Dawa and I amid the greenery of the Botanical Gardens at Godavari
February 13, 2005
Life
During this last week of Lhosar (which lasts from the Full Moon until the New Moon…i.e. two weeks), I began to appreciate a new shortcoming to my digs at the Lotus Guesthouse. Being run by the Tabsang Gompa and situated in the middle of Kathmandu’s most prosperous Tibetan district, my room was surrounded by no less than three gompas…with a further four within 5 minutes walk. I started waking up at stupid o’clock (4am most mornings) to the sound of horns being blasted and gongs and drums being thrashed frenetically by devout monks. Prior to my sojourn in Bouddha, I’d always been well-enamoured of Buddhism and admired its proponents for their peace-loving ways. A week of waking up at the crack of dawn in a gelid bedroom (my monastery-run guesthouse suffered from damp as well as noisy neighbours!) soon had me cursing ‘those bloody monks!’ with a full spectrum of profanity.
None of this, however, affected my burgeoning relationship with Dawa and, on the Wednesday, she insisted on taking me and Edd out for dinner to celebrate the New Year festival. Hospitality is a strong part of the Buddhist tradition and, as we were guests in her country, she insisted on treating us to dinner and showing us a good old time. I met her at the Stupa in the evening and she really did look beautiful in her traditional Tibetan dress. After three chora (one chora is walking a complete circuit around the Stupa) surrounded by smiling, happy Tibetan pilgrims, we had a quick drink in one of the roof-top cafes before heading over to Thamel to join Edd for dinner at Yin Yang. A tasty dinner was followed by (the usual) beer and pool at Tom & Jerry’s – a very pleasant way to spend the second New Year of my trip. After such a pleasant evening, we all arranged to meet again for dinner on the Friday.
Come Friday, Dawa and I had been expecting Edd by 7pm and I began to suspect that he’d succumbed to Nepali time (on Nepali time, 10 minutes late is still 5 minutes early!). I was enjoying Dawa’s company sufficiently to be only mildly concerned by Edd’s failure to show at the agreed time and, having left messages for him at likely locations, we ate alone. He eventually turned up over an hour late looking rather distraught and only stopped long enough to tell us what had delayed him and to arrange to meet us for a much-needed drink later on. It seemed that the school trip he’d been on that day had been led by a complete idiot who had somehow managed to lose two of the children. Edd and Colin (another young English volunteer) had managed to prevent yet more missing children by staying with two groups who’d been too exhausted to climb the 2700m Pulchowki that had been the day’s aim. When they had reconvened with the teacher and the rest of the children at the bus it became apparent that two of the younger boys who had been with the teacher had failed to come back down from the summit. A frantic, but darkness-curtailed search had not been successful and, eventually, the rest of the group had been forced to return to waiting parents. Being their first school-trip as responsible adults, Edd and Colin were obviously very upset and unable to help feeling partly responsible. As I explained to them, if the teacher in charge had refused to listen to any of their suggestions and had been the last to see the missing children, then they were certainly not responsible. I had strong urges to go and find their errant colleague and punch his lights out – not only for losing two children, but also for causing such distress to this pair of utterly blameless and very likeable young lads. Edd and Colin were due in school the following morning for a parents’ day and would be unable to find out any more until then…so we did the right and proper thing and got totally shit-faced.
The following morning, Dawa and I got up late and spent a fruitless couple of hours looking for a computer repair-shop for my ailing laptop. It was the first really hot day of what had now become Spring and the excessive number of Everests from the night before were really taking their toll. With the heat, the effects of pollution and noise seemed to intensify and in the end I was only too glad to jump on a micro (minivan / bus) with Dawa to get out of the chaos of Kathmandu and head to the Botanical Gardens at Godavari. After almost three weeks in the stench and hassle of the city it was pure bliss to sit on green grass and hear the sound of running water and the wind whispering in the trees. Lying there in the sunshine I could feel the stress of city life ebbing out of me and my energy levels being replenished. It seemed a shame to have to go back into town but we’d made arrangements to meet with Edd and I was keen to find out what had happened with his kids…so off to Tom & Jerry’s we went.
