Goodbye Kathmandu - health students return to Australia

 COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak - Kathmandu
PROJECT: Health projects
WRITTEN BY: Sylvia Qiu

Our last week involved teaching health topics to local schools and orphanages. The very first day was actually Teacher’s Day which involved a great celebration. We were greeted by the school warmly and directed to the front of the school. We watched many dance performances, songs and even a poetry reading.

The children were all enthusiastic and their clothing was colourful, on this special day many of the children got dressed up. We were blessed and children kept giving us pens as presents. Due to the special occasion we taught in front of the entire school, which was difficult because we had a lesson plan for a class, but we managed and the Nepali teacher helped us out quite a bit to get the attention of the children and they leant. At the very end we were pulled on stage to dance with the children and the teachers joined in as well.

We visited Souvenir Boarding School, Holy Nepal Orphanage, CCC Orphanage and Bhakti International Academy.

All the teaching that we did we were welcomed by enthusiastic students. Many were excited and that definitely enjoyed colouring in and chanting. I taught Food and Nutrition and we went through food names, and learnt the Nepali translation of certain foods which helped me to learn Nepali faster and the children definitely enjoyed hearing our attempts. The children constructed their own food pyramid and learnt what a healthy diet should consist of.

With time left over we played hangman and also heads down, thumbs up. At times the children were over-excited but it was great to see what we taught them had stuck when we quizzed them at the very end of the lesson.

At Bhakti International Academy we got to see the daily assembly where all the children lined up in their classes. They did some exercises, sang the school song and the national anthem. Although at times it was quite difficult with the language barrier, the children were always so enthusiastic and learning Nepali definitely helped as well.