Sitting Pretty
"Stay positive and happy. Work hard and don't give up hope. Be open to criticism and keep learning. Surround yourself with happy, warm and genuine people." - Tena Desae
So many positive things had happened and despite a re-occurring stomach problem that was keeping me on a regime of '3 days eating, 36 hours fasting', I was feeling really good about things. The work at the different schools, despite being just three days, was positive and rewarding in every case! Perhaps, because it was just three days, we all worked even harder to achieve the best we possibly could.
Leaving Darjeeling, I arrived back in Kalimpong and completed my time at a school in a village just down the hill from Kalimpong itself. Sindebong is warm, beautifully warm and being in flip flops and a t-shirt was light relief to having been bundled up for so long. The temperature differences across the range of places I visited was incredible really.
I spent my final night at the Rai family home in Kalimpong, sorting all the things I had left there and boxing up a parcel to send home via IndiaPost as I was not going to be able to carry everything with me. It was good to get rid of stuff and have a clear out, but it was also such a key moment in my preparations to leave this incredible road that I have been travelling. With just four weeks to go, clearing out my bags to make them transportable via aeroplane, gave me renewed energy to enjoy and take my time to absorb everything that would happen over the course of the rest of my time in this stunning part of India.
After finishing in Sindebong, I volunteered at an orphanage school for two days, teaching children and training teachers. It was a very rewarding two days, the children being observant and focused and the teachers engaging in discussion towards the end of my time there. Practical Mathematics is definitely something that is missing from the curriculum here and the more and more we talk and delve into problems around division, multiplication, place value and other mathematical concepts, the clearer it becomes that children's understanding of the value of number is very weak. At both the school in Sindebong and the orphanage school, staff are committed to adding more lessons that involve counting objects, matching amounts and recognising numbers, whilst reducing the number of lessons where children are learning how to write numbers 1-50.
Finally feeling like my stomach was back on an even keel, I headed back to Kashyem for the weekend. Words fail me...it was literally like going home. Smiles, shouts of welcome and looks of surprise as 'Mark Sir' returned. I had returned to see SM, Sunita and the family and also to go on a river picnic with the teachers from school. The fact that it rained (as well as thundered) did not deter us and we spent a fantastic (if rather wet) afternoon under a road bridge by the river cooking over the fire and generally not doing much else. Having bought the food from local towns and shops on the way (the purchase of pork being the most hair raising - see picture) we prepared and cooked it all riverside. Chicken curry, soup, rice and barbecued pork. All delicious!
(Buying the pork) (Start with the tomatoes and onion)
Atit and Reshav were well and it was great to be able to WhatsApp chat with my parents and include the boys who both tune in only to hear my Dad's laugh which they both love and find irresistably infectious. We sat and made Momos together and I couldn't have felt more comfortable being back in the place I had first arrived seven months prior. I was also able to tell them I would be returning again in just a few days as it would soon be my turn to spend three days at New Rise. Whilst in Kashyem, I met up with several of the friends I have made in the village and even began practising the Nepali dance some of the children want me to do at my final farewell.
As the weekend came to a close I also had to bid farewell to Premika. Santa's sister had, to all intents and purpose, been like my little sister too. We had become very used to using the familiar terms for little sister (boinee) and big brother (daju) when addressing one another. Premika was going to be travelling to London before I returned to Kalimpong. She had been going to run the London Marathon, but three torn ligaments had, sadly, put pay to that. She still wanted to use her visa and so was going to be travelling as a tourist instead. There was an outside chance we would be able to meet in Delhi as both our flights arrived in Delhi on 5th May - her return flight and my outgoing one. However, it was unlikely and so our time had come. I will always be indebted to Premika for her hospitality and her support for the duration of my time in India. We ran together, talked together, laughed together and I was never short of a place to leave a bag or lay my head. We could learn so much from the type of hospitality and welcome that exists in all parts of this incredible community.
