A steep learning curve but settling in

We spent the rest of the week learning more about village life, trying to discover how much our students know and planning lessons. The teaching has gradually been getting easier and the lesson planning is certainly less time consuming. Every morning the whole school lines up for assembly. They have to do various exercises to wake up, sing the national anthem and listen to anything the teachers say. It is quite entertaining to watch the children scuttle in late which reminded me of my days at school. We introduced stickers on Friday and especially the grade 4 class went crazy. They loved to be praised and one girl was so keen she wrote our 'fantastic' (which was on the sticker) 8 times for us to mark. It is also good fun to teach them songs like 'head, shoulders, knees and toes', play Simon says and hangman with them although it is difficult to explain things with no Nepali! School runs from 10-4, Sunday to Friday with a 45 minute break. This is quite intense and has been a challenge to get used to! The teachers themselves are not that competent at English and some speak none at all which has made integrating with them quite hard. Often they put out 2 chairs for us to sit in on the balcony and then they go into another room so it is a bit awkward but they have been teaching us some Nepali words which has been fins and has broken down the barriers a bit!

We have some lovely neighbours who run the farm next to us. They have goats, chickens, cockerels, a dog called Upi, buffalo and fields so we can only imagine how hard they work. They are so generous and kind and often bring us vegetables and oranges as we plan our lessons in the afternoon sun. Alpurna also brings us vegetables (which are in season) from their fields for free which is so generous. We have been struggling a little with the food as we have no spices or eggs so our food is very glad but we hope to get some soon! Our neighbours also have some very sweet little girls who were initially scared of us but now they burst into our house in a fit of giggles and run out again. They also love peeping through the grid into our bedroom which is sweet. One of the girls is in grade 2 so she often has friends to play who love to come and watch whatever we are doing. Yesterday they gathered around and drew all over our notebooks which was quite sweet.

On Saturday morning, we got up at 5am, which we thought was very early to walk up Bahakot hill to see sunrise over the Himalayas. We were trying to be very quite but this was not at all necessary as most people get up at 4 am to milk he buffalo which we discovered as Alpurna shouted to some girls in the village. It was such a cold morning but the views made it worth the wait. As I keep saying, the views of the Himalayas just keep getting better and this certainly was the case as all the mountains came into full view. So far the mountains have not been visible during our stay in the village so we were very excited to finally see the famous Machapuchu in its morning glory. Later on Saturday we thought we would wonder down the hill to Syangja, the nearest town and where the other 5 AVs are staying. KK had told us it was about a 1 hour walk down and 2 hours up. This was most certainly not the case as 2 hours later we arrived at the bottom of the hill and met the others. It was good to catch up with them but we were surprised to hear that they had not started their teaching yet. Unfortunately it was a festival day so all the shops were shut so we couldn't get any supplies. Thankfully we managed to catch the jeep up the hill so we are yet to time how long it takes to go up the hill. It was rather strange that when we were chatting on the jeep we realised that everyone had stopped talking and were just watching and smiling at us chatting which was sweet. Overall, it was a nice day in Syangja but a bit of a trek and we were exhausted afterwards!