The Village Gharmi

It's a steep climb to our village, half an hour hike from the nearest paved road. Last Sunday would've been a normal school day for the children if it hadn't been for our celebrated arrival. The students were lined up waiting for us, the first four placing bright orange flowered necklaces around our heads to welcome us, the second four waiting patiently to gift us each a Nepali orange. That's all there is, eight students at the school, with five more in the nursery program. The teacher who could speak a bit of English only kept repeating, "It makes me very happy you are here."

 

We have a baa, an ama, and a bahini (dad, mom, younger sister), two water buffalo who we share a wall with, and a momma goat and her two babies, each two weeks old. Communication amongst our family requires considerable effort and patience, but often times in the kitchen at dinner or sitting around the fire after, the broken conversation turns to deep laughter from the small words each of us understand of the others' language and the funny ways we say them. One night, while the power was out and the hillside dark, we heard yelling in the distance, which our baa (the principal of the school and somewhat of the town elder) returned with yelling of his own, and soon somewhat of a conversation was taking place amongst the darkness, each family relaying information at the top of their lungs from one house to the next. A few nervous minutes later we translated that there were three thieves on a motorcycle coming up the hill. A few minutes after that, as we're about to go inside, lock the door, and hide in our room, our family casually said it was time for dinner, nothing more mentioned of the thieves as we sat eating with the door wide open. We figured if they aren't worried then we didn't need to be.


It being the dry season, the rice fields spanning the hillside between our house and the school are partly covered by a bright yellow mustard looking plant, and the rest by green leaf veggies. We also have mountains, great views of three Himalayan peaks off in the distance. The first thing I do every morning is walk to the corner of the porch where all three peaks are visible and see how they are looking that day.




The atmosphere created by the teachers at the school has been frustrating so far, and we have realized that progress with the students and staff will take a bit more creativity and perseverance than we first expected. Our mornings are spent teaching the three separate classes, I Math and Emily English, and our afternoons usually on the hillside somewhere away from the village, reading peacefully. We return tomorrow for our second of eight weeks, and a few conversations of strategy planning with our coordinator and a local teacher have left us feeling encouraged to continue.