And so, as I bid farewell to Premika, I also set off for school number seven in the list of twelve. The third of four high schools, St Mary's teaches children from Nursery to Class 10. My homestay was based in the grounds of the school along with a hostel housing 13 of the students. The mornings and evenings were a chorus of read, repeat, read, repeat...commit to memory. I kept an eye on my final creme egg. I didn't want it to disappear. My stomach problems had ensured I kept the egg until I felt that I would be able to enjoy it 100%. The more time I spent in slightly warmer climes, the more worried I began to get that it would melt.
The following couple of weeks passed in a combination of 'model' lessons, discussions and meetings about how to support and engage children in a more interactive way of teaching. Not least of all was how to facilitate the support and development the teachers would require as they progressed with their ideas. It was a real privilege that in more than one school they were determined to try and get me to stay longer, even though my timings meant it would be impossible. The schools in the MCK are very different, but with similar aspects to them and each one has given me new challenges to consider. Many of the staff were engaging and had so many questions and ideas. The three days primarily consisted of me observing and helping out on day one, teaching 'model' lessons on day two and then doing story telling classes in each class on day three. The interactive teaching and reading of stories are two of the key priorities for helping children to learn more effectively and develop their vocabulary, pronunciation, creativity and imagination. Many children here have never had a story read to them - in Nepali or English.
My time 'on the road' led me back to Mahindra and Kalpana (the wedding I attended in Barack), it led me back to NB in Barranumber (where I had spent time whilst another volunteer was based there in September) and it enabled me to travel back to, and through, Kashyem a couple of times too. Atit and Reshav had been joined at SM's house by Koran, a boy in Class 5 who is originally from Nepal. One weekend I was at the house, it was blazing hot and the boys and I, along with three others from school, took a fishing trip down to the streams and waterfalls that run through the village. We didn't catch any fish but the water was ice cold and very refreshing.
Whilst Atit and Reshav were more like younger brothers, there were definitely times that I caught myself wondering what it would have been like to have children. It is not something that I have really ever dwelled upon before. Back home people have often asked if I wanted to have children and I have always said that, in a small way, I think not having children was one of the reasons I became a teacher. To help children, to be a guiding light, to nuture their strengths and support their weaknesses. But living with the boys, getting to know them, their personalities and what makes them tick, I really began to wonder 'what if'. There were times I felt like more than a big brother and definitely times when they asked me questions or talked about things in a way a child might to their parent. Often, I would need to think pretty carefully about the answers because the sensitivities in this part of the world are very different to those at home.
Having never met them in all my time in West Bengal, Atit's parents were keen for me to travel to meet them. Having heard so much about 'Mark Sir' from Atit and after failed plans at Christmas, we found one 24 hour period where I could visit and most of the family would be there. Atit's family live down in the valley, right by the river, where it is hot and humid. For the first time I slept with just a sheet over me. What a difference to Lava where I had my sleeping bag, two blankets and four layers of clothes - and I thought Mongolia was extreme! The hospitality was wonderful. Two of Atit's sisters live at home and the third came home, with a friend for that one short period. The house was right next to the bridge that the male teachers and I had been under for our picnic in the rain a couple of weeks prior (pictures above).
The frequency with which I was recognised and the places that were familiar, because I had been there before, never ceased to amaze me. It was a real feeling of fitting in, living the local life and dispensing with almost everything that I was used to. Moreover, as I said goodbye to more and more faces, I realised just how much the experience of the past 7.5 months had meant to me and other people. As the last couple of weeks unfolded, I was handing out water from the front of my then home stay with some of the children who also lodged there. To my surprise one of the teachers from a school 3 hours away, was running in the race. It was great to shake his hand and run a little next to him to say hi. That afternoon, whilst walking, another teacher from a different school pulled over in his car to chat too. Again, I would be forgiven for thinking 'I stick out like a sore thumb', which of course I did, but it is the friendliness of the people I met and the way in which they included me as wholly as possible that is the reason for so many of the impromptu meetings and the feeling of dread I had at having to leave my incredible Indian life.