I could see immediately that Edd was in better spirits when we met him and it turned out that both the boys had been found unharmed. Nevertheless, one boy had collapsed, exhausted, by the side of the road to be discovered by the army late at night; the second had managed to find his way to a village, where he had been given food and shelter by a generous local family until the following morning. Edd and Colin had made their school’s headmaster promise never to let the irresponsible teacher lead another school trip again. For once I was left thinking that Asia’s lack of health & safety laws had some serious shortcomings…
None of this, however, affected my burgeoning relationship with Dawa and, on the Wednesday, she insisted on taking me and Edd out for dinner to celebrate the New Year festival. Hospitality is a strong part of the Buddhist tradition and, as we were guests in her country, she insisted on treating us to dinner and showing us a good old time. I met her at the Stupa in the evening and she really did look beautiful in her traditional Tibetan dress. After three chora (one chora is walking a complete circuit around the Stupa) surrounded by smiling, happy Tibetan pilgrims, we had a quick drink in one of the roof-top cafes before heading over to Thamel to join Edd for dinner at Yin Yang. A tasty dinner was followed by (the usual) beer and pool at Tom & Jerry’s – a very pleasant way to spend the second New Year of my trip. After such a pleasant evening, we all arranged to meet again for dinner on the Friday.
Come Friday, Dawa and I had been expecting Edd by 7pm and I began to suspect that he’d succumbed to Nepali time (on Nepali time, 10 minutes late is still 5 minutes early!). I was enjoying Dawa’s company sufficiently to be only mildly concerned by Edd’s failure to show at the agreed time and, having left messages for him at likely locations, we ate alone. He eventually turned up over an hour late looking rather distraught and only stopped long enough to tell us what had delayed him and to arrange to meet us for a much-needed drink later on. It seemed that the school trip he’d been on that day had been led by a complete idiot who had somehow managed to lose two of the children. Edd and Colin (another young English volunteer) had managed to prevent yet more missing children by staying with two groups who’d been too exhausted to climb the 2700m Pulchowki that had been the day’s aim. When they had reconvened with the teacher and the rest of the children at the bus it became apparent that two of the younger boys who had been with the teacher had failed to come back down from the summit. A frantic, but darkness-curtailed search had not been successful and, eventually, the rest of the group had been forced to return to waiting parents. Being their first school-trip as responsible adults, Edd and Colin were obviously very upset and unable to help feeling partly responsible. As I explained to them, if the teacher in charge had refused to listen to any of their suggestions and had been the last to see the missing children, then they were certainly not responsible. I had strong urges to go and find their errant colleague and punch his lights out – not only for losing two children, but also for causing such distress to this pair of utterly blameless and very likeable young lads. Edd and Colin were due in school the following morning for a parents’ day and would be unable to find out any more until then…so we did the right and proper thing and got totally shit-faced.
The following morning, Dawa and I got up late and spent a fruitless couple of hours looking for a computer repair-shop for my ailing laptop. It was the first really hot day of what had now become Spring and the excessive number of Everests from the night before were really taking their toll. With the heat, the effects of pollution and noise seemed to intensify and in the end I was only too glad to jump on a micro (minivan / bus) with Dawa to get out of the chaos of Kathmandu and head to the Botanical Gardens at Godavari. After almost three weeks in the stench and hassle of the city it was pure bliss to sit on green grass and hear the sound of running water and the wind whispering in the trees. Lying there in the sunshine I could feel the stress of city life ebbing out of me and my energy levels being replenished. It seemed a shame to have to go back into town but we’d made arrangements to meet with Edd and I was keen to find out what had happened with his kids…so off to Tom & Jerry’s we went.
