28-5-2017.
7 days after leaving Kathmandu we were able to start teaching at the school. Our first school day at Rachuli’s school had cracking-up moments.
We started with 10th grade, which means some of the students were 17 years old, only 3 years younger than the two nurses we hired. Being so close in age created a previously unseen complicity with the class. Both boys and girls made enquiries and intervened a lot in class; including some fun moments such as when they were trying to guess how many holes female organs have. Answers varied between 2 and 4! 🙂Very few students said 3.
Other fun moments were related to the fact that our nurses were nervous and did not remember certain words in Nepalese, so they had to ask students! Or when talking about the clitoris and I took the chance to make comments a Nepalese woman would never dare say… these are advantages of being a foreigner: I play “dumb” and say or ask things they would never do.
After class I went for a walk with my camera and a parade of women and girls came with me. When we were back at my home’s front door, we met the nurses and, suddenly, as we were bidding farewell to my “following”, we heard a buffalo “shouting”. I started imitating it, and the buffalo “replied”, so I went on and ask the nurse to translate to children the following: “Don’t you at Rachuli speak Buffalese? I do!”; and I went on imitating the buffalo’s cries. It really did sound as if he were replying to me. The children and women cracked up, even though they were not completely sure whether I did understand what the animal was telling me! 🙂 Cool.
Later on, when our “Didi” (Sister) was coming to call us for dinner, it so happened that I opened the door at the same time as she got there. When I ran into her, small and in the dark, telling me “Didi khana Khane” (Sister, come to eat rice!), I screamed in fear, she got startled as well as the nurses in the room, followed by great laughter afterwards. 😀
There are days so special in this country, that they make you forget how hard sleeping on the floor is, or the rough roads and 5-day journeys, and boring dhal bat (rice with lentil or bean soup. Here, with beans , beans,lentils are not local) twice a day.
Written by Clara Go. Photos done with FUJIFILM X-Pro1 © Clara Go Translated to English by Alba Miquel
West Nepal girls need this kind of program. And we need help to continue the project!
Now you can donate for paying one month salary to the nurse, or for some hygiene kit or for the menstrual cup control in September: http://beartsy.org/get-involved-with-rato-baltin
Or If you feel like it, you can donate via bank transfer at: Banc Sabadell IBAN: ES23 0081 0900 8200 0430 1934 BIC: BSABESBB (your recurring donation will help us have a better planning of our budget to carry out the projects undertaken).
Or take a look others ways to donate in http://beartsy.org/donate/
Thank You! 🙂