Finally, it came to my final day. I returned to Kashyem to say my last goodbye to the children and staff of New Rise. What an experience, what a life I had been living. There are few words to describe the reception and the send off I received. I will just leave the photographs for you to look through.
(Surprised them all with my traditional Nepali outfit)
And so, my incredible life above the clouds comes to an end. I hope it will prove to be just a pause and, in time, I will have the resources, time and energy to return to the beautiful foothills of the Himalayas - a place where I not only have friends, but also family.
"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." - Amelia Earhart
So many positive things had happened and despite a re-occurring stomach problem that was keeping me on a regime of '3 days eating, 36 hours fasting', I was feeling really good about things. The work at the different schools, despite being just three days, was positive and rewarding in every case! Perhaps, because it was just three days, we all worked even harder to achieve the best we possibly could.
Leaving Darjeeling, I arrived back in Kalimpong and completed my time at a school in a village just down the hill from Kalimpong itself. Sindebong is warm, beautifully warm and being in flip flops and a t-shirt was light relief to having been bundled up for so long. The temperature differences across the range of places I visited was incredible really.
(Pioneer Academy)
(Storytelling in Year 4)
(Storytelling in Year 2)
(The team at Pioneer)
I spent my final night at the Rai family home in Kalimpong, sorting all the things I had left there and boxing up a parcel to send home via IndiaPost as I was not going to be able to carry everything with me. It was good to get rid of stuff and have a clear out, but it was also such a key moment in my preparations to leave this incredible road that I have been travelling. With just four weeks to go, clearing out my bags to make them transportable via aeroplane, gave me renewed energy to enjoy and take my time to absorb everything that would happen over the course of the rest of my time in this stunning part of India.
After finishing in Sindebong, I volunteered at an orphanage school for two days, teaching children and training teachers. It was a very rewarding two days, the children being observant and focused and the teachers engaging in discussion towards the end of my time there. Practical Mathematics is definitely something that is missing from the curriculum here and the more and more we talk and delve into problems around division, multiplication, place value and other mathematical concepts, the clearer it becomes that children's understanding of the value of number is very weak. At both the school in Sindebong and the orphanage school, staff are committed to adding more lessons that involve counting objects, matching amounts and recognising numbers, whilst reducing the number of lessons where children are learning how to write numbers 1-50.
(Moa and Chandana who were instrumental in organising the visit to St Stephen's, giving me a bed for nights I was passing through Kalimpong and being great friends during my time there.)
Finally feeling like my stomach was back on an even keel, I headed back to Kashyem for the weekend. Words fail me...it was literally like going home. Smiles, shouts of welcome and looks of surprise as 'Mark Sir' returned. I had returned to see SM, Sunita and the family and also to go on a river picnic with the teachers from school. The fact that it rained (as well as thundered) did not deter us and we spent a fantastic (if rather wet) afternoon under a road bridge by the river cooking over the fire and generally not doing much else. Having bought the food from local towns and shops on the way (the purchase of pork being the most hair raising - see picture) we prepared and cooked it all riverside. Chicken curry, soup, rice and barbecued pork. All delicious!
(Buying the pork) (Start with the tomatoes and onion)
(Preparing the pork)
(Barbequed pork)
(Keeping the decks clear)
(Rice is ready!)
(Sychronised barbequing)
(Watching the chicken cooking)
(Hand washing with the 'master' - Atit)
Atit and Reshav were well and it was great to be able to WhatsApp chat with my parents and include the boys who both tune in only to hear my Dad's laugh which they both love and find irresistably infectious. We sat and made Momos together and I couldn't have felt more comfortable being back in the place I had first arrived seven months prior. I was also able to tell them I would be returning again in just a few days as it would soon be my turn to spend three days at New Rise. Whilst in Kashyem, I met up with several of the friends I have made in the village and even began practising the Nepali dance some of the children want me to do at my final farewell.
