Village Update

We have been in Kathmandu for a couple of days now and we are missing the village, in particular the beautiful children. Tara can’t wait to go back to the love and fun that she was surrounded with in the village!

Tanya has just left Nepal after spending two weeks volunteering at the school and teaching the hostel children English and Janice is leaving Nepal tomorrow. Both Janice and Tanya did an amazing job, the children loved them and everyone is looking forward to their return we hope next year.

Som spent a lot of his time in the village at the school, he took classes to get an understanding of the level of education that the children have reached. Som was disappointed and realised that there is so much to be done to raise the standard and level of education provided to the children. Som was heartened to see more girls attending school than last year and school enrolment numbers are continually rising.

Som also had meetings with the villagers who own the land adjacent to the school. It was devastating for us to hear that the farmers do not share the vision that most villagers have for the future of Batase school and even though an excellent price was offered for their land, they have been unwilling to cooperate and will not sell their land. This decision lead to many late night conversations between Som and other villagers around the fire. Some landowners a kilometre from the current school are happy to sell their land to start building a high school. This is fantastic news for the village and the land is great location for a high school.  We hope that the land can be purchased with funds raised by Kelly Sullivan during her visit to the village in December but if not, this will be proposed as the main fundraising project for FHC in 2012.

There are currently 14 children living at the hostel and three more children will be joining them in a few weeks time. All of the children are very happy and are excelling at school and with their English. We couldn’t be more proud of them. Kumari is doing a fantastic job in the role of “House Mum” cooking 3 wholesome meals a day over the fire for all of the children and volunteers. I have never enjoyed village food so much and we are grateful for all of Kumari’s hard work and dedication.

It is hard to describe the children and how incredible they are. Each child is mature, caring, hardworking, loving and above all HAPPY! They are a big family living in that house sharing all of the ups and downs of day-to-day life. They get up early; they do their chores, go to school and then come home and help out by cutting grass or washing and assisting with meal preparation. They cooperate with one another and enjoy being a part of this wonderful family. I always feel humbled and privileged to be a part of their lives and for Tara to have the most loving “big brothers and sisters’ in the world.

Every night after dinner we sit around the fire talking, laughing and sharing stories. We have been enjoying giving each other head and shoulder massages and singing songs in English and Nepali. Tara is always busy playing football with the children, dancing and being silly. Tara is exhausted at the end of each day and falls into a deep sleep in Som’s arms before we can make it to bed!

We are very excited that Batase village will have a lot of visitors next month, we know that everyone will be touched by the beauty of the village and the children.