On March 2006 my daughter Almudena (then 4) and I went to Nepal to do voluntary work.
I gave a seminar on Teaching Foreign Languages which was facilitated by the friendly and local NGO INFONepal. The programme was specially made by the NGO for me and the participants were Nepalese teachers from local state schools.
This diary hopes to document the wonderful experience that my daughter and I went through and it also wants to serve as a gesture of gratitude to all those who made it possible: family (my husband in particular) friends and sponsors.
The information on this site is accurate at the time of volunteering, the photos are private and copyrighted material.
I have included many details and pieces of information from the Rough Guide to Nepal, which I found it was an invaluable companion to my trip.
Namaste
Day Sixteen
Wednesday 29th, we fly back to Holland.
Noise
Domestic animals
Corruption
People go about their daily routine as we load the taxi that will take us to the airport.
Friendship
Pollution
Devotion
All the bustle of the city flashes in front of the taxi window
I hold Almudena tightly and feel a profound sense of peace
And I think of all the friends that have, in one way or another, made this trip possible
Namaste
( I salute the god within you)
Day Fifteen
Tuesday 28th, more training at INFO Nepal headquarters. We also take the chance to make the credential that certifies my being the INFO Nepal coordinator for Spain, taraaa…
Later in the day we take a rickshaw and we visit Durbar Square, home of Kathmandu’s ‘living goddess’. The volunteer card saves us the 200 Rs entrance fee that tourists must pay. Kumari Chowk, or the cult of Kumari, probably goes back to the Middle Ages. Although she is supposed to be a Hindu goddess, she is chosen from the Buddhist Shakya clan of goldsmiths, according to a selection process during which elders interview hundreds of Shakya girls aged three to five, short listing those who exhibit 32 auspicious signs : eyelashes like a cow’s, neck like a conch shell, etc. Finalists are placed in a courtyard surrounded by freshly severed buffalo heads while men in demon masks dance around making scary noises. The girl who shows no fear and can identify belongings of previous Kumaris, becomes the next Kumari. The goddess ‘s spirit leaves her when she menstruates.
The bahal-style courtyard is decorated with exquisitely carved windows, pillars and doorways.
Entrance to the palace is through Hanuman Dhoka (Hanuman Gate), a brightly decorated doorway that’s named after the popular monkey god Hanuman, whose statue stands outside. The figure is veiled to render its gaze safe to mortals.
Durbar Square is undoubtedly the place to see and be seen, some locals call it ‘Demonstration Square’ due to the many political manifestations that are held here.
It is home to the ancient building Kasthamandap, which is believed gave Kathmandu its name.
Day Fourteen
Monday 27th, we visit the Tashi Waldorf School. Located in the outskirts of Kathmandu, it is a safe haven where Meyrav Mor, Heather MacLaren and her partner have been carrying out a tremendous work in order to secure the emotional and cultural well-being of Tibetan children in exile. The children are thriving and we’re humbled by the colossal enterprise that these people are making possible based entirely on donations and sponsorship.
Meyrav is an attractive olive skinned woman who speaks about her project with Mediterranean passion,
She says: ‘ Predictably, when who we are and what we believe in is at risk of extinction, the natural impulse is to resist and rebel. Add widespread poverty to the scenario and the potential for disaster becomes imminent’.
She has had daily contact with the Tibetans residing in Kathmandu since 1996 as well as with members of the Department of Education of the Government of Tibet in Exile.
And she adds ‘ The goal of a culturally sensitive curriculum for Tibetan children in exile is to imbue each child with a deep appreciation of his unique cultural heritage while engendering in him the flexibility and resourcefulness to meet the challenges of global modernisation without loss of cultural identity or personal dignity’.
We hand over the watercolour paint, the books and other goodies your money made possible to buy for them and I wish I had bought more, much more.
We are lucky enough to see the rehearsal of the end of term school play
Play is practice for life.
we peep inside colourful empty classrooms
then it is lunch time
after which Almudena is invited to join in the nap time
I learn that the children are from underprivileged families and they do not have to pay for either school or food (backed up by vitamin supply). I have no words to describe how impressed and humbled I am by the task these people are carrying out.
I cite from Meyrav’s book ‘Preserving the Past, Reserving the Future’:
‘Unfortunately, the difficulties facing the new Tibetan generations do not fade as the attention once given to them by the media-driven interest. Displaced children grow up with little knowledge of their homeland. The demand to assimilate in new surroundings while also engaging in the globalized world places Tibetan children in a brutal middle ground that devastates their self-esteem, their ability to learn and their potential for a prosperous future. My hope is that this work can join the work of others in building a world in which we can accept our differences while reaching out to our common humanity.’
We leave the school monitored by the smile of the Dalai Lama from a photo on the wall.
If you want to know more about this project, visit the following website:
mailing address : G.P.O. Box 8975, EPC No 4218 Kathmandu
telephone : + 977 I 4437428
email: tashiwaldorf@wlink.com.np
Day Thirteen
Sunday 26th, Rajesh and his wife take us to visit Bhaktapur, where she works as a Maths teacher at a state school. They do not have to pay for an admission ticket, but we do. The volunteer card is of no use here and we have to part with 750 Rs in cash. After all the city is being helped (read run) by Germans. Thanks to this long-term German-funded restoration and sanitation programme much of the city is pedestrianized.