As the weekend came to a close I also had to bid farewell to Premika. Santa's sister had, to all intents and purpose, been like my little sister too. We had become very used to using the familiar terms for little sister (boinee) and big brother (daju) when addressing one another. Premika was going to be travelling to London before I returned to Kalimpong. She had been going to run the London Marathon, but three torn ligaments had, sadly, put pay to that. She still wanted to use her visa and so was going to be travelling as a tourist instead. There was an outside chance we would be able to meet in Delhi as both our flights arrived in Delhi on 5th May - her return flight and my outgoing one. However, it was unlikely and so our time had come. I will always be indebted to Premika for her hospitality and her support for the duration of my time in India. We ran together, talked together, laughed together and I was never short of a place to leave a bag or lay my head. We could learn so much from the type of hospitality and welcome that exists in all parts of this incredible community.
(Goodbye Premika - boinee and bhai)
And so, as I bid farewell to Premika, I also set off for school number seven in the list of twelve. The third of four high schools, St Mary's teaches children from Nursery to Class 10. My homestay was based in the grounds of the school along with a hostel housing 13 of the students. The mornings and evenings were a chorus of read, repeat, read, repeat...commit to memory. I kept an eye on my final creme egg. I didn't want it to disappear. My stomach problems had ensured I kept the egg until I felt that I would be able to enjoy it 100%. The more time I spent in slightly warmer climes, the more worried I began to get that it would melt.
(Staff at St Mary's)
(Farewell assembly)
(Not just any ordinary creme egg - it was gold dust)
The following couple of weeks passed in a combination of 'model' lessons, discussions and meetings about how to support and engage children in a more interactive way of teaching. Not least of all was how to facilitate the support and development the teachers would require as they progressed with their ideas. It was a real privilege that in more than one school they were determined to try and get me to stay longer, even though my timings meant it would be impossible. The schools in the MCK are very different, but with similar aspects to them and each one has given me new challenges to consider. Many of the staff were engaging and had so many questions and ideas. The three days primarily consisted of me observing and helping out on day one, teaching 'model' lessons on day two and then doing story telling classes in each class on day three. The interactive teaching and reading of stories are two of the key priorities for helping children to learn more effectively and develop their vocabulary, pronunciation, creativity and imagination. Many children here have never had a story read to them - in Nepali or English.
My time 'on the road' led me back to Mahindra and Kalpana (the wedding I attended in Barack), it led me back to NB in Barranumber (where I had spent time whilst another volunteer was based there in September) and it enabled me to travel back to, and through, Kashyem a couple of times too. Atit and Reshav had been joined at SM's house by Koran, a boy in Class 5 who is originally from Nepal. One weekend I was at the house, it was blazing hot and the boys and I, along with three others from school, took a fishing trip down to the streams and waterfalls that run through the village. We didn't catch any fish but the water was ice cold and very refreshing.
(Koran, Tiger and I)
(Caught nothing)
Reshav, myself and Atit
(The intrepid fishermen)
(Wedding with Boby and Sunita)
(The bride and groom arrive)
(Mountain wedding catering...)
(...with a view)
(Colourful homes in tiny villages)
(Sunset storm clouds on jungle walk - didn't spot the elusive leopard)
(My last view of Mount Kanchenjunga - except from a sneak peak above the clouds on take off a couple of weeks later)
(Homestay number ... I forget ... but perhaps the one with the most outstanding view - see next)
(View from my bed)
(Practical Maths)
(Goodbye to the children and staff of Munsong)
(Alpha Nursery)
(Not much space, but any space is good enough for cricket)
(My local tour guides show me the village Gompa)
(Story telling is something new and exciting to the local children)
(No matter how old or young)
(Goodbye to the children and staff in Barranumber)
(The 20km run comes through 20th mile)
(We're handing out fruit and water)
(Runner in first position)
(Goodbye to the staff and students of Lotus)
(Morning Assembly at Lotus Academy)
(The fishing trip begins - hopeful faces!)
