Kids and Leopards

Aama: 'Mother' This is the most esteemed matriarch of the Neupane family. She is a mother of 15 and has already out lived 8 of her children. Sitting here with her eldest son, I thought she looked most dignified. Although we could not speak directly to one another, I was honored by her presence and welcomed by her impeccably raised and generous family. Many, many thanks to Aama and to her family.
If you look to the left of Aama, you will see a rock. This is a pestle. The mortar is the stone beneath it. It is where Aama grinds her spices. We accidentally sat on the mortar, but we were forgiven.

After our meeting at the school, we were taken back to our host's home. Normally, I would offer to help in the kitchen, but in this case, I was exhausted and I allowed myself to be cared for. Uncle JR, an English teacher, and his wife worked on the dinner together. They picked spinach from their garden. At the edges of the garden were nettles which can be used for making cloth. We also saw marijuana weeds which grow all over Nepal.

We chatted and sipped milk tea while several people from the village stopped by. Aunts, uncles and cousins dropped in to say hello.

They had an out house with running water, it was cold, but you could still take a shower if you wanted. We met a young woman named Mary who was a doctor from Texas volunteering at the local hospital for a couple of months. She had come up the hill to the Neupane's home for a shower. Dr. Mary told us that the prevailing illnesses at the hospital were a mystery rash and parasitic dysentery. In Nepal, diarrhea is the leading cause of death for children under 5.

At the far end of the house was a stable for cows and goats.

The cow had just had a calf, so we had fresh milk for our tea and I was able to drink a cup of raw milk. I thought the cooked milk tasted a little sweeter.

Uncle JR's twelve year old son was home playing with the goat. My other adopted Nephew, Atit, came up from another school a few miles away. He has barely graduated from high school himself, but he is already teaching.

Our first course was boiled salted potatoes. We peeled them with our fingers and ate about 4 potatoes each.

JR's wife did a tremendous job of feeding so many guests. She spent a long time carefully picking through and cleaning the rice. We sampled a rice wine made by a neighbor, and we had stewed spinach. She made spicy potatoes with home made butter out of the left over potatoes from earlier. There were even a few cubes of spiced goat meat for everyone.

After dinner JR played the drum for us and sang. Belief and his cousin danced and we were well entertained until we could barely hold our heads up any longer.

Before we turned in, JR carried the kids (baby goats) and the calf inside a storage room, put them under baskets and barred the door. This was to keep the leopards from eating them at night. Apparently the leopards usually leave the larger animals alone. I made certain that the bar was down on our door before we turned out our lights and climbed into our sleeping bags, just in case.

Getting Down to Business

When I was a teacher in Japan, I had 11 regular classes of 55 students and 4 special classes of 25 students. I had to give speeches on occasion to as many as 2000 students and faculty. So, although I was surprised by the lavish attention and the impromptu speech making, I was able to whip up a little something. I found that the more I spoke, the more I promised. By the time I had finished talking, I was not just donating a few books but a whole library.

Tania and Jeri with the teachers and elders of the community.

The two older gentlemen were among the first in the community to organize and create the original school.

These are some of the school teachers. All of these men were very interested in the books that we brought and in discussing the educational facilities in the US. There was one female teacher, but regrettably, we did not get a picture.

There were a lot of female students.

When I asked the children what they wanted for their school, one boy asked for sports equipment. I was imagining a soccer ball regularly flying off the side of the mountain hundreds of feet to the river below. Another young man asked for a laboratory. They have science workbooks with standard lessons that they are supposed to get through to pass their levels, but they can only read about experiments because they don't have any equipment. I promised science books but I wasn't sure that I could provide a laboratory.

The teachers showed me three old donated computers that were no longer working. If they had modern lap tops, they would be able to get a satellite connection to the Internet, although it would be very costly. The children had helped to create a promotional video for the Italian biologists to generate donations in order to get their school built, but they have never been able to see the video.

This entire community has a passion for education! They have, without the help of government, figured out who to ask for help and how to get things accomplished. Their latest idea is that they will provide a house for a volunteer to come and teach English to their students. They can't provide food, or a salary, but they will gladly give the space and generously invite a foreigner to live among them in their community. If I were young and single again, I would do it in a moment. The offer is wide open, even if you have only two months of your time to share and no formal college education. Literacy is often the qualification for teaching school in Nepal. Let me know if you are interested, contact: butternutsquash2@gmail.com

Here is the situation that we encountered. These students have only government approved workbooks to learn from. The books that I carried to them were the first that they had had in the school. There was no library to contribute to. For most of us in the developed world, that is simply unimaginable. What is a school without books? But for people whose families might make only $1 a day, there are more important things to buy with that $1.

By the end of our discussion, I had a lot to figure out. For political reasons, it is not possible to make a direct financial contribution to anyone at the school. I had to find the proper channels to make good on my promises within the following week of our journey.

I want to give a big thank you to Leenie of Sidetrips for sending books. As well as my dear friend Sarah who also sent pencils. I also received useful photos of children from Australia and the US to share from Leenie, Irene and Sarah. They were fascinated by your books!

The pencils were particularly wonderful, because I was having trouble getting the children to come close to me until I pulled out the pencils, I did not see any pencil sharpeners, but I was assured that the students were accustomed to sharpening pencils with a sickle.

If you want to make a donation of books or money, contact me and I will put you in touch with the proper channels.