I could see immediately that Edd was in better spirits when we met him and it turned out that both the boys had been found unharmed. Nevertheless, one boy had collapsed, exhausted, by the side of the road to be discovered by the army late at night; the second had managed to find his way to a village, where he had been given food and shelter by a generous local family until the following morning. Edd and Colin had made their school’s headmaster promise never to let the irresponsible teacher lead another school trip again. For once I was left thinking that Asia’s lack of health & safety laws had some serious shortcomings…
Class 6A 10:30-11:15
They say variety is the spice of life and, if I’d wanted a bit of a change from 4B to liven things up, then I certainly got it with this lot. 6A were my first all-boys class and, after the novelty and the WWF jokes had worn thin, they mostly turned out to be a big pain in the neck. Most of them never missed an opportunity to copy their neighbours work or, while my back was turned, to offer a solid thump between the shoulder blades of their nearest enemy. (‘Sir, Sir…he’s beating me!’ was a cry too-often heard in this lesson.) There were a few exceptions to the rule – mostly the younger or brighter kids – but the vast majority of this class of 18 just didn’t want to be there. As I grew to learn more about the school (from Uttam) and got to know all my children, I came to realise how unusual this attitude was and thought all the less of the main trouble-makers for spurning the opportunity they’d been given. It was also very frustrating to see them spoil things for the kids who did want to be there and, unfortunately, my metaphorical stick saw more action here than in all the other classes put together. Conversely, it was very rare that 6A got chance to play outside and this really was a shame because, on these rare occasions, the child inside even the older, surlier ones often showed his smiling face. For all there bad behaviour and lack of respect, most of the kids were reasonably bright and spoke reasonable English. Of those that were a bit thick, Udip and Dipendra had easily the sweetest natures in the class and, in the end, became two of my biggest success stories. Udip, particularly, spoke very little (intelligible) English and also found it extremely hard to understand what I was saying most of the time and was in fact the catalyst that pushed me into offering extra lessons after school. After just two weeks, I could see that he was never going to pass an exam without a lot of extra help and one-to-one tuition. More importantly, he needed an undisturbed learning environment away from the squabbles and disruptions of his classmates. Dipendra also needed the extra work – but mainly to fix the vocabulary in his somewhat sketchy memory.
Thankfully, there were plenty of characters in the class to lighten my mood so it was a very rare occasion when I left them feeling totally drained. There was Ganesh with his bizarre hip-hop dress-sense (this being one of the few classes in which almost nobody wore their school uniform), which often had me in silent stitches. His main competitor in the cool stakes was Kapil with his ‘Westside’ lingo and gangster poses – although, in terms of cool, Ganesh had to be a hands-down winner as Kapil was both bright and keen when it came to studying. Sanjay always made me smile with his wide-eyed innocence and unfortunate air of undeniable culpability whenever there was trouble and Gaurav always had a cheeky grin and a knowing twinkle in his eye, which made it impossible to feel really angry when you caught him cheating or ‘beating’. Of the bright kids (other than Kapil) Rajesh was the quietest while Razu had the brightest, most endearing personality. Unfortunately, being bright in this class seemed to be a recipe for being bullied and these two often caught it from their less industrious classmates. Kalden too was a bright spark with a cheeky grin but spent so much of the time disrupting and sulking that he managed to disguise his obvious native wit from both me and the other boys. He and Dukpa (a tall, sullen, short-tempered oaf, often given to swearing at me in Nepali) gave me by far the most trouble and spent more time than most performing their squats and staying inside instead of playing.
As the term drew on the class moved painfully slowly towards completing the syllabus I’d devised and, in the end, I’m pleased to say, they all passed their exams…although for some it was a bit of a scrape.