Whilst Atit and Reshav were more like younger brothers, there were definitely times that I caught myself wondering what it would have been like to have children. It is not something that I have really ever dwelled upon before. Back home people have often asked if I wanted to have children and I have always said that, in a small way, I think not having children was one of the reasons I became a teacher. To help children, to be a guiding light, to nuture their strengths and support their weaknesses. But living with the boys, getting to know them, their personalities and what makes them tick, I really began to wonder 'what if'. There were times I felt like more than a big brother and definitely times when they asked me questions or talked about things in a way a child might to their parent. Often, I would need to think pretty carefully about the answers because the sensitivities in this part of the world are very different to those at home.
Having never met them in all my time in West Bengal, Atit's parents were keen for me to travel to meet them. Having heard so much about 'Mark Sir' from Atit and after failed plans at Christmas, we found one 24 hour period where I could visit and most of the family would be there. Atit's family live down in the valley, right by the river, where it is hot and humid. For the first time I slept with just a sheet over me. What a difference to Lava where I had my sleeping bag, two blankets and four layers of clothes - and I thought Mongolia was extreme! The hospitality was wonderful. Two of Atit's sisters live at home and the third came home, with a friend for that one short period. The house was right next to the bridge that the male teachers and I had been under for our picnic in the rain a couple of weeks prior (pictures above).
(Atit outside his home)
(View across the valley, river running to the right)
(Village homes)
(Do you know what is growing here?)
(Atit's family kitchen - we're making Momos)
(The bridge below the river - under which I had the picnic with Satish, Zenus, Suman and Tshering Sirs)
(Sunset in the village)
(River walk)
(Atit's sister, Gran, Cousin, cousin, Mum and friend - then me)
(Family with Atit)
The frequency with which I was recognised and the places that were familiar, because I had been there before, never ceased to amaze me. It was a real feeling of fitting in, living the local life and dispensing with almost everything that I was used to. Moreover, as I said goodbye to more and more faces, I realised just how much the experience of the past 7.5 months had meant to me and other people. As the last couple of weeks unfolded, I was handing out water from the front of my then home stay with some of the children who also lodged there. To my surprise one of the teachers from a school 3 hours away, was running in the race. It was great to shake his hand and run a little next to him to say hi. That afternoon, whilst walking, another teacher from a different school pulled over in his car to chat too. Again, I would be forgiven for thinking 'I stick out like a sore thumb', which of course I did, but it is the friendliness of the people I met and the way in which they included me as wholly as possible that is the reason for so many of the impromptu meetings and the feeling of dread I had at having to leave my incredible Indian life.
Finally, it came to my final day. I returned to Kashyem to say my last goodbye to the children and staff of New Rise. What an experience, what a life I had been living. There are few words to describe the reception and the send off I received. I will just leave the photographs for you to look through.
(Giving the traditional kadhar to wish me Happy Journey)
(Goodbye to Satish Sir)
(Thanking the staff for my watch)
(Kadhars from the very youngest...)
(...to the oldest. Atit giving me his kadhar was a difficult moment, not least of all because of the number of kadhars I had around my neck by then!)
(Nothing but positive memories and a huge feeling of love)
(The youngest children sing and dance)
(Traditional Nepali dance in my honour)
(The NRA team who sang in my honour)
(Dancing from Year 10)
(Dancing from Year 9)
(Singing)
(Surprised them all with my traditional Nepali outfit)
(Will miss these faces)
(One last opportunity for Momo Friday)
(Quite the most beautiful moments)
(Couldn't have felt any more honoured or loved)
And so, my incredible life above the clouds comes to an end. I hope it will prove to be just a pause and, in time, I will have the resources, time and energy to return to the beautiful foothills of the Himalayas - a place where I not only have friends, but also family.
"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." - Amelia Earhart
Comments
Post a Comment