New Happy Home in Chitwan.

We have a very good news for all of our volunteers who have been to Chitwan Ganganagar Library. After 4 years successfully running the Library in Ganganagar the villagers have requested if we can start a Happy Home like in Kathmandu in their village. As our Library is leaking from the roof and it will have to be repaired or changed, we have decided to build one more floor on the top of the library and make 3 more rooms above with separate Kitchen and Dinning room. This can provide 15 children with shelter in the building. We have a small piece of land behind the Library where we can make a vegetable garden and we can rent the next bit of land near by the Library for games and recreation. We are going to start this project from mid Feb and hopefully it will be completed by the end of March. But still there will be a lot of work to finished like Kitchen Garden, Play ground and all the decoration around the Library. We would like to inform our previous volunteers and ask if they would like to sponsor these children. We are going to announce this opportunity for the children from Chitwan first and afterwards we will go to another nearby village from where we can offer the needy and talented children this opportunity. We will be topping the roof on the Sauraha Library as well at the same time and building a Table Tennis board at the Orphanage home in Sauraha.

Snowing in Sanga our Training Village

On the14th of Feb it was snowing in Sanga - Kathmandu Valley, after 62 years! We were coming back with our volunteers from our Training Village, Dhulikhel and on the way in Sanga we had to stop because of heavy snowing. People were crazy for this golden time as they had never seen in their life this moment before!

5th time volunteering with INFO Nepal

Our Volunteer Mr. Ryan Betters from USA is now in Nepal with us helping at the INFO office. This is his 5th time with us volunteering. We are very happy to see this, that a lot of our Volunteers are coming back and joining us again. In March Esther from Australia is again coming back to Nepal to assist us at the Office and this is her 2nd time. Esther was here in 2006 July and was placed in Nawalparasi Children's Library with Silvia from Italy. Esther has published her experience of Nepal Volunteering in her university magazine in Australia.

Donna and Jeremy’s Nepal Volunteer experience - Canada 

September 2006-January 2007

We arrived in Nepal at the end of September after spending almost a month in China, including traveling through Tibet to Kathmandu.  We visited the INFO office when we arrived in Kathmandu and were treated to a nice dinner with Asim’s family and the volunteers at Happy Home.  There weren’t as many children staying there as normal because most of them had returned to their homes to celebrate Tihar and Dasain.  Our volunteer placement started a month later, giving us time to go trekking in the Annapurna area and do some sightseeing in Nepal.

Our time with INFO Nepal started with a few days of language classes and sightseeing in the Kathmandu area while we stayed at Happy Home.  (There were more children there at this time.)  We then moved to Sanga, a  ‘training village’ on the outskirts of the Kathmandu valley, where the language classes and sightseeing continued for a few more days.  Jeremy also experienced a Nepali-style shower, much to the amusement of the local villagers and some passers-by.  The host family there was very nice, hospitable, and served us tasty cooking.  They even treated us to some homemade chang!  As a bonus on clear mornings, we had a good view of the sun rising over the Himalaya from our bedroom window.  The house was comfortable, even though there are chickens in the attic and goats in the room below us. While we stayed in Sanga, we made two trips to nearby Dhulikel to observe a Nepali school and do a bit of teaching.  Donna’s singing must have been very entertaining for the students and teacher, Rajesh, who laughed so hard that he had tears in his eyes.

Our first placement was in Syabrubesi, in the Langtang area.  It started with a long uncomfortable bus ride on an increasing bumpy road, but we eventually made it there with only one broken window.  We arrived just before sunset, and just before the Lama arrived for a few weeks’ stay at the local gompa.  The locals chanted and drummed as he arrived and offered kata (scarves), which he then placed around their necks.

We went to the public school the next day and met the headmaster there.  He was thrilled to have some volunteers to help out at the school.  The school is pretty big with over 350 students in 10 classes.  Donna helped teach English to the older classes and Jeremy helped out in the computer lab.  The school has a new computer lab with 13 computers, which seemed a bit out of place in a village where the electricity works sporadically.

The computer lab was a quite chaotic, as there are about 40 students in each class and not enough computers to go around.  The students seemed more interested in playing on the computers than learning about Microsoft Office.  Between this and the language barrier, teaching them was a challenge.  Jeremy tried to teach them some typing skills and about the components of the computer.  He also spent some time reinstalling programs that were damaged by viruses.  It was nice to have internet access during our placement!

