Two Days of Work Left

This week the Japanese teacher for the room I'm working in is away in the east of Nepal giving a workshop, so who takes the class on Monday? Me and Tom with Mr Bollywood, a student teacher and other assorted Nepalese men who regularly appear and disappear. Mr Bollywood was away today (Tom suggested that it was probably because he was busy making a movie) so Svenya, the other volunteer, and I and Tom took the class alone. And since the children don't get that we can't speak, let alone write, Nepali, I have to just bloody well teach and write Nepali. So I just got out the picture cards the Japanese teacher uses and copied the Nepali script off them into the children's workbooks and then they could copy them as usual. When I got really stuck I quickly went in search of someone who could speak Nepali so they could tell me a word or explain what a child was asking. I can now ask, "yo ke ho?" when I hold up the cards for the kids to tell me what the picture is. Then they say something, and it could be anything, and I say, "Theek Chha!" which means "That's right" or "Ok" and they velcro that picture up on the board. I even took the roll: "Sanshu Limbu?...Namaste!...Sashank?...Namaste!"


But also on today I got to say in my strictest, sternest, teacher voice: "Mathi janus!" to the horrible boy who just spends his whole time making mischief, breaking things and hurting other children. "Get upstairs!"


At the end of the day one of the teachers told Svenya and I we were taking the class like teachers not volunteers. No shit?!


And if taking the class by ourselves wasn't enough, a new girl arrived in the class Monday with extra-special needs. Her name is Rekise (sounds like Rekisah) and she is 12. She was born with an intellectual disability but when she was 6 she fell or was knocked down in the street and suffered a brain haemorrhage and is now physically impaired as well. She can do most things but is very slow. For some reason the area on her skull where they operated has no bone so she has a soft spot about 6cm in diameter. So one of the teachers gave her to me, told me all this, and said that I must take great care that no other child hits her in the head. She also said that she is her parents' only child and that they are very protective of her and nervous about sending her to CBR. "So she's your responsibility," she says in conclusion. No pressure.


Thank God only two days left. And only two days left sleeping on a board, washing in cold water, listening to Suhendra's tuneless singing and to the family's strange Newari language which seems to consist mostly of vowels.