no one to play. He discussed the difficulty of getting good teachers, a little on teacher evaluation as well. Since there are national exams they must teach to the exam for a school to be seen as successful. We talked about funding and as a private school how scholarships were awarded (and created). He mentioned three scholarships, then added that there were student donations of 100 rupees that amounted to an additional nine scholarships. These he used to get soccer players, etc. This was the first time we had heard about recruitment! Since he became principal enroll has grown to 850, the max for the facility.
This principal has just been named the outstanding private school principal for the year in his district which, we believe, had 16 schools.
Upon departure he treated us to snacks at a local restaurant, after which we hit the road and have stayed in eastern Star.
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