In addition to helping teach English to the older students in the mornings, Donna spent her afternoons with the younger physical education classes in the school’s courtyard.  It was a lot of fun for her!  The children loved to dance the hokey-pokey and play duck-duck-goose.  She also spent about a week organizing the school library.  It wasn’t always fun for her though, as some of the teachers tended to leave her in the class by herself and go outside to relax in the sun.

During our stay, we were invited to attend two picnics held by the school.  It’s a lot of work providing these picnics.  They have to bring everything to the site including plates and live goats.  The first picnic was held by the students of grade 9 and 10.  There were three meals.  The first was beaten rice with potato curry, the second meal consisted of Indian fried rice and various meat (chicken and goat guts); the third was mutton, vegetable curry and rice.  It was nicely done, especially considering that it seemed to have been planned the day before!  The second picnic, held by the teachers, was similar to the previous one, except the teachers brought an ample supply of alcohol and got quite intoxicated.

Other than the time we spent volunteering for the school we also opened the INFO Nepal Children’s Library.  It is basically a building with one chair and table and a handful of books.  (Although some new furniture did appear during our stay.)  Here the children can come before and after school to learn English with us.  We open the library twice a day for them to come, before and after school.  The older children came in the morning (if it wasn’t too cold), and there usually weren’t more than 5 or 6 of them.  The younger children came after school, and sometimes there were more than 40 of them!  We read to both groups, and they enjoyed writing and drawing.  The older group liked to play card games and we also tried to organize some short lessons for them.  The younger group liked to play games and to run back to their homes with us after we closed the library.  So between the school and the library, we were very busy each day from 7:30 to about 5:30.

Our host family’s house was fairly modern by Nepali standards, and is located in the newer part of town, right at the bus stop.  We were awoken early every morning by the excessive horn honking and engine revving that precedes every bus departure in Nepal.  Our room was relatively clean and the toilet is inside the building on the same floor.  We took some showers at the hotel next door, and also visited the local tatopani (hot spring) a few times, where we attracted some attention from the locals.  Our host family’s children were attending school in Kathmandu and seemed to miss them a lot.  They tended to retire to their room early to watch television, leaving us plenty of time to do some reading.  Fortunately we had bought a number of books before leaving Kathmandu!

We stayed in Syabrubesi for about 6 weeks before returning to Kathmandu for Christmas and to renew our visas.  During our stay we went for a few short treks in the area and enjoyed some of the spectacular Himalayan scenery.   Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a view from Syabrubesi itself.  We visited the sacred lake of Gosainkund, the orange hot spring at Tatopani, the good view from Nagthali, and the pretty Tamang village of Thuman.

Our second placement was in the village of Goljung, about 2.5 hours’ walk from Syabrubesi, on the other side of a large hill.  Fortunately (?!), there is now a bus that runs nearby.  There, we had better views of the mountains and enjoyed a real rural experience in Nepal.  There was no running water in the house, few toilets (the host family's home was one exception), no buses outside our window, no post office, and, as far as we know, there is only one occasionally-working phone in the village.  We woke up to the crow of the roosters and the voices of the host family each morning.

We opened the INFO Nepal Library every day except Saturdays, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  After dinner, we had the evenings to ourselves.  The library is big but only has one chair and one table, and a bookshelf.  Fortunately for these children, the supply seems to be better here (ok, maybe not better but definitely more).  We tried reading to them.  It's hard when there are 40 of them and they range in age from 0 years to 16 years old!  In the ended we ended up doing centre-like activities with them.  The table is where the writing, drawing and book looking occurred.  In one corner is the card game, another corner would be memory game and outside is the ball, skipping, and badminton.  When they feel like it we play some of the singing games Donna does at home with her pre-school children such as ring-around-the-rosy, wheels on the bus, etc.  They especially loved London Bridge and Hokey Pokey.

The children there love the library and if we were late in getting out off our warm sleeping bag into the cold unheated house, they would be waiting at the library or sometimes right outside our bedroom!  Often during our break between morning and afternoon session, the children would come to Dawa's (our host father) house and stand around us and stare.  They wanted to know what we were doing and want to see the things that were occupying us.  We would hear 'Nameste' from all the way across the field and 'library?" "no?".