Thankfully, there were plenty of characters in the class to lighten my mood so it was a very rare occasion when I left them feeling totally drained. There was Ganesh with his bizarre hip-hop dress-sense (this being one of the few classes in which almost nobody wore their school uniform), which often had me in silent stitches. His main competitor in the cool stakes was Kapil with his ‘Westside’ lingo and gangster poses – although, in terms of cool, Ganesh had to be a hands-down winner as Kapil was both bright and keen when it came to studying. Sanjay always made me smile with his wide-eyed innocence and unfortunate air of undeniable culpability whenever there was trouble and Gaurav always had a cheeky grin and a knowing twinkle in his eye, which made it impossible to feel really angry when you caught him cheating or ‘beating’. Of the bright kids (other than Kapil) Rajesh was the quietest while Razu had the brightest, most endearing personality. Unfortunately, being bright in this class seemed to be a recipe for being bullied and these two often caught it from their less industrious classmates. Kalden too was a bright spark with a cheeky grin but spent so much of the time disrupting and sulking that he managed to disguise his obvious native wit from both me and the other boys. He and Dukpa (a tall, sullen, short-tempered oaf, often given to swearing at me in Nepali) gave me by far the most trouble and spent more time than most performing their squats and staying inside instead of playing.
As the term drew on the class moved painfully slowly towards completing the syllabus I’d devised and, in the end, I’m pleased to say, they all passed their exams…although for some it was a bit of a scrape.
Finding my feet
After the difficulties of my first week, I had resolved to find ways to make teaching easier and my life a lot less stressful. On the Sunday afternoon after I returned from the Saraswati Puja, I set to creating a syllabus and basic teaching plans for all my lessons. Much of my invention and the structure of my lessons came from my experiences of being taught foreign languages at school. I realised that getting the children to speak English as much as possible was the key to improving their pronunciation. On top of this, in order to learn and remember vocabulary there would have to be structured, relevant topics. Finally, to aid their comprehension of spoken English (with an English accent!!), I also worked out that they would need to hear plenty of me! I came up with a formula that involved role-play conversations and listening comprehensions, which relied heavily on partner work and individual one-to-one teaching with each student. While progress around a class of 39 students was bound to be slow, it would guarantee that every kid would be listening to and pronouncing the requisite English words. It also meant that I’d be able to give close attention to the kids that were struggling and allow the brighter kids the chance to practice with partners while I was busy elsewhere. Once I’d established this simple formula, my preparation work for each class was cut considerably as I was able to use the same lesson plans with different classes. As well as the incentive of doing well in their work, most kids were quick to learn that if the work set for the week was completed quickly, we’d be heading out to play games like British Bulldogs, Stick-in-the-Mud, rounders etc. Those kids (invariably the boys in the ‘too cool for school’ gang) who didn’t knuckle down and thought they could get away with messing around because I didn’t carry a stick (all the teachers carried a thin bamboo stick, used to greater or lesser degrees for punishment or encouragement) soon found themselves performing long sets of squats in front of the blackboard. I was often amazed at some of the boys’ resilience – performing, literally, hundreds of reps – but eventually, lactic acid caught up with everyone…and they were (mostly) slow to repeat their mistake. Occasionally, with the stronger, older boys, there wouldn’t be sufficient time for enough squats to cause them inconvenience. In these cases good old-fashioned shame was always a sure-fire winner: having them kneel on the ground outside the classroom with their finger and thumb pinching their earlobes while the girls from other classes walked by was usually sufficient to cause them to think twice.
All in all, by the end of my second week, my classes were generally running smoothly. The combination of well-prepared lessons, the carrot of playground and the metaphorical stick worked reasonably well…and when all else failed – as anybody who’s heard me shout would willingly testify – a well-timed ‘Chup Lag!’ (Nepali for ‘Shut Up!’) bellowed in the correct ears usually brought a shocked silence for long enough to finish making my point.
