What a amazing day this has been. We started our day by going to the home of one of our ANSWER students who lives near the same city in which we stayed. Her home is in a village and there are 19 others including a 23 year old mother who has five girls (she married at 16) living in the same home. The house itself was built of brick, but life is very much on the edge with only a hand pump and I think no sanitation facilities such as a toilet of any kind. It was interesting to watch the interactions between adults and children as school was discussed. One of the ANSWER staff (Rajesh) is particularly good with the young kids (not that all the staff isn't great, but this was one of the first times we saw him in action talking to the children about personal hygiene and sanitation. He squatted down so that his eyes were level with theirs and gently touched an arm or head as he spoke. Needless to say, we were quite blown away by this. Bal, the head of ANSWER in Nepal, worked on the parents as well as checking our ANSWER student's progress. It was really the first time we were immersed in a village setting with all that goes along with that.
It was interesting to learn that the very low castes are discriminated against in school. They are made fun of and teases to the extent that school is not a place they want to be and consequently they dropout or just never really get immersed in that culture. The caste system has been legislated away but it certainly has not been culturally eliminated.
From here we back tracked some to return some students to their home and then headed off on our journey to Itahari. The highway we are following parallels the boarder with India and there is an obvious cultural influence. We also noticed several mosques. We had not seen them in other areas we have visited.
There are many rivers in this part of the country, however, except for the very big ones, are mostly wide expanses of gravel with little steams of water meandering through the gravel. The gravel is also harvested for other uses and there are many people who work in and along the river banks sorting the stones by size before trucks come and take them away.
Also in this area are lots of brick factories. One spots them by their conical chimneys scattered in the fields.
In Itahari we got to meet our student, Saroj. We first went to his school (aptly named the Bright Future Secondary English School). The school was not in an obvious location and it took us some scouting to find it. As is typical for these village schools, there is no lighting in the classrooms. There are shutters on the windows but no glass or screens. The desks are low benches with an attach seat. There are no obvious books for student use.
Saroj is now 17 and in the first year of his "plus two". Usually Nepali kids go to the 11th grade then do two more years and then maybe go on to regular college for a bachelors degree. Many do not do the extra education and this is where being an ANSWER student really gives an edge. We were invited to go to his home so off we went while the rest of the answer staff were doing student letters and catching up with the kids.
Saroj's family home is a small, tidy house with a front porch where there is a table at which we sat. We got to meet all the younger brothers and sisters and to become the attraction of the afternoon (come see the foreigners). We walked around his area which was very lovely. Before we left, Saroj said he hoped that he would meet us again in Nepal! We told him we wished for the same.
When we returned to the school Enne was just preparing to give the student as short lesson about domestic violence which was then discussed. DV is a big problem in Nepal as well as in the world.
It was getting very dark as we left the school and we needed to find a hotel.
No comments:
Post a Comment