life in jaipate (1) - a village between pokhara and bhutwal

"jaipate?" many people will say "what is jaipate and what has it to do with heidi?". well, jaipate is a village where i went to teach english at a government school. the school is huge. there are the classes from 1 - 12 and each class has 50 to 70 students. as a pilot project there is one class which receives all lessons only in english language. so in a way the school is quite modern. but for the teachers it is very difficult to teach 50 to 70 students at a time. if they just want to check the homework of the students half of the lesson is gone without doing anything new.
like in all schools in nepal in the morning there is "assembly" at the school yard. all classes have to stay in lines. then they do some simple stretching exercises. after that everyday another student has to read to the other students one impressing thing which he or she has learned about recently. at the end of the year the best statement will win a price. in the end of the assembly the students sing the national song "saya thunka fulka hami...". this is a new anthym which became official after the first election in 2008. every morning i walked with the kids to school. it took us around 25 minutes to walk there and it we enjoyed the time singing, talking and relaxing.

this was my home for 3 weeks


sunset view from my room

during the time i stayed in jaipate i lived in the family of one of the teachers. there i had my own room. it was above the bathroom and had a great view over the valley. the family welcomed me warmly and kind of adopted me. "ama" the grandmother was cooking the dhal baat and took care that i was putting on some weight to become healthy. :-) mr prehm has two wifes. with sorritha the first one he has three sons and with laxmi he has two daughters. they all live a very harmonic life together. every morning before school i did homework with the children. in the evenings we sat together and talked, read school books, watched pictures, played games and trained the english language skill. during that they taught me a lot about nepali culture. i came as a guest and i left with tears as a family member.

jaipate is in the south and has a hot and humid climate. that is why theregrow delicious fruits everywhere. each family has some papaya trees and bananas, oranges and many other mouthwatering things. besides the incredible variety of plants there are also many insects and animals in the area. one of our neighbours for example found a monkey baby in the forrest and tries to grow him up.

banana


papaya


buffalo


goats


in a temple




the little monkey






far way we can see the daulagiri



during the time i stayed there was "tihar" - one of the most important hindu festivals. i will write about it in seperate blog. also i will tell you more of the impressions which the 3 weeks gave to me in some seperate blogs. it is too much for one time. ;-)