A Year in Nepal
Sophie Allen recently spent a year volunteering with Project Trust in Nepal after finishing her A levels. In the following account she shares some of her experiences and insights into a very different culture which she found hard to leave at the end of the year.
Being in a Himalayan valley can feel claustrophobic, but I have never had such a wide and clear sight of the world as from Poon Hill in the Annapurna mountain range. Once you’ve reached the top (3210 metres) and thawed your hands on a mug of hot chocolate, you can appreciate the panoramic snowy peaks - Daulagiri is the eighth highest mountain in the world!
When my senses had been satisfied in this sensory playground, it was time for the real playground; I spent 12 months living in Nepal teaching English in a primary/secondary school in the Rukum district. I was in a new project, so no one could tell us what to prepare for and a lot surprised me at first. When we arrived the only thing in our bedroom was a piece of plywood on stilts, but people slowly began bringing us a mattress, carpet, cooking utensils, food, a stove etc. I can’t be sure because I didn’t understand Nepali at the time, but I think most of these things were donations from the houses around us. They had no idea who we were or our purpose, yet they gave us all these possessions.
My school had nearly 600 pupils enrolled but attendance was poor, especially during the cold season and harvest. Morning assembly was at 10:30 and involved a ‘wake and shake’ style warm-up followed by the national anthem. Most students had two English lessons a day and those who came regularly showed good progress, whilst others remained totally illiterate. Afternoon classes often finished early for no apparent reason and were a chance to play volleyball or practise speaking Nepalese. Every Friday, the students left school early to fetch sweet smelling buffalo dung which was then smeared all over the classrooms in what was called a ‘sanitation programme’. The dung hardened to create a waterproof barrier and insulate the classrooms in temperatures which ranged from -5 to 40°C. The students took a long time to adjust to strangers and there was so much playing against you in the classroom that when a lesson went well, it was wonderful. Many students will probably never use the English skills we taught them, so focusing in my classes was a big ask, but some of the best fun I had wasn’t whilst travelling, but in the classroom.
Bathing was a particular challenge; Rukumkot’s bathing area is also a very well-kept temple with four booths, each one dedicated to a different caste of people - lower caste people are stereotyped as being ‘dirty’ so there is a lot of emphasis on hygiene, and a very particular washing routine. I remember one Saturday with about 80 people squeezed under 12 gushing pipes having their weekly bathe – at last, the touch of mid-winter Himalayan spring water on a bare white body at the public taps - but there’s a certain way I have to do everything - bother, I forgot to wash my head before my leg - oh the judgemental eyes - a woman shouts incomprehensibly in Nepalese and starts scrubbing me herself.
Nepali women resonate in high-pitched, nasal and repetitive tones. They always star at festival celebrations in a multitude of ways: the day is spent deep-frying roti for guests, and the night in making music. They dance until dawn wearing five metres of saree - more than most British students could claim! The first line of a well-known dancing tune translates to ‘buffalo’s milk is tasty.’ That lyric sums up life in the mountains – every aspect of life somehow relates to food. A lady called Sarsati often made cornflour roti on an open fire to accompany atchar, a green-potato-hemp-seed-spicy-paste-thing. She would have spent her day carrying a sack of corn to the riverside mill and back up the valley again, or collecting firewood, or grass for buffaloes, or even sitting in three feet of mud planting rice - she also has three daughters, no husband and severe arthritis – go girl! The Nepalese never fail to complain about making and eating the same meal, rice and dal, day after day, but practice has made perfect, and fortunately it’s rude not to feed visitors and for visitors not to ask for seconds.
I am now studying Geography BSc at The University of Bristol but remain in contact with my friends in Nepal. I also continue to volunteer for Project Trust (www.projecttrust.org.uk) as a fundraising mentor and representative at careers events - I am parenting six volunteers going to Nepal next summer for BVDA (www.bvda.org.uk).
Finally - thank you to everyone who helped me fundraise.
Sophie Allen