An education students adventure in Nepal - by Emily Tapper

Namaste!

My Name is Emily Tapper and I am a third year Bachelor of Education student at RMIT in Bundoora. Only a few days ago I returned from a 3 week education placement in Nepal through Antipodeans. It was such an amazing experience! The only thing I can fault is that it wasn’t long enough!

To give you just a snapshot of my time in Nepal I have written some of my memories and a typical day/week in the life of an Aussie gone Nepalese/Tibetan! Despite the flight delays, we made it safe and sound to Kathmandu :) only 12 and a half hours but luckily for me I slept nearly the whole way. From our flight from Bangkok to Kathmandu,

I scored a window seat so had an amazing view of the mountains through the clouds which were really just too surreal for words! When we arrived at the airport it was a bit of a shock. Everything is so different! The airport was a singular building where really all we had to do was show our visa and get pushed through to the exit, where I did get hit with a lot of cages of baby chickens! It was insane, there were like 20-30 different packs of chickens on trolleys.

We were picked up from the airport by Serang, the son of the head man for Antipodeans in Nepal (Sonam). He is extremely nice and speaks amazing English. We then took a bus to our hotel. The streets of Kathmandu are insane, everyone is constantly beeping, people, dogs, cows and all sorts battle for control of the road, and I’m surprised we didn't see any crashes! Our hotel was hidden in some backstreets of the busy Kathmandu markets and was a lot nicer than we were expecting - having a western toilet was defiantly a plus!

When we got to the hotel however, one of the girls realised that she had grabbed the wrong bag at the airport! After ringing the airport, she found out that she had to go to the hotel of the girl whose bag she had, and then back to the airport to collect her bag! As she left with Serang, the rest of us took the opportunity to have a look around. The streets are so busy and you have to dodge the cars not to get run down!

When we got back to the hotel we meet up with Sarah, who had just done the Everest base camp trek and had been stuck at Lukla airport for 6 days! It was so good to hear all about her trek, I'm so jealous!

We all went out for dinner at a Nepalese restaurant, I had fried rice and momos (a spicy dumpling) which was actually extremely hot! After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to the top level where there was a big yoga room were we had some celebratory drinks by candle light. The next morning we left for the bus terminal at 7am to head to Pokhara! We got a take away breakfast which included a juice, 2 hard-boiled eggs, an apple, orange and bread. Safe to say not many people were keen to try the eggs!

The bus ride took 7 hours (most of which I was knocked out with travel sick tablets!), when I wasn't asleep the views were amazing, we were driving along the hillsides (literally tilting on the side of hills!), where beeping indicated ‘GET OUT THE WAY’ as you were heading around corners. It was strange that you never really felt in any danger. Countless clear rivers, hills and small settlements made the ride so much more enjoyable, and the continual mountains in the backdrop just made everything seems so awesome!

A lot of naps later we reached Pokhara! It is kind of like Chang Mai (Thailand) in a way, everything is a lot calmer and the people are all so welcoming, also they all have such amazing English! Although I tried very hard to pick up some Nepali and Tibetan! We stayed one night in a hotel in Lakeside Pokhara, where we were meet by Sonam and told about our home stays and schools, we were all so excited! It was an early night after some exploring of the town :)

The next day we had to get up early as we had a very busy day of language and culture lessons. Our first lesson was about the history and culture of Nepal which was very interesting especially as the presentation was done with amazing photos! Our second lesson was in Nepalese, which was quite funny with us trying to pronounce all the words, and listening to everyone try and say sentences without sounding extremely aussie! Overall I think I got most of the basics, which we all needed for our schools!

Our final lesson was on Tibetan which was extremely hard! For a language that sounds so beautiful, they certainly have to say a lot of words for such short sentences! As our host families are Tibetan we tried to just get some of the basics, but again...I don't think I am very good! After the lesson, our teacher told us a lot about himself, his family, and the history of the Tibetans - being a political activist it was so interesting to listen to him talk about something he was so passionate about.

The rest of the day we spent sight-seeing! We went to an Indian temple which was a little tricky to get to as a big hay truck was stuck under some power lines, amazingly they got out and nothing caught fire! (Luckily missed the sacrifices!) We also went to a gorge and finally the Nepali museum.

We then went on our way to Tashi Ling, the Tibetan settlement in Pokhara where we would meet our host families! When we arrived, our families were all waiting for us, for Emma and I, our home stay mother was Tashi Dolma who has three daughters, one studying in Canada and 2 in India. We were welcomed into her home with sweet tea (which I must admit I love!). We then set up our rooms and Tashi took us for a tour of the village, it is such a tight little community and everyone seems to know each other, many of the locals welcoming us with a smile and friendly hello!