So most of the kids, at least, were under control. Conversely, the Didis had me wrapped around their little fingers. Every lunchtime, I would stoop into the low, lean-to of a kitchen, perch my mammoth backside on a tiny little stool and have outrageous portions of Dal Bhat heaped in front of me until I was crying for mercy. Komala and Pompa were my two main tormentors…always placing another tasty morsel or mound of rice on my plate just as I was finishing and had my eyes closed with sated pleasure. I quickly learnt that nodding at the wrong time or misunderstanding their quick-spoken Nepali, would invariably end in my having to eat even more. Under their necessary tutelage, I quickly picked up a working grasp of the language…if only to defend my ever-increasing waistline. Eventually, I would stagger out from the dark, cosy shack into brilliant sunshine, weak-kneed and sway-bellied and find some dark corner of the staff-room to collapse and ruminate. In the afternoon, someone (usually Gyanu or Pompa) would come and find me in my free period and present a piping cup of Nepali tea to me on a silver platter (okay, it was a stainless steel plate – but I still felt as though I was being treated like royalty!). As my mother and most close friends will know, the way to Fin’s heart is through his stomach and I soon developed a warm affection for these cheery souls – always smiling, often laughing and constantly chirping away in Nepali and poking good-natured fun at me with fresh chillis and too-big portions of delicious food.
If only making friends with my fellow teachers could have been so easy… First of all I should say that I don’t hold their natural reticence and shyness against them in any way shape or form. Cultural traditions, gender-based discomfort and plain old fear were probably the major reasons that I didn’t get to know the majority of the teaching staff at Samata School. I do believe another part of it was to do with the special treatment that we volunteers were afforded: for a start, we had traditionally eaten lunch separately in the kitchen 45 minutes (our free period) before the others ate in the staff room. The rest of the staff did not get fresh rice and Dal – usually being given chura (beaten rice) with vegetable curry or, occasionally and much to their disgust, packet noodles. Finally, none of the other teachers were brought tea on a silver platter. I don’t think any of the staff begrudged us these privileges, knowing full-well that we were unpaid and appreciating that our delicate digestive systems needed nurturing, but our preferential culinary treatment was just one of many factors that set us apart. For a start, the teachers had their own uniform – beautiful red and blue saris with a white blouse. I appreciate that I would have looked rather daft in a sari but, nevertheless, it was a difference. Secondly, we volunteers, were the only teachers who were allowed to take the older children out to the playground to let off steam – something I’m sure some of the meeker teachers would have loved to do with some of the more surly students. Thirdly and I think extremely importantly – even to the younger, less-inhibited teachers – there was the language barrier. Despite the fact that all lessons were supposedly conducted in English, many of the teaching staff had a poor practical knowledge of the language. Perhaps more than anything else, I believe this was what stopped many of them from striking up conversations…why, after struggling to explain things in a difficult second language all day long, would one want to try and converse in the same language during your leisure time? Many of the teachers were friendly enough to smile and exchange pleasantries – and I could see by the way they listened or asked questions when I was talking with someone else that they were interested – but, in the end, I think the thought of trying to hold an in depth conversation must have seemed like too much hard work.
All of the above factors had been applicable to my predecessor Lucy and, having talked a little with her in the short time before she left, I had gathered that she’d found it hard to establish relationships with many of the teaching staff. I was, therefore, not expecting to develop close, life-long friendships with the staff during my short stay. However, all the past experiences of the teaching staff with Western volunteers had been with women and I think my overwhelming maleness, in the end, was the biggest barrier to developing relationships with these women in a country where the Hindu religion and a lack of awareness of feminist issues make inter-gender, platonic friendships rare.
Having said all that, the staff never made me feel anything but welcome and a few of them, driven by necessity or facilitated by the boldness of youth, went out of their way to talk to me and include me in the staffroom banter. More on them later…and much, much more on the enigma that is Uttam.
All in all, by the end of my second week, my classes were generally running smoothly. The combination of well-prepared lessons, the carrot of playground and the metaphorical stick worked reasonably well…and when all else failed – as anybody who’s heard me shout would willingly testify – a well-timed ‘Chup Lag!’ (Nepali for ‘Shut Up!’) bellowed in the correct ears usually brought a shocked silence for long enough to finish making my point.
