Charikot

Written 9:18 pm Sunday, April 19th

We began our four hour car ride to Charikot at 6:00 am this morning. Previously we hadn't planned to leave until 9:00 am however, there was a strike in one of the villages we needed to pass through and so we had to beat the villagers to the road!

After arriving we had lunch and then met the Principal at the private school we will be teaching at. His English is really good (by Nepali standards). He took us to meet the teachers at his school - which is an English Boarding School so all classes are taught in English (albeit broken). The students not only learn Nepali but English, Math, Social Studies, American Literature [even I hated that] and Science. Surya [roll the r = sur-i-a] has been a principal for 17 years and was telling us how in the early 2,000's before the Maoists were working as part of the Government forced him to close his private school. They did not like the fact that students coming out of private school were getting better jobs and had a "better" education than the Government schools. He said they threatened to kill him and burn his building if he did not shut down thus, he caved. One of his colleagues building was burned and they guy was actually in the building when they lit it on fire. It hasn't been until the past few years they have been allowed to re-open the Private schools.

After meeting the teachers at Surya's school, we got on the back of motorbikes and went over to the village of Dolaka to meet the Head Master of the Government school where we can also help out. It's about 10-15 minutes on motorbike or 45-60 minute walk from where we are staying where as the Private school is about a 15 minute walk [mind you all walks are up and/or down very steep inclines].

Once we arrived we has tea with Surya's family and then were given a walking tour of the village. We had a chance to see the Government school as well. Shortly after that we headed back to Charikot to shower and get settled for dinner.

We explained to Top and his wife [Top is the owner of the place we are staying] that for these first few days we'll have teacher "workshops" where we'll work with the teachers on phonetics because school hasn't officially started yet and this will be a good way to help them improve their English - a lesson that will last far longer than our four weeks here.

Now as you can imagine that after a day like that; we were once again thoroughly exhausted and in bed by 10:00 pm again...good thing school doesn't start until 10:00 am tomorrow!