Five-Star Charpi

So... we got our placement! We are working in Community Based Rehabilitation Daycare Center (CBR), which is located in a village south of Kathmandu. The center cares for children with disabilities ranging from ADHD to cerebral palsy – if a child has any type of disability, physical or mental, there is no place for them in normal Nepali schools. For example, in one of the new homes where VSN is placing volunteers, there were kids with solely physical disabilities who did not go to school with the rest of the children but were instead home-schooled – they did not have any sort of intellectual disability that hindered their inability to learn. The fact that they have any disability at all keeps them from having any access to any school.

Right next to CBR is a VSN-owned children’s home with 31 children. Because CBR is not open in the morning and the evenings (because it is just a day facility for children), we will have the opportunity to work there as well. We are so excited to finally begin our volunteer work!

Our new home placement is just amazing! We left Thamel around 2:30 pm and arrived in the village at 3:15 just when it was beginning to downpour. We “schlepped” our bags all the way down muddy pathways and arrived at our house. It is just beautiful! It is a 2-story house, and our room is on the second floor. Our room is right next door to the parents’ room. The parents are both very young and are probably only 4-5 years older than us. They both speak pretty good English, which has made communication so easy. We now have a little 18-month old sister who is just precious and so gorgeous! She spent a greater part of the afternoon in our room looking at all of our stuff and dancing while Jessi played music on her guitar. The best part of the house is the charpi (or bathroom)... it has flowered tiles, a shower, and the best looking hole-in-the-ground that we both have seen in a while.

Eating

In our house is an 18 month old girl, her mom and dad, and the dad’s parents. We call the baby’s mom “didi,” older sister, and the baby’s dad is “dhai.” The dhai’s dad is ba and the dhai’s mom is amaa.

Didi cooks our food, and comes and gets us when it is ready. We sit on straw pads on the floor in the kitchen and didi stands in the kitchen and watches us while we eat, ready to refill any portion that we finish.

Today we saw the Godavari resort on an early morning walk. It was beautiful, a really nice resort but off the beaten path! It had a nice ballroom, big pool, and tons of high end lodging. It seemed deserted, since it is the off-season, and out of place in this humble village.

Later in the morning we went to CBR, our placement! There are 19 kids with various disabilities. We got a long orientation from the program director. We learned that there is nowhere to study special education in Nepal, he said people go to Europe. None of the “teachers” or “didis” (caretakers) have any actual training on teaching or working with children with disabilities, however they were all very nice women with good intentions. The teacher who teaches 3 boys with Down syndrome has a daughter with multiple disabilities who stays home.

There were a few girls who were totally typical intellectually, but had hemiplegia or other muscle impairments. They were not allowed to attend normal school regardless of the fact that they were as smart as any other Nepali child! There was a large variation in age, from five years old to twenty-one, all in the same class. Even though there were multiple teachers at the center, the group was mostly all together in one chaotic bunch.

The teachers have very low expectations of the children. They do everything for the kids, for example children with physical disabilities are carried from one room to the other when they are capable of walking with assistance, as we saw later in the day. The children are not given any positive reinforcement... most of the attention they receive occurs when they are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

Basically, we helped out and observed today. We tried not to be invasive on our first day, because we are foreign students coming into this rural Nepali NGO-run center where the caretakers/teachers speak mostly Nepali. We hope to implement some more legitimate lesson plans, individual goals, and behavior plans to make the students’ time there more meaningful.

After school, we rode the jeep with the students to take them home. We had heard from the director of CBR that many days are lost due to transportation issues. He explained that they have a donated jeep, but it often occurs that they cannot access petrol. When we first heard that we were shocked that such a seemingly minor setback would prevent students from attending an entire day of school, but after the ride in the jeep we experienced the reality of the issue. These children live in extremely rural, remote areas that can only be accessed by steep, winding, muddy paths that can barely be called roads. It was a beautiful drive, with both roller coaster and safari-like qualities.

We were also surprised that the children with physical disabilities did not go home with their wheelchairs, but after seeing their home settings, we now realize that they are far from handicap accessible. The children’s mothers picked them up on the jeep and took them into the house via piggy-back-rides.

We took a nice walk in the evening, and were almost eaten by a truck that was painted with the sign “Road King” on the front (rightfully so). Tomorrow we go to Kathmandu for the monthly mandatory volunteer meeting for all volunteers.

Namaste!