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Friday, July 18, 2008
Micro Buses and Little Bahinis
Ratnaparkrantaparkratnapark!!!!!
So, Rachna and Jess both fell ill on our day off. We managed to make it to Kathmandu, but were not about to brave another crowded, bumpy, two-hour bus journey back to the village, so we stayed the night, woke up the next morning, and went right back to the village in time to volunteer at CBR! We are getting pretty savvy at navigating these Nepali bus junctions, you only see us, two little American girls pushing our way through the crowds, yelling “Laghenkel?!?” or “Ratna Park?” in the most American accents that they’ve ever heard. Yesterday evening, walking home from our volunteer placement we saw the bus driver who drove us on our morning journey... he yelled out his window in a mocking American accent and high voice, “Laghenkel?” Haha, we’re famous.
Yesterday was an amazing day at CBR, despite the fact that there were only three children who showed up. Rachna was not able to go because she was still a bit ill. There is still no petrol available for CBR’s jeep, but somehow a different group of kids arrives each day. There are always around 3-5 kids to show up when there is no petrol; their parents bring them on foot or motorbike. Yesterday there was a little girl with Down syndrome, the boy with obvious autism who is classified here as “deaf and hyperactive ADHD,” and an older girl with hydrocephalus. It was wonderful because Jessi got to devote all of her attention to the usually uncontrollable boy with autism! He came so far, it was so exciting.
For example, he always requests a very spicy pepper during lunch by making a hand motion to his mouth and biting noise. The child who the didis and teacher think is deaf has surprising communication abilities if you pay close attention. When a didi gave him the pepper, he found it so unusually spicy that he drank all his water in one gulp.
Jessi has been working with this child on using the “more” sign-language motion to request more of a food or activity. When we wanted more water so badly, he independently said “more” with his sign language! Jessi was floored and immediately served him an overflowing cup of water in excitement.
Later that afternoon, he got into the book cabinet, of course a place easily accessible to him, even though he usually gets physically reprimanded when he goes to pick out books. When he pulled Jessi’s hand to go to the book cabinet, Jessi realized his attempt at communication and pulled out a communication picture card that read “book.” The boy took the symbol, handed it to Jessi, and together they got books. Each time the boy finished a book he would grab for the symbol rather than just run over to the cupboard. You have no idea how exciting this was since this boy is usually seen as completely out of control and hyperactive.
After CBR, we went to the VSN children’s home down the road and played a geography game and taught some mass guitar lessons. The children on one side of the room were guessing the locations of countries on a map eagerly with Rachna while the other half of the orphanage was chanting “down down up up down up” in unison, learning strumming patterns with Jessi. We are making great strides in our service work and can’t wait for this weekend in Kathmandu! We plan to do a music program at one of the new orphanages in the city on Saturday, so we will stay overnight in Thamel, the tourist district of the city, for the weekend.
The wailing child...
Contrary to what you might think, this is not a child at CBR. Typically developing, very cute, but way too loud. Every morning around 5:15 am, the little girl, our bahini (little sister), in our house starts wailing like she’s eaten by a leopard, trampled by a cow, or any of the other likely situations that could occur in Nepal. She usually comes and bangs on our door around 5:45 am and continues to wail until her grandfather or mother comes and picks her up and takes her downstairs where she, again, continues to wail. The wailing has barely ceased when the mother comes up and knocks on our door at freaking 6:15 am to give us some chiyaa... when her mom goes back downstairs, the wailing starts up again. Please keep in mind that this is no baby... she’s 18 months old. We usually leave to go to the placement around 9:45 am, and when we return, guess what? The baby’s still wailing. We sing to her, and she’ll stop crying and start dancing. Once we start going up the stairs to our room, however, she starts crying again because she wants to come into our room. During the evening after dinner, she’ll usually come bang on our door until we let her in and come straight to Jessi’s side of the room and start chewing on her toothpaste bottle. If we try to take something away from her, she starts crying. We usually try to lure her out of the room and try singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or the ABCs to make her stop crying. She falls asleep around 9:00 pm and we finally get some peace and quiet until the next morning around 5:15.
So, Rachna and Jess both fell ill on our day off. We managed to make it to Kathmandu, but were not about to brave another crowded, bumpy, two-hour bus journey back to the village, so we stayed the night, woke up the next morning, and went right back to the village in time to volunteer at CBR! We are getting pretty savvy at navigating these Nepali bus junctions, you only see us, two little American girls pushing our way through the crowds, yelling “Laghenkel?!?” or “Ratna Park?” in the most American accents that they’ve ever heard. Yesterday evening, walking home from our volunteer placement we saw the bus driver who drove us on our morning journey... he yelled out his window in a mocking American accent and high voice, “Laghenkel?” Haha, we’re famous.
