Saturday 30 January 2016

The arrival of new volunteers and more teacher training; this time with some amazing experiments!

Rob and Sam arrived on the Sunday afternoon to a warm welcome from the Bashyl family. Dhanni is away in Kathmandu doing a course for the cooperative that he is involved with so Janaki is proving that she’s the backbone of the house and is working very hard looking after all her guests.

Rob and Sam spent the Monday exploring Tansen and we met up with Dan in the office on Tuesday the 19th to talk about what they had planned for a teacher training session. We decided that Rob would plan to deliver ten experiments that the teachers would then be able to do at school. Rob spent some of the day running through the experiments making sure that they worked on the other side of the world, thankfully they all did.
Then we spent the Wednesday getting all of the photocopying done for the teacher training as well as getting our equipment together for the experiments which unfortunately involved eating some pringles and drinking some sprite as we needed the containers for the experiments. I wanted to get the method sheets laminated so that they would last longer, but then the electricity decided to go off about 3pm until about 7pm I was beginning to worry that I would have to take all the sheets out of the laminating pouches which I had spent a couple of hours that day doing.

Thursday the 21st was the day for teacher training. I was so impressed with the experiments that Rob had planned it really took me back to my school days, which definitely wasn’t a bad thing. I think I paid a lot more attention this time round than when I did when I was in school. The ten experiments that Rob did (with the help of his wonderful assistant Sam) were; Using carbon dioxide, from the reaction of baking soda and vinegar, to extinguish a candle, chromatography, electrolysis of water, looking at plant cells under an electric microscope, using pomegranate as an indicator, making a pin hole camera, making a model lung, looking at oxygen in the air, measuring your pulse rate and making a rainbow with an old CD.

Not only did we show the teachers these experiments we also made method sheets for each experiment and also photocopied the pages from the text books that the experiments corresponded with so the teachers were able to see the relevance to their curriculum, which is very important. We then asked the teachers to decide what experiments they wanted to do in school, we would then bring the equipment for the experiments to schools and re stock them once we know that they have done them with the children.
Friday the 22nd was spent relaxing as we were all rather tired from the day before and then Saturday we were invited to Bimila and Dan’s house for the rice pudding, which I love. After eating way too much rice pudding, again, I managed it up the steep steps with Rob and Sam, they carried on for a walk and I retreated back to my laptop to try and get some of my blog done, which I had failed to post. After supper it was time to pack ready for Okhaldunga the next day.

Okhaldunga, what an experience. We arrived to Tikka and flower garlands, which were lovely as always. We then had a few minutes for me to ask some data collection questions for me to send the numbers of the school and staff team back to the UK. The first period I went into an English class I saw another English class that afternoon. That evening we were sitting around the fire having a chat with the teachers which was really nice and we were able to keep warm too which was obviously a big bonus. Then about 8pm we saw a very drunk man crawl down the steps next to the place we were and then stumble around for a bit before he attempted to climb up the stairs and ended up falling flat on his face. I’ve seen some pretty drunk people in my time and I must admit there have been times where I’ve had a few too many but I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk, thankfully. I’m sure his head would have been very sore, not only from the fall!



We tried to make our leaving the next day a quiet affair but we ended up with a five piece band and teachers dancing before being given more tika, flower garlands and a traditional Nepali hat a Daka Tope. The band followed us up to the jeep and we made an escape. Now I have described what the school visit was like I can now describe the journey there and back. The journey there was okay until we reached the top of the hill on the other side of the valley. Now I must say that our jeep driver was divine and the best driver I have ever seen, sorry dad! There is no way I’d have got in a vehicle with anyone else going down a very narrow shingle track with very tight corners. On the way home we decided that going up that slope would be more dangerous than it was worth so we decided to pay the driver a little more and for him to take us the long way home.  This way home was okay, until we reached the slidey mud. It was a challenge that’s for sure but the driver was completely controlled, I’m pretty sure he’d win awards for such controlled driving in the west. But once we got home I was ready for bed and completely shattered. 

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