Leaving the Nepali village that had become home

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Brendan Dennis

This week I was offered something, but not something specific. Actually, being offered non-specific things in Nepal isn’t specifically exclusive to this week; though, that only occurred to me this week. Shop keepers, drug dealers, tiger balm salesmen and café staff always seem so keen to offer ‘something’. Taxi and rickshaw drivers avoid offering altogether, they just say ‘Yes, my friend!’ and give you a loving smile and swing their arm to give directions as though we don’t know the way. I stumbled upon the bizarre phenomenon in the few hours after our village placement ended and our orphanage placement began.

It was admittedly, an emotional day. We were ripped from the place which we have, over the last three months, found it so easy to call ‘home,’ and with only two or so hours of down time were taken to the place which seemed much more like ‘someone else’s home.’



Leaving the village was hard because even though we have known the exact time, date and manner in which it was going to occur it still surprised us. I realized that for the entire last month of our placement when people asked ‘How long until you leave’ I would answer smilingly, ‘A month.’

In the last week or so of school the temptation to just play games and have fun as opposed to actually teaching was too great. I was powerless when it came to duck-duck-goose and captains coming, and by the end I had been enslaved to singing and dancing in class. Actually, I was powerless to the way the children pleaded to have fun with us on our last days and a slave to the way they smiled when we played whatever crappy game I could remember from my childhood. We stuffed our sadness with promises that we will be returning soon; and with the bonds that we have created with our kids, and the feeling of the unique love and admiration they have for us, it feels as though these promises will all be fulfilled.

We left the schools with the fruits of the labour of some of the more driven in our group. We managed to collectively raise upwards of $8,000 Australian dollars. Though, honestly, we were all out done by Niamh who raised almost $4,000 on her own, towering the measly $400 that I was so proud to have raised back when I was 17. To put $8000 into perspective, it’s enough to build two very much needed wall at two very much in need schools; and provide a third school with a clean water source. The wall at the Tusal school is to replace a slightly more impractical method of creating a boundary for the school play ground, which was simply to have a steep drop of 3 metres, down which was a mixture of barbed wire and nettles. I often saw my students brave this drop in order to retrieve lost soccer balls or shuttle cocks.

On reflection, our contribution has been very effective and we have all noticed a large difference in their ability to use the English language. Our teachers were immensely grateful for this as well as the donations we made to the school. On leaving, they showered us with warm farewells, bathed us in Ticka and pampered us with more gifts than we were capable of carrying.

Though, saying goodbye at the schools was nothing compared to our family. It surprised me that I hadn’t realized how close we had become. Our mother cried during our last meals with her and has since been calling us every other day; she can’t speak English, she just wants to excitedly say our name and laugh with extreme joy when she hears our voice. Luckily, the language barrier has no effect when you have no words to describe how grateful you are; though this is of little comfort when your whole host family is distraught and no matter how much you want to stay, you have to go.

We all loved our families and the village, which is why it was such a shock to move so quickly to the orphanage. The group split into two. One orphanage is well established and very adept to tourists; one has only been running 11 months and has never, before us, had visitors. I am with Ben, Aidan and Vanessa in the newly established one. We learnt that we took for granted the low level of English our students had when we found out that the children at the orphanage speak no English at all. Neither do the staff.

It has left us intimidated and feeling once again like lost sheep. Our boys were ecstatic to see that we brought guitars and everybody was astounded by seeing juggling, so we have faith that soon we will feel just as welcomed and at home as we did in the village. More importantly, it feels like being in a place that really needs the influence of English speaking, young and energetic foreigners who are willing to play and give attention to these orphans will be a really rewarding and enriching experience… even if it is intimidating.

It has been a very emotionally bizarre week. We have not yet had time to digest everything that has happened. Leaving the village was happy and sad; arriving at the orphanage was exciting and intimidation. In one day we went from bitter sweet to whatever the metaphorical flavor equivalents of ‘exciting’ and ‘intimidating’ are. It has defiantly left me feeling something; but not something specific.