So most of the kids, at least, were under control. Conversely, the Didis had me wrapped around their little fingers. Every lunchtime, I would stoop into the low, lean-to of a kitchen, perch my mammoth backside on a tiny little stool and have outrageous portions of Dal Bhat heaped in front of me until I was crying for mercy. Komala and Pompa were my two main tormentors…always placing another tasty morsel or mound of rice on my plate just as I was finishing and had my eyes closed with sated pleasure. I quickly learnt that nodding at the wrong time or misunderstanding their quick-spoken Nepali, would invariably end in my having to eat even more. Under their necessary tutelage, I quickly picked up a working grasp of the language…if only to defend my ever-increasing waistline. Eventually, I would stagger out from the dark, cosy shack into brilliant sunshine, weak-kneed and sway-bellied and find some dark corner of the staff-room to collapse and ruminate. In the afternoon, someone (usually Gyanu or Pompa) would come and find me in my free period and present a piping cup of Nepali tea to me on a silver platter (okay, it was a stainless steel plate – but I still felt as though I was being treated like royalty!). As my mother and most close friends will know, the way to Fin’s heart is through his stomach and I soon developed a warm affection for these cheery souls – always smiling, often laughing and constantly chirping away in Nepali and poking good-natured fun at me with fresh chillis and too-big portions of delicious food.
If only making friends with my fellow teachers could have been so easy… First of all I should say that I don’t hold their natural reticence and shyness against them in any way shape or form. Cultural traditions, gender-based discomfort and plain old fear were probably the major reasons that I didn’t get to know the majority of the teaching staff at Samata School. I do believe another part of it was to do with the special treatment that we volunteers were afforded: for a start, we had traditionally eaten lunch separately in the kitchen 45 minutes (our free period) before the others ate in the staff room. The rest of the staff did not get fresh rice and Dal – usually being given chura (beaten rice) with vegetable curry or, occasionally and much to their disgust, packet noodles. Finally, none of the other teachers were brought tea on a silver platter. I don’t think any of the staff begrudged us these privileges, knowing full-well that we were unpaid and appreciating that our delicate digestive systems needed nurturing, but our preferential culinary treatment was just one of many factors that set us apart. For a start, the teachers had their own uniform – beautiful red and blue saris with a white blouse. I appreciate that I would have looked rather daft in a sari but, nevertheless, it was a difference. Secondly, we volunteers, were the only teachers who were allowed to take the older children out to the playground to let off steam – something I’m sure some of the meeker teachers would have loved to do with some of the more surly students. Thirdly and I think extremely importantly – even to the younger, less-inhibited teachers – there was the language barrier. Despite the fact that all lessons were supposedly conducted in English, many of the teaching staff had a poor practical knowledge of the language. Perhaps more than anything else, I believe this was what stopped many of them from striking up conversations…why, after struggling to explain things in a difficult second language all day long, would one want to try and converse in the same language during your leisure time? Many of the teachers were friendly enough to smile and exchange pleasantries – and I could see by the way they listened or asked questions when I was talking with someone else that they were interested – but, in the end, I think the thought of trying to hold an in depth conversation must have seemed like too much hard work.
All of the above factors had been applicable to my predecessor Lucy and, having talked a little with her in the short time before she left, I had gathered that she’d found it hard to establish relationships with many of the teaching staff. I was, therefore, not expecting to develop close, life-long friendships with the staff during my short stay. However, all the past experiences of the teaching staff with Western volunteers had been with women and I think my overwhelming maleness, in the end, was the biggest barrier to developing relationships with these women in a country where the Hindu religion and a lack of awareness of feminist issues make inter-gender, platonic friendships rare.
Having said all that, the staff never made me feel anything but welcome and a few of them, driven by necessity or facilitated by the boldness of youth, went out of their way to talk to me and include me in the staffroom banter. More on them later…and much, much more on the enigma that is Uttam.
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