All the houses of our other antipodeans were very close, which was good as it is easy for us to arrange meetings. Emma and my house had three rooms, a kitchen, living room, which was also Tashi's room, and our room. Our shower was a room located in our front yard, for showers, Tashi warms up some water for us in a bucket and we use a smaller bucket to tip it over ourselves, it took a bit of getting used to, but it really does become one of the things you really gain to appreciate (especially when everyone else in the group has to shower with cold water!. Our toilet is a bit of a hike, it is a block that we share with our neighbours, located outside the gate of our front yard and a little walk. To use the toilet, you have to first get the key from the clothes line, making sure to remember to wear shoes and be well equiped with toilet paper. This can be quite a hike at night time! The toilet itself is a traditional Nepalese toilet, so basically a hole in the ground that you squat over. You really do appreciate a good western toilet (our preference were the toilets at moon dance, a local western restaurant just in lakeside). One bonus I must mention is that my legs defiantly do feel stronger! Our first dinner was Dahl Baht, which is rice, a liquid lentil and garlic sauce and vegetables - believe it or not, I loved it! After dinner we watched an Indian movie with English subtitles, it’s funny because every so often they just decide to talk English.

After the movie we headed to bed. Its funny that days feel so long that we were often ready for bed around 8:30. Just before bed we had a visit from Gram (the only male student teacher) and his host father Tamdig, who is luckily good friends with Tashi. The next morning we got up at 7:30 for breakfast, we had Tibetan bread, which somewhat looks like pancakes, with peanut butter and jam, they were soooo good! Then at 8:30 we said goodbye to Tashi and headed off with Tamdig and Gram to go to school!

We took a bus from the main centre (Churbutton) to Lakeside which cost 10 rupee (not even 15 cents!) and only took around 10 minutes. We then walked to the house of a man named Mr Sharma, who is like a local celebrity due to all his work for the community including helping to fund the school that we were headed to. He walked us to the school and told us all about its history. It was founded by an Indian woman who was heartbroken after her visit to Nepal. After seeing all of the orphans, she set up a small community school as a place that they could live and learn. A few years later, a 19 year old girl came from England and fell in love with the school. Unfortunately after a few years she became very sick and passed away. Knowing how much the school had meant to her, Zoes' parents donated lot of money to build the school and to set up a housing block where the orphans could live, this is known as Zoe house.

We then got to our school and met our principal Amin, who has only been the principal for 3 years. He is very well spoken and the children are just amazing. The school caters for ages 3-16. It currently has 450 students and has just recently adopted 3 new orphans into Zoe house. The school itself has 30 teachers. The class sizes are a lot smaller than I thought, ranging from 5-40 children per class. The first day was spent observing, as we sat in on a lesson with the principal on a comprehension lesson for ages 11-12. It was hard for us as the poem that they were reading from didn't make much sense, ever though it was in English! But the students are so good at English comprehension and are very, very friendly! We then went to the library and spent a session with children aged 9-10 who found it hilarious reading books with us and hearing all about where we live. It is very very easy to fall in love with all of them. The school itself has 4 levels and the classrooms are quite small, although they do have some of the work up on the walls, especially from the younger children. Again, words cannot describe it, or the children - photos don’t even seem to do it justice!

We then met with the principal to discuss what we would teach and when. As it turns out, since we were leaving halfway through our third week, we would only really have 10 days of teaching. With the school hours being from 10-3, we were assigned 11-1 for our teaching, as the first hour is always devoted to prayer and assembly, and the hours after 1 are very short and mostly devoted to exam study.

The next day was our first real day of school. Unfortunately that night Emma, my roommate, got quite sick, we think it was probably from using tap water to rinse out her mouth! Determined not to miss our first day, Emma, myself and Gram left for school (only getting a little bit lost!) to teach our first class. Because of exams, we were only teaching 2 classes a day 45minutes each. Our first class was of grade 5's with about 15 kids in the class. But since their classrooms are quite small, it always feels like more. In a way it was lucky for us to have older kids for our first lesson, as their English was surprisingly good. Being excited to use our big inflatable globe (I scored job of inflating!) we taught a lesson about ourselves, our country and our way of life. As we are there to learn about the kids, we got them to write us a letter telling us about their lives and their favourite things about Nepal. Not anticipating that they would be quite so fluent in English. Our lesson went quite quickly and at the request of the kids, we ended the class with a big group singalong of 'Tie me kangaroo down sport". It was so adorable and they all did so well! I was a little embarrassed though, not realising that the words were 'tie me kangaroo down sport', and not 'tiny kangaroo down' - which I wrote in big words on the blackboard, whoops!

Our second lesson was a bigger group - 30 students of grade 4's who we had met in the library before (there may have been a little bit of favouritism because of this!). It is amazing how efficient they all are - not like back home! They are so disciplined. There is no pack up time, or mucking around or talking (except for the older boys, trying to show off I think!). I am so excited to read all of their letters as they are so cute! After School, Emma went straight home to rest while Gram and I went with our tour leader Serang to the gorge behind our settlement for a hike. The view was simply amazing - surrounded by hills, GOATS!! Lots of babies :) and water so clear it really does look blue. There is also a big suspension bridge which joins two islands together, where a few days before we had met many of the local kids walking on their way home from school. We ventured down to the bottom of the gorge for a relax and watched the many hawks fly overhead and people doing their washing and fishing in the streams (not sure how much they would catch!).