Yesterday was an amazing day at CBR, despite the fact that there were only three children who showed up. Rachna was not able to go because she was still a bit ill. There is still no petrol available for CBR’s jeep, but somehow a different group of kids arrives each day. There are always around 3-5 kids to show up when there is no petrol; their parents bring them on foot or motorbike. Yesterday there was a little girl with Down syndrome, the boy with obvious autism who is classified here as “deaf and hyperactive ADHD,” and an older girl with hydrocephalus. It was wonderful because Jessi got to devote all of her attention to the usually uncontrollable boy with autism! He came so far, it was so exciting.
For example, he always requests a very spicy pepper during lunch by making a hand motion to his mouth and biting noise. The child who the didis and teacher think is deaf has surprising communication abilities if you pay close attention. When a didi gave him the pepper, he found it so unusually spicy that he drank all his water in one gulp.
Jessi has been working with this child on using the “more” sign-language motion to request more of a food or activity. When we wanted more water so badly, he independently said “more” with his sign language! Jessi was floored and immediately served him an overflowing cup of water in excitement.
Later that afternoon, he got into the book cabinet, of course a place easily accessible to him, even though he usually gets physically reprimanded when he goes to pick out books. When he pulled Jessi’s hand to go to the book cabinet, Jessi realized his attempt at communication and pulled out a communication picture card that read “book.” The boy took the symbol, handed it to Jessi, and together they got books. Each time the boy finished a book he would grab for the symbol rather than just run over to the cupboard. You have no idea how exciting this was since this boy is usually seen as completely out of control and hyperactive.
After CBR, we went to the VSN children’s home down the road and played a geography game and taught some mass guitar lessons. The children on one side of the room were guessing the locations of countries on a map eagerly with Rachna while the other half of the orphanage was chanting “down down up up down up” in unison, learning strumming patterns with Jessi. We are making great strides in our service work and can’t wait for this weekend in Kathmandu! We plan to do a music program at one of the new orphanages in the city on Saturday, so we will stay overnight in Thamel, the tourist district of the city, for the weekend.
The wailing child...
Contrary to what you might think, this is not a child at CBR. Typically developing, very cute, but way too loud. Every morning around 5:15 am, the little girl, our bahini (little sister), in our house starts wailing like she’s eaten by a leopard, trampled by a cow, or any of the other likely situations that could occur in Nepal. She usually comes and bangs on our door around 5:45 am and continues to wail until her grandfather or mother comes and picks her up and takes her downstairs where she, again, continues to wail. The wailing has barely ceased when the mother comes up and knocks on our door at freaking 6:15 am to give us some chiyaa... when her mom goes back downstairs, the wailing starts up again. Please keep in mind that this is no baby... she’s 18 months old. We usually leave to go to the placement around 9:45 am, and when we return, guess what? The baby’s still wailing. We sing to her, and she’ll stop crying and start dancing. Once we start going up the stairs to our room, however, she starts crying again because she wants to come into our room. During the evening after dinner, she’ll usually come bang on our door until we let her in and come straight to Jessi’s side of the room and start chewing on her toothpaste bottle. If we try to take something away from her, she starts crying. We usually try to lure her out of the room and try singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or the ABCs to make her stop crying. She falls asleep around 9:00 pm and we finally get some peace and quiet until the next morning around 5:15.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Everest!
Cultural considerations of volunteering...
There are many things at our placement that are just downright awful, such as constant negative reinforcement, hitting, and lack of educational materials, but there are many other aspects that we are skeptical of or disagree with that make us wonder if their way is inappropriate or just unfamiliar because of different cultural norms.
For example, there is one young girl, about five or six years old, who is incontinent. The first day we watched her pee in her clothes three times during nap time. Every time, the teacher/didis would just change her clothes. The next day, a didi had the girl sit on a little baby potty, near the teacher’s desk and the center of activity of CBR, for long periods of time. She almost never went when she was sitting on that toilet! As volunteers, we both asked each other, “Is this called toilet training? I don’t think so!” The teacher would plop the little girl on the toilet, make a, “ssssss” sound, and expect the girl to pee! After being appalled at this seemingly degrading activity, we came home the next afternoon to see the mom in our host family making that same “ssss” sound to her 18-month-old daughter sitting on a similar blue potty. Even with the age difference, we realized that maybe that is a culturally appropriate way to toilet train children. It is so hard to cope with the fact that they do not wear diapers, especially because children with disabilities have to deal with changing their clothes all throughout the day! But, even the 18-month-old in our house does not wear a diaper.
