First day at work

Yesterday, I had my first day of work at Patan CBR. It’s what we would call at home a Special School. But, like everything in Nepal, it is very disorganised. There are only a few qualified teachers, one from Japan who has been there for 18 months and has another six months to go. He was smart and learned Nepali before he came here so he speaks fluently. Everyone speaks at least a tiny bit of English, but a lot of them have as much English as I have Nepali—about five words, adding another one each day.

If you sat and waited around for someone to tell you what to do, you would wait forever. Luckily for me, Anneka, the German volunteer who has just left, had her last day on my first day, so I had someone to show me around and explain a bit about each of the children. There is another German volunteer there who just started on Thursday. At lunch today we were both talking about how much we are looking forward to going back to Thamel, in central Kathmandu, for the weekend to get some nice food and, with any luck, a hot shower, although that may be pushing it. And as nice as our family are, I’ll be glad to have a break from always having to sit around talking to them in the evenings, when what you’d rather do is veg out in your room.

Some of the children are brought to the centre by their parents, but others come by a small bus that belongs to the centre. It arrives about 10.30, depending on the nightmarish traffic, and we help the more disabled ones out and line them up (in Nepali fashion) outside the building. When everyone is ready, they sing several songs in Nepali of which all I can recognise is the bit where they count: eek, dui, tin, char. Then a blind girl, who ‘works’ there making candles, stands up in front and very loudly, and in English, says, "God bless my mother, God bless my father…"(I can’t remember the rest), and everyone repeats after her, and then we start the day.

I’m working in the room with the most disabled kids. If they lived in Australia, a lot of them wouldn’t be disabled at all. At least one girl, Melina, was born premature, but the grandmother didn’t believe in medical intervention, so she is brain-damaged, presumably from a lack of oxygen. Sunaymya (no idea how to actually spell it) is 16 or 17 and a big, strong heavy girl. She had meningitis, I don’t know when, and is brain-damaged and paralysed down her right side. She’s one of the few who understands well and can communicate. She loves to throw a ball to you and would do it ALL day long.

The names are so difficult to remember: Sarina, Sumitra, Sunita, Ruchji, Onju, etc. (I’m spelling phonetically) Ruchji is the most difficult to manage. She has epilepsy, which is totally untreated with any medication and is therefore, I think, gradually damaging her little brain. If she has a seizure, and thank God she hasn’t yet, there is no such thing as oxygen to at least support her through it, so according to Annika, she just turns blue and her mother, who works there, holds her until it’s over. She’s always really agitated, and if she’s getting no attention, she starts spitting everywhere. If you hold her and pay her some attention, she stops. The Nepalese carers just tie her in her seat and hit her if the volunteers (that’s me now) don’t intervene.

I took the block crayons today, (the ones that the Steiner bookshop donated) and the two children who can use them absolutely loved them. Neither of them would be able to manage a pen or pencil, but can grip the crayons well enough to scribble, and they were so excited about this. Sunaymya, was one of them and she expressed her joy by yelling loudly, "Walla, walla, walla!!" and banging hard on the table. Sarina was the other one. It says on the sign on the door that she has Cerebral Palsy and Mental Retardation (!). She certainly has CP but I’m not sure she’s retarded. I drew some letters on the paper and she started trying to copy the A. It was wobbly but she could do it and kept trying it over and over. I would try to help her write it but she’d pull her hand away and try to write it herself. I think with intensive, one-on-one help, and maybe a computer, she would be able to learn. But that will never happen without money and skilled teachers, and some kind of structure.

Sunitra is the most physically disabled. It’s hard to know what’s going on in her head, but she certainly understands. She just lies on a mat on the floor, her skinny little body curled in a foetal position. But she is probably the most loved. She gets lots of attention. The carers talk to her and do some basic passive movement with her and she smiles and giggles. Again you have to wonder what could be done for her at home, but there’s just no use in comparing.

Melina attaches herself to me whenever she can. She is very quiet and just wants to hold my hands and clap them together all the time. Sunita, dances and sings a lot and loves to touch and smell your hair. They all just crave touch and attention. Anneka and I suspect that they are probably shoved in a corner at home and ignored. At the centre they are automatically tied in their chairs unless we get them out. The Nepalese carers would never dream of telling us not to, and they seem relieved to see something new being done with the children. I started singing all the songs I could think of today, including "Morning Has Come" and the effect was extraordinary. All of them, from the spitting Ruchji, to Sunitra on the floor were spellbound and it seemed to calm everything down. Then one of the Nepalese started singing her songs. It was as though she hadn’t thought of doing this before and seemed grateful for a new idea. If I can get my hands on a guitar somewhere it could be even better.

When I arrived yesterday I gave them three old woollen jumpers I brought from home. We were outside waiting for the bus to arrive when one boy appeared at the door proudly showing off his new jumper. He was so excited and each time I saw him he’d grin and pull it out in front of him to show it off.

The work is incredibly tiring, mentally and physically and I come home wrecked. I can’t wait for the weekend!

I’ve told Neville he’ll have to write about his school in the blog. The whole set-up is unbelievably disorganised. Dan is teaching! Tom has been helping teach grade three science. Christopher was put in a grade four classroom, whoever the person was told him this was a maths class and walked out and left him to it. And he did it! He found a book and just worked it out. They bought their own whiteboard markers today, otherwise they’d have none. But I’ll let them tell you about it.

(Can you believe we have wi-fi in this house, but no hot water?!)