Nepal – a source of happiness!

My volunteering time in Nepal was one of the best parts of my trip around the world! My friend Brad, who I met in Chiang Mai said: “Andrea, it looks like you have finally found what you were looking for in Nepal. Your face is shining and you look so happy!” And you know what. He was right!

Nepal helps you to make a difference

I realized that what was missing in my job, before I started to travel, is that my work did not really make a difference in the world. Sure, it was a nice job selling wine, that people could enjoy with friends and family, but it did not really make a difference!

When I arrived in Kathmandu and started to volunteer to teach English at the Government school, I could see that I could really make a difference here! I could influence the mindset of these children and tell them that , they can be anything they want in life! I could show them, that it does not matter if you come from a poor family or if you are a girl. And especially with the smaller children, I could make just a difference by given them love and attention or a hug!

I enjoyed giving classes about keeping the environment clean and felt proud and happy seeing the children pick up the trash from the floor and refusing to accept plastic bags in our role plays. I really felt I could contribute a tiny small thing to making Kathmandu a cleaner city. It made me shine, sharing videos on the popularity of bikes in the Netherlands and showing them how much better they are for your health and the environment than the motorbikes everybody uses there.

I enjoyed breaking all the serious and stand in line culture, where you stand up to speak and ask permission to enter the class and children fall asleep on their books with loud classes with interactive games, chaos and interaction. I enjoyed making school a fun place to go. Making children eager to learn and to show that it can be fun too! I am sure not all of the teacher saw it that way, when they passed my class and saw the chaos and loud noise coming from my room, but hey – we had a great time!

I have to say whoever that you may not compare being a volunteer for a few weeks to being a teacher at these school full time. I did not have to worry about preparing children for their exams and as a foreigner I was allowed to step out of line. I am not sure, how much my behavior would have been accepted, if it would have been done by a regular teacher!

I have big respect for the teachers at this school, because they have very limited resources and the children are very difficult to teach. There are kids of the age of 8 and 12 in the same class and their level of knowledge is very different! Try teaching English to students that are learning the past, while some of them can not even understand simple sentences you say in the present. Besides that, these children come from families that are very poor and usually also have a lot of problems. I met a very talented girl, that has a father that is an alcoholic. The mother has to work like crazy in other people’s houses to provide for the whole family. A lot of these children find it hard to concentrate and have behavior problems. Teaching these kind of children is a REAL challenge!

 

Happy smiles, happy children

I saw a lot of poverty at school. Children with shoes that are two sizes too big, because they get the shoes of their brother or sister. Children on slippers and flip flops – even when it is winter! Children with very dirty clothes and rotten teeth. But the smile on these children’s faces stays in my memory forever! Did I come to teach them? Or were they teaching me?

Domestic children in Nepal

I did not realize, that a lot of children in my class did not live with their parents. To be more specific: 100 children were what they call “domestic children”. These children come from families that live in remote areas. Their parents send them to Kathmandu to go to school, where they live with people that are being paid to take care of them. In order to pay for the expenses, these children have to work after school, cleaning and cooking in other people’s homes. I do not have to mention, that most children are much younger than 16! I was shocked and sad, when I heard about this. No wonder some of the children did not have time to do their homework!

Volunteering is a wonderful experience and I can highly recommend it! There are a lot of organizations. The two companies I can recommend are Helpx and Workaway. Workaway mostly offers Work for free accommodation, but you can also find some volunteering offers in here. Both website ask a small signup fee, but after you have paid that, you can use the site for an entire year.

 

 

Nepalese customs – living with a Nepalese family

Nepalese Life is a lot different, than the schedule of most other places I went to.
My host family woke up at 5.00 AM in the morning. After a few days, they asked me to join them. They explained that they went to the park to exercise. I was very surprised, because at 5 it was still completely dark outside! I decided to join them and see how they do that.

You should have seen my face, when I saw the whole park full of people jogging in complete darkness. Groups of women with flashlights and several aerobics classes only with the light of a small lamp.

NEVER – EVER did I expect to see that many people there! I asked why people come that early and the answer was very simple. If you want to exercise outside in Kathmandu, the early morning in the only time, when there is no traffic pollution. How spoiled are we in Europe, that we can go for a jog any time of the day?

But the is another reason for the early exercise. Most people in Nepal are Hindus or Buddhists. The early morning time, shortly before the sun rises is very important and holy.

My host family was very active in a Meditation center, but also had a separate Meditation Room in the house. Every morning from 6 to 7.am. they would meditate at the center.

Not only at my host family’s house, but also when I was invited at the headmaster’s house for Breakfast (They call it lunch); it started with a tea with milk and biscuits. Most houses have a roof terrace that functions as a living room. At around 8 o’clock in the morning, the sun comes out and it is warm enough to sit outside and enjoy a cup of tea.

Typical Breakfast time is at 9:30. School starts at 10.00, so you have to eat quite fast. The Breakfast consists of Dhal Bat. (Rice, Lentil soup), different kind of vegetables, a pickle and what I call a chutney (they call it differently). My host mother was the most amazing cook ever and I am waiting for her to open a cooking school for tourists ;-)!

The school starts at 10:00 a.m. in the morning, The children all line up in different rows. One of the older children shout military commands and the children step aside, turn and stand up straight again. After this short exercise the national anthem sounds and everybody sings along.

Lunch is served by the students and always includes a tea with milk and a different snack every day. School usually ends around 16:00. After that you usually eat another small meal. Dinner ist served at 20:00 and because you get u so early every day, your eyes close at 21:00.

 

Nepal and Mayanda

Teaching the children was exhausting, because you are like a police agent, teacher and mother in one.  Keeping the children quiet; taking away paper guns and elastic bands that are used to shoot things at other students or just making the class interesting and entertaining was a real challenge! The school has so many intelligent students and I really wanted to do more for them!

That is when the Idea for MAYANDA was born. Nepal has so many lovely products!
Most of them are made in the rural areas of the Himalaya. In the kind of small towns, where many of the “domestic” children come from.

I wanted to find a way to build a side business and to help the children at my school. MAYANDA only started with a few products, but the first responses are really good!

At the moment 1 EURO of each sale goes to the school, but with time, I hope to be able to increase this to 5%. You can check out the products at my Mayanda Facebook Shop. To order, just send me a personal message from the page.

If you are looking to go to Kathmandu – feel free to message me! My hostfamily has a lovely homestay in Kathmandu!

So did Nepal make me happy? It definitely did! The people and their smiles make it impossible not to smile yourself!