Amy Wilson reporting back from Pokhara, Nepal

Its has been an amazing three weeks, and we are all having a ball and getting on like a house on fire!!!



So, we flew into Kathmandu and had a night there on the 2nd of Jan. I was overwhelmed by the pollution and the sheer noise of Kathmandu.  I was lucky, I had met up with the other Sydney volunteers in the departure lounge at Sydney airport and we had had 9 hours in Bangkok to bond and get to know each other on the way to Kathmandu, which was really good, we already felt like one big family before we even arrived in Nepal (and that feeling has been cemented over the last few weeks). That night in Kathmandu we met up with the other volunteers and all had dinner in the city. We had Dal bhart, not realizing how ofetn we were going to eat later on, otherwise I think we would have had a western dish as a lst good bye.

We only had that one night in Kathmandu the next morning we left really early (6:30am) and got on a bus to Pokhara, the bus ride was 7 hours but we passed the time listening to our ipods and playing Marfia. We had one night in a hotel in Pokhara (where we ate dhal bhat again) and then we we taken to the Tibetan Refugee village where we are living and met our families. I am staying with a lovely widow called Tashi, with Laura and Sarah. Tashi is a great cook. We eat a vegeterian meal every night and she knows how to make vegetables taste really yummy, and every morning she makes us traditional Tibetan bread for breakfast.

Sarah and I are teaching together in a school in Lakeside (the main tourist part of Pokhara) called Good Will Activity school. It is a Christian missionary school and half the children there are orphans who live in a boarding house behind the school. The children are lovely and so far I have taught years 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, so a little bit of everything!!!! But now we have a timetable but we still ge to teach around 5 classes  day and everything from social and English to maths and science. The kids are so cute and having been teaching us to play their games and some Nepali as well!!

All the volunteers (all 13 of us), the first weekend we were officially on our placements, hiked up to Sanrongkok to watch the sunset over the mountains and then the next morning to watch the sunrise (we stayed in a hotel up there). The mountains were beautiful!! To get back down the mountain we decided to paraglide down, it was AMAZING!!!! The views were spectacular and my pilot did some aerobatics on the way down which was some much fun!!!!!!!!!

This weekend 8 of us have travelled to Chitwan and it has been amazing!!! We spent yesterday visiting the elephant breeding centre and taking in a cultural show and then today we went on an elephant safari and saw 5 rhinos in the wild, had a bath with an elephant which was so much fun, went canoeing down the river followed by a jungle walk so a very action packed day!!!

Otherwise its has been an amazing three weeks, and we are all having a ball and getting on like a house on fire!!!