The School

The day after we arrived we delivered our various packages to the school - which was, of course, uphill! Thanks to the schools at home and some generous friends we were able to hand over 3 bolts of fabric to make everyone a new school shirt; a similar three to make trousers and skirts; 5 white boards to replace the old ones which had been supplied by Ysgol Bryn Clwyd but were rather tatty after 4 years; white board pens and dusters etc; a volley ball and a football and a Karamboard (hope I am am spelling that correctly!)
The school day starts at 10am with the National Anthem and a 15 minute session called Brain Gym. This involves various movements designed to stimulate different parts of the brain and also incorporates local dance moves. After this the 45 minute lessons begin with teachers facilitating specific subjects using the relevant text book as the mainstay of the lesson. I was given my timetable and was delighted to be able to work with every class from ECD to Class 5 (the school caters for ages 3-10 and then the pupils move up to the High School if they pass their end of year exam; this school is about an hour away. My lessons involved lots of singing (of course!) and games: finding coloured pens hidden in the room; playing with coloured balloons; singing days of the week; playing Hangman for new words; arranging cut up questions and answers etc. So I concentrated on greetings, days of the week, colours, numbers, How are you? and making lessons as much fun as possible in stark contrast to text book driven lessons. Their level of English and my Nepali were enough to get us by and we all had a lot of fun! I think they might even have learnt something too!

Singing to the flag on the playground with the Birthing centre in the background

Brain Gym with staff joining in

Receiving the cloth for the trousers - staff.

The Head receives the Karamboard: the green bag behind him contains the staff food supplies
- hung from the ceiling every night to try to thwart the rat.

Learning colours

Playing before school begins

Football always popular - even with a slightly deflated ball!

Locals walk through the footy match

The Early Childhood dev class (ECD)

Really tasty Tiffin was made every day  in the kitchen. TiffinMaster produced
noodles and soup for staff lunches

Head teacher and the whole school - well the ones who attended that day!

Looking at the school from the Birthing Centre

All staff were amused when I cut out a chain of paper figures!