Teaching in Nepal
by Willa CareyWilla received a 2008 grant from the Youth World Awareness Program to support her travel and community service work in Nepal.
The next time I visit Nepal, my students will be older and in a different school perhaps. Today would be fun and games. I handed out the Skittles and their faces lit up as they bit into the fruit flavored candy and found nuts at the center of the M&Ms. One by one, students performed impromptu dances and sang in front of the class. Many dedicated their songs to me. Towards the end of class I knew the time to say goodbye was near. I watched my students‘ faces carefully as my departure was announced. Several young boys put their heads on their desks and muttered that they had something in their eyes as their small shoulders shook with sadness. I felt the sting of tears building behind my own eyes as a tall skinny boy cried out, “Oh, I am going to cry! I will miss you so much, teacher!”
photograph by Willa Carey
Over my spring break, I traveled to the capital city of Nepal (Katmandu) where I volunteered at the Bijeswori School, a K-10 boarding school with a Nepali-based curriculum. As the school was short-staffed, the principal, Bindu Tuladhar, jumped at my offer to help in the classroom and immediately asked me to arrive at seven the next morning. This was the beginning of a full week of teaching, which was surprising yet exhilarating for me.
I instructed kindergarten though fourth grade, using their textbooks for structure and guidance. I reported to the school at seven to proctor an early morning study hall as well. The last few days of my stay, I also had private classes in the early morning with the fifth through seventh grade at the upper school.
I visited many homes where a bed, a bedside table and a stove were cramped into rooms at most ten feet in length and six feet wide. At least four people cooked, cleaned and lived in these tiny rooms, the size of the average American bathroom. I visited many schools and watched small children, who at their age in America would still be learning their own alphabet, learn the Nepali and English alphabets.
I gained an experience of the kind of conditions in which these intelligent and diligent young students worked and lived. But specifically through teaching I learned true responsibility. I learned what it is like to pass on the priceless treasure of knowledge.