Back to Work

The CIWEC, which is the medical clinic where I took Tom to the doctor, is exactly like a medical centre at home. Everything was clean, functioning and not broken. We saw Dr David, a nice American guy, who decided Tom must have a bacterial infection and gave him some antibiotics. All pretty straight-forward and Tom has been much better since. He has, however, developed an aversion to rice, which means he will simply starve to death.

I finally returned to CBR yesterday after only managing two out of four days last week. I’m in Class C with the Japanese teacher and it’s pretty civilised after Class A, albeit a bit boring. And I’m feeling very justified in my refusal to work in Class B last week. Svenya started in there on Monday, as they suggested she spend her two months working two weeks in each room. The children hit her, slapped her, punched her, bit her, but being young and foolish, she thought if she persevered things would get better. The centre was down a few teachers that day and Svenya was left on her own for quite a while. One of the girls in that class, who is about 14 and looks very sweet and always says, "Namaste!" when you arrive in the morning, got Svenya around the throat and started strangling her. I don’t think she would have fully understood what she was doing and would have thought it hilarious fun, but Svenya could not breathe and there was no one anywhere near to help her. She finally managed to get away and ran down the stairs and out of the building where she was found having a panic attack. Now Svenya is a pretty together person and it would have taken a lot to bring this on. The teacher from Class B came running out to her, apologising profusely and saying she’d understand perfectly if Svenya wanted to change placements. She hasn’t changed, but she’s not working in Class B any more.

Class C has about 5 kids (some of them look too old to be kids) with Downe’s Syndrome and about 5 others with other intellectual disabilities. One boy has cerebral palsy as well. All but one learn basic writing, reading (in English and Nepali) and maths. The one who doesn’t sits there making strange noises. Yesterday afternoon he sat with one hand on his ear and two fingers up his nose making sudden grunting and squealing noises. If he’s on the move he goes in to another room turns on the ceiling fan (which hangs very loosely and precariously wired) watches it spin for a while then turns it off and watches it slow down then repeats the process.

Johnson, who greets us every morning with the same questions (Your name? Japan?), has you write multiplication sums for him (365 x 7) and he sits with his box of nuts and painstakingly works them out. He’d be perfectly happy in a job that required lots of counting. I took the simple jig-saw puzzles I’d bought before I left and these were very popular and served to pass some time.

Neville and the boys have no work this week because the school has exams so there are no classes. Yesterday they went to the movies and saw Narnia. They said the cinema is exactly like home only better. Platinum class cost the equivalent of $14 for all of them and there was an intermission of ten minutes when someone came around and took orders for food. Sitting in front of them were five Tibetan Buddhist monks in their saffron robes, texting away on their mobile phones.