Off to Pokhara

May 20

This was a very short work week. Monday we were in the village, Tuesday was Buddha's b-day holiday, and we took Friday off for the cultural trip to Pokhara. Practicum is going well. I'm spending the first few hours of the day with a UKG (Upper Kindergarten) class. Grades work differently here. If a kid can do the work than that's the grade that they are in. Each semester there are exams that all children take to decide where they should be. In the UKG class I work with children aged 4 to 7 that are all able to read at a grade 1 English level (in Canada). The system only goes until year 10, at which point the stuff those kids are learning are well above my head. I was scared off of teaching the older classes when grade 4 was learning advanced 10 algebra and trigonometry. I needed a spell check just to spell that btw, these kids do everything with a pencil and a pad of paper. No extra tools.

The Canadian education structure might be in trouble because of our abuse of technology, the competition from Nepal is better armed without it...

Secondary school here costs approx $40 cnd a semester and almost everyone I speak to has a masters degree in business. Of course there are no jobs or infrastructure here and the government is a waste of space, so many educated people move away. Poland, Denmark and Australia are the top choices for immigration for those lucky enough to wrangle a passport and citizenship papers from the bureaucracy. "paper orphans" is a term that relates to Nepali born people who can't prove their birth due to the past violence in the area. These people can't do anything at all but squat in poverty because no citizenship means no caste and no right to work.

I learned something very interesting (to me) the other night at Nepali lessons. Nepali people have such a high value in family that there are over twice as many specific titles for family members as we have in English (33 words compared to 13). There are micro-labels to the point that my mother's oldest (younger) sisters eldest son (aka Karter) has a specific title, other than just plain old "my cousin", the same position on the family tree on my fathers side has a completely different word.

Today we drove for 6 hours from Kathmandu to Pokhara and gave poor Gocool an earful as well all rocked out to Bohemian Rhapsody, north american style. Pokhara is to Kathmandu like Victoria is to Vancouver...that is, it is beautiful and well taken care of and a major tourist attraction. The road there was like the Hope-Princeton but with more overturned buses instead of logging trucks. We passed 6 buses either flipped on their sides or upside down off the bank and in the river rapids. We also passed at least 12 roadblocks of angry protesters and in one case a town had cut down the huge tree that grew in the middle of it in order to block the road. It was tragic and we could see that this strike really meant a lot to these people. I felt bad that we were let past because of the color of our skin. It is illegal to stop tourists because it is the only real income Nepal gets right now. About 20 minutes outside of Pokhara we rescued a German couple from the side of the road. They had the bad luck of getting on a bus full of locals and the strike had forcefully stopped it. We shuffled around and made room for them and they were very grateful. Amanda went to sit up front which was a big mistake. Until then we hardly got bothered, but Amanda looks Nepali because of her Asian-Canadian goddess looks and putting her in the front next to two Nepali's meant that we were firmly stopped 4 more times before Pokhara. Luckily she had her passport on her and she showed it every chance she had. The rest of us just leaned out the windows and flashed our pasty white smiles...no problems.

We were taught in school about the "invisible backpack" but this is the first time I've ever felt offended about being treated a certain way just because of who I am. Not that I wanted to be detained, but it doesn't seem very fair that we can do whatever we want and the locals are suffering.

Anyways, this was a pretty negative post, I'm stressing about the political situation and will post more about that when I can wrap my head around it better.

Please know that I am safe and all is well.