A School anniversary, progressive meetings and the potential of new office space.

Monday the 11^th Dan, Bimila (Dan’s wife) and I got the bus down the valley to Dumre and marched up the hill to Dumre School. We had been invited to the schools 25^th anniversary and the teachers were very keen that we attended so we made a promise to go and kept our word. The head teacher had told Saran that we needed to be there at 11am we managed to get there about 11.45 minutes knowing that they would be running behind schedule. I think the whole ceremony started at about 1.30. There were many guests; head teachers from other schools, local politicians, other highly thought of members of society and then the Manisha team. We were sat at the back of the guests enjoying our bag of peanuts whilst trying to look like we were interested. It is very difficult trying to look interested in something that you have no idea what is going on. Then there was some dancing from the children which was really lovely. They seemed to break off into their classes and it looked like the school and children had put a lot of effort into their dances. That was definitely the highlight for me.

The next day we rallied the Manisha crew again (Dan, Saran, Sargar and I) and went to see Room to Read. Room to Read is an INGO and are focused at improving reading and literacy skills in schools as well as providing libraries and books. As some of our schools have Room to Read libraries and some don’t we were looking at what Room to Reads’ next steps are and to see if we were able to work together in the future as they also run teacher training days so we were excited to see how we might be able to collaborate and work together. I felt that it was a really progressive meeting and it was really interesting to clarify how they operate and it definitely seems to be an efficient system.

On the Wednesday the 13^th Dan and I went to see the Red Cross as Barbara and I had previously visited to see about renting an office on their first floor. Although the office we currently use at the back of Sargar’s office is great, it is pretty noisy and dusty and the Red Cross office is away from the bus park so the noise and dust is a lot less. In true Nepali fashion the two meetings we had over a couple of days at the Red Cross were focused on drinking tea and sitting in slightly awkward silences not really sure of what to say. We had taken some pictures and got them sent back to the UK for the approval of the trustees before we said that we would be interested in renting.

Rob, a retired chemistry teacher and an old friend of one of the trustees, and his wife Sam, a retired scientist at a university, were due to arrive on the Saturday but as the trip from Kathmandu to Pokhara was slightly longer than they anticipated so they spent an extra night in Pokhara and arrived on the Sunday. This then meant that I was able to have the day to myself reading and I went for a walk up Shrinigar hill, which is always lovely even if the weather isn’t clear.