Some other cultural differences that are difficult to keep in mind as “normal,” especially when it is our job to help take care of children, are the fact that it is completely normal in Nepal to bathe once a week, and hair and bodies are constantly oiled. Oily hair at home would look unclean and unacceptable, but here it is what is normal and even expected.
WE SAW EVEREST!
This past weekend, we spent most of our time touring and sight-seeing. We got into Thamel on Saturday, July 12th, and made our way to Pashupatinath, the holiest Hindu temple in Nepal. It is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, and it is absolutely gorgeous. Because the temple is reserved for Hindus only, Rachna and one of the other girls on the trip went in. There are huge doors made of silver and gold that lead to the main temple (inside of which no one, except for priests, is allowed), and there are many smaller buildings in the area that are available if someone wishes to pray or make an offering to the temple. Outside the temple, we all walked across a bridge to a ledge overlooking the temple... the view was gorgeous even though it was pouring down that day. One of the most interesting things about the temple is that they performed public cremations right behind the temple. None of us had seen a cremation, so it was a very new experience. We had always thought of cremations as a more private ceremony. We later learned that the river that runs behind the temple leads to the Ganges River, the holiest river for Hindus. Once the body is cremated, the ashes are spread over the river.
The next morning, we all woke up at 4 am, got on a mini bus and drove to the Kathmandu airport to take a flight to go see... EVEREST! Before we bought our tickets for the flight, we were told that the flight might not take off because of the weather. It is currently monsoon season in Nepal, so many of the flights get cancelled due to rainy weather. When we got to the airport, the sky was overcast, and many of us thought that the flight would be cancelled. We got into the airport, and they informed us that the flight was still leaving but we were all aware of the fact that not many people get a good view of the Himalayas during this season. Well, it seemed as if we had picked the perfect day... we saw every single mountain that broke above the clouds. It was the most amazing experience! To see mountains that floated above the clouds... Mt. Everest is close to 30,000 ft high, and the other mountains around it are not too far off.
There are many things at our placement that are just downright awful, such as constant negative reinforcement, hitting, and lack of educational materials, but there are many other aspects that we are skeptical of or disagree with that make us wonder if their way is inappropriate or just unfamiliar because of different cultural norms.
For example, there is one young girl, about five or six years old, who is incontinent. The first day we watched her pee in her clothes three times during nap time. Every time, the teacher/didis would just change her clothes. The next day, a didi had the girl sit on a little baby potty, near the teacher’s desk and the center of activity of CBR, for long periods of time. She almost never went when she was sitting on that toilet! As volunteers, we both asked each other, “Is this called toilet training? I don’t think so!” The teacher would plop the little girl on the toilet, make a, “ssssss” sound, and expect the girl to pee! After being appalled at this seemingly degrading activity, we came home the next afternoon to see the mom in our host family making that same “ssss” sound to her 18-month-old daughter sitting on a similar blue potty. Even with the age difference, we realized that maybe that is a culturally appropriate way to toilet train children. It is so hard to cope with the fact that they do not wear diapers, especially because children with disabilities have to deal with changing their clothes all throughout the day! But, even the 18-month-old in our house does not wear a diaper.
Some other cultural differences that are difficult to keep in mind as “normal,” especially when it is our job to help take care of children, are the fact that it is completely normal in Nepal to bathe once a week, and hair and bodies are constantly oiled. Oily hair at home would look unclean and unacceptable, but here it is what is normal and even expected.
WE SAW EVEREST!
This past weekend, we spent most of our time touring and sight-seeing. We got into Thamel on Saturday, July 12th, and made our way to Pashupatinath, the holiest Hindu temple in Nepal. It is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, and it is absolutely gorgeous. Because the temple is reserved for Hindus only, Rachna and one of the other girls on the trip went in. There are huge doors made of silver and gold that lead to the main temple (inside of which no one, except for priests, is allowed), and there are many smaller buildings in the area that are available if someone wishes to pray or make an offering to the temple. Outside the temple, we all walked across a bridge to a ledge overlooking the temple... the view was gorgeous even though it was pouring down that day. One of the most interesting things about the temple is that they performed public cremations right behind the temple. None of us had seen a cremation, so it was a very new experience. We had always thought of cremations as a more private ceremony. We later learned that the river that runs behind the temple leads to the Ganges River, the holiest river for Hindus. Once the body is cremated, the ashes are spread over the river.