Wandering around the herringbone –paved streets and narrow alleys is an experience in itself. Every turn of a corner brings a new wonder.
Everywhere the peach terracotta bricks contrast with the deep brown of intensely carved wood, the essential expression of Newar architecture.
Or a vibrant red and gold skirted pagoda.
There’s a rich atmosphere to Bhaktapur and it feels more like a big village than a small city.
The entrance to the Royal Palace is the famous Golden Gate (Sun Dhoka) made of gilt copper repousse. The torana above the door features a squat Garud and a ten-armed, four-headed Taleju, the Mallas’ guardian deity.
After entry, you follow an outdoor passage.
where a doorway on the left leads through to Naga Pokhari ( Snake Pond) the royal bathing tank dating from the early sixteen century.
Nepal’s tallest pagoda is the graceful five-tiered Nyatapola where five pairs of temple guardians (Malla wrestlers, elephants, lions, griffins and two minor goddesses) can be admired. Each pair is supposed to be ten times as strong as the pair below.
The mid-eighteenth-century stone shikra of Batsala Durga, the Taleju Bell and a small replica known as the Bell of Barking Dogs is also a must. Needless to say it made me think of our mad eight year old shepherd Tim and his persisting phobia to loud sounds.
Bhaktapur is a wonderful place and I am so grateful Rajesh and his wife have taken the time to show us around!
We visit a thangka painting workshop to get an appreciation for how painstaking the art is. Even the cheapest ones aimed at the tourist market are full of Buddhist symbolism and beauty. A good thangka is the product of hundreds of hours of work. They can be divided into four ‘genres’ : The Wheel of Life (where only Buddha exists outside the wheel of life and all its delusions), Buddha’s life story (tracing the major events), Deities (either benign or menacing) and Mandala (used in meditation).
To prepare for my visit to the school I read about the People of Tibetan ethnicity or Highland ethnic groups. These include the Humlis, the Dolpo-pa, the Lo-pa (better known as Mustang), the Larke, the Lhomi, the Olangchung and the Sherpas, but Nepalis call these people by the collective term Bhotiya, a rather derogative term that conveys the sense of ‘unwashed hicks from the sticks who can’t speak Nepali properly’. The Bhotiya label was applied to them in an 1854 government edict, intended to find places for all minority groups in the Hindu caste system, which placed them in the lowly category of ‘enslavable alcohol-drinkers’ because they ate yak meat, which Hindus regarded as being almost as bad as eating beef. Unencumbered by caste, highlanders are noticeably less tradition-bound than Hindus, and women are better off for it : they play a nearly equal role in house-hold affairs, speak their minds openly, are able to tease and mingle with men publicly and can divorce without stigma.
Day Twelve
Saturday 25th, we visit Pashupatinath ( pronounced posh-potty-not), which is Nepal’s holiest Hindu pilgrimage site. There are temples, cremation ghats, ritual bathers and half-naked sadhus. I take just one picture from far away, for the sake of illustrating this report, but I am scandalised by the lack of respect displayed by tourists who do not consider for a minute the grieving families’ feelings at the cremation pyres.
The temples straddle the Bagmati River, which despite its filth is held by conservative Hindus to be the holiest in the Valley, and this specific stretch the most sacred of all. To die and be cremated here is to be released from the cycle of rebirths. Wives used to commit sati on their husbands’ funeral pyres, and although the practice was outlawed in the early twentieth century, it’s still widely believed that husbands and wives who bathe here together will be remarried in the next life. Bathing is considered especially meritorious on full-moon days.
Next we visit Boudha, about 5 km northeast of downtown Kathmandu. To ancient travellers along the Kathmandu-Tibet route, the biggest, most auspicious landmark was, and still is, the great stupa at Boudha. It is generally acknowledged to be the most important Tibetan Buddhist monument outside Tibet. Tibetans called it simply Chorten Chempo (great stupa) and since 1995 it has become the Mecca of Tibetan exiles in Nepal. Legends seem to fix its origins around the fifth century AD.
The dome is elevated on three twenty-cornered plinths of decreasing size, which
reinforce the notion of the stupa as a mandala or meditation tool.
Instead of five dhyani Buddhas, however, 108 much smaller images of Buddhas, lamas and protector deities are set in niches around the dome.
Prayer wheels are mounted around the perimeter wall, they bear the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM (hail to the jewel in the lotus) which are Tibetans innovations that aid meditative concentration.
Day Eleven
Friday 24th, it is sad to leave the mountains (they call them hills, mountains are the Himalayas) to go to the delirium of Kathmandu, but I have to train Asim and Bicky who are in charge of providing the volunteers with classroom survival tips, since most of the volunteers, although native speakers, have never faced a classroom in their lives.
The big city makes a bigger impact on me coming from Dhulikhel than it did on my arrival. I write on the field note book :
Neo hippies
Middle-aged new agers
Young Americans on a gap year
Fortune-cookie yoga addict vegans that stay too long
Tourists camera in hand that stay too short
Street salesmen
Shop keepers
Soldiers
Rickshaws
And looking at them all from our balcony, just Alma and me.
In the evening we have dinner with the children of the orphanage Happy Home that INFO Nepal runs. They giggle at Almudena’s English and they are really sweet to us.
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