We enjoyed staying with our host family very much!  There are 5 members and one of them is in Kathmandu living in Happy Home (INFO Nepal sponsors them to go to school there).  That leaves the mother and father and two younger sisters.  The family is Tamang and has their own language and only the father knows Nepali and a few words in English.  Somehow we managed to communicate!  Donna fell in love with the little ones right away!  They are so cute!  The older sister couldn't be more than 4 years old.  On our last day there, she had been out in the field all day picking some leafy vegetable for that night's curry.  She would copy what Donna said if she was looking at her.  The younger one is maybe 1, almost 2.  She loves to follow her big sister around.  She'll put her palms together and say 'nameste' to us and look all cute, especially if there is food in the picture.  The mother works all day, from the moment she gets up she is doing something and sometimes several things, like cooking and spinning wool.  Dawa always has a smile on his face and is very kind.

We finished our stay in the Langtang area by doing the trek to Langtang village and beyond.  There was some great scenery there, and the trail was very quiet at that time of the year.  It was hard to return to the noise and pollution in Kathmandu!

Namaste from Donna and Jeremy

E-mail: jeremy_w_dawson@hotmail.com

E-mail: dc_cd@hotmail.com

439-22 Richard Pl SW
 Calgary, AB
 T3E 7N6
 Canada
Telephone No.: +1.403.681.7533

Volunteer in Nepal 2006 - Steve Glynn - Australia

I arrived in Nepal in April of 2006.  I was excited and nervous at the same time as I exited customs with my large back pack.  I easily saw Raj who was holding a large clear sign with my name.  He took good care of me, riding with me on the bus into Thamel.

It was in the middle of the revolution and curfew had been imposed so we walked the last part of the way through the small streets and laneways that would soon be familiar to me.  The sights, sounds and smells of Kathmandu were completely foreign to me making me confident that I was about to start a great new adventure.

After a night to settle in, I met up with Rob and Maggie, the other volunteers starting with me.  Another volunteer took me for an orientation walk around Thamel and showed me where is the best place to eat, to shop and was a great help. We were all then taken down to Happy Home.  We were all amazed at the great positive attitude and playful nature of children that had already experienced such hardships. 

We were given Nepalese/English lessons by my now good friend Bicky and told what to expect when living in a Nepal community.  The language skills were invaluable and his lessons were fun.  Not long after that I was  out at my placement at the Dipendra Police School.  This was a good experience and I made a good friend there. I took some great photo's and met the villagers in the hills.  I hung around with them in the afternoons and drank a bit or Raksi and had fun.

After a couple of weeks there I moved to Shree Purna School in Dhulikhel.  This was a fantastic experience.  I lived with a family near the school and I hired a motorbike (with Bicky's help - cheaply) and travelled to and from school and the surrounding districts.  Living and eating with my host family was a great experience although I found it difficult to go back to living in a family situation.  Being older and having lived alone for a long time my host family's care and concern was at times restrictive.  Their intentions were very good though.  I ate the local food, and played with the children of the family and surrounding home.  Watching the family unit function I was sometimes happy and other times sad at how lucky and at the same time disadvantaged the people of Nepal were. 

It was my time teaching at the school that I enjoyed the most.  My area co ordinator Rajesh was great support and helped me enormously.  He helped me in and out of the classroom.  With typical Nepalese hospitality he took me to his home and introduced me to his family.  This was common wherever I went in Nepal.  I taught English to classes ranging in age from 6 to 16.  Sometimes classes of 70 kids.  No electricity, little chalk, and understaffed schools highlighted to me how important a role a volunteer can fill.  At the school I was fortunate to find two students who touched me deeply and I was compelled to help Puja KC to go to private school, she was very intelligent, very hardworking and a beautiful young girl.  She now has a top education, new uniforms and books (for little cost) and I hope will be able to attend university.  This is just one of the many ways a volunteer can make a huge difference to not just an individual, but to a family and community.  Puja is an example of how the people of Nepal can endear themselves to you and inspire you to take positive action.  The opportunity to work at a classroom level with the students is very special.  It gives you a great insight into their hopes and dreams, as well as their fears and concerns.

Also during my trip I got the opportunity to head south to the Chitwan National Park, I would recommend this trip to everyone.  The swimming with the elephants was fantastic.   It was my intention to head back there but unfortunately my trip was cut short by an illness back home.  I will definintely be heading back to Nepal as soon as I can.  

