Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter!!!

I hope you all had a great holiday!

It’s easy to overlook Easter in Nepal. Most Nepalis don’t celebrate this holiday, so we don’t  get the bombardment of Easter eggs, Easter grass, pastel-colored everything, and all the typical Easter sights. That, however, does not take away from the importance of the day. We had a nice Good Friday service at the international church, an Easter Sunday service, and an amazing family dinner afterwards… and even an Easter egg hunt! Yes, the Fairchild family tradition lives on in Kathmandu!!

Nepali Teacher Training Project

Last time I posted I was about to head out to interview the teachers at the Nepali school that I’ll be doing some teacher-training with. This visit/interview went really well and now we’re working on figuring out what the next steps will be and how to best proceed. 

The school is in an area called Dhading which is about an hour and a half outside the Kathmandu valley. It’s in a much smaller village, but still very close to the main highway that runs across the country. 

Here I am in front of the school in Dhading.

The school is both an elementary school and a high school, and the teachers there face some difficult challenges. The secondary teachers have about 60 students in each class and the primary teachers have about 90! That’s 90 students for one teacher! I don’t know how they do it! Plus, their classrooms are quite different from what you might see in the US. In order to fit so many students, the classrooms are simply rows of benches and tables crammed into a small room with a blackboard in front. Although this situation is very different from any teaching experience I’ve ever had, I hope that we can give them some quality training to really help them out and encourage them. 

Soon I’ll be making another visit to the school to do another observation so we can plan our first training workshop next month.

School Break

There’s not much to report as far as KISC goes. We’re on our term-break right now and have another week before the last term begins. Most of the other teachers have gone trekking, but I decided to stay in Kathmandu to relax and begin the job-search process for when I come back to the US. 

My first few days I spent house-sitting for a family that I know. They have a beautiful home with a huge garden, a trampoline, and two dogs and a cat to keep me company. Although my living space is pretty nice, I really felt like I was living the high-life :). 

Two of my constant companions last week when I was house-sitting :).

Now I’m back in my own room for a few days. I've been doing a little shopping and relaxing with friends and I also hope to get quite a bit of work done before Thursday when I’ll be leaving for Pokhara for the final few days of my break. If you remember from my previous posts, I’ve been to Pokhara two times before and it’s the closest thing to paradise here in Nepal, so I’m really looking forward to going there again. 

While out shopping I found a Wal-Mart!!! Unless Wal-Mart chaged to a pashmina specialty store, however, I doubt it's really the same.

While out shopping with friends, we stopped to pose with this cow sleeping in the middle of the street. I don't understand why it would choose the busiest street in the area for a nap, but whatever floats your boat, I guess...

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Thanks again for your support!