A taste of Nepali culture.

First week at the Siddhartha Lovedale school went quite alright. Just like mentioned before, it was hard to adapt to the Nepalese way of teaching at first, but after given a few lessons to the same classes, they seem to adapt to me as well and it’s getting a bit easier for me to comprehend what they really need to know at school. We’ve seen some national exams for the senior classes and these seemed to be quite hard, but for the junior classes everything is taught/learned pretty literally. For the reading activities (which I have to give most of the time), I don’t really see the usefulness of just reproducing whole stories, but for grammar, the pupils definitely know their stuff. So of course, this is the primordial aspect of their education for the English language.

On Friday the 15^th, there was a short festivity going on at our school: there were no lessons, but there was a celebration for the Goddess of Knowledge. All the pupils left their uniforms at home and some of them dressed up as if they were going to a wedding, others wore their clothes which they wear at home. I took my camera with me to photograph the rituals/offerings of the principal to the goddess and also to take some pictures of my pupils. The pupils love to be in pictures, and not only the pupils... At one point, a pupil’s mother came to sit between Laura and me and she demanded her son to take pictures of her sitting between us two. I did smile at the camera, although I thought it was a bit awkward (because I didn’t even have a conversation with her). One of the rituals which would bless us was to eat breadcrumb and drink sweet milk which we had to throw over our heads. Another ritual was to put our hands in a small fire (of course, very briefly) and then rub our faces with our hands. Apart from the rituals, we also got some sort of lunch at 11 a.m. (way too early and way too heavy), consisting of breadcrumbs, rice porridge and some spicy vegetables. It was clear to us that the principal was very happy and appreciative that we visited the school that day.

After being at Lakeside for a week, we’ve already been to a variety of restaurants where we can eat for about € 3 - 4 per person, drinks cost about 50 cents. We’ve eaten a lot of Nepalese foods in Kathmandu and in Pokhara, but we tried the western foods as well (pizza, pasta, burger). We’re trying to make a good balance between the new culture we’re getting to know and yet, we also enjoy having a good (not as good as in Belgium!) western meal. The funny thing is, that everywhere we go and we see “400 – 500 Rs” (= € 4 – 5) on the menu, we’re all like “That’s way too much”, haha. Already getting used to the very low prices, indeed! Because Lakeside is a very touristic place for trekkers (and others), it’s also a bit more expensive than if you would go a bit further away. Govinda took us to Mahendrapul with The Butterfly Lodge van and showed us all the places we should look for good, yet cheap foods. You had some cheap supermarkets, but the most charming thing at Mahendrapul are the fruit and vegetable markets. Authentic stalls with huge mountains of grapes, mandarins, bananas, tomatoes, ginger, cucumbers, carrots, a lot of other fruit and vegetables we didn’t really know, etc. And the best thing is: we can taste all of it before buying anything, so you’re definitely sure that what you buy is of a good quality. We came back to the Lodge with 4 kilos of fruit and for that, we paid 150 Rs (about € 1,5).

In the early evenings, walking through one of the biggest streets at Lakeside, hearing the Vengaboys… You know you just entered ‘civilization’. Same goes for the Blues Bar, about 50 meters away from the Lodge: every evening there are cover nights, including bands such as: The Beatles, Neil Young, Tool, Dire Straits, Rage Against The Machine, Aerosmith, Puddle of Mudd, ... The awesomeness! 

Daily life at Pokhara keeps getting more interesting and refreshing, although I’m also looking forward to do some more adventurous activities other than going to school, having dinner at a restaurant and doing our groceries. 

I’ll keep you all updated on what we’ll experience next!