Schools, Meetings and the Shiva Temple.

I spent a couple of days in Tansen walking around the town doing more photocopying and designing resources as my eyes were pretty swollen from all the dust on the bike. Luckily by the time that we went to Amrit on the 6^th the swelling had completely gone down.

Saran and I travelled to Amrit on the bike the morning of the 6^th which was a nice journey. The track up to the school wasn’t too difficult which made a nice change so I didn’t ache too much when I woke up the following day.

We got the warmest of welcomes when we arrived at Amrit School. The lower school were all lined up with flowers to give and we had more Tika. The students all seemed so happy, which is always really lovely to see. I had a meeting with the teachers and discussed the schools needs and the facilities that they have already. I was able to take lots of photos to show their twin school the difference that the money that they have raised and the impact that it’s having on the children’s education. I also made a short video of the children saying thank you.

Unfortunately, after the second earthquake this year the school suffered a lot more damage than we had originally thought. I had the rather frustrating task of relaying this information back to the UK, to then put forward the idea of supporting the building of some new classrooms at Amrit as well as Mahachap a and Dumre. Saran and I then had to go back to Tansen as we had a meeting with Sargar, a close friend of Manisha’s.

He had met a man in Kathmandu when he was there who was working for room to read and had said that if we provide the schools information; class sizes and the total numbers of school children for the schools that do not have libraries then they would be able to send someone out to assess the schools and decide if they can provide libraries.

I spent the 7^th and at homestay and in the office making sure that I was up to date with emailing twin schools and suggesting that they start preparing something to send to their schools here in Nepal. A moral boost which is needed.

There were two women who stayed at the homestay for a couple of nights Jaz and Jill. Unfortunately Jaz got sick one of the days that they were staying and Jil, Janaki and I went to Shiva temple which is about a 20 minute drive from Tansen. Unfortunately, in true Nepali style, the car broke down about a 15 minute walk from the temple so we walked the rest of the way which was really lovely. Janaki was a great guide and it was really useful having a Nepali speaker so we didn’t get lost. We got to the temple and I was a bit surprised with how new it was. The Shiva statue was brought from Kathmandu only 2 years ago. There are plans to expand on the land and to make it more temple like as at the moment there is only a statue there. The signs and promotion surrounding the statue, made it a little less special. But, it was a lovely day out regardless. The car was fixed a couple hours later and when we got back to Tansen Jill and I went for some momos.

The 9^th Saran and I ventured to Jheksang which is only about 4km from Amrit. This again was a really lovely visit although we weren’t able to spend very much time there, what I saw I was so pleased with. The staff were very warm and welcoming and asked for some books for the older students for the library as room to read only provided primary level books. So I made a note of that for when Saran and I go to Pokhara.