INFO Nepal, Asim and Bicky as well as all the other volunteers are great support.  I would recommend them to anyone who wants to have a great experience.  Expect some hardship and frustration, expect to miss things and expect to be confronted by many unfamiliar things.  I found the whole experience challenging and rewarding and can truly say it was life changing. 

Steve Glynn

Australia

steveglynn@dodo.com.au

Mob:0412 966 969

Challenging but rewarding Experience - Jan - 2007 - Marina Palmer - UK
 

I went out to Nepal at the start of December for a 5 week trip. Having found (and booked) Info Nepal on the internet in the middle of doing a hundred million other things, I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I got off the plane in Kathmandu (although everyone in England had laughed at how cold I was likely to be). The first thing that was great was that Bicky was there to meet me, looking chilled and friendly as ever. The second thing that was pleasantly surprising was that the weather was really nice and warm....in the day, but not quite so friendly at night!My first two nights at the Guest House were probably the quietest I had for the next 5 weeks (although I didn't realise this at the time) as, on my second day it was off to the Happy Home to meet Namrata, Rita and the children. Happy Home was great and, almost immediately, I felt like i'd been there for ages. Staying at Happy Home gave me my first opportunity to meet some other volunteers and to get some idea of what experiences they had had. It also gave me my first taste of (some seriously lovely) Dal Baht!! Our language lessons were with Rama who was a really good teacher and the sightseeing around Kathmandu was wicked (although I was astounded at how enthusiastic the staff appear to be with stuff they must see at least twice a month)!! (On the Picture Marina is on the left first with Crutch)

This was (for me) the same all the way through - where Asim would often say that the volunteers really are the most important thing to 'Info' (because without them there's nobody to go and work in any of the placements!) - this was constantly bourne out by the staff, who were always on hand to help. Even when I was not doing anything directly with Info, all I had to say was that I was THINKING (for example) of heading to Patan for the afternoon and the next thing I knew, I had a taxi (and a decent fare) all sorted out for me!!

After a few days in the Happy Home, it was off to Dulikhel for 3 days. Dulikhel is one of the training villages that Info uses and is, I think, a really good introduction to Nepalese life and the kind of situations and circumstances one is likely to find in whatever village they end up in. Infact, I think the reason why the training village was particularly good was because, even the less enjoyable parts of the experience (of which there really weren't many) all served as a vital lesson as to what one may or may not come across on their placement. Yet again, the Info staff in Dulikhel were great (as were those members of their families that I met), really open
and friendly and (apparently) always on hand and smiling!! Language lessons continued during this time and we also did a bit of sightseeing around Dulikhel (which is absolutely beautiful). Having said this, I could have sat and just watched village life all day as this is something I had never seen before - from pumpkins, corn and all manner of seeds drying on people's rooves to goats and chickens wandering in and out of what looked like their very own houses and curious, chatty children also wandering in and out of seemingly each and every house which made it almost impossible to work out who lived where!!!I suppose the training village is an essential
introduction to some of the real conditions volunteers will be facing on their placement and must put some off, for me it was the beginning of a fascinating observation of a completely different culture and attitude towards life and living - something I never failed to get bored of throughout my time in Nepal.
When I arrived back in Kathmandu, although (I think) I would normally have gone straight to my placement, Info had organised a (sort of) Christmas programm which I was really surprised about (being that Nepal is a largely Buddhist and Hindu country) but which actually turned out to be a really brilliant addition to my trip. Although I was slightly sceptical about spending so much time with a load of other westerners (as this is not what I came out to Nepal to do) I soon realised that meeting other people who were volunteering their time and money over the Christmas period was  a chance to meet some really decent people with a variety of perspectives on why they were in Nepal, what they had seen, etc. I was also impressed by the fact that Info had been so keen to get us all together and talking about our experiences and Asim really wanted the feedback from this, whether it was good or bad because, again, it highlighted the importance Info places on the
volunteers and their experiences in Nepal.

Anyway, the Christmas week included both a picnic for all volunteers and Info staff and a trip to Chitwan for the '2006 International Elephant Race', which I doubt I would ever have heard of, let alone attended, had it not been for 'Info'. The picnic was brilliant, a whole day of singing, dancing, games and unimaginable feasting (certainly unimaginable for anybody who's used to the old school English picnic lasting for about 2 hours and consisting of squashed sandwiches and the odd sausage roll)! It was also great to be out with all the kids from the Happy Home too and to spend some proper time with them as, what with language classes, the six day school week and - of course - evening television, it seemed we would often miss each other at the Happy Home! The Elephant Race was (obviously) a completely unique experience and was tied in with a really reasonably priced safari package which involved, amongst other things, going on an elephant ride and
seeing Rhino, both of which were amazing. The race itself turned out to be (hilariously) political, typically hours behind schedule and there was something to see where ever you looked (which was worth doing, especially when you turned round in the nick of time to find that you, along with the rest of the spectators, were being encouraged to move backwards by an enormous elephant who would have walked right over you if you hadn't)!! It was also really nice over those few days to spend a bit more time with the staff from Info and to find out a bit more about the history of the organisation, what it does on a national level and Nepal in general, especially as, by that point, I hadn't met a single staff member I wouldn't have liked to get to know better.Anyway, finally after a week of partying and general merriment, it was off to my placement, which was an orphanage in Bacchauli (a village in Chitwan). It was a bit bizzare to be dropped off at my placement and to find myself on my own having just spent so much time around so many people. However, the staff at the orphanage were really nice (although communication was slow and sometimes hilariously misinterpreted) and it wasn't long before the 16 children that live in the orphanage began to trickle home from school and the place was full of noise and laughter. Infact, this will be one of my enduring memories of my time at the orphanage - the sounds of peels of laughter and singing throughout the day and evening and my amazement at the fact that, throughout my time there, I didn't hear one row between any of the children.

One of my main issues at the orphanage was that the kids got on so well together and seemed so happy in each other's company and the staff did such a good job of running the orphanage that it was sometimes hard to know what to do, mainly because I didn't want to impose myself upon the kids in their own home! I was told by the 'house mother' that I was there to help the kids (all of whom went to an English speaking school) with their homework. Unfortunately, being that the kids were....well....kids(!), the likelihood of any of them spending more than 30 seconds on their homework was virtually non existant so it was more a case of bargaining with them along the lines of 30 minutes homework for one game of 'Snap'!However, in Bacchauli there is also a Day Centre for kids under school age who need somewhere to go during the day so that their parents can go to work and their older siblings to school and a Library, which is basically a school room and was set up by Info Nepal. Although I have never taught in my life and made this patently clear on my application form, it soon occurred to me once I was IN Bacchauli that it was either a case of helping out at the Library and the Day Care Centre OR having little to do in the day because, of course, all the children in the orphanage go to school! This experience was challenging but was, yet again, defined by the kids - all of whom were fantastic characters, astoundingly nice to each other and hugely worthy of any input anyBODY could give them. What I really learnt at this point about volunteering however, is that you really need to come prepared, when you're working with kids, for all eventualities and for little (or no) supplies (like paper, pens, etc). This being the case, the next time I volunteer (which I most definitely will) I personally will be drilling ALL of the primary school teachers I know, trawling the internet and - quite possibly, completing a Tefel course as all of the kids were desperate to learn and this only served to highlight my own lack of experience and knowledge in facilitating this.

Having said this, my overall experience of volunteering with Info was brilliant - not only did it give me the chance to experience real Nepalese life (something I've never been able to do in any other country as a traveller), it also gave me the chance to meet some really fantastic children (and, of course, adults) and, as I have already said, to observe a completely different attitude to, and understanding of, life. They also had no problem with me visiting other places during my placement and helped me out with transport and accommodation - one of many pleasantly surprising (and totally unexpected) extras. A real bonus to being with 'Info' was that
I always felt supported throughout my time in Nepal and also that, should I have got in any trouble, there were people there who really would have helped me out as best they could. Most importantly for me, however, was the fact that I observed an organisation which really is working towards bettering the lives of both children and adults from poor communities and, at no point did I feel that any of my money (or anyone elses for that matter) was going anywhere other than this. If I were ever to visit Nepal again, the 'Info' office and/ or the Happy Home would be my first stop and I would gladly offer whatever I could to ensure the continuation of a much needed and brilliant organization. 

E-mail: marinabean@hotmail.com

17a Baker Street
Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 4JN

Telephone No.: 07957101426