CHUCKED IN AT THE DEEP END!!

After a couple of days settling into Tansen and making the office more homely, by adding some much needed curtains, Barbara and I were ready to start what we came here to do.

On the 4^th Barbara and I were able to visit Mahachap with an engineer and Saran (our Nepali coordinator), to assess the damage that was left by the earthquake. The government had already come to assess the damage and had said that the whole building was unusable. We are awaiting the engineers report to confirm this. Even with the governments guidance the school building it still being used. The government were able to supply two bamboo classrooms but as you can imagine that is far from enough, no matter how big the school. On the way back from Mahachap we were planning on popping into Bagnas, however, with it being exam time across the school and it being late afternoon- there were no children or teachers there, so we gave it a miss.

On Tuesday the 5^th Barbara and I were able to visit two schools in one day. We started with a visit to Dumre, again with the engineer to assess the damage. As Dumre’s school buildings were already in bad form it was of no surprise that there are two classrooms left unusable. The government here have given money to build two new classrooms but the Head teacher is looking to build another five on top of that as a lot of the school is in very poor condition. From there we got the jeep to Bhalebas and to a warm welcome from the Head teacher and deputy. We spoke at length with the teachers about their ICT resources and how best to utilise them and what educational programmes we could get to encourage computer use in day to day learning.

We were invited to stay at one of the teacher’s houses and once we had unloaded our bags and had a cup of tea we were off to meet Saran’s wife and son with again… more tea. Saran’s house was devastatingly damaged in the earthquake and is having to rebuild so we were able to see the foundations that had been laid and he was awaiting concrete to finish them. After playing with his son (Sohan) and drinking our tea we were off again to go and see the Head teacher’s house and wife just a ten minute walk from Saran’s house. Mr Singh (the Head teacher) and his wife welcomed us both warmly with home grown coffee, which I must say, was delicious! Unfortunately, the second story of Mr Singh’s house is unusable, the roof was then lowered and he is planning on extending his house on the ground floor to make up for the lost space.

We then left early on the 6^th, after a wonderful breakfast of eggy bread at Saran’s, to get back to Tansen to do a day of planning for the next day’s teacher training session.

Wednesday the 7^th brought a day of many new challenges for me. It was the first teacher training day. Barbra and I had planned a detailed programme for the day which included: discussing best practice, an activity interpreting a textbook activity and how it can be taught in different ways, an analysis of Manisha UK’s work so far and if they are feeling happy with our delivery, how these teachers can support other teachers specifically the early years teachers and then closing with an evaluation.

We found that as the discussion about Manisha was facilitated by Danni from Horizon Homestay the teachers were able to express their honest opinions in Nepali and then did not feel that there would be any emotional impact as Barbra and I left the room to allow this to happen freely. Barbara and I both felt that the day went particularly well and there teachers that attended were enthusiastic about the activities that we were doing and the points that we were making.

Barbara and I allowed ourselves a rest day on the 8^th as we were both so tired from a few busy days previously. Friday the 9^th we were back in the office to plan both the Head teachers meeting and the Early years teachers going to the local Montessori school (which I shall cover in the next blog so stay tuned).

 Danni, Andy (an Australian guy staying at Horizon) and I got up at 5.15am on Saturday to march up the hill to the look out where we were hoping to watch the sunrise and have a good view of the Himalayas. However, this didn’t go exactly to plan. As we got to the top there was no sign of the sun nor the mountains as it was very cloudy and foggy. So after catching our breath we started walking back down the hill. Then the sun made an appearance and we just caught the sunrise through a clearing in the trees with the sound of people doing laughing yoga echoing through the valley which soon had us going.