After trekking back, it was dinner time. Unfortunately Emma was still sick, so I stayed up to watch the Tibetan news with Tashi. It was so interesting and a lot less censored than back home. The news is only available once a week to the locals in Pokhara, so it is a big deal to have access to the Tibetan news. Luckily for me, Tashi translated a lot of the stories to me. It really did make me feel so naive about the world around me, learning so much about the Chinese occupation in Tibet and limited freedoms they have in terms of schools, and even basic freedom of speech. They also showed footage of some of the monks who burned themselves in protest last month which was quite confronting. It really did make me appreciate the freedoms I have at home, but at the same time I can't help but feel somewhat helpless. Getting to know the culture and a lot of the Tibetan people, it’s so unfair to know what is happening, I feel so sorry for them too as many of them, like Tashi, have family back in Tibet who they cannot contact. Tashi was separated from her Mum and Dad at age 2, and she has only just come back into contact with them. Tashi is now 50 years old, with 3 children. It really is just unbelievable, I really do feel so lucky to be able to contract and see all my loved ones so easily, I really could not imagine how she does it!

On Thursday Emma was feeling a lot better, and considering our lessons went so well, we taught the same one as the previous day, but it went a lot smoother! As Thursday is also our end of the week, we all went out as a big group to Moon dance, a popular western cafe in lakeside. It was so good to see everyone and hear all about their schools. It seems we are very lucky to have such a caring and friendly school environment, everyone else's schools seem almost militaristic in their disciplines, in that learning was basically say and repeat. Unfortunately, our celebratory drinks didn't end well for many, as even only 2 drinks led many to vomiting (yours truly included!).

On Friday we headed over to a small island located in the middle of the lake where a small Hindi temple is, and where we would see fire most days! It was very busy and very loud! Very nice though. It's one of the places you really feel like a celebrity as you are constantly having your photo taken and being filmed! We had an early night as on the following day (Saturday) we had planned to go paragliding!!!!!!!!

Our flight was at 11:30, with 3 other girls at 9:30 (unluckily for them it was a bit foggy!). One of the most adventurous parts of the paragliding was actually the truck ride up the hill - the roads are basically rock and seatbelts don't really exist in Nepal so it was basically, DON'T LET GO! - But it was great fun!

Once we got to the top of the mountain, you could already feel the thin air. We all separated and got to meet out pilots - mine was a man named Graham who had been a pilot for 15 years in Pokhara - actually a co-inventor of the ever so famous Para-hawking, which was unfortunately booked out. After suiting up in all of our gear and strapping together our parachute, we were of. I must admit I was a little nervous about running off a cliff that high, but it was amazing! It really is the one moment I have literally felt like I was on top of the world. Everything looked so small and the view was just stunning and we were able to see all of the Pokhara valley at the snowy mountains that surrounded it. I really wish I could put it into words better, but I really cannot do it justice - it was simply breathtaking (even though being myself, I spent most of the time in the air talking dorkily saying wwwwwoooooowwwwww). Half an hour has never drifted by so quickly. Unfortunately a lot of people felt quite sick after we landed (somehow I felt fine!) so took the time to lie on the grass. We were laying with a dog named Scooby who became quite alert when a little monkey on a lead came over and then jumped on his back - unfortunately the monkey then attacked our friend Shev! Luckily she was ok, and hopefully doesn't have rabies!

I really could write for days about my experiences in Nepal. It was truly the best, and most life challenging experience of my life, and I found that it really put many things into perspective. I really do encourage people to get involved as it is far too good an opportunity to pass up – and this coming from someone who was terrified before they left - I have never been happier I went. For me, one thing that really made the experience all the more amazing was the fact that I had done some fundraising before I left and was able to buy a lot of supplies for the school and donate money. Prior to me leaving, my cousin also did fundraising for me through school which included things such as pens, pencils, rubbers, sharpeners etc. Together, Emma and I raised $3,000 dollars for our school. I did my fundraising through a trivia night held at my local hall (with the questions compiled by my sister), as well as auctions and prizes given throughout the night from things people had donated. Emma did her fundraising through a BBQ with family and friends. We were both so overwhelmed by how much people are willing to give to a worthy cause.

The money that we raised is going to go into an emergency school fund where it will be used to help send both orphans and poorer students to school, provide school supplies and uniforms to students in need, and a safety net for any student that may need it. For example, a few days before I left, there was a 6 year old girl, who was sexually abused. The money that we have raised is going to help relocate her, and send her to Good Will Activity School (the school I was volunteering at) and also provide a spot for her in Zoe House (the orphanage created by the school) where she will be cared for. The most powerful thing that we were told by the school council was that through this money we had saved and given life and opportunity to children who would otherwise never have had the chance. The school council were grateful beyond words and we could not be happier to know that it is going to such an amazing cause. The people, the sights, the children and landscape could have kept me there for years - I’m already planning when I’m going back! Thank you to Antipodeans for giving me the opportunity.

Emily Tapper RMIT Bundoora - Third Year Bachelor of Education