Chaotic class 3 and living Goddess - the Nepali experience

Written by Stephanie Payne - GapBreak 2009, Nepal

Well class 3 personify chaos. The boys are fighting, girls weeping, then begging for chalk. Whispers ascend to screaming once my attention is diverted. No stern word, no slap on the table, changing seats, confiscating bags, demerit points.. Nothing works. Discipline humours them actually and when I’m looking flustered they tug their hair and scream and then look up sweetly and say: “this is Miss?”

And as if all things are actually elastic anything confiscated ends up in their owners hand with a disruptive loud crack followed by batty giggles. Ah! And yet I love them dearly! Torture!

Things have been travelling at their respective times; the mornings follow the mellow after-sleep time of tidying myself up and having lunch. Then I descend into the tumultuous haze of school full of love and repulsion, time throws me around and spins me up the hill for a steady afternoon of village life with friends. In the village the world is changing, corn season is over and mothers, daughters and grandmothers have been pulling up the last of the corn and carting it up the mountain for the goats. Soon the cauliflower, eggplant and broccoli will go in. Now it means we have an uninterrupted view from any part of the village of the valley and the mountains with their heads wrapped in scarves of cloud. There is wind about and the prayer flags have begun jiggling about. The monsoon clouds have less of a threatening presence and skirt about erratically on the winds. The air is crisp and the mountains once hiding in the murky folds of the horizon are appearing in shy shades of lilac. With the strong sun rays and the lifting spirits of the valley, come the tourists. Thamel is becoming denser and denser and trips into the city are made more reluctantly each time. Tomorrow is a holy day; the living goddess in the old Buddhist city of Patan emerges and blesses the city. Kathmandu shuts down, people announce strikes, tourists begin bulging out of guesthouses — it means we’ll assign ourselves a three-day holiday. Little will be achieved, so let it go.

It is tempting to stay on in the village; yesterday we climbed to Bishnu Mati (Vishnu waterfall) for a wash. We past steep banks of stone trickling water, moss, ferns, fresh pine needles underfoot, asters and horse tail grass. The waterfall itself is an infinite rush of white brilliance. Seb and I found our way to the little cave behind the fall and sat there screaming for a while alongside the frantically nodding ferns. Yay! But at the same time, the lure of that beyond the valley has gotten me bad. Meanwhile I’m thinking of seeing Jomson (on the Annapurna), maybe Langtang just north of where I am, eastern Nepal or even Mustang for my 15 day holiday coming up.