Samata Shikshya Niketan

At 10 am on Sunday 6th February 2005, I walked into the most significant place so far on my travels. There was no towering edifice akin to Angkor Wat, no deserted tranquillity like Serendipity or Don Det, no horrifying reminders of man’s capacity for cruelty like S-21 or the War Remnants Museum. It was not a place that would immediately work its magic or instantly leave an impression on my memory…but in the next two months it was to assume a very special place in my heart and its diminutive denizens were to become as important to me as anybody in my life. Samata Shikshya Niketan School (in Nepali this means Global Togetherness and Fraternity) was like nothing I’d expected and yet, at once, was visually appealing. Countless other schools that I’d seen on trips around Kathmandu had resembled dilapidated (yet still recognisably ‘British 70’s municipal’) versions of the kind of concrete architecture that so delight the heir to our throne (the man does appear to have some taste…at least as far as architecture goes!). To be thus confronted, then, with this oasis of beauty amidst the detritus, filth and unfinishedness of Jorpati (one of Kathmandu’s less affluent districts) was, indeed, surprising. Around the main brick-paved playground were a succession of pretty white huts, constructed from bamboo and cowshit (for insulation I understand). Sitting atop one of these individually detailed huts was even a brightly painted replica of a stupa tower. Away to the north-west corner of the site, I caught a glimpse of another courtyard centred on a beautiful ornamental garden and similarly surrounded by a succession of attractive white huts. Over the course of the day (Lucy’s last and, therefore, a succession of mini School Sports Days – 3-legged race, marble (instead of egg!) and spoon etc.) I got to know the most important people at the school. Firstly, the man behind it all Uttam Sandjel…someone who I would grow to respect enormously and a man who has never since ceased to amaze me with his capacity for work and a complete refusal to accept limitations on his dreams. Secondly, I met the ‘Didis’ (Nepali for sisters), otherwise known as Komala, Gyanu, Pompa and Umilla, the kitchen staff and guardians of my appetite. Finally, and most importantly, I started getting to know the kids. All but the oldest and surliest boys struck me as heart-achingly cute and most of these kids had been endowed with a surfeit of personality and a mouth full of shining white teeth, which they loved nothing better than to show off in gleeful grins. All day long I had to deny my secret identity as a WWF wrestler and field forthright questions about my origins and history from some of the bolder, little blighters. Perhaps the biggest single impression was the kids’ impressive stoicism in the face of agonies that would have had most Premiership footballers in traction for several months. Unaccustomed to the teamwork required by being tied at the ankle, some of the kids stacked it quite brutally onto the hard brick floor during the 3-legged race. Instead of raising the dead with screams like most British kids would surely have done, they simply righted themselves, dusted off any excess, unattached skin from their kneecaps and dutifully completed the race. My first impressions of the kids were that they were bright, tough and personable…and the school seemed as pleasant an environment as any to conduct the business of learning. My two major worries, then, were the total lack of syllabus or textbooks for my ‘course’ and my own fears of inadequacy when under the bright-eyed scrutiny of the little monsters. Was I up to it? Would I let them down? Would the deep disparities between our cultures and the more obvious barrier of language come between teacher and pupils? I don’t remember feeling so scared or excited about anything in my life…