It never rains, but it pours.....

With my wedding now done, life in Nepal is returning to something like normality (or at least as close to normality as life in Nepal ever comes). One exception to this rule is the weather. One day I think summer is coming and I'm putting my shorts on, but the next it looks like monsoon has come several months early and I'm getting a severe drenching on the way to school.

My first post wedding school visit was to Mahachap. As there have previously been some issues surrounding staying in this village Saran and I just visited for the day. The school is desperately in need of funds and resources and it can be frustrating having to constantly remind that I am there to teach and show the teachers some new teaching methods. Getting the teachers to watch my lessons is also challenging! However, I had a great lesson with class 5 who made leaflets about local animals for their twin school. Yet again, something as simple as having a few colouring pencils was a great treat to them. I also spent time in nursery, who enjoyed doing a big floor puzzle I had taken with me. They also liked listening to some books as a read them. Although they couldn't understand much of the English they loved doing the actions I put it, something that I home their regular teacher will continue with having seen the way the children respond.

After Mahachap I returned to Amrit, to deliver a very generous donation from their twin school; Kings Lynn Academy. They plan to use this money to improve the rooms used by classes 5 & 6, and improvements are certainly desperately needed! I took a lesson with classes 11 & 12 (Nepali 6th Form) and we talked about what could be done to improve the education system of Nepal. They were a little shocked at my suggestion of burning all their textbooks, but we all agreed that the majority of their current lessons are very boring. 

Yesterday I made my latest visit to Pipaldanda. It was pouring with heavy rain in the morning, after thunderstorms all night. Rescheduling the visit wasn't really option, as many people from the community were already gather to meet us, so we tried to find a jeep. Unfortunately no available jeep wanted to try the difficult road to the school in bad weather conditions, so we had to go on motorbikes. By the time we arrived we looked like we'd swam there, in very dirty water! Still, after a cup of tea we managed to have a useful meeting with the community and decided to hold an open day at the school next week, to show the new building to all the local community. No doubt there will plenty more about that in my next blog entry!