The next morning, we all woke up at 4 am, got on a mini bus and drove to the Kathmandu airport to take a flight to go see... EVEREST! Before we bought our tickets for the flight, we were told that the flight might not take off because of the weather. It is currently monsoon season in Nepal, so many of the flights get cancelled due to rainy weather. When we got to the airport, the sky was overcast, and many of us thought that the flight would be cancelled. We got into the airport, and they informed us that the flight was still leaving but we were all aware of the fact that not many people get a good view of the Himalayas during this season. Well, it seemed as if we had picked the perfect day... we saw every single mountain that broke above the clouds. It was the most amazing experience! To see mountains that floated above the clouds... Mt. Everest is close to 30,000 ft high, and the other mountains around it are not too far off.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
14 glucose buscuits later...
Our volunteering at CBR has been demanding and frustrating, but equally rewarding as the week progressed. Before we instituted positive reinforcement, these teachers simply babysat and gave attention for misbehaving. The children would get hit or simply dragged to where the adults wanted them to go... they had no opportunity to gain control of their own actions.
We have seen one student progress; he was always physically held down by the adults due to his extreme hyperactivity. We watched him get hit by the teachers, and also the other kids. These kids constantly hit each other because that is what is modeled for them! A few days ago we found that he would run after a balloon, so we started to give him the balloon when he was sitting with the group or even remotely participating. Needless to say he is now very dependent on the balloon for his behavior, but at least he has some control over his own actions! We are trying to explain to the teachers that he should be weened off slowly from receiving immediate rewards, and that it will take time; however, due to both the language barrier and the absolute unfamiliarity of positive reinforcement for children, it is difficult to really get through to the adults.
There was one girl (L) who always asked for a balloon, but always when she was misbehaving. She did not understand that the balloon was a reward for when the other child acted correctly. We went to the nearby VSN home to get some translations for "You only receive a reward if you act well." We have repeated that, making it our Nepali mantra at the daycare center, and the didis/teachers have started to catch on!
Yesterday morning, L requested a balloon as soon as we arrived. In our best Nepali, we asked, "What do you like?" and she pointed to a yellow star drawn on a piece of paper. We asked her to sit down (in Nepali), and when she did, we immediately gave her a piece of paper with a yellow star. Soon, all of the kids at the daycare were requesting yellow stars, and we only gave them to people who followed our directions. It caught on really well; we finally discovered a sustainable reward system for CBR! The teachers even began to catch on after a few hours and we caught some didis actually rewarding positive behavior with a yellow star! All we did was carry around yellow markers and draw more stars on the pieces of paper, so simple, yet it meant so much to these kids. They finally were receiving attention for being good rather than bad.
After CBR, we went to the VSN children’s home nearby and had a music night with them. We all had so much fun, teaching them American songs and learning Nepali songs. There are 31 kids in that one home, but they are all so incredible. The managers there are some of the coolest people we’ve met, college graduates from Nepal spending twenty-four hours a day as fathers to 31 children. We are having a great time, trying to make a difference at CBR, and learning a lot from the Nepalis here!
We have seen one student progress; he was always physically held down by the adults due to his extreme hyperactivity. We watched him get hit by the teachers, and also the other kids. These kids constantly hit each other because that is what is modeled for them! A few days ago we found that he would run after a balloon, so we started to give him the balloon when he was sitting with the group or even remotely participating. Needless to say he is now very dependent on the balloon for his behavior, but at least he has some control over his own actions! We are trying to explain to the teachers that he should be weened off slowly from receiving immediate rewards, and that it will take time; however, due to both the language barrier and the absolute unfamiliarity of positive reinforcement for children, it is difficult to really get through to the adults.
There was one girl (L) who always asked for a balloon, but always when she was misbehaving. She did not understand that the balloon was a reward for when the other child acted correctly. We went to the nearby VSN home to get some translations for "You only receive a reward if you act well." We have repeated that, making it our Nepali mantra at the daycare center, and the didis/teachers have started to catch on!
Yesterday morning, L requested a balloon as soon as we arrived. In our best Nepali, we asked, "What do you like?" and she pointed to a yellow star drawn on a piece of paper. We asked her to sit down (in Nepali), and when she did, we immediately gave her a piece of paper with a yellow star. Soon, all of the kids at the daycare were requesting yellow stars, and we only gave them to people who followed our directions. It caught on really well; we finally discovered a sustainable reward system for CBR! The teachers even began to catch on after a few hours and we caught some didis actually rewarding positive behavior with a yellow star! All we did was carry around yellow markers and draw more stars on the pieces of paper, so simple, yet it meant so much to these kids. They finally were receiving attention for being good rather than bad.
After CBR, we went to the VSN children’s home nearby and had a music night with them. We all had so much fun, teaching them American songs and learning Nepali songs. There are 31 kids in that one home, but they are all so incredible. The managers there are some of the coolest people we’ve met, college graduates from Nepal spending twenty-four hours a day as fathers to 31 children. We are having a great time, trying to make a difference at CBR, and learning a lot from the Nepalis here!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
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!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
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