The Peak Everest school in Bhital

During our recent stay in Nepal we visited the Peak Everest primary school in the village of Dhital, in the Machhapuchhre Rural Municipality, 16km from Pokhara. The school is set in a stunning location, with the Annapurna range behind it.

Somnath Poudel, the Principal, showed us round the classrooms. The school has eight classes and 120 students. The rooms were small and dark and while the early years had carpets the older children did not. The classroom walls were bare. There was no glass in the windows and in winter it must get cold.

Some classes are taught in English at the request of parents. There are four 45 minute classes in the morning and four in the afternoon. Subjects included social studies, mathematics and Nepali. Somnath’s commitment, passion and sense of mission were striking. He has a clear vision of what he can do to help his community, and the energy and enthusiasm to confront the many difficulties he encounters. Inspirational indeed.

We also met students walking to or from school for books (it was the new year holiday) who said they enjoyed school. Most of the students are from low caste, Dalit or Hill Dalit families – some are orphans living with their relatives. Many students are from low income family backgrounds and cannot afford the necessary things such as stationery materials, clothes etc.

Some teachers lived in the local villages but others in Pokhara – a 2 hour journey, by bus and on foot. After the school we stopped for a while at the bus stop – as local people arrived it became apparent that the bus itself stopped on the road 400 metres below us, and that this was a resting point before or after the steep climb down or down.

It was all a million miles from our own local primary schools in Cambridge – the school was very short of resources like pencils and we thought we would see if we could find some way to support the dedicated people working there. In my subsequent correspondence with the Principal, he explained that the school’s most pressing need is to provide school lunches. He comments that some students arrive at school without lunch, or with junk food, and that this leads to problems of nutrition >and concentration.

We have made an initial contribution to the lunch programme, which the Principal comments has allowed them to buy a cooking stove, gas canisters, and some cooking and eating utensils. We hope to make further contributions ourselves, and possibly in addition by fund-raising and/or a benefit concert. I attach the school’s Lunch program proposal – if you would like to help in some way please message me.

Lunch program proposal

Community homestay in Panauti, Nepal

One of the things we most wanted to do during our travels in India and Nepal was to meet and spend time with local people. So when we came across the Community Homestay initiative in Panauti – a small rural town a two-hour bus ride east of Kathmandu – this sounded like an ideal opportunity to stay with a family. We took the local bus which in itself was an experience – I quickly lost count of how many people could squeeze into the small bus, and as we made our way out of the pollution of the city the conductor leant out of the open door to shout out the destinations.

Our Community Homestay hosts were Biju and her two daughters Aayusha and Nirusha. Upon our arrival they made us most welcome with masala tea and a delicious lunch of dal bhat, the staple Nepali meal.

In the late afternoon Aayusha showed us some of the village monuments – Panauti is a historic town with some beautiful temples. She then took us up a nearby hill to look at the Buddhist temple and enjoy the views over the town and the valley where the fields were green with the potato crop.

In the evening Biju showed us how to make potato curry and chapatis, and we looked through photo albums of the daughters’ weddings and of all the guests who had stayed with them.

On our second morning we walked along the path running north through the nearby hills towards Dhulikel. We climbed up to the Shree Sharada Devi Temple, the highest point of the path, where a local man put flower petals in our hair and took us to a viewpoint from where we could see Dhulikel, Banepa, Panauti and Namobuddha.

In the late afternoon Nirusha took us to a local café where they had found a guitar, and asked me to sing a few songs. When we returned home, Nirusha dressed Isabelle in a Nepali sari. We ended the day with a fabulous Newari dinner with 9 different dishes and a glass of home-made rice wine.

Our stay in Panauti with Biju and her daughters, not to mention Grandma and adorable 14-month old Neepun, was very special. There is a world of difference between their home and ours in Cambridge – Biju’s home is very basic with no glass in the windows, a very wet bathroom with cold water, and steep ladder-like stairs. But the welcome they gave us was beyond compare – human warmth and kindness know no boundaries and we were made to feel very much at home. It was a privilege to meet them and our stay was most memorable.

On our last day in Nepal we met Bikal, one of the Community Homestay organisers – he had very kindly brought some glasses we had left in Panauti and asked us for feedback on our stay there. We asked for more detail about how the financial side works – the central office takes 15% of a booking and 20% of the rest goes to the local community. The host receives the rest – around two thirds of the booking fee. Given that our stay there was rather more expensive than the other places we stayed, it was good to know that the hosts would receive a reasonable proportion of this.

Bikal also explained that he had considered going to the US as apparently many educated Nepalis do, but decided he could be more helpful by staying in the country. He spoke inspirationally about Community Homestay, about how it has given a purpose to his life, how it aims to empower the women who act as hosts, and how it can support local communities in more remote areas of Nepal by bringing income from tourists.