Edward Macey - England - 12th May 2008
The main issue was obviously the language barrier, especially when teaching in the primary school as you were trying to teach them from the books they were given and the exercises were far too hard for them. The books were also outdated and often had mistakes in them, which the teachers would never realise, and therefore the teachers would have already drilled this into them.

Shweta Parmekar - USA - July 2009
I loved the variety that volunteering in different parts of Nepal offered.  It exposed us to various health conditions and circumstances which gave us a wider perspective on healthcare here.  It also allowed us to practice the clinical skills we've gained thus far and allowed us to see conditions that we may not normally see in the States.

Montserrat de Villasante Fuentes and Ricardo Borges Rutz - Spain / Brazil - July 2009
Children who used to come to the library had many different ages, from 2 years old till 20 years old, so we had to deal with this. Montse used to be with the little one, and Ricardo with the olders. The activities consisted on:
Playing nature memory in english, practicing numbers and names of animals, meals and other stuff….,  playing with balloons, making jungle balls with balloons, for the olders the activities were: maths, geography, playing table tennis, and all the time using english language.

Rachel Reeves - USA - Nov 2009
Another thing you should know -- the teachers' lack of motivation/organization will likely frustrate you, but don't let it affect you. You just have to get used to it. Though they don't seem to care about their students, you can care about the students for them.

Tami Nudel - Israel - Sept 2008
The Langtang area is very impressive, and waking up every morning with the view of the massive mountains was wonderful.
The local food was very spicy, and I must admit that I will not eat rice for the near future, because eating Dhal Baat for 7 days a week, 3-4 times a day was a real challenge!
To sum it up, I had one of my greater experiences in my life, and I will never forget it.

Shweta Parmekar - USA - July 2009
At our health placements we did 2-3 health camps at each location and included routine physicals, general checkups, and noting each patient's chief complaint.  The physician would then provide us with insight to the diagnosis and would then prescribe appropriate medications. The biggest challenge by far was the language barrier. It made it quite difficult to communicate directly with the patients and establish any form of personal touch. Also occasionally the lack of medical equipment made it difficult to perform adequate examinations.

Sarah Looney            - England - 23rd November 2008
Definitely, it was a lot of fun and very rewarding the children were lovely and very motivated and the host family was great- they made me feel really welcome in their home.  In addition Sauraha is a great place to visit.
Yes, I have had a great experience and everybody at INFO is always helpful and accommodating and tries to make you experience as good as it can be. It was also really good meeting all the other volunteers. I have had a fantastic time.

Nina Chapman - Norway - Dec - 2008
Try to plan your classes ahead of time, but don’t expect to necessarily finish with everything you planned. With the younger kids, it was very useful to split them up in groups, with the older, more capable kids receiving more complicated tasks. Also try to make them understand concepts, not just repeat them. The older kids are quite capable and can do quite complicated tasks.

Kate and Llynlly Langdon - Australia Oct 2009
We made posters, cards, poems, art, we did dictation, spelling and played games such as hangman etc. They loved to colour in and also did dictation, spelling and reading with those who were willing. The older children were great and had very good English already to